Getting Started with Connections and Spaces in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

In Part 1 & Part 2 of this series, we looked at what SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC) is and when it should be used. Here, we’ll look at setting connection and spaces.

Connecting to data

How do you get data into DWC? There are several adapters that can connect to SAP and non-SAP systems and with most of the adapters you can choose to connect virtually to the source system or replicate the data into DWC. A virtual connection is like a live connection to your on-premise systems. You can also load data directly from flat files and web sources.

There is a tight integration with SAP BW/4HANA via the SAP BW adapter to retrieve data from ABAP tables, ABAP CDS Views and BW Queries. Using a live connection, you can bring a BW Query as a remote table and import the meta-data for all the dimension and key figures. Once the query is a remote table, in DWC you can define filters, add calculations, hide columns, preview the data, etc.

The SAP ABAP Adapter supports ABAP Dictionary object types and real-time support for S/4HANA ABAP CDS-Views, Services-API (SAPI)Setting up the SAP adapter is simple and requires installing the SAP Data Provisioning Agent (DP Agent) in the BW System (on the host in the local network). Then in DWC you need to configure a new DP Agent, this is done in the Administration menu and in the Data Integration tab which takes a couple of minutes to setup and the install and create the communication credentials.

If you are acquiring data from Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle database, you need to download and install the necessary JDBC library.

Spaces – Virtual work areas

Now you have users and connections; the next step is defining a work area for integration, modelling and building stories. Spaces are virtual work areas and can be defined by line of business or project teams giving the users a designated area to model their data and create stories. There is a status bar with a high-level view of the health of the Spaces and the Space Monitor has a detailed display of the statistics in charts indicating the consumptions of memory and disk.

Within the Space management you have the following:

• Storage and Compute. This is where you decide and assign disk, CPU usage and in-memory storage need to be assigned to the Space, this can be increased or decreased at any time. There is also Space Priority which can give queries preferences before other queries with a lower Space Priority
• Members. Assign an owner for the space and they can give access to users who can work in the Space
• Connection. Leverage the connections that have already been and assigning only the system in the Space the users need
• Scheme Access. With exposed data and metadata from third-party tools via JDBC and creating SQL schema. The Open SQL can expose metadata from a Space to third-party tool.
• Auditing. Can be switched on for individual Spaces and create read and changes logs.

This is the third of a multi-series blog with the next part focusing on data modelling and using the data. To find out how Capgemini can help your organisation benefit from DWC, please get in touch.

Hinal Kansagra

SAP BI Consultant

Hinal Kansagra is an SAP BI consultant in SAP BI in the UK I&D team. She has over 10 years’ experience providing SAP BW & Analytics solutions.