Difference between DRF and SLT

[former_member711150]

Hello everyone,

I am currently writing my master's thesis on the subject of SAP Car. I am currently trying to find all information on the topic to get an overview. I use a test system with the SAP Car Release 2.0 SP4. The data comes from a SAP ERP system.

As I found out so far, the Data Replication Framework (DRF) can be used to replicate data from the SAP backend to the Demand Data Foundation (DDF) module in the SAP Customer Activity Repository.

In addition, some objects are replicated via System Landscape Transfer (SLT) from SAP ERP to SAP CAR.

What I have not found out so far: Why is DRF and SLT needed? What is the difference? Exactly which data is replicated with DRF and which with SLT?

Thank you and best regards

Nick

[michael_piesche]

Did you read the following blog https://blogs.sap.com/2017/12/07/data-replication-between-sap-backends-and-sap-customer-activity-rep...? The included links will give you more insights about what data / tables are included in the DRF and the SLT replication.

• 2388669 - SLT Tables Used in CAR RETAIL APPL BUNDLE 2.0 (SAP_S4H Schema)
  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2388669
• 2774819 - DRFOut Implementations by scenario for Customer Activity Repository Application Bundle
  https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2774819
• SAP Customer Activity Repository Applications Bundle
  SAP Customer Activity Repository 4.0 SPS04
  https://help.sap.com/viewer/e95c8443f589486bbfec99331049704a/4.0.4/en-US/c87c504220db4a82a41032a65cd...

But to answer your question why you are required to use both, that is something you most likely need to ask the product developers. Those can be choices of convenience, performance, functionality, ... It is not the first time that a product requires several technologies in order to be operational.

SAP CARAB comes with many applications, and some require data from ERP by SLT (e.g. CAR OAA - Omnichannel Article Availability and Sourcing) or by DRF (e.g. CAR OPP - Omnichannel Promotion Pricing). Whenever the CAR DDF (Demand Data Foundation) is mentioned, the data is replicated through DRF.

What happens also, is that in some cases of data replication, one technology gets replaced by another:

" Data Integration for Wholesale Sales OrdersThe report /DMF/WHOLESALE_SO_SHP_TO_TS_WS that populates the /DMF/TS_WS table from the SLT replicated sales order tables has been replaced by a new DRF outbound implementation SALES_ORDR. The inbound DDF RFC /DMF/OPIF_DOCUMENT_INBOUND was included in a previous release.

[pramodu]

As couple of people explained earlier which completely make sense with those points.

When I was doing CAR implementation for PMR exactly the same question I also had.

DRF is only applicable when both source and target is SAP application .

Example - I have requirement that SAP ECC has certain transformation rule/filter need to be applied before pushing data to CAR PMR. There we needed DRFOUT outbound implementation objects such as PMAT(Material), PMCH(Merchandise Category Hierarchy), PPLT(Plant), PMPL(Product Location)etc.

Ex. when article is expired for a given sales date, send indicator 'D' to CAR and then delete such old items. Implement such rules with DRFOUT

You begin project, it's recommended first do SLT to replicate required Tables then do DRF.

[former_member335292]

Hi Nick,

I've listed down the differences between SLT and DRFOUT in one of my recently published blogs.

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/10/13/slt-vs-drfout

Hope it helps to clarify your queries.

Thanks,

Aram.

[former_member709171]

Hi

The difference between SLT and DRFOUT is that SLT replicates complete tables at the database level, from ERP to CAR.

Complete tables, structure and data, additionally SLT is used for real-time replication.

DRF is used to replicate data but applying rules and a certain quality of data, it replicates information from ERP to CAR in a specific data model (DDF) and does not run in real time.

Regards

[Former Member]

Is it mandatory to set up data replication between SAP ERP/S4HANA and SAP CAR? In other words can we implement SAP CAR without SAP ERP/S4HANA or with an old SAP ERP ECC 6.04? If we can do it without a SAP ERP system, which SAP CAR modules/functions can we use ?

If it’s mandatory to have a SAP ERP system, do we need to have the SAP retail (add-on) ?

[pramodu]

ERP is source of master of data and without having master data replicated from ERP to CAR, you can not do CAR implementation.

As far as I understand , yes we do not SAP ERP or S/4 HANA to begin CAR implementation.

[former_member711150]

You all helped me a lot, thank you!

Regards

Nick