First look into SAP Datasphere's new version control functionality

[hoerzenbergers]

Up until now there was no standard version control within SAP Datasphere.

1/ You could program it with a custom development on top using the CLI & downloading the CSN/JSON files to get a file-based coding that can be analysed through versioning tools such as Github.

2/ There was a way to do a roll-back to a previous deployment if an object deploy failed.

3/ You could safeguard/save objects within Exports to snapshot objects in previous state & then import them to restore to a previous state. We used this in the past to take weekly snapshots of SAP Datasphere environments.

But if someone changed something & deployed, you couldn’t easily go back to a previous version.

Version history now included in SAP Datasphere

But this all changes today! Reviewing and restoring object versions is now possible. You can find all the details in the help documentation: Reviewing and Restoring Object Versions | SAP Help Portal

Viewing version is possible for all objects but restoring them is not possible for every object, currently restore versions is supported on the following objects:

• Graphical View
• SQL View
• Analytical Model
• Local table ( with some restrictions)

Important ones that are still missing are the Replication Flow & transformation flow.

How it works

If you go to an object, you now see a new button Versions. If you click it the version history opens. What is the limit you might think? It lists up to the last 500 versions of the object in reverse order.

If you click it then you see the various versions history.

There are 3 different version types:

1/ Deployment

2/ Move to Recycle Bin ( if a user deletes an object)

3/ Restore from recycle bin (if user restored an object from deletion)

On all three types you can take 2 actions:

1/ Open version in a new tab. Here you can view the object, see what is different & restore it. This is a neat feature but for complex objects, it can be difficult to visualize where the differences are since there is no visual queue. It just shows the object as it was in that version. You would need to display the current version on another screen to compare.

2/ Export to CSN/JSON File. This action does what it has always done. It downloads the CSN/JSON file. It is a JSON formatted file with the code of your object.

This gives the neat option to use a basic tool like Notepad++ to compare 2 versions of code & quickly pin what differences are there. See the red coding differences. There was a column removed Last

This gives options to integrate & analyze files with something like Github. (to be fair, this was already possible, see my point 1 in the introduction).

Remark: Some code is generated by SAP Datasphere & harder to analyze. You see a great example of this in the GitHub printscreen below where there is some metadata added.

Conclusion

There is now a complete version history & versions can be restored. You can analyze differences but this needs still a custom step in between to be practical on large objects. The great thing is, that you can enable something like this!

Really looking forward to next improvements for this feature!

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Big thanks to my co-authors & colleagues Simon Vandelanotte & Mathias Middernacht!