SAP Partner Edge for Application Development - SAP HCP Q&A Session 2015

[timo_renner]

This is a list of the questions asked during the Q&A sessions conducted by SAP Partner Edge for Application Development in 2015.

Wherever possible, the answers have been exchanged with links to the documentation or other suitable resources.

December 3rd:

Q: What is the oldest version of SAP BusinessSuite that can leverage SAP HANA Cloud Connector “connect” to HCP?

A: Using the Cloud connector we can connect an SAP Business Suite System as old as 4.6C & upwards.

Q: Is it possible to move/transport objects from one account to another?

A: This depends on your use case. Please refer to Change Management with CTS+ for further information.

Q: Partner would like to deploy their HCP app in DC in the US, but customer would include users accessing from Asia as well. Would that create issues in terms of latency?

A: Yes, this is depending upon the size of the application. For such scenarios the partners could configure a Content Delivery Network Service(CDN) for e.g. from AKAMAI which enables caching of static content on the local servers in Asia. This would considerably increase the performance. Of course best is if they could test their performance in the first place. This CDN service has to be bought by such partners directly from a CDN provider.

Q: How can I assign a Cloud User Store (configured in the cloud connector) to an application like the cloud portal or mobile services or InternetOfThings. Found a hint for assign the Cloud User Store to an own developed application, but not to SAP provided Apps.

A: The user management works exactly the same also for SAP owned services like Cloud Portal & others once a destination is configured.

Q: Which configuration in the Hana Cloud Destinations is needed to handle the user management access to the Cloud User Store in the SAP Cloud Connector configuration.

A: Please check Configuring User Store in the Cloud Connector.

Q: Partner is looking to move from SMP 2.3 to 3.0 and HCPms. But they are blocked in regards to LDAP support on SMP 3.0 not working the same way it did on SMP 2.3. Would moving directly to HCPms and using the Cloud Identity Service remedy this situation?

A: Yes, LDAP is apparently working different in on-premise vs. on-demand. The partner basically has three options (two using HCPms):

- Use HCP SCI and Cloud Connector to connect SCI to the on-premise LDAP and expose his local LDAP as SAML2.0 provide – recommended

- Use – in case of Active Directoy – the AD Federation Services and use a reverse proxy to expose his local LDAP to HCP with SAML – not recommended.

- SMP 3.0 DOES support LDAP on-premise.

Q: Creating Java Application, using the JPA programming is the only way to expose OData services to a UI app, if XS Engine is not available? Are there any alternatives to JPA?

A: In regards to persistence with Java, JPA (using Hibernate, Eclipselink or other frameworks) is a possible way, but not the only one.

Exposing Java services via OData requires the Apache Olingo library, if Atom-based REST is fine you can also use CXF.

The XS Engine is able to provide OData services as well, but this is not related to Java.

November 19th

Q: How could the HCP extension UI reflect the customer added fields in their Onpremise module?

A: The partners application should use APIs to read customer custom development I.e. fields etc meta data and dynamically build the UI for this in the HCP extension.

Q: Is there an overview on the pros & cons re Cloud Connector, Gateway approach, RFC?

A: See Release notes

Q: Is docker on the roadmap?

A: SAP plans to offer HCP Virtual machines to customers/partners by end of 2015 / Q1 2016. These virtual machines would be Suse Linux based boxes which allow partners to install applications and run them in the cloud on HCP.

Q: Adobe interactive forms service – can this be used via the development system received via the SAP HANA Cloud Innovation pack?

A: Not part of the offering for partners yet.

November 5th

Q: Is it possible to build an HCP app (Java) on HCP and run on the onPrem system.

A: Yes this possible as long as you are not using any HCP specific services in your app.

Q: Can you explain how to perform the staged application development on HCP? Our goal is to be able to test our application in a separate HANA instance from our development instance so we can validate both the application installation and its functionality. Currently, we have one account on HCP and one XS instance deployed. I am specifically referring to native HANA development (and not Java development, which can be achieved via multiple accounts).

