Life Cycle Management in SAP Datasphere: Transporting Content between Tenants

Author: Geetha Madhuri Bobbili
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geetha-madhuri-bobbili-971268184/

Introduction:

The concept of Life Cycle Management is not exclusive to SAP Datasphere as this process is also done in on-premise systems. The landscape architecture is however slightly different as SAP Datasphere is a Data Warehouse as a Service (DWaaS) solution and runs in the Cloud.

If you have Administrator or Space Administrator role, you can transfer content between tenants/systems in your landscape. For example, you have developed Graphical views, Data Flows, Intelligent Lookups and Analytic Models in your Dev tenant and then move them to a QA tenant when they are ready for Testing.

Typical System Landscape for SAP Datasphere:

Despite being a Cloud-based solution, there is still need to have multiple SAP Datasphere environments (Sandbox, Dev, QA, Prod) to facilitate efficient Life Cycle Management. At a minimum, a configuration with two tenants is recommended for performing Life Cycle Management.

Important Note:

For the seamless promotion of content, it’s advisable to ensure that both the source and destination tenants are on the same release version. Transferring content from a higher release version tenant to one with a lower release version is not feasible.

As of the latest release (version 2023.16), the Transport app supports the export and import of the following object types exclusively:

• Local Tables
• Remote Tables: The definition of a remote table contains information about its connection. Before importing, make sure to create the same connection with an identical technical name in the recieving space.
• Views
• Data Flows
• Intelligent Lookups
• Analytic Models
• E/R Models
• Data Access Controls
• Task Chains
• Business Entities / Business Entity Versions
• Fact Models
• Consumption Models
• Authorization Scenarios

Transporting the Content using Export/Import:

To export and import content, you must have Administrator or Space Administrator role to read, maintain, and share Life cycle data.
The exported packages are stored in the cloud, where we can share the packages with other systems in our landscape and import content that is shared with your system.Referring to the above image, the Content is exported as a Package in the Dev Tenant and shared with the QA Tenant. Following this, the shared Content Package is then imported with in the QA Tenant.

Exporting Content for Sharing with Other Tenants:

We can share content across tenants from one or more landscapes and set access rights for each sharing destination. Each tenant can store up to 2048 MB of exported content in the My Content area.

This method has the following advantages:

• Exported files are hosted in the Cloud rather than on the client machine.
• Files can be organized into folders including with folder security options.
• Processing occurs in the background so there is no need to wait for the export to
  complete.
• There is no need to manual download/upload packages for Life Cycle Management.

Procedure:

1. In the side navigation area, click Transport and select Export.

2. Select My Content folder. The My Content page shows a list of packages and folders, including the packages that you have exported and the packages from other systems that you have permission to edit or delete.Let’s see some important options on this page before we start exporting our package.

3. Select  New Export. On the Choose content page, select the objects you want to export, and then click Next. If an object depends on other objects, then they will also be selected. Click on Next.

4. On the Set package properties page, complete the properties.

Adding Sharing Destinations:

Select + icon on the Package Properties page, to add your Destination URL and then click Next. From the Access drop down, choose the permissions that you want to grant to the sharing destination. You can add more than one permission.

5. On the Review and export page, review the overview of your package. If there are any problems, select the warning icon to see how to fix them.

6. Click Export to export your package.
You can check the progress of your export in the Notifications list. You’ll also receive a message when it is complete.You can check the Export Summary to see the status of all the objects in the package. When the export completes successfully, the package becomes available in the My Content section for the tenants you added.

Importing Content from Another Tenant:

Procedure:

1. Make sure the space or spaces you want to import into are present in your tenant, and each of them has the necessary connections for remote tables used in the import.Example: We can not import content exported from the Sales Space to the Finance Space using Transport App.

Keep in mind that if your content involves objects shared between spaces, both those spaces must be there.

2. On the side navigation, click “Transport” and choose “Import” to see the list of content available for importing.

3.If you don’t find the packages you expected to import, hit the “Settings” button and double-check the import settings.

We have the following options:
Enable the Show content shared by all systems option and optionally exclude content from specific tenants by adding them to the Add systems to block content sharing list.

Disable the Show content shared by all systems option and choose specific tenants to import from by adding them to the Add systems to allow content sharing list.
If, after checking these settings, an expected package is still not listed, contact an administrator for help.

4. Click a package to open it and see an overview of its content and review the Import Options section. For more details, and to modify any of the options, click the Import Options tab.

5. Select an option for the Overwrite Preferences. If an object selected for import does not exist on your system, the object will be created and its data will be imported.
For objects that already exist in your system, the Overwrite Preferences determine whether to update the object and its data.Don’t overwrite objects or data: Protects existing objects in your space from being overwritten or having their data updated. You are notified if any of the objects selected for import already exist in your system.
Overwrite data only: Not currently supported for SAP Datasphere.
Overwrite objects and data: Objects on your system can be overwritten and their data can be updated.
Deployment Preference: Check the “Deploy after import“ checkbox to automatically deploy objects after import.

6. Select Import. The import process begins. You receive a notification when the process is complete, or if an error occurs.
To view the log of updates and imports for a package, select the package in the content network and choose History.

Conclusion:

By following the steps mentioned above, you can easily transfer content between tenants/systems in your landscape.
For more details and future updates, please refer to the SAP Datasphere portal: https://community.sap.com/topics/datasphere.