Why DXC? Why not RDS (RAPID DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION/SAP Content) for Extractors in HANA over replicated tables?

[Former Member]

For all those who are familiar with the Data Provisioning techniques in HANA, here is an interesting thought.

SLT Replication:

The SAP Landscape Transformation (LT) Replication is the SAP technology that allows you to load and replicate data in real-time from SAP source systems and non-SAP source systems to an SAP HANA environment.

The SAP LT Replication Server uses a trigger-based replication approach to pass data from the source system to the target system.

(source: http://help.sap.com/hana/hana_slt_tom_en.pdf)

DXC Extraction:

SAP HANA Direct Extractor Connect (DXC) is a means for providing out-of-the-box foundational data models to SAP HANA, which are based on SAP Business Suite entities. DXC is also a data acquisition method. The rationale for DXC is essentially simple, low TCO data acquisition for SAP HANA leveraging existing delivered data models.

SAP Business Content DataSource Extractors have been available for many years as a basis for data modeling and data acquisition for SAP Business Warehouse; now with DXC, these SAP Business Content DataSource Extractors are available to deliver data directly to SAP HANA.

(source: https://websmp206.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000421852012E)

Why DXC (Advantages):

1)      Significantly reduces Complexity of data modeling tasks in SAP HANA.

2)      Speeds up timelines for customer`s implementation projects.

So, DXC is a sure plus point.

Disadvantage of DXC:

1)      We are storing the modeled data along with base tables (which are replicated using SLT). This is kind of data duplication.

2)      We are compromised to deal with semantically rich data at the cost of sacrificing real time data availability.

Sure it is relief for developers to hear that the modeled data can be used instead of going through the whole modeling process from base tables which is time consuming process and difficult to deal with.

RDS (RAPID DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION/SAP Content) for Extractors in HANA over replicated tables?

To avoid the above mentioned disadvantages of DXC and to avail the benefits of DXC, why can`t we have RDS where the extractors are already modeled in HANA and can be deployed once replication starts on ECC tables.

How does this work:

Step 1: we replicate tables from ECC using SLT. (this can be real time).

Step 2: deploy the already modeled (view on the base tables) extractor in Hana.

Step 3: when we are looking for modeled data (extractor output), use the output of the vies (extractor model in HANA).

In the below example, we are looking at the implementation of 0FI_AP_04 extractor.

Step1: The base tables (BSAK and BSIK) are replicated using SLT

Step2: once the base tables are available in HANA, we deploy the RDS for extractor 0FI_AP_04 which is a view in HANA.

Step3: The Output of the view is similar to the output of Extractor 0FI_AP_04.

This way, we can have the advantages of both DXC(extractor output) and SLT(Real time data).

Advantages:

1)      Significantly reduces Complexity of data modeling tasks in SAP HANA. (In line with DXC).

2)      Speeds up timelines for customer`s implementation projects. (In line with DXC).

3)      Real time data availability (In addition to DXC)

Disadvantages:

1)      Extensive use of Resources (calculation engine etc.,) every time a query is performed on extractor data.

-          But this is what HANA is built for.

So with the above stated advantages, it will be useful if SAP can comeup with RDS content for Extractors in HANA.

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