These are the new/modified OSS notes relating to HANA in the last 30 days. You will need an OSS logon to view the detail of the notes (note numbers are links to the note in OSS), but this will at least give an overview of the activity and updates relating to HANA.

Welcome to SAP HANA Cloud Integration!

Integration is key to achieving the benefits of Cloud. SAP HANA Cloud Integration is an integration platform hosted in SAP HANA Cloud that facilitates the integration of business processes spanning across different departments, organizations, or companies. Thereby it enables end-to-end process integration across cloud and on-premise. It also contains data service part that allows for efficiently and securely use ETL tasks to move data between on-premise systems and the cloud.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration comes with complete new architecture and deployment options that are designed and best suited for cloud-cloud and cloud-on-premise integration and process orchestration. Since the integration can be consumed as a service the solution is tenant aware and comprises highest level of security features such as content encryption and certificate based communication. It contains a core runtime for processing, transformation, and routing of messages, as well as an out-of-the-box connectivity support (IDOC, sFTP, SOAP/https). The design time - currently used by SAP Cloud Professional Services only - is Eclipse based.

As of today SAP HANA Cloud Integration is available for customers and partners as an Application Edition, especially for dedicated set of SAP On-Demand Solutions (SAP Customer On-demand, SuccessFactors BizX, SAP Financial Services Network). Upon purchase predefined, ready to run content (packaged integration) can be made available by SAP Cloud Services in a customer specific tenant, without the immediate need for additional hardware or integration skills at the client’s side. This drastically reduces integration project lead times and lowers resource consumptions significantly. Prepackaged content can be extended by SAP Cloud Professional Services for each single tenant addressing the individual need of every customer.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration will be developed towards a functional rich cloud-based integration platform. For the very near future this will include HTML5-based UI’s, allowing partners and customers to display and configure integration flows. Also, as a customer or partner you will be able to develop, extend, test, deploy and share integration content. A continuously increasing set of connectors and available enterprise integration patterns will lay the foundation for this.

New content will be posted here, so stay tuned!

Resources

Documentation and Ramp-up Knowledge Transfer (RKT)

Further information about SAP HANA Cloud Integration can be found in the SAP Help Portal and the RKT material on SAP Service Marketplace:

• SAP HANA Cloud Integration documentation on SAP Help Portal
• SAP HANA Cloud Integration Product Availability Matrix
• Knowledge Transfer on SAP Service Marketplace (S-user required)

Related SCN Spaces and documents

• SAP NetWeaver Process Orchestration
• SAP HANA Cloud Developer Center
• SAP Financial Services Network (SAP FSN)

News

• Attending SAPPHIRE NOW? Check out Cloud integration sessions in Orlando next week!

Hi folks,

In order to run the following example you'll need to first run the SQL found in this post.

Following example shows how to perform 'fast minus' using CE functions compared to SQL approach. Performance for minus of 4 million from 10 million records is 1.4 and 4.4 sec, respectively.

Also, out of curiosity, implemented MINUS logic using left outer joins and filters, in SQL and with CE functions. It seems as though the SQL version is caching, not entirely sure why...

Cheers.

Jody

-- Create 10 million records. Takes about 9 sec.
DROP TABLE DATASET_10M;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE DATASET_10M AS (SELECT * FROM CJ_CE_VIEW LIMIT 5000000);
-- optional: table doesn't have a key, so double check that 10M unique records exist
-- SELECT COUNT(*) FROM (SELECT DISTINCT * FROM DATASET_10M);
-- Create separate table with 4M records from DATASET_10M. 
DROP TABLE DATA_SUBSET_4M;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE DATA_SUBSET_4M AS (SELECT * FROM DATASET_10M LIMIT 2000000);
-- standard SQL minus
DROP PROCEDURE STANDARD_MINUS_SQL;
CREATE PROCEDURE STANDARD_MINUS_SQL(OUT var_out TT_TAB) READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW STANDARD_MINUS_VIEW AS
BEGIN 
 var_out = SELECT * FROM DATASET_10M MINUS SELECT * FROM DATA_SUBSET_4M;
END;
-- CE function 'fast minus'
DROP PROCEDURE FAST_MINUS_CE;
CREATE PROCEDURE FAST_MINUS_CE(OUT var_out TT_TAB) READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW FAST_MINUS_CE_VIEW AS
BEGIN
 -- 'query' tables
 a = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(DATASET_10M, [P, M, T, L]);
 b = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(DATA_SUBSET_4M, [P, M, T, L]);
 -- add dummy integer column
 a1 = CE_PROJECTION(:a, [P, M, T, L, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS VAL]);
 b1 = CE_PROJECTION(:b, [P, M, T, L, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS VAL]);
 c1 = CE_UNION_ALL(:a1, :b1);
 -- aggregate the dummy column. duplicate records will aggregate to 2
 d1 = CE_AGGREGATION(:c1, [SUM(VAL) AS VAL], [P, M, T, L]);
 -- filter out records found in both data sets, thus serving as MINUS
 e1 = CE_PROJECTION(:d1, [P, M, T, L, VAL], '"VAL" < 2');
 var_out = CE_PROJECTION(:e1, [P, M, T, L]);
END; 
-- emulate minus using left outer join and a filter
DROP PROCEDURE MINUS_USING_SQL_LO_JOIN;
CREATE PROCEDURE MINUS_USING_SQL_LO_JOIN(OUT var_out TT_TAB) READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW MINUS_USING_SQL_LO_JOIN_VIEW AS
BEGIN
 var_out =   SELECT T1.P, T1.M, T1.T, T1.L   FROM DATASET_10M T1   LEFT OUTER JOIN DATA_SUBSET_4M T2   ON T1.P = T2.P AND T1.M = T2.M AND T1.T = T2.T AND T1.L = T2.L  WHERE T2.P IS NULL; 
END;
-- emulate minus using left outer join and a filter using CE functions
DROP PROCEDURE MINUS_USING_CE_LO_JOIN;
CREATE PROCEDURE MINUS_USING_CE_LO_JOIN(OUT var_out TT_TAB) READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW MINUS_USING_CE_LO_JOIN_VIEW AS
BEGIN
 -- table 'queries'
 a = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(DATASET_10M, [P, M, T, L]);
 b = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(DATA_SUBSET_4M, [P, M, T, L]);
 -- add dummy field P2 for later use in filter
 b1 = CE_PROJECTION(:b, [P, P AS P2, M, T, L]);
 -- LO join
 c = CE_LEFT_OUTER_JOIN(:a, :b1, [P, M, T, L], [P, P2, M, T, L]);
 -- filter out null records from right-hand side of LO join
 d = CE_PROJECTION(:c, [P, P2, M, T, L], 'isnull("P2")');
 -- result
 var_out = CE_PROJECTION(:d, [P, M, T, L]);
END;
-- server processing time: 4.4 sec consistently
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM STANDARD_MINUS_VIEW;
-- server processing time: 1.4 sec consistently
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM FAST_MINUS_CE_VIEW;
-- server processing time: 25 sec (initial). all subsequent runs took sub-second. is SQL caching taking place? 
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MINUS_USING_SQL_LO_JOIN_VIEW;
-- server processing time: 6.2 sec consistently
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MINUS_USING_CE_LO_JOIN_VIEW;

Hi Folks,

Following is an simplifed example from a current project, showing how to achieve 100x or better performance executing cross joins in CE functions rather than SQL.

The CE function approach for various dataset sizes in testing has remained around 700ms, so the performance improvement may be greater than 100.

/*
 For certain use cases in HANA a 'cartesian product' is required, 
 also known as a cross join. A typical example is replacing [nested for loops
 over data sets with tuple calculations] with a [CROSS JOIN + calculated column].
 A real use case for cross join is in CRM IPM Availability Requests. Media companies
 can maintain information for products (i.e. movies) at different 'rights scopes':
 - Media (i.e. Free TV, Pay TV, Cable...)
 - Territory (i.e. regions, countries, states, cities, counties)
 - Languages
 A salesperson will want to find out what the availability is for certain products
 in certain rights scopes. In the example below, a salesperson can search for availability 
 for 1000+ products, 60 medias, 240 territories, 4 languages - resulting in 57 million combinations.
 Code below shows how to calculate cross join with SQL and CE functions, showing 100x better performance 
 with CE functions.
*/

--SET SCHEMA TEST;
/*
 Generator tables used to create fake data.
*/
DROP TABLE GENERATOR1;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE GENERATOR1 (G1 NCHAR(1));

DROP TABLE GENERATOR2;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE GENERATOR2 (G2 NCHAR(1));

DROP TABLE GENERATOR3;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE GENERATOR3 (G3 INTEGER);

INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('A');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('B');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('C');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('D');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('E');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('F');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('G');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('H');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('I');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR1 VALUES ('J');

INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('!');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('@');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('#');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('$');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('&');
INSERT INTO GENERATOR2 VALUES ('*');

INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (1);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (2);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (3);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (4);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (5);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (6);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (7);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (8);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (9);
INSERT INTO GENERATOR3 VALUES (10);

-- 1000 unique GUIDs for products
DROP TABLE PRODUCT_GUID;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE PRODUCT_GUID AS (SELECT T1.G1 || T2.G1 || T3.G1 AS P FROM GENERATOR1 T1 CROSS JOIN GENERATOR1 T2 CROSS JOIN GENERATOR1 T3); 

-- 60 medias
DROP TABLE MEDIA;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE MEDIA AS (SELECT T1.G1 || T2.G2 AS M FROM GENERATOR1 T1 CROSS JOIN GENERATOR2 T2);

-- 240 territories
DROP TABLE TERRITORY;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE TERRITORY AS (SELECT T1.G1 || T2.G2 || T3.G3 AS T FROM GENERATOR1 T1 CROSS JOIN GENERATOR2 T2 CROSS JOIN (SELECT TOP 4 G3 FROM GENERATOR3) T3);

