Migration of EHANA to Datasphere by leveraging Native HANA Cloud Instance of Datasphere Tenant

[Jinal_Patel1]

Prerequisites & Considerations

It is expected from reader of this blog to already have acquainted with basic understanding of SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Datasphere.

System Readiness:To leverage HANA Cloud Instance of Datasphere (Native HANA), below set of prerequisites should be completed:

1. SAP BTP Space Access
2. SAP Datasphere tenant and SAP Business Technology Platform subaccount must be in the same data center (for example, eu10, us10)
3. Subscribed to SAP HANA Schemas & HDI Containers service in Cloud Foundry Space
4. Business Application Studio (BAS) subscription on same BTP Subaccount

This approach can be considered only for moderate to small number of EHANA Legacy models migration and also it needs additional resource allocation while Datasphere tenant sizing.

Introduction

This document primarily facilitates the understanding of migrating from EHANA to Datasphere by utilizing the underlying HANA Cloud instance within Datasphere. Additionally, it outlines the quick setup steps for this process. This approach represents a Potential use case for Datasphere, enabling the benefits of both EHANA legacy models and new models within Datasphere. Consequently, it eliminates the need for manual transitioning of legacy models to Datasphere models.

SAP Datasphere is a public cloud software as a service (SaaS) data warehouse. SAP Datasphere supports a business data warehouse architecture that harmonizes data across the enterprise. It includes services for data modeling, data integration, cataloging, and data warehousing across SAP and non-SAP data. With the aim of facilitating and accelerating decision-making, SAP Datasphere is a tool designed for both experts from the world of analytics and key business users. In terms of interfaces, the duality between technical and business users is reflected in the ‘Data Builder’ layer, dedicated to integration and modelling, and the ‘Business Builder’ layer, dedicated to semantics and business rules. Datasphere is application layer and it’s powered by HANA Cloud beneath it.

1 – Datasphere Capabilities

Commonly adopted migration Approach: Migrating HANA On-prem artifacts to XSA and in future again convert those XSA objects to Datasphere models as innovate story.

New Innovate migration Approach: Migrating HANA On-prem artifacts directly to Datasphere by leveraging Native HANA Cloud layer of Datasphere.

Use Case - What is Need!!

With SAP announcing the end of XSC support by 2025, there is a significant demand among SAP customers using XSC to migrate to either XSA or HANA Cloud to ensure the continuity of their existing analytics reports without having to completely redevelop them in a new analytical tool. This solution offers customers the opportunity to migrate legacy EHANA models to the cloud using a single Datasphere license, eliminating the need for separate XSA or HANA Cloud licenses. This positions SAP Datasphere as a unified analytical solution for their enterprise. There are other salient features highlighted as below of this design:

 

Solution

1 Overview

This solution utilizes underneath HANA Cloud DB as migration target system from XSC system. Migration from XSC to HANA Cloud steps remain same as migrating it to XSA via SAP provided Migration Tool. Following this, additional steps, detailed below, are required to successfully migrate XSC/XSA artifacts into Datasphere.

 

2 Architecture

 

2.1 – Design preview

 

Steps

1 Mapping Datasphere Tenant with BTP Space

To enable SAP SQL Data Warehousing on SAP Datasphere tenant, an S-user must create an SAP ticket for the DWC-SM component to request SAP to map SAP Datasphere tenant to SAP Business Technology Platform account. This is one time activity for each datasphere tenant.

In SAP Ticket mention below information:

• SAP Datasphere Tenant ID
• SAP Business Technology Platform Org GUID
• SAP Business Technology Platform Space GUID

2 Run Migration Tool

To convert EHANA legacy models to HANA Cloud compatible artifacts, SAP has provided Migration tool. Output of this tool execution will be HANA Cloud compatible project. More details about this step documented in this SAP Standard guidebook.

3 Create HANA DB Project in BAS

Project generated from step 2 needs to be uploaded into BTP Business application studio (BAS). Create HDI Container from BTP HANA help wizard and then attach that HDI container to hdi_db service as shown below.

3.1 – Steps Overview

DWC_CONSUMPTION_ROLE and DWC_CONSUMPTION_ROLE# hdbroles needs to be created in HDI.

Once all Above depicted steps are completed successfully, build db module. If build is successful, then from database explorer data preview will be enabled for further model functionality test by previewing data.

4 Attach HDI to Datasphere Space

To reuse existing legacy models inside datasphere layer, HDI needs to be bound to space as shown below:

4.1 – Attaching HDI

Once attached, CV created inside HDI can be used as data source within datasphere layer. Currently SAP has not enabled sharing semantics, Input parameters and Variables from calculation view to Datasphere layer. SAP will be enabling this in datasphere future releases as per roadmap Q4 2024.

Update Q4 2024: If Calculation view has Input parameter and requirement is to cascade this input parameter in Datasphere as well then create new remote HANA Database connection with same native database tenant of Datasphere in Datasphere connection screen and then try to access underlying HANA Models with remote connection and you will have Input Parameters created and mapped automatically in Datasphere remote tables. This works very well!!

4.2 – CV as data source

Apart from this, CV created in HDI can directly consumed by front end/ reporting tools by ODBC/JDBC or OData connection.

Appendix A

Nomenclature & Acronyms
BAS	Business Application Studio
XSA/XSC	XS Advanced/ XS Classic
db	Database
CV	Calculation View