A: Staged application development on an HCP Java level can be organized by setting up Sub Accounts in HCP. E.g. for one account for dev, one for test etc. You can then assigning adequate HCP resources like compute units etc to each of these accounts as needed. On a HANA database level you will need to either order & assign dedicated HANA instances for each of these accounts or use one dedicated instance and isolate data using data isolation mechanisms like schema level isolation.

Q: Is there a way to setup up Smart Data Access between an on-premise Oracle 12c database and use it to load an HCP HANA instance? If so, is there an SAP Note?

A: Currently Smart Data Access is not yet available on HCP. This is planned for Q1 2016.

Q: If not, what is the recommended method to load an HCP instance using an on-premise Oracle 12c database?

A: There are various data integration technologies which can be used to load data from an onPremise database into the HANA instance on HCP. These methods include existing onPremise data integration technologies like SAP Data Services, SLT. HCP offers HCI-PI/DS for integrating data from onpremise to HAAN in HCP. Depending upon the scenario needs an appropriate technology can be used.

Q: Do you know the status of when SPS 10 will be available on HCP?

A: HANA SPS 10 was recently released on HCP

Q: What is the recommended workaround for "argument type mismatch: Can't use column expression as column view parameter"? I have a SQL Script that populates a result view. I'd like to join the result view in a query but I am running into the exception.

A: This is a very SQL specific question. Please create a support message.

Q: For existing Partners what are the marketing opportunities available.

A: Please clarify with your assigned Partner Service Advisor on marketing opportunities of your application via SAP PartnerEdge for Application Development.

Q: Can we also get more marketing information in SAP Virtual Agency?

A: It’s a self service marketing tool to provide the option to partners to create a marketing campaign. Currently the process is in pilot. If decided to make us of in the SAP PartnerEdge for Application development, a roll out information will be send accordingly.

Further info available at FAQ SAP Virtual Agency

Q: Can a partner get ASE for development on HCP? We know that there is SAP ASE DBaaS for customers but is there a development option for ASE on HCP specifically?

A: Yes, partners may receive a ASE for development at as specific price point. Information will be available soon here.

October 22nd

Q: Is Cloud Connector sufficient to connect from HCP to a customers SAP backend or is HCI needed?

A: It all depends on what the scenario is. For pure point to point connectivity to call OnPremise functionality like BAPIs, RFCs, OData services etc. exposed via onPremise systems the SAP Cloud Connector could suffice. However, if advanced functionality is required for e.g. n-to-n connectivity as an integration hub, HANA Cloud Integration – Process Integration (HCI-PI) would be the suitable soln.

Q: How can HCP be connected with S4/HANA?

A: S/4 HANA comes in three different deployment variants. 1) OnPremise 2) In HANA Enterprise Cloud 3) SAP Cloud. For the first two variants, again depending on the scenario SAP Cloud Connector or HCI-PI could be used from HCP. In the third Scenario where S/4 HANA is hosted in the SAP Cloud and offered as a SaaS so HCI-PI could be used

Q: Are there best practices on the replication of data from HCP DB to a OnPrem DB?

A: SAP has a number of data replication technologies onPremise like SAP Data Services, SLT, etc. On the SAP HANA Cloud Platform HCI-Data Services is currently the ETL capability available today. SAP Smart Data Integration on HANA planned in due time. The onPremise technologies can be used also to replicate data to HANA in HCP. Depending on the scenario and the needs the selection of technology may vary.

Q: What software do we need for this replication?

A: If their customer already has an SAP landscape, they could leverage existing OnPremise data replication solutions like, SLT, Data Services to replicate data to the HANA in HCP using the SAP Cloud Connector as the secure tunnel between the customer’s On-premise system and HCP. If these data replication solutions do not exist at the customer they could use the HCP offering HCI-Data Services to ELT their data to HANA.