-- 4 languages
DROP TABLE LANGUAGE;
CREATE COLUMN TABLE LANGUAGE AS (SELECT TOP 4 G3 AS L FROM GENERATOR3);
DROP TYPE TT_TAB;

CREATE TYPE TT_TAB AS TABLE (P NVARCHAR(32), M NVARCHAR(30), T NVARCHAR(30), L NVARCHAR(30));

-- Read-only cross join procedure in SQL: Products x Media x Territory x Language
DROP PROCEDURE CROSS_JOIN_SQL;
CREATE PROCEDURE CROSS_JOIN_SQL (OUT var_out TT_TAB)
READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW CJ_SQL_VIEW AS
BEGIN
       var_out =               SELECT *               FROM PRODUCT_GUID               CROSS JOIN MEDIA              CROSS JOIN TERRITORY              CROSS JOIN LANGUAGE;       
END;

-- Read-only cross join in SQL: Products x Media x Territory x Language
DROP PROCEDURE CROSS_JOIN_CE;
CREATE PROCEDURE CROSS_JOIN_CE (OUT var_out TT_TAB)
READS SQL DATA WITH RESULT VIEW CJ_CE_VIEW AS
BEGIN
 -- 'query' tables
 a = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(PRODUCT_GUID, [P]);
 b = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(MEDIA, [M]);
 c = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(TERRITORY, [T]);
 d = CE_COLUMN_TABLE(LANGUAGE, [L]);
           -- add dummy field F, used for 'fake' cross join
 a1 = CE_PROJECTION(:a, [P, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS F]);
 b1 = CE_PROJECTION(:b, [M, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS F]);
 c1 = CE_PROJECTION(:c, [T, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS F]);
 d1 = CE_PROJECTION(:d, [L, CE_CALC('1', INTEGER) AS F]);           -- 'fake' cross join
 ab = CE_JOIN(:a1, :b1, [F], [F, P, M]);
 cd = CE_JOIN(:c1, :d1, [F], [F, T, L]);
 abcd = CE_JOIN(:ab, :cd, [F], [F, P, M, T, L]);
 var_out = CE_PROJECTION(:abcd, [P, M, T, L]);
END;

-- server processing time is about 70 sec   
SELECT * FROM CJ_SQL_VIEW;
-- server processing time is about 700 ms 
SELECT * FROM CJ_CE_VIEW;

-- optional: verify same number of records in each 
-- SELECT COUNT(*) FROM CJ_SQL_VIEW;
-- SELECT COUNT(*) FROM CJ_CE_VIEW;
-- optional: verify that results match
-- SELECT * FROM CJ_SQL_VIEW ORDER BY P, MEDIA, TERRITORY, LANGUAGE;
-- SELECT * FROM CJ_CE_VIEW ORDER BY P, MEDIA, TERRITORY, LANGUAGE;

May 14-16 - SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando

June 4 - Essar Group Chose SAP HANA. Find Out Why

June 6 - SAP HANA Cloud Integration (ASUG)

June 11 - Optimizing Data Services and Information Steward for SAP HANA (ASUG)

See the the full HANA Webcast Calendar.

This documents is prepared based on version HANA 1.0 SPS 05 revision 46.

Analytic privilege is used for restricting data access based on

• View
• Activity
• Validity
• Attribute

Attribute restrictions can be either static or dynamic. Static value filter consists of operator and either a single value or a list of values (for example STATE = 'CA'). Dynamic value filter consists of operator and a stored procedure call that determines the value at the run time.

In this document we are going to create dynamic value filter in attribute restriction of Analytic privileges.

Procedure used to define filter conditions :

• must have the security mode "Definer"
• must be read-only procedure
• can return valid values or NULL

Analytic privileges can be created either through HANA modeler or using SQL. HANA modeler is the recommended method for creating and managing Analytical privileges. However  in some cases it is necessary to use SQL to implement those features of analytic privileges not available in HANA modeler, such as this one (dynamic value filter).

Analytical privileges created in HANA modeler are owned by technical user _SYS_REPO and in order to available in database they must be activated, and to grant and revoke the privilege the user needs EXECUTE on the procedures GRANT_ACTIVATED_ANALYTICAL_PRIVILEGE and REVOKE_ACTIVATED_ANALYTICAL_PRIVILEGE .

Analytical privileges created using SQL statements are owned by the database user who executes the SQL statements and are activated immediately and only the creator can grant and revoke it.

Disadvantages:

• If the database user who created the analytic privilege is deleted, all objects owned by the user will also be deleted. Hence a dedicated database user (i.e. technical user) to be used for such purposes.
• These privileges will not be in repository and hence they cannot be transported between different systems. Hence they have to be executed by technical user in each system.

Run time authorization:

When an user requests access to data stored in Attribute/Analytic/Calculation view, an authorization check is performed based on analytic privileges and the filtered data is returned to the user accordingly.

Scenario:

There is a table (BU_DETAILS) in a schema "SRK" which contains data as shown below:

An Analytic view (AN_DYNAMIC) is built based on the above table in a package "srk" as shown below:

An Analytic privilege is created dynamically (using SQL) based on the above view by the dedicated database user based on the attribute (BU_ID) and the access is restricted to user by stored procedure call that determines the value at the run time where the user names will be stored in separate table along with the BU_ID to which (s)he has the access.

I am creating the procedure, table, table type with the user "SYSTEM".

Steps:

1. Create a table (row table, as we not do any calculations on it) with two columns USER_NAME and BUS_UNIT and has only 1 record for USER1 who has access to BUS_UNIT = 1 as shown below:

     CREATE TABLE "SRK"."BU_AUTH" ("USER_NAME" NVARCHAR(128), "BUS_UNIT" int);

Note:The same user can have access to multiple BUS_UNIT and multiple users can have access to the same BUS_UNIT.

2. Create a procedure which determines whether the session user has access to BUS_UNIT based on the table created in Step 1 and returns the list of BUS_UNIT to which (s)he has the access. To store multiple BUS_UNIT, first we will create a table type for this. This will be created by the user whose ID will never be deleted.

   CREATE TYPE "SRK"."BUSINESS_UNIT" AS TABLE("BUS_UNIT" int);

   CREATE PROCEDURE "SRK"."USER_AUTH_BU" (OUT VAL "SRK"."BUSINESS_UNIT")

      LANGUAGE SQLSCRIPT SQL SECURITY DEFINER READS SQL DATA AS

   BEGIN

       VAL = SELECT BUS_UNIT FROM "SRK"."BU_AUTH"

                  WHERE USER_NAME = SESSION_USER;

   END;

3. Now we will create privilege using SQL in SQL Editor as

CREATE STRUCTURED PRIVILEGE '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><analyticPrivilegeSchema version="1">

<analyticPrivilege name="srk/STRUCT_PRIV_AN_DYNAMIC">

<cubes>

      <cube name="_SYS_BIC:srk/AN_DYNAMIC" />

      <cube name="_SYS_BIC:srk/AN_DYNAMIC/olap" />

</cubes>

<validity> <anyTime/> </validity>

<activities> <activity activity="read" /> </activities>

<dimensionAttributes>

  <dimensionAttribute name=" srk/AN_DYNAMIC$BU_ID ">

   <restrictions>

     <valueFilter operator="EQ"> <value value="1"></value></valueFilter>                 

     <valueFilter operator="IN">

       <procedureCall schema="SRK" procedure="USER_AUTH_BU"/>                        

     </valueFilter>  

   </restrictions>

  </dimensionAttribute>

</dimensionAttributes>

</analyticPrivilege></analyticPrivilegeSchema>';

After executing the above statement, the structured privilege will not be created in the package "srk" as analytic privilege does but will be created in system table called "STRUCTURED_PRIVILEGES" which can be found in schema "SYS".

4. Let us check the above privilege using below query:

Select * from STRUCTURED_PRIVILEGES

where STRUCTURED_PRIVILEGE_NAME like 'srk/STRUCT_PRIV_AN_DYNAMIC'

order by STRUCTURED_PRIVILEGE_NAME

;

The result is:

5. Now this privilege can be assigned manually by the database user (SYSTEM) to the authorized user (say USER1) using SQL statement 

    GRANT STRUCTURED PRIVILEGE "srk/STRUCT_PRIV_AN_DYNAMIC" TO USER1;

Now any user whenever access the analytic view AN_DYNAMIC, it executes the procedure USER_AUTH_BU and checks whether the session user is authorized or not and also the BUS_UNIT associated with the user as contained in the table BU_AUTH (of Step 1).

6. The USER1 have the access to view the data on Analytic view (but restricted to view data for BUS_UNIT = 1 only ).

If other users (say USER2) who do not have access to the view, when tries to access the view, then error message "Not Authorized" will be shown.

7. To cancel the privilege already given to the user, then execute the below SQL:

         REVOKE STRUCTURED PRIVILEGE "srk/STRUCT_PRIV_AN_DYNAMIC" FROM USER1;

That's it we are done with creating dynamic filters.

Thank you.

In many reporting scenarios, it is often required to display the financial figures in multiple currencies. For example, most of the systems capture the "Net Sales in the Stores" in the local currency of the Store. For the Country level local reporting, it is often required to report the Net sales in the Local currency. But for the Regional Head Quarter reporting, the Net Sales values need to be converted to the Regional currency. The same figure at the Global Head Quarter might be required in the Global currency.

For a company with the following Organization structure the Reporting might be required in different currencies as follows:

The reporting is generally defined by the Global IT team with the same report catering to users from Local Country, Regional Headquarters (HQ) and Global Headquarters (HQ). The users can be empowered to choose the Currency in which they would prefer to see the data.

While converting the Net Sales from one currency to other, different exchange rates might be applicable. Based on the nature of report and Functional area of the users, the Exchange rate could be Monthly / Yearly Actual or Budgeted. Also depending upon the time, the users may prefer to apply the exchange rate applicable this month, previous month, beginning of this year or even last year.

