[This blog has been co-authored by Rahul Tiwari ( Cross Product Management, HANA Database & Analytics) and Saurav Chetry( SAP Integration & Certification Center)]

SAP’s solution offerings can help customers achieve an end-to-end data management and analytics requirements for intelligent decision making. To achieve this, customers can use their data from the digital core solutions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud and leverage SAP’s Business Technology Platform based solutions like SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP is a leader in offering complete capabilities to customers for their end-to-end data management. There are some customer requirements to extract data from SAP solutions for further data processing in an external platform. Traditionally, SAP solutions have been shipped with native interfaces which enable such integration to external platforms. Such integrations depend on utilizing the SAP provided standard APIs. There is also the possibility to add custom business logic in ABAP for pre-processing data or filtering and selecting the required data for extraction. Many SAP partners have also chosen to certify such integrations for better customer outreach over the years.

In today’s cloud environments, SAP Datasphere points the way to connect our customers’ business data and true value of their SAP ERP solution. While traditional integration approaches are still available for customers and our ecosystem to use, SAP certification of partner solutions will focus on the latest SAP innovations to highlight best practices.

Traditional Approaches and Challenges

Here is an overview of how external applications have been integrating with SAP solutions for extracting data for further processing in an external data platform in traditional on-premise environments. We will also highlight the pros and cons of the currently available approaches, clarify the correct use of such interfaces as well as discuss our new integration recommendation.

Today, most 3^rd party ETL tools use the ABAP application layer of SAP S/4HANA solution to perform data extraction. The APIs based on either SAP remote functions or custom developed functions are called directly from the external application over an http or https communication. Sometimes the standard or the custom developed remote functions are directly called periodically by the application via the applicable SAP connector, viz. Java Connector (JCo) or .Net Connector (NCo) etc. There are custom developed ABAP programs or reports which perform the SQL operations to select the data to be extracted, which then depend on SAP standard or custom remote functions for executing the extraction. Many ETL tools have a combination of such methods which is no longer a recommended best practice from SAP.

The implementation of the above approach is mostly based on custom development using classic ABAP, which may lead to delays or errors during SAP upgrades. These approaches may not have adopted the cloud ready  ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model that helps keep the digital core clean.

SAP technologies like SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT), or ABAP adapter for SAP Smart Data Integration are suitable for near real time data replication between SAP applications and SAP HANA. Both can utilize SAP ODP/ODQ adapters from the SAP applications for data extraction. However, for real-time integration with external applications, these technologies are not recommended due to their SAP-to-SAP (internal) integration positioning.

Some external applications have utilized direct measures to read SAP HANA’s redo transaction log in binary or logical way and tried to create information out of the embedded log streams for transforming and loading data into other products. However, there is no published SAP API for the redo-log information extraction, which we have clarified in SAP note 2971304 and listed the potential issues with this approach.

The use of ABAP application layer utilizing the ABAP Cloud Development Model for further processing of customer data for specific functional use case is acceptable as this uses the SAP technologies and interfaces judiciously.

Recommendations & Requirements going forward

For external applications that require access to customer data from SAP applications, we strongly recommend using SAP Datasphere as the new semantic layer, which enables a business data fabric architecture that uniquely harmonizes mission-critical data across the organization from various SAP and non SAP sources. For more details on SAP Datasphere, refer the help documentation & for roadmap – Roadmap Explorer.

With customers adopting “RISE with SAP” and BTP being available across global data centers from SAP and partner infrastructure providers, BTP will continue to play a major role in our roadmap in fulfilling customer’s integration requirements.

SAP-certified Integrations of Partner Solutions

Integration Certification program from SAP Integration and Certification Center offers opportunity to SAP partners to get recognized for adopting and implementing integration best practices. There are certification services available which SAP partners can use to validate their software in alignment with our customers’ journey to the cloud. For the data replication scenarios, we do not certify ETL tools for outbound use cases from SAP systems including from Datasphere .

Integrations of use cases that span a specific end-to-end business process can also apply for certification as depicted in the flow chart below:

Integration of end-to-end business processes between transactional applications and third-party tools:

ERP:

To support our customers’ move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public/private), partners should integrate with S/4HANA Cloud (public/private) for certification options. Integrations with ECC systems are no longer certified.

BW/4HANA:

Analytical applications or platforms (non ETL) that integrate with SAP BW/4HANA via released SAP APIs are certifiable.

SAP HANA:

From an SAP HANA use rights perspective, there are two primary licensing models, runtime and full-use.

SAP HANA: On-Prem/Private Cloud (Private Cloud Edition and Private Tailored Option)

Runtime is a restricted use license of SAP HANA, restricted for use where data platform capabilities are only available by and through an SAP licensed application package. There are some limited exceptions to this positioning as documented in the SUR – most notably the ability to model views for reporting purposes and consumption of those views by SAP and certified 3rd party BI tools. All data extraction must occur via the application layer, no direct extraction from the database layer is permitted. At the application layer, the policies governing Indirect Static Read and/or Digital Access are applicable.

SAP HANA, enterprise edition is a full-use edition of SAP HANA with no limitations on access to platform capabilities. SAP HANA, enterprise edition can be used to run any application, contain any data, and allows open access to all ‘engines’ of HANA natively via the platform.

SAP HANA in S/4HANA Cloud  (and SAP public SaaS offerings):

All interaction with the database to occur via the application, no database use rights are granted.

SAP HANA Integration Certifications:

Inbound into SAP HANA: Three integration certifications for SAP HANA are applicable:

1. Third-Party BI Client Tools Connected to SAP HANA via SQL Certification (HANA-BI-SQL) Analytical applications are certifiable for SQL based integration utilizing HANA client interfaces with HANA On-Premise. Third-party business intelligence (BI) vendors integrate their front end solution BI solutions, for reporting purposes only. No data distribution. Certified 3^rd party BI tool vendors are referenced in both the SUR and SDGs for SAP HANA runtime, to grant the use right to access SAP HANA, runtime directly.
2. Third Party ETL Tool loading data into SAP HANA (HANA-ETL) ETL tools that load data into SAP HANA from non-HANA databases or SAP applications running on non-HANA databases are certifiable. However, outbound data extraction is not certifiable via this scenario. SAP Datasphere is the recommended approach.
3. Third party BI tools for SAP HANA Cloud (HCL-BI-TOOL) Analytical applications are certifiable for SQL based integration utilizing HANA client interfaces with HANA Cloud.

Outbound from SAP HANA: There are no outbound ETL certifications for SAP HANA.

For more information or to discuss your use cases, please contact the SAP Integration and Certification Center at [email protected].