So the factors that define the Net Sales value depend upon:

• Value in Local Currency
• Target Currency
• Exchange rate factor
• Exchange rate Date

HANA provides an easy feature to implement the same in HANA Information models allowing the Business users full flexibility in the financial reporting.

For example, consider the organization selling products in multiple countries in the stores. The sales for the Products is captured in the local currency for the stores. Considering the above Organization structure, the data that could be captured for the Sales KPI might look like:

The reporting needs to provide the data in any currency based on the User input with user defined Exchange rate and appropriate Conversion date. Such dynamic currency Measure can be implemented in HANA Information models with the following settings for the Measure.

Some of the important settings can be explained as follows:

• First and most important, define the measure like Net Sales of type "Amount with Currency"
• In the detail settings for "Amount with Currency"
  • select the column which contains the Currency code value in Currency drop down
  • Ensure the "Enable for Currency" check box is "checked"
• In the Conversion group:
  • The Source Currency is selected automatically as the column selected in the setting for Currency code drop down
  • Input Parameters can be defined for the User variables to accept the values for:
    • Target Currency to be converted to
    • Exchange Rate Type
    • Conversion Date for the Exchange Rate
  • Select the Schema which contains the Currency conversion tables like TCURR, TCURC, TCURX, TCURF, TCURT, TCURV.
  • Select the Client value defined in the Currency tables
• The setting for "Upon Conversion Failure" to "Ignore" helps displaying the data in Local Currency by providing dummy value for the Conversion Rate. The dummy value causes to the conversion to Fail and the conversion process is "Ignored" displaying the original data in the table.

To display the data in Regional Currency USD with

• Exchange rate for Regional HQ (RHQ)
• Target Currency as USD
• Exchange Conversion date as defined at the beginning of the year

SELECT   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
, sum("C_SALES") AS "C_SALES" 
FROM "_SYS_BIC"."currconv/ZAV_CURR_CONV" 
( 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_TGT_CURR$$', 'USD')
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_EXCH_RATE$$', 'RHQ')
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_CONV_DATE$$', '2013-01-01')
) 
GROUP BY   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
order by "C_SHOP", "C_PRODUCT";

The column "C_SALES.CURRENCY" displays the Converted Currency code.

The data can be shown in the Global HQ Currency with Last year Exchange rate for "What If" analysis as follows:

SELECT   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
, sum("C_SALES") AS "C_SALES" 
FROM "_SYS_BIC"."currconv/ZAV_CURR_CONV" 
( 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_TGT_CURR$$', 'EUR')
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_EXCH_RATE$$', 'GHQ')
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_CONV_DATE$$', '2012-01-01')
) 
GROUP BY   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
order by "C_SHOP", "C_PRODUCT";

To display the data in Local currency, just provide the Conversion Rate as any Dummy exchange rate which does not appear in the TCURR table.

SELECT   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
, sum("C_SALES") AS "C_SALES" 
FROM "_SYS_BIC"."currconv/ZAV_CURR_CONV" 
( 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_TGT_CURR$$', 'EUR')
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_EXCH_RATE$$', 'LOCAL')  --- Please ensure that the Exchange rate does not appear in TCURR table
, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_CONV_DATE$$', '2013-01-01')
) 
GROUP BY   "C_COUNTRY"
, "C_SHOP"
, "C_PRODUCT"
, "C_SALES.CURRENCY"
order by "C_SHOP", "C_PRODUCT";

Hope this helps in defining your Dynamic Currency Conversion Reporting.

This document is prepared based on SAP HANA Version SPS05 Revision 47.

While creating the decision table we will specify Conditions and Actions.

If the conditions on an attribute are not specified in proper order then while validating, we get error.

In one of my previous documents I showed how to create decision table  and used conditions in an order such that while validating it should not throw any error. I would like to request you to go through my previous document, if you had not seen before. Click here

In Step 9 of that document, there is a screenshot with number 5 enclosed in a circle, where the condition on attribute (SAL) is in proper order and the same screenshot is pasted below.

Now let us change the second condition to SAL > 9001 as shown below and validate the decision table. Below is the result of validation

The error is due to missing range found in second condition of SAL attribute.

What missing here is there is no condition for SAL = 9001 in the above two conditions.

While modeling for a requirement there is a chance that there will be no business rules for some of the scenarios and hence we can avoid those while creating decision table.

Actually while validating, in the background there are many validation rules which goes through and we can find those validation rules by navigating through Windows -> Preferences -> Expand Modeler -> Click Validation Rules.      

We will observe that under Decision Table section, "Decision Table Check Consistency Rule" is checked. To avoid the validation error on missing range, uncheck this validation rule and click ok.

Now again validate our decision table and this time, status will be Completed Successfully.

Its just a small trick

Thank You.

This document is prepared based on SAP HANA Version SPS05 Revision 47.

While creating the information views (Attribute/Analytic/Calculation) in the name field we will give the name of the view. By default it accepts the name in uppercase only, even your keyboard caps lock in on/off.

Can we have the name of information view in mixed case (combination of both upper and/or lowercase)? As usual the answer is Yes but with small setting.

Go to menu Windows -> Preferences -> Expand Modeler -> Select Case Restriction.

By default the checkbox is ticked for "Model name in uppercase". This restricts the model to accept name in uppercase only irrespective of your keyboard caps lock is on/off.

To allow mixed or lowercase, uncheck this box, click apply and ok and try again naming your model. This time it accepts the way you type it.

Similarly it applies to naming Analytic privileges and Procedures.

For packages it always accept name in lowercase and for Decision Table always in uppercase only and no setting yet available to name in mixed case.

Thank You.

SCM on HANA

1.SAP SCM version 7.02 has been available on HANA 1.0

As per below path to upgrade SCM system to EHP2 FOR SAP SCM 7.0 ON HANA

Any release of  SCM system first upgrade to EHP2 FOR SAP SCM 7.0 ON HANA on existing DATABASE using SUM tool.

SUM tool( Software Update Manager 1.0 SP09 sap note 1843776)

2. Database migration

2.1 Install SAP HANA

      SAP Note No. 1514967

2.2 Heterogeneous system copy

        --Before migration, implement the SAP Note 1775181 to preserve aggregates in SAP  APO             

          For more information, also see SAP Note 1822975.

       --SAP Note No. 178505

        --SAP HANA runs natively on Unicode only .If Source system is non Unicode so we        

            need to convert it to Unicode during database migration more information can be          

           found in sap note 1051576

       --Perform the following immediately after the migration and before post-migration

            activities: Information related to SAP BW post migration activities (compulsory)

2.3 CAUTION

          Do not start SAP BW before implementing these steps.

          Implement SAP Note 1695112. This SAP Note contains the document First guidance... BW   

           on HANA (ORANGE) Fresh Installation/Import - including unified Installer which describes   

          the steps you must carry out in detail.

3. Livecache

You have the following options to install SAP liveCache:

SAP liveCache is integrated in the SAP HANA database, so that SAP liveCache and SCM Server are running on the same database instance.

SCM Server is installed on the SAP HANA database, while SAP liveCache is installed on a separate (non-HANA) server using SAP MaxDB technology

liveCache is available to be deployed as a technical part of HANA DB from SCM 7.02, Version for HANA SP01.Migrating SCM to SAP HANA with integrated SAP HANA liveCache - 1825703

https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/18257033.1

The following figure shows one deployment option for SAP Supply Chain Management. The ABAP stack runs on a SAP HANA database, while SAP liveCache and SCM Optimizer run outside of SAP HANA. In this option, SAP liveCache is installed as in all previous releases, as a separate instance, not on an SAP HANA database but on SAP MaxDB technology.

3.2

The following figure shows another deployment option for SAP Supply Chain Management. The ABAP stack runs on an SAP HANA database, together with an integrated SAP liveCache, while SCM Optimizer runs outside of SAP HANA.

The following software components are either mandatory or optional for this deployment option, as indicated below.

4. The following table shows which technical usages and assigned product instances are available with SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA:

5. Limitation

5.1 Dual-stack split

As only ABAP components are enabled for SAP HANA, and dual-stack systems are not supported beyond Business Suite i2011, (see SAP Note 1655335) you cannot deploy a dual-stack system (with both ABAP and Java components running in the same system). If your SAP SCM system is currently implemented as a dual-stack system, you have to perform a split.For information on how to do a dual-stack split, see the following SAP Note 1686144

5.2 Solution Manager Implementation

For SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA, SAP does not provide SAP Solution Manager Implementation content. If you want to implement a new process or scenario using the SAP Solution Manager Implementation content, you can do so before implementing SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA

6. POST Installation task

6.1 Adjusting the Installation Path for SAP SCM Optimizer

In SAP SCM Optimizer 10.0, the default installation path has changed from APOOPT to SCMOPT. As opposed to older versions of SAP SCM Optimizer, where the default installation path was fixed, you can change this installation path as of SAP SCM Optimizer 10.0. The selected installation directory is later on referred to as <INST_DIR> in this guide.

Furthermore, all subdirectories have been deleted so that any SAP SCM Optimizer executables are extracted directly to the chosen installation directory.

This means that after you have updated your system from SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0 to SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA, and installed SAP SCM Optimizer 10.0, you must adjust the installation paths in your ABAP application server where SCM is installed.

Procedure

To adjust the installation path, proceed as follows:

If you use a standalone gateway instance, start the gateway instance.

Log on to the ABAP application server.

Call transaction SM59. The Display and maintain RFC destinations screen appears.

Open the node TCP/IP connection.

Double-click each SAP SCM Optimizer destination name. The default SAP SCM Optimizer destination is called OPTSERVER_<Optimizer01>, but if you set up RFC connections for additional SAP SCM Optimizer servers, you must change the installation paths for these as well.

The RFC Destination OPTSERVER_Optimizer01 screen appears.

On the Technical Settings tab page, in the Program field, check your program path, and change it.

6.2 Migrationof SAP SCM to SAP HANA

To set up SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP BW) when migrating the SAP SCM system to a SAP HANA database, proceed as follows:

Activate the myself source system in SAP BW (BW client) in transaction RSA1, under ModelingSource SystemsBWActivate.

Install the latest version of the following BI Content InfoObjects in transaction RSOR:

--0LANGU

---0HIENM

Run the report RS_BW_POST_MIGRATION

Run the report RSDU_TABLE_CONSISTENCY in background processing mode. For more information about executing the report, see SAP Note 1695778). During the first run, the report creates an analysis. If it finds errors, you must run the report a second time using the Repair option, also in background processing mode.

NOTE

Depending on the number of tables to be repaired, the report can take several hours to run

Important notes:

SAP Event Management and SAP Extended Warehouse Management are not

released for productive usage with this product version.

The productive usage of SAP Extended Warehouse Management within SAP

enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, can be achieved by installing the

Add-On SAP EWM 9.0 SP04.

With SP01 a seperate SAP liveCache installation can optionally be

migrated into SAP HANA (note 1825703).

References

•       SAP Notes

•       1768043 SAP EhP 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA

•       1825703 Migrating SCM to SAP HANA with integrated SAP HANA

•       1785057 Recommendations for migrating suite systems to SAP

•       www.saphana.com

•       Product upgrade guide for SAP Enhancement Package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, Version for SAP HANA

•       For more information please check above mention note and upgrade guid

Thanks

Atul

SUP- HANA Setup:-

The ngdbc.jar file will be present in the below directory
C:\Program Files\sap\hdbclient
*you need to install HANA client tools to get this file.

Step 1: - Copy the ngdbc.jar file (HANA JDBC connector) into the
                 Sybase Install>\UnwiredPlatform\Servers\UnwiredServer\lib\3rdparty directory

Step 2: Copy the ngdbc.jar file (HANA JDBC connector) into the 
              Sybase\UnwiredPlatform\MobileSDK22\Eclipse\endorsed directory

Step 3: Launch the Sybase Control Center (SCC)
              Open up Connections in the Unwired Server Cluster Management View
              Located under <server name> -> Domains -> default -> Connections

Step 4: Click the New button .Select JDBC in the Connection Pool Type drop down
              Use the DB2 template. Enter in the JDBC connection information.
              Click Test connection

Please provide the values above:-

Driver Class:       com.sap.db.jdbc.Driver
User :                    HANA system User
Password:           HANA password
Database URL:   jdbc:sap://<databasename>:<port>?reconnect=true
Database file:     Path to the  3^rd party lib where you pasted ngdbc.jar
                             example : C:\Sybase\UnwiredPlatform\Servers\UnwiredServer\lib\3rdparty\ngdbc.jar

You can get the above information also from the HANA studio. 

Just click on the system and go to the Connection properties as shown above.

Step 5: In the Mobile SDK right click on Database connections in the Enterprise Explorer section and
             choose New.
             Select Generic JDBC and add a Name

Click the New Driver Definition icon 

Select the Generic JDBC Driver
You can change the name if you want
Click the Jar List tab
Click Add JAR/Zip and browse to the ngdbc.jar file that you copied to the <Sybase Install>\UnwiredPlatform\Eclipse\endorsed directory.

Click the Properties tab
Enter in your HANA JDBC connection info

Note: values are same as entered in step 4.

Step 6: Restart Sybase SUP, SDK. Most Important Step

Step 7: Create a MBO manually by right-clicking and enter the SQL after selecting the DATA SOURCE as HANA by specifying the HANA connection profile you created in step 5.

Don’t click on the Validate syntax as it will not work. Just click Next or Finish. The MBO will be generated.

How to delete PACKAGE from HANA studio

1.Unable to delete package from HANA studio

2. While deleting from HANA studio it will showing inactive object present in package and refusing to delete the package.

     You can find out inactive object using below sql queries

SELECT * FROM _SYS_REPO.INACTIVE_OBJECT WHERE PACKAGE_ID='test'

3. Once you have found the inactive object using above query

    You can delete it using below query

Delete FROM _SYS_REPO.INACTIVE_OBJECT WHERE PACKAGE_ID='test'

4. Once you have deleted inactive object you can delete the package from HANA studio.

Best Regards,

Atul

This document is prepared based on version HANA 1.0 SPS 05 revision 46.

In HANA studio we have the cool feature to find out where our Information view (Attribute/Analytic/Calculation) is used by right clicking the view and selecting "Where-Used". It then shows type of view , Used-In which view, package name in a sub-window panel "Where-Used List".

But there is no similar feature to find the same for tables in a schema we use in modeling

In this document we will come to know how we can get the list.

There is a schema called "SRK" which has many tables and I use two tables "EMPLOYEE" and "DEPT" for simplicity to model information views.

Advanced readers can skip step 1 as you were already aware of this.

Step 1:

First let us create the Attribute view (AT_DEPT) which uses only single table "DEPT".

We create Analytic view (AN_USING_AT_DEPT) using the table "EMPLOYEE" in data foundation and use the Attribute view (AT_DEPT) in logical join.

Now let us use the feature "Where-Used" for Attribute view (AT_DEPT) by right clicking the view and selecting "Where-Used". It shows the result as attribute view is used in analytic view which contains in package 'srk'.

Step 2:

Now we need to find where my particular table is used in which of the information views or procedures, etc.

We do not have similar where-Used functionality for tables. Let us try by just right click the table in the schema and we will not found.

The alternate solution is to write SQL, querying from tables referring to repository.

Here is the simple SQL:

SELECT   BASE_SCHEMA_NAME, BASE_OBJECT_NAME,

         DEPENDENT_SCHEMA_NAME,DEPENDENT_OBJECT_NAME,DEPENDENT_OBJECT_TYPE

FROM     "SYS"."OBJECT_DEPENDENCIES"

WHERE   BASE_SCHEMA_NAME = 'SRK'           /*   <==  Schema Name    */

  AND   BASE_OBJECT_NAME = 'DEPT'          /*   <==  Table Name     */

;

This query will show the result we are looking for and also shows whether any procedures, synonyms, etc are using our table.

Based on DEPENDENT_OBJECT_TYPE, we can say whether it is used by view/procedure/synonym etc., and DEPENDENT_OBJECT_NAME gives its corresponding name. Package name can found in the DEPENDENT_OBJECT_NAME itself.

That's it we successfully got the where-used list for our specific tables

Might be in future release, we can expect this feature if someone can initiate this.

Thank You for your time.

Raj

*** Please note that below document is based on the personal experience of using different HANA Information modeling constructs. The results of Performance tests depend upon the data volume and the Query filters. It is advisable to make the final judgement based on your own testing of such models.

Many of the reporting scenarios implement data comparison business case like “This Year to Last Year comparison” or similar. Such business requirement implementation in HANA can be done using the Calculation View model which is discussed in many of the presentations / training sessions. Something like shown below.

Figure 1: Sample model with Projections for the Year on Year data comparison

The base model consists of creating projections over the Analytic view with the filter value for “This Year” Projection and “Last Year” Projection and a UNION node to combine the data for reporting.

Let's consider a sample data model based on Sales data. An Analytic view is created on the Sales base table and used in a Calculation view with Projections for This Year and Last Year data as shown in the sample model in Figure 1.

Figure 2: Sample data models based on Sales data for This Year and Last Year data comparison

In most of the cases, the general requirement is that, the user should provide "This Year" value (say Month and Year) and system should then return back data for the Month in This Year and for the Month in Last Year. Such data input can be captured and modeled in multiple ways.

This document outlines the impact on Performance of two such implementations of Filters in Projection. It explains the FILTER PUSH DOWN impact due to the different implementation options.

1. Using Input Parameters for This Year Month and for Last Year Month
2. Using Input Parameter for This Year Month and Calculated Column for Last Year Month

What is Filter Push Down:

When the data is queried on HANA Information models based on a subset defined by certain values, then the subset is defined using Filters. If the filters are implemented at the lowest level of dataset generation (Analytic search), then all the subsequent activities like aggregation happen on this reduced dataset. This provides high performance benefit.

If the filters are not implemented at the Analytic Search, then the entire data set is passed to the aggregation depending upon column joins and hence has negative impact on the performance.

To check if the filters are pushed down to the Analytic search, you need to find the “BWPopSearch” operation and check the details on the node in the visual plan. Please refer to the awesome blog by Lars Breddemann explaining the Visualize Plan tool.

Impact of using option 1: Using Input Parameters for This Year Month and for Last Year Month

In this implementation, two Input parameters are used

• For This Year Month - IP_TY_MONTH
• For Last Year Month - IP_LY_MONTH

The model can be created as shown below:

Figure 3: This Year and Last Year data comparison model using Input Parameters

The sample Sales data consists of few records for the Sales value in different months in different countries.

When such models are queried, then the Projection Filters are pushed down and the dataset exchanged between the OLAP engine and the Calc engine is quite less as the data is filtered in the OLAP engine and only the subset of the entire data required for the aggregation is passed to the Calc Engine. The execution plan for such query shows "Search" being performed as the first operation, reducing the dataset to be passed on for further processing.

Query:

SELECT "C_COUNTRY", "C_YEAR", "C_YEARMONTH", "ZPERIOD", sum("C_SALES") AS "C_SALES"

FROM "_SYS_BIC"."sample/ZGCV_SALES_TY_LY"

( 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_LY_MONTH$$', '201201')

, 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_TY_MONTH$$', '201301'))

WHERE "C_COUNTRY" = 'US'

GROUP BY "C_COUNTRY", "C_YEAR", "C_YEARMONTH", "ZPERIOD";

Sample data in the underlying Sales table:

Figure 4: Sales data in the underlying table

Output of the query:

Figure 5: Query output based on This Year month and Last Year month Input Parameters and Filter

Execution Plan:

Figure 6: Execution plan for the Query with Projections based on Input Parameters

As seen in the Figure 6 above, the execution plan shows that the filters defined in the projection are pushed down to the OLAP engine resulting in a smaller data set which is passed to the Calc engine. This filter push down improves performance significantly in the Query execution. Hence to improve the performance, it is advisable to model the views so that the data is filtered much earlier.

Impact of using option 2: Using Input Parameters for This Year Month and Calculated Column for Last Year Month

This option provides the flexibility of the coding to derive the other filter values based on a given Input Parameter. It is quite natural to expect the users to provide value for ONLY ONE input parameter for a Projection filter and derive the other value based on the user provided value. Such coding can be achieved using Calculated columns.

*** Please note that currently the expression builder for Projection filter do not provide higher flexibility in data manipulation. Thus such manipulations need to be performed using Calculated Column. The expression builder for Calculated Column support wide variety of functions, enabling complex data manipulation.

In due course of time, I am very sure that the expression builder for Projection filter will support more functions.

The model for the Option 2 can be created as shown below:

Figure 7: This Year and Last Year data comparison model using Input Parameter and Calculated Column

When such models are queried, then the Projection Filter defined in the Calculated Column is NOT pushed down and the dataset exchanged between the OLAP engine and the Calc engine is quite large depending upon the column joins of the columns used in the Query. The entire data is passed to the Calc Engine where the subsequent filtering and aggregation happens. The execution plan for such query shows that NO Search operation happens in the OLAP engine. This has negative impact on the performance as large amount of data is exchanged between the engines and high memory and resources are required for the query execution.

Query:

SELECT "C_COUNTRY", "C_YEAR", "C_YEARMONTH", "ZPERIOD", sum("C_SALES") AS "C_SALES"

FROM "_SYS_BIC"."sample/ZGCV_SALES_TY_LY"

( 'PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$IP_LY_MONTH$$', '201201'))

WHERE "C_COUNTRY" = 'US'

GROUP BY "C_COUNTRY", "C_YEAR", "C_YEARMONTH", "ZPERIOD";

Sample data in the underlying Sales table and the output of the query remains same as for Option 1.

Execution Plan:

Figure 8: Execution plan for the Query with Projections based on Calculated Column and Input Parameter

As seen in the Figure 8 above, the execution plan shows that the filter defined in the projection using the Calculated Column is NOT pushed down to the OLAP engine resulting in large data set passed to the Calc engine. It is strongly recommended to look into the Query execution plan for the Information models and check the impact of such modeling constructs. It is advisable to ensure that the filters can be pushed down to the OLAP engine to improve the performance of the query.If possible, you may opt to change the existing model with Calculated Column to Input Parameters and have the data manipulation done for the values to be passed to the Input Parameters in the Front end reporting tool rather than in HANA. The User input Prompts in the front end reporting tool can be defined to capture one value and other value to be passed to the second Input Parameter can be derived from the first prompt value.

As mentioned at the start of this document, I would request fellow HANA practitioners to try and test their models and validate the performance impact of the queries.

Also as mentioned above, I am very positive that the filter expression for Projection will provide large set of data manipulation functions in future, which will enable writing better Filter conditions and will eliminate the need to define the Calculated Columns for filtering in the Information model completely.

These are the new/modified OSS notes relating to HANA in the last 30 days. You will need an OSS logon to view the detail of the notes (note numbers are links to the note in OSS), but this will at least give an overview of the activity and updates relating to HANA.

Welcome to SAP HANA Cloud Integration!

Integration is key to achieving the benefits of Cloud. SAP HANA Cloud Integration is an integration platform hosted in SAP HANA Cloud that facilitates the integration of business processes spanning across different departments, organizations, or companies. Thereby it enables end-to-end process integration across cloud and on-premise. It also contains data service part that allows for efficiently and securely use ETL tasks to move data between on-premise systems and the cloud.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration comes with complete new architecture and deployment options that are designed and best suited for cloud-cloud and cloud-on-premise integration and process orchestration. Since the integration can be consumed as a service the solution is tenant aware and comprises highest level of security features such as content encryption and certificate based communication. It contains a core runtime for processing, transformation, and routing of messages, as well as an out-of-the-box connectivity support (IDOC, sFTP, SOAP/https). The design time - currently used by SAP Cloud Professional Services only - is Eclipse based.

As of today SAP HANA Cloud Integration is available for customers and partners as an Application Edition, especially for dedicated set of SAP On-Demand Solutions (SAP Customer On-demand, SuccessFactors BizX, SAP Financial Services Network). Upon purchase predefined, ready to run content (packaged integration) can be made available by SAP Cloud Services in a customer specific tenant, without the immediate need for additional hardware or integration skills at the client’s side. This drastically reduces integration project lead times and lowers resource consumptions significantly. Prepackaged content can be extended by SAP Cloud Professional Services for each single tenant addressing the individual need of every customer.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration will be developed towards a functional rich cloud-based integration platform. For the very near future this will include HTML5-based UI’s, allowing partners and customers to display and configure integration flows. Also, as a customer or partner you will be able to develop, extend, test, deploy and share integration content. A continuously increasing set of connectors and available enterprise integration patterns will lay the foundation for this.

New content will be posted here, so stay tuned!

Resources

Documentation and Ramp-up Knowledge Transfer (RKT)

Further information about SAP HANA Cloud Integration can be found in the SAP Help Portal and the RKT material on SAP Service Marketplace:

• SAP HANA Cloud Integration documentation on SAP Help Portal
• SAP HANA Cloud Integration Product Availability Matrix
• Knowledge Transfer on SAP Service Marketplace (S-user required)

Related SCN Spaces and documents

• SAP NetWeaver Process Orchestration
• SAP HANA Cloud Developer Center
• SAP Financial Services Network (SAP FSN)

News

• Attending SAPPHIRE NOW? Check out Cloud integration sessions in Orlando next week!

The Evolution of HANA One: More Than Just HANA Hosted in a Public Cloud

SAP Mentor Richard Hirsch comments on a recent SAPinsider publication about HANA One. May 1, 2013

SLT Suggestions for SAP HANA

In what he describes as a “brainstorming blog,” Thomas Krojzl writes about his ideas on how SLT replication could be improved. Don’t worry, he’s open to criticism. Seems like a good time to like it, rate it, and comment away! April 26, 2013

Bipedal Process and Data Intelligence.... Stop Hopping.... RUN!

The fact that we’re living in the age of big data is no surprise at this point, but according to Alan Rickayzen, “the age of process intelligence has just started.” Find out what he means, where HANA comes into the picture, and how solution experts and process operators and process owners are the big benefactors of SAP Operational Process Intelligence. April 26, 2013

Why Users Need SSO in SAP HANA

With Single Sign On (SSO), users can directly log in from any front-end application and access the SAP HANA database without providing login credentials again. Read more highly rated blogs on SAP HANA. This blog by Kiran Musunuru gives you details on setting up SSO with SAP HANA using Kerberos. April 26, 2013

New Publications from SAPinsider:

A Look Under the Hood of SAP HANA

Get look at some of the key components of the SAP HANA platform and the features and functions that make the it compelling for developers.

SAPinsider: SAP HANA One Illuminates New Possibilities

Learn about the instant deployment option that facilitates smaller SAP HANA projects and applications that are not easily accommodated by on-premise system procurement cycles. April 26, 2013

Pairing the Power of SAP HANA with the Innovative Agility of a Startup

Learn more about the Startup Focus program, how to get involved, and what it means for SAP customers. April 26, 2013

Best Practices for SAP HANA Data Loads

As SAP Mentor John Appleby says, “you can take the best technology in the world, create a bad design, and it will work badly. Yes, even SAP HANA can be slow.” With that in mind, check out his best practices for HANA data loading. April 10, 2013

Performance Guidelines for ABAP Development on the SAP HANA Database

If you’re an experienced ABAP developer, you’re probably familiar with the classic performance guidelines for using Open SQL. This begs the question of what changes are there to the guidelines in the context of SAP HANA. Eric Westenberger tackles that question.  April 10, 2013

Experience the Magic: How to Setup Your Own ABAP on HANA in the Cloud

Are you an ABAP developer who can’t wait to explore the intricacies of ABAP on HANA coding? Do you want to set up a sandbox environment where you can try out things such as consuming HANA Calculation Views or Stored Procedures from ABAP programs, and learn how to accelerate your ABAP applications with HANA or build entirely new ones? Then SAP Mentor Thorsten Franz wrote this for you. April 10, 2013

Tame BIG Processes with SAP Operational Process Intelligence, Powered by SAP HANA

Read the three-part series by Harshavardhan Jegadeesan, in which he walks through "big processes," the challenges they pose, and how SAP Operational Process Intelligence, powered by SAP HANA can help businesses overcome them. Then see how to test drive #SAPOPInt in this post. March 22, 2013

Get your hands on this HANA stuff:

• HANA One - Get $120 to start your experience with the SAP HANA platform, available in the cloud.
• HANA Academy - Watch more than 250 videos answering your what, why, and how questions about SAP HANA.
• SAP Operational Process Intelligence powered by HANA - Test drive it today.

March 13, 2013

Migrating Java Open-Source Application from Oracle to SAP HANA

The purpose of this document is to guide the process of migrating OLTP systems from a source ORACLE database to a target SAP HANA database. The Java Open-Source mvnForm is used in this guide to simulate the example of an OLTP system on the source Oracle database. March 7, 2013

When SAP HANA met R - What's new?

Last year’s ”When SAP HANA met R - First kiss” blog has some people wondering what’s new the integration of the SAP HANA database with R. Blag responds in his recent blog. March 4, 2013

Webinar: SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA

On January 10, 2013, SAP announced the availability of the SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA – built to deliver an integrated family of business applications unifying analytics and transactions into a single in-memory platform. Join an exclusive webcast on March 14, at 15:00 CET and learn how to become a real-time business.

Engage with SAP HANA through Hours of Free Videos and Projects

Explore the SAP HANA Academy and watch more than 250 videos answering your what, why, and how questions about SAP HANA.March 4, 2013

Uncovering the Value of SAP BW Powered by HANA: Answering the Second Question

When Suite runs on HANA, BW runs on HANA, and assorted data marts run on HANA - what would be different for a business user? After talking to several customers, Vijay Vijayasankar thinks it’s the "ease of answering the second question" that is the most value adding scenario for a business user. What is your "second question"? March 4, 2013

Clear the Process Fog with SAP Operational Process Intelligence

Learn about this new SAP offering designed to improve your operational efficiency. Check out the overview video on YouTube and share your thoughts on therelated blog by Peter McNulty. February 21, 2013

Say cheese... on taking snapshots with SAP HANA

In this detailed blog, Lars Breddemann shows how to take a snapshot of your SAP HANA instance. February 21, 2013

Fast is Not a Number

You might call it a constructive rant, but why not ask the difficult questions? Jim Spath - SAP Mentor, SCN forum moderator, ASUG volunteer, employee of a company that runs SAP – does. February 21, 2013

The OLAP Compiler in BW on SAP HANA

Thomas Zurek blogs about a functionality he considers one of the “crown jewels” of BW on HANA.February 21, 2013

SAP HANA Certification Pathways

In this comprehensive blog, Vishal Soni shares his organization’s plans which outline paths to SAP HANA certification for technical consultants and application consultants.February 18, 2013

Harness Insight from Hadoop with MapReduce and Text Data Processing Using SAP Data Services and SAP HANA

This white paper, developed at SAP Co-Innovation Lab,  explores how IT organizations can use solutions from SAP and our partners to harness the value of large volumes of data stored in Hadoop, identify salient entities from unstructured textual data, and combine it with structured data in SAP HANA to leverage meaningful information in real-time. February 13, 2013

New SAP TV Videos on SME Customers Using SAP HANA

Michael Nuesslein of SAP TV announces two new SAP HANA game-changer videos worth checking out. January 28, 2013

SAP on HANA, and Pushdown for All: News about ABAP's Adventurous Relationship with the Database

Business Suite on HANA wasn't all news to this SAP Mentor, but the January 10 announcement came with some "extremely new and noteworthy" information to Thorsten Franz, such as a shift in the ABAP programming model. January 21, 2013

The Business Suite on HANA: The Announcement and What this Means for Customers

Besides providing an overview of the January 10 announcement, SAP Mentor and SCN Moderator Luke Marson outlines customer benefits and his thoughts on what it all means. Of course there are still questions, as summarized in Carsten Nitschke’s candidly-titled “What I did not learn” blog. Don’t miss the discussion that follows.

As far as what’s next, SAP Mentor Richard Hirsch“connects the dots” and suggests the next big play for HANA. January 17, 2013

2013 - The Year of the SAP Database

With the incredible success of SAP HANA over the last 18 months and a greatly expanded database and technology portfolio, SAP is poised to surge ahead in the database market. SAP Mentor John Appleby shares his thoughts on why 2013 will be a pivotal year. January 3, 2013

SAP TechEd Sessions on SAP HANA

What principles guide SAP’s platform and infrastructure decisions? Watch Introduction to Our Technology Strategy and Road Map to learn about the "big bets" that SAP is making in the technology game. Then learn about Integrating SAP HANA into Your Landscape through the intelligent use of in-memory technology. You’ll gain valuable insight with this interview: From ABAPer to MOBILEr: The Evolution of SAP Developers, where SAP Mentor DJ Adams talks about developer evolution with SAP HANA, Java, Eclipse, and Cloud. Watch more sessions on SAP HANA. January 10, 2013

It’s Here: SAP Business Suite, Powered by SAP HANA

SAP just announced availability of the SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA. SCN’s own Siva Darivemula summarizes the announcement, including a blog post by SAP CTO Vishal Sikka and overview video. January 10, 2013

What's New in SAP HANA SPS05

Following the model of his very successful "What's New" blogs from his SAP NetWeaver Portal days, Daniel Wroblewski summarizes the new features of SAP HANA SPS05 in this blog. See the related post by Lucas Sparvieri about the SAP HANA Text Analysis capabilities of SPS05. January 3, 2013

Meet the Distinguished Engineers

SAP HANA is the fastest growing product in SAP's history, with over 400 customers after just 12 months, and there will be an unprecedented demand for SAP HANA resources. With this comes the need to understand the level of experience of a HANA engineer and their areas of expertise. The Distinguished Engineer program is an SAP-sponsored, community-led effort to address this perceived skills gap in the HANA technical community, and to recognize those with a high level of technical skills, as well as embracing those who are learning and are on their way to gaining skills. Learn more. January 3, 2013

New from SAPinsider Magazine:

Optimizing ABAP for SAP HANA: SAP's 3-Step Approach - In this article, you'll learn SAP's three-step approach to optimize SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) ABAP for the SAP HANA database.

Build Solutions Powered by SAP HANA to Transform Your Business - Read how the SAP Custom Development organization is helping customers build business-critical solutions powered by SAP HANA. January 3, 2013

2012

HANA Videos from SAP TechEd Live

Replay these interviews from Madrid for a variety of insights into SAP HANA:

• SAP HANA Petascale Perfomance Test
• Developer Deep Dive on SAP HANA, Part II
• SAP HANA Cloud - Where In-Memory Computing Meets the Cloud
• In the Cloud and on SAP HANA with SAP Business One
• How SAP HANA Helps Startups Achieve the Impossible
• How Startups are Transforming their Businesses by Building their Solutions on SAP HANA

Find more interviews in the catalog of HANA interviews from Las Vegas. November 28, 2012

SAP HANA One Innovative App Contest

Build your most innovative app on HANA One in AWS Cloud. Register by December 12, 2012. Learn more. December 3, 2012

More HANA from SAP TechEd Live!

Replay these interviews from Madrid for a variety of insights into SAP HANA:

• SAP HANA Petascale Perfomance Test
• Developer Deep Dive on SAP HANA, Part II
• SAP HANA Cloud - Where In-Memory Computing Meets the Cloud
• In the Cloud and on SAP HANA with SAP Business One
• How SAP HANA Helps Startups Achieve the Impossible
• How Startups are Transforming their Businesses by Building their Solutions on SAP HANA

Find more interviews in the catalog of HANA interviews from Las Vegas. November 28, 2012

New Space: SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA

Follow the new space dedicated to releases of SAP NetWeaver BW on SAP HANA. November 26, 2012

How to Configure SAP HANA for CTS

Learn how to use the Change and Transport System (CTS) together with SAP HANA. November 26, 2012

SAP HANA Installation Guide – Trigger-Based Data Replication

This guide details the installation and configuration of trigger-based replication for SAP HANA – the SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server.November 26, 2012

The Road to HANA for Software Developers

Developer Whisperer Juergen Schmerder published this helpful guide for developers interested in HANA to help find their way through the jungle of documents out there. October 31, 2012

Preparing for HANA: How to Achieve SAP Certified Technology Associate Certification

How do you prepare for the actual certification? In this blog, SAP Mentor Tom Cenens provides some helpful information on the certification and how to pass. October 31, 2012

Hit “Replay” on SAP HANA! Visit SAP TechEd Online

The SAP TechEd Live studio in Las Vegas featured interviews about SAP HANA One (productive HANA on AWS), SAP HANA Academy, RDS for HANA, the HANA Distinguished Engineer program, how startups are using HANA, and a deep dive on SAP HANA development. Check outall these and more interviews. October 26, 2012

SAP HANA Academy: Watch, Follow, and Learn SAP HANA from SAP and Ecosystem Partners Experts

This week at SAP TechEd, we announced the launch of the SAP HANA Academy. Access videos and exercises about everything from security, to working with data in SAP HANA Studio and SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, to integrating SAP HANA with Mobile or Analytics. Also, see the related SAP TechEd Online video. October 23, 2012

Better Choice – SAP BW on SAP HANA

You think you know databases? Think again. Watch the short animated video to see how you can make a better choice with SAP BW on HANA. Learn how you can better handle your exploding data volume, and why your business can benefit from real time data analysis. October 23, 2012

Join the first Google+ HANA Hangout!

Hang out with SAP HANA experts on Monday, October 29 at 9 am PT for a live, streamed chat about SAP HANA and big data. Participants include Aiaz Kazi, Head of Technology & Innovation Marketing for SAP, and Amit Sinha, Head of Database & Technology Marketing at SAP and special guest Irfan Khan, CTO of Sybase. October 26, 2012

What Customers Say About SAP HANA

“Fujitsu and SAP’s  history of co-innovation and collaboration have now provided both very large and small customers with a scalable in memory appliance that can quickly be implemented to dramatically increase data processing and real time information analytics for decision making,” says Rolf Schwirz, CEO Fujitsu Technology Solutions. Read more in SAP In-Memory Computing - Procter & Gamble Customer Testimonial, SAP HANA Helps Federal Mogul to Improve Performance, SAP HANA Helps Booan Run Better, Hilti Customer Testimonial and Charite Improves Lives with SAP HANA. October 5, 2012

First Experience with ABAP for HANA – Evolution or Revolution?

Check out this excellent blog by SAP Mentor Tobias Trapp, and contribute to the new, dedicated ABAP for HANA space.

Read more about how co-innovation among SAP and SAP Mentors enabled optimization of the ABAP platform for HANA in Sanjay Khanna’sblogAll for One and HANA for All. October 3, 2012

With All the Facts and Information Readily Available, Why Is It So Tough for Some to Speak Truth About SAP HANA?

Mark Yolton, SVP Communities & Social Media at SAP, put together this nice collection of great blogs, videos, articles, and other content that will help you understand the essence and the truth about SAP HANA. Top picks include: What Oracle Won't Tell You about SAP HANA by Steve Lucas, EVP Database & Technology at SAP, and Puneet Suppal's SAP HANA and the Pretenders. October 3, 2012

Turbocharge Your Applications with SAP HANA (Webinar Recording)

In this recording, learn how to add new revenue streams and monetize in-memory computing with new services and offerings, turbocharge your applications with SAP for OEM Partners, and reduce administration costs and do ETL, materialization, aggregation, and summarizing in just one step.

Video Blog: The State of SAP HANA - Debating Killer Apps and Skills Needs

To commemorate the first year anniversary of HANA's General Availability, Jon Reed taped this special Google Hangout with fellow SAP Mentors John Appleby, Vijay Vijayasankar, and Harald Reiter. September 14, 2012

How to Analyze Who Has Access to Particular Objects

Following his blogs on how to analyze security relations in SAP HANA system, SAP Mentor Tomas Krojzl looks at authorization relationship between users and objects. September 14, 2012

New Publication: A Storage Advisor for Hybrid-Store Databases

This paper, published in the Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment by SAP Research, proposes a storage advisor tool that supports database administrators in deciding between row and column data management. September 14, 2012

Spotfire on HANA (and a bit of a comparison)

After a previous blog “Tableau on HANA,” Ronald Konijnenburg of Logica Nederland B.V. got curious again about how a similar third-party application would behave when connecting it to HANA. September 7, 2012

From Online Gaming to Genome Analysis SAP HANA Creates New Business Opportunities

Technology itself does not give your business an edge—how you use that technology does. In her latest blog post, SAP’s Ruks Omar introduces the SAP HANA Use Case Repository, where you’ll find numerous applications for SAP HANA, and a call to share your use case. September 7, 2012

SAPInsider: SAP HANA is a Journey, Not a Destination

Since its release in 2010, SAP HANA has rapidly evolved from an appliance for accelerating analytics to an application platform — and there's still more to come. In this SAPinsider Q&A, hear from Dan Kearnan, Senior Director of Marketing for Data Warehousing and SAP HANA, who discusses this in-memory technology's impressive growth and sheds light on where it's headed. September 7, 2012

Free Course on In-Memory Data Management

Gain deep technical understanding of a dictionary-encoded column-oriented in-memory database and its application in enterprise computing with this new offering from the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI).

The course, guided by Dr. Plattner himself, begins September 3, 2012 and requires about 3 hrs effort per week over 6 weeks. See the course overview on SCN and visit the openHPI web site for complete details. August 14, 2012

Webinar Replay Now Available

Transform Your Business with the Real-Time Power of SAP HANA - According to a study by Oxford Economics, companies that implement real-time systems see an average 21% increase in revenue, and a 19% reduction in IT cost.1 But what does real time really mean? August 24, 2012

Sign up for the August 16 Webinar: Transform Your Business with the Real-Time Power of SAP HANA

This 30-minute webinar focuses on how a real-time in memory data platform can give companies unprecedented and immediate insights into their customers, products, services and operations by enabling the analysis of huge volumes of data from virtually any source -- for improved agility and bottom line performance. August 14, 2012

I'm in a HANA State of Mind

Says SAP Mentor John Appleby, "...because once you start spotting opportunities for SAP HANA, you won't stop until you find ways to disrupt entire industries." August 1, 2012

SAP HANA Startup Forum Day - TLV 2012

Erez Sobol, Head of Technology Ventures at SAP Labs Israel, recaps an exciting day of learning and collaboration centered around big data and SAP technologies as part of the world-wide SAP Startup Focus Program. August 2, 2012

HANA and the Future of Personalized Medicine

Medicine can now be aided by tools capable of processing large volumes of data quickly. HANA is well placed to establish a strong role in the new era of personalized medicine. Mark Heffernan shares some thoughts and observations on the potential for HANA and personalized medicine. July 31, 2012

SAP Hana Code Jam - Why Code in SAP Hana?

SAP Mentor Tammy Powlas shares her experience at the first SAP CodeJam focused exclusively on SAP HANA. July 30, 2012

New Installation/Import - Including Unified Installer -  for SAP NetWeaver BW Powered by SAP HANA

SAP’s Roland Kramer provides guidance for implementing BW on SAP HANA, whether it’s a new installation or an export of an existing system with any DB export. July 27, 2012

Using JPA to Persist Application Data in SAP HANA

This document proposes a solution for using the Java Persistence API framework JPA to persist Java classes in HANA DB. July 18, 2012

Create Your Own Security Monitoring Tool

SAP Mentor Tomas Krojzl of IBM shows how to create a tool that will give you an overview of user role assignments in your SAP HANA system.Part I | Part IIJuly 18, 2012

Real-time Gross-to-Net Profitability Analysis - HANA PoC at COIL

Vistex partnered with SAP and IBM in the SAP Co-Innovation Lab to develop a solution to provide real-time profitability analytics while reducing the overall impact on transactional processing and other business operations. In this blog, Kevin Liu of SAP Co-Innovation Lab introduces the project and resulting white paper.

SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP for HANA

How does ABAP help to leverage the benefits of in-memory database technology? This documentdescribes SAP's vision, strategy, development, and commitment to enable ABAP for SAP HANA.June 25, 2012

Does SAP HANA Replace BW? (Hint: No.) - Part 2

In this part 2 blog, SAP Mentor John Appleby continues where SAP EVP Steve Lucas left off in his original blog post inspired by a series of posts in the Twittersphere. June 25, 2012

Download the SAP HANA Essentials eBook (It's Free!)

In this video blog, SAP HANA expert Jeffrey Word introduces the new book SAP HANA Essentials eBook. June 25, 2012

Announcing the SAP HANA Distinguished Engineer Program

Learn about a new program from SAP that aims to promote and encourage technical expertise in SAP HANA. June 19, 2012

Happy First Birthday, HANA!

On the first birthday of SAP HANA, SAP Mentor Vijay Vijaysankar from IBM reflects on the progress made over the last year and looks forward to challenges and opportunities ahead. June 18, 2012

SAP Insider: Powered by SAP HANA

In this SAPinsider article, Scott Leatherman of SAP explains how value-added resellers, independent software vendors, and systems integration partners are helping companies that have "big data" challenges understand the scale of SAP HANA and identify areas where it can help drive their business forward. June 18, 2012

Get your own SAP HANA DB server on Amazon Web Services

Get your hands on your own HANA DB server using three different image sizes we made available for you. Check out now and create your own HANA@AWS environment and get started with SAP HANA!  June 1, 2012

Happy Birthday to You, HANA!

On Monday, June 18, SAP HANA turns one year old, and we'd like to you to be a part of the celebration. Bay Area residents may join us in Palo Alto, and everyone's welcome to join in on the virtual birthday party. Festivities start at 10 AM Pacific time. June 14, 2012

Understanding Look and Feel of SAP HANA STUDIO

In this document, Krishna Tangudu discusses the basic navigation for the SAP HANA Sandbox system, with an emphasis on the look and feel of the system. May 31, 2012

Rapid Deployment Solution for Banking Powered by SAP HANA Transforms your Business

To help banks to speed up the adoption of SAP HANA, SAP offers Rapid Deployment Solutions for banking. Susanne Knopp highlights them in this recent blog. May 31, 2012

Getting Started with SAP HANA Developer Center

In this short tutorial, SAP Mentor and Development Expert Alvaro Tejada Galindo covers some HANA Developer Center essentials: Creation of a Developer Center account, CloudShare, creation of row and column tables, upload of CSV file to SAP HANA, creation of Stored Procedure, creation of a view, and graphic analysis using SAP HANA Studio own tools. May 9, 2012

Who's Talking About SAP HANA? Find out on this "Conversation Heat Map"

Chris Kim of SAP Global Marketing introduces a tool for visualizing social media conversations around #SAP #HANA. Check it out. May 10, 2012

Explore Use Cases, Quantify Business Value

In these two blogs, SAP Mentor Rukhshaan Omar previews two new decision-making tools she'll be unveiling at SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando: The HANA use case repository and the business value calculator. May 8, 2012

Developer's Journal: ABAP/HANA Connectivity via Secondary Database Connection

Interested in how to access HANA from your ABAP systems? In his edition of the HANA Developer's Journal, Thomas Jung explains how much can be done today when HANA runs as a secondary database for your current ABAP based systems and what development options within the ABAP environment support this  scenario. April 15, 2012

SAP HANA Technical Overview – An Entry Point to Our Revolutionary Chapter

This blog introduces the latest and greatest technical overview white paper for SAP HANA. This essential document provides a general understanding of SAP HANA as of support package 3 (SP03), and covers database administration, deployment scenarios, data load architecture scenarios, and more. 20 April 2012

SAP HANA Scale-Out Performance Test: Blog Commentary

In his blog SAP HANA - Scale Out Performance Test Results - Early Findings, Sam Bhat of United Software provides general guidelines for people interested in considering new database technologies like SAP HANA. Josh Greenbaum (EAC ) summarizes the data from SAP’s latest HANA scalability test in his blog SAP Ups the HANA Challenge following SAP’s April 10 press conference. 20 April 2012

Visit the SAP Newsroom for more news from the April 10 press conference. 11 April 2012

Inside SAP HANA: Optimizing Data Load Performance and Tuning

SAP Mentor John Appleby outlines seven steps and offers insight into the best ways to optimize data models and load performance in SAP HANA. He covers not only optimizing the data model, but testing load parameters and choosing a partition scheme carefully. 4 April, 2012

Welcome to SAP Financial Services Network (SAP FSN)!

Join us and learn all about SAP FSN, SAP‘s cloud-based bank – company-integration solution.

1. Overview and business benefits

SAP Financial Services Network (SAP FSN) is a new innovative on-demand solution that connects financial institutions and other financial service providers with their corporate customers on a secure network owned and managed by SAP. The network offers multi-bank and multi-corporate routing as well as multi-format documents. As key benefits, the solution simplifies connectivity, automates financial transactions, reduces payment rejection rates, eases reconciliation and provides enhanced visibility to corporate treasury.

SAP FSN is SAP’s strategic initiative for financial institutions to corporate connectivity. In recent years, financial institutions and other financial service providers have looked to extend their business relationship with their corporate customers by offering value-added services. Additionally, corporate customers have looked to reduce their business risks through relationships with multiple financial institutions, increasing the need to manage their cash positions across those banks. To achieve this, banks and corporate customers need SAP FSN that will be low-cost and flexible, and can on-board and establish connectivity between corporate customer’s and bank’s ERP applications more rapidly. SAP FSN is a new innovative solution approach from SAP to address this need, namely to reduce operational risk and cost while supporting new business initiatives, and enablement of corporates & banks to transact, manage, and monitor a variety of corporate-to-bank services. SAP FSN offers seamless integration with SAP ERP and Treasury systems for better visibility to cash, improved liquidity management, at significantly lower operational costs. SAP FSN is an on-demand solution and consists of Integration as a Service, on-boarding framework, provisioning, management & monitoring capabilities that will be hosted at SAP cloud.

SAP FSN is available to financial institutions and their corporate customers since March 2013. The development of SAP FSN is based on a customer co-innovation initiative including the validation of the solutions by major banks.This means that SAP has taken a collaborative approach with the world’s leading banks in order to develop SAP FSN. Through this co-innovation initiative it is ensured that customers can significantly contribute to the solution in terms of capabilities, such as security, operations, technology, as well as business value.

SAP FSN provides the following benefits:

• Faster onboarding of financial institutions and corporates
• No additional cost for maintaining hardware and software
• Standardize integration between financial institutions and their customers
• Reduced operational risk
• Better visibility and control
• Lower TCO
• Pay-as-you-go subscription model

2. Solution Details

SAP FSN runs on SAP HANA Cloud, is multi-tenant enabled and offers a high performance processing of messages. Key capabilities provided by SAP FSN are routing, mapping, diverse connectivity options, security on multiple levels, onboarding and service activation. SAP FSN supports the reliable and secure exchange of e. g. ISO20022 payment documents, such as payments (“pain.001”), payment status reports (“pain.002”), and statement messages (“CAMT.52/53”), between financial institutions and their corporate customers.

2.1. Routing & Mapping

The payment documents are routed via SAP FSN to the correct receiver bank or corporate; hereby SAP FSN determines the receiver of a message based on the content of the message header or payload. SAP FSN also supports the transformation (“mapping”) of data structures at sender and receiver side into each other. In scenarios spanning between different organizations and enterprises it is most likely that the structure of the data exchanged between the financial institutions and corporate customers differs on both sides. In order to enable a seamless exchange of data, the data structures on both sides of the connected bank and corporate have to be transformed or mapped into each other. SAP FSN allows the mapping of the exchanged documents.

2.2. Communication Protocols and Reliable Messaging

One or more corporate customers can exchange data with one or more financial service providers through SAP FSN. For the data exchange SAP FSN supports the following connectivity options for the communication between a corporation or a financial service provider on one side and SAP FSN on the other side:

• SSH (secure shell) File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), client
• SFTP server, i.e. SAP FSN provides its own SFTP server
• Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-RM) over HTTPS

SAP FSN supports the quality of service "At Least Once”. According to this service, once SAP FSN receives a message from a sender participant, it stores the message and sends a technical acknowledgment to the sender. It then tries to deliver the message to the receiver participant. In case the receiver is not available, SAP FSN retries sending the message after a defined time interval until the message is sent to the receiver.

Security is a key capability for Cloud based applications and the integration of the same. Therefore SAP FSN supports security on multiple layers.

• Communication

During the operation of an SAP FSN scenario, the connected participants exchange data with each other based on the configured transport protocol. These protocols support different options to protect the exchanged data against unauthorized access, e. g. through certificate based authentication. In addition to security at transport level, the content of the exchanged messages can also be protected by means of digital encryption and signature, e. g. through message level security based on PKCS#7/CMS enveloped data and signed data. The encryption of data allows you to encode the content of a message in such a way that only authorized parties can read it. A digital signature ensures the authenticity of a message that way that it guarantees the identity of the signer and that the message was not altered after signing.

• Data storage security

At several phases of the lifecycle of an SAP FSN scenario, data is stored and therefore exposed to the risk of unauthorized access. There are several measures to protect stored data in SAP FSN. In case of an error situation, dedicated experts at SAP have limited access rights to evaluate the situation. However, access to customer's business data is prevented hereby.

• Security aspects of the onboarding process

During the connection set up between a participant and SAP FSN, data has to be exchanged between experts on SAP and customer's side. There are several measures applied to secure this data exchange. Through this onboarding process also confidential data has to be exchanged between SAP and the participant, like, for example, server addresses or public key certificates as well as names of the involved persons. To increase the security level of the SAP-participant information exchange, access to the relevant data is restricted to a small circle of experts involved in the onboarding process. In order to prevent unauthorized users to access such data, the person who starts the onboarding activity makes sure that only those persons are invited to the SAP StreamWork activity that need to be involved.

• High availability

Several measures are taken to ensure robust operation and high level of operational performance of the SAP FSN runtime. In order to ensure reliable operation of a cluster even in case individual virtual machine crash, failover mechanisms are implemented: In case a virtual machine crashes that is processing a message, this incident is detected by the cluster and a new virtual machine automatically started to take over the task of the crashed virtual machine. Software update of the runtime environment is accomplished with a minimum downtime of about 1 minute.

• Tenant Isolation

For each participant connected to SAP FSN separate resources (in terms of: memory, CPU, file system) of the cloud-based integration platform are allocated – although all participants might share the same hardware. This concept is also referred to as tenant isolation. A tenant represents the resources of the cloud-based integration platform of SAP FSN allocated for a participant. At runtime, SAP FSN processes the data that is exchanged between the involved participants on a cluster of different virtual machines hosted in the SAP cloud, at which each virtual machine is assigned to the corresponding tenant allocated for the connected participant. SAP FSN is designed that way that it is always makes sure that the involved virtual machines are strictly separated from each other with regard to the related participants. In addition to that, each tenant uses a separate database schema which guarantees that data of different participants is strictly separated.

In order to start operating scenarios based on SAP FSN, two kinds of processes are relevant:

• Onboarding:

Is the process of connecting a participant (either a financial service provider or a corporation) to SAP FSN. Onboarding covers all tasks that are necessary in order to configure the data exchange and the connection between the corporate or financial service provider’s system and SAP FSN. The onboarding is a one-time activity and is a prerequisite for service activation.

• Service activation:

Is the process when a financial service provider starts collaboration with a corporate customer. On request, SAP activates the connection between the two participants and informs them once the connection is complete. This allows the newly connected participants to carry out message flow testing across the service prior to moving into the production landscape.

Further information about SAP FSN can be found in the standard documentation on the SAP Help Portal and in the RKT material on SAP Service Marketplace:

• SAP FSN documentation on SAP Help Portal: http://help.sap.com/sapfsn
• SAP FSN Connector documentation on SAP Help Portal: http://help.sap.com/fsnagent
• Knowledge Transfer on SAP Service Marketplace (S-user required): https://websmp103.sap-ag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000759375&

Related resources:

• SAP Financial Services Network on SAP.com
• SAP Financial Services Network – an Introduction

This presentation offers an overview of the solution and its business benefits - simplified connectivity, automated financial transactions, reduced payment rejection rates, easy reconciliation and enhanced visibility to corporate treasury.

• Webinar recording: SAP Financial Services Network (SAP FSN): Innovation for Bank-to-Corporate Connectivity (S-user required)

Interactive webinar tailored for executives. Today, bank to corporate transactions are either manual or require expensive custom development. For corporates, this is expensive and results in a lack of up-to-the-minute visibility of their cash position and liquidity. For banks, on-boarding corporates is a long and costly process that constrains their ability to scale, limiting the number of customers they can serve and thus their revenue potential. Developed to address these challenges, the SAP hosted Financial Services Network, is transforming how banking services can be delivered.

• SAP HANA Cloud Integration
• SAP NetWeaver Process Integration & SOA Middleware
• SAP NetWeaver Process Orchestration

News:

Attending SAPPHIRE NOW? Get connected with the SAP Financial Services Network

May 14-16 - SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando

June 4 - Essar Group Chose SAP HANA. Find Out Why

June 6 - SAP HANA Cloud Integration (ASUG)

June 11 - Optimizing Data Services and Information Steward for SAP HANA (ASUG)

See the the full HANA Webcast Calendar.

Enter SAP Enterprise Cloud

Last week, SAP announced the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service. SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud empowers you to deploy SAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver BW, and custom HANA applications to support real-time business. Learn more in the blog by executive board member Vishal Sikka and watch the replay of the press event.Then read Siva Darivemula’s blog Adding a New On-Ramp to the HANA Highway for more insight. May 8, 2013

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud: “Instant Value without Compromise”

SVP Mark Yolton describes what the new offering can do for customers, shares his take on the announcement as well as some early reactions from the media. His blog is also filled with HANA resources. May 8, 2013

SAP HANA Cloud Integration Now Available

SAP HANA Cloud Integration, now available for customers and partners, is an integration platform hosted in SAP HANA Cloud that facilitates the integration of business processes spanning across different departments, organizations, or companies. Mariana Mihaylova explains and provides resources in this document. May 8, 2013

Cloudy on the terminology? Check out the blog by Bjoern Goerke in which he clarifies recent branding around cloud.

New SAP HANA Development Platform Training as Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Register for a new online course: "Introduction to Software Development on SAP HANA." Over six weeks’ time, you’ll get an overview of the native programming capabilities of SAP HANA. Dr. Markus Schwarz, SVP SAP Education, says, "We want to give learners choice. With the new course we can reach even a broader audience." May 1, 2013

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