Q: We want to push back information from strEAM+ to SAP BS. There are three possible actions: Add a record to an existing table in SAP BS (e.g. a new maintenance plan)

A: Most of the BS suite solutions offer APIs, BAPIs, RFCs or even OData services to access and update data from existing tables. Based on the solution in question they need to refer to the appropriate API documentation to see what’s possible. SAP always recommends the use of documented APIs for accessing data. These offered functions / OData Services could be called from any application in HCP using the connectivity service destination & the SAP Cloud Connector (SCC). This is the basic extending OnPremise use case on HCP.

Update an existing field (e.g. alter a date of a work order)

A: Same as above. All CRUD functionality can be offered as long as the OnPremise application allows it. There is no HCP side technology restriction here.

Update a new field that is added for specific strEAM+ information

A: As I understand it from the call, this is about the adding a new field as in changing the meta data. This needs to be checked with the appropriate Suite solution if there is an API for that. There is no HCP side technology restriction, as long as the Suite solution allows this through an API.

Copyright/Trademark

Q: Can HCP be deployed outside of SAP in customer data center?

A: Today SAP HCP runs in SAP Data Centers only. With the transition to Cloud Foundry and OpenStack SAP plans to make HCP available in customer and partner data centers. This is on the roadmap and planned in 2016.

Q: We have a partner who is building a HCPms app. They want to know if there is a "broadcast" feature to distribute files to mobile users? And if so, if they send a 10 MB file to 100 users is that seen as using up 10 MB of bandwidth (because it's the same file being broadcasted) or is it seen as the 1 GB of bandwidth (10 MB x 100 users = 1 GB)?

A: Well, yes we do have something like a “broadcast”, but it is meant for occasionally updates of content for app resources. It is called “Customization Resource Bundle” and the usage is described here. Depending on the use case it could also be possible to use the AppUpdate feature for Hybrid Applications which works more “automatic”. This is best described here.

Of course the data can also be “broadcasted” using a proper back-end service.

Yes, the bandwidth is calculated even if it’s the same file – it’s still data send down to the device.

Q: I am porting an ASP.NET application to a SAP Hana environment and have the following questions:

- Are there SAP Hana function libraries that provide o Server side XML Dom parsing? o Server side XSLT transformations

- Our current ASP.Net application includes DLLs written in C#. Can SAP Hana support the .Net framework?

A: see libraries.

October 8th

Q: Is there a supported way to connect to SuccessFactors SFAPI via HCP through SSO? I.E. without me having to know the user id/password of the user logged in to SuccessFactors. This currently works for OData through SAML.

A: It’s not possible to connect to SuccessFactors SFAPI with ID propagation. It’s intended for replication purposes, therefore the user which has access to it should have relatively high privileges. There is no permission layer behind SFAPI, therefore providing access to it is extremely dangerous from a security standpoint. While unavoidable for some scenarios – it must be done with care. So the typical approach to leverage SFAPI is to use a technical user, which has no interactive login permissions.

Q: Does HCP's security service / cloud identity offers user login via end-user's social media login credentials for ext. app such as Facebook, Google, etc. If not, are there any plans to add this in near future?

A: These scenarios are supported. Please have a look at the documentation for more details how to enable social network logons.

Q: We are a new Partner, and have existing certified applications with SAP using .NET application hierarchy. When will HCP be ready to accept these types of applications, and is this being done via the 'Cloud Foundry' planned integration? What is the timeline for Cloud Foundry?

A: During our architectural shift towards Cloud Foundry+Open Stack there will be a support for so called “build packs” (please see here for more details). They allow you to introduce additional programming languages to HCP. If there is a build pack for .NET you will be able to use this build pack to develop in .NET. Current state of planning is to introduce Cloud Foundry in mid of 2016. But please not that this might change without any further notice.

Q: Is Virtual machine the same as Docker? Any info on the planning for Docker?

A: No, HCP virtual machines are “real” virtual machines. In comparison to lightweight container mechanisms like e.g. Docker they offer a full/complete “virtualized server environment” with ist own set of resources allocated to them. So you get more isolation compared to container mechanisms. Of course we think of introducing lightweight containers mechanisms, but currently there are no detailed plans for a Docker offering.

Q: We Would like to know how to access XS oData services from the App built by Web IDE. The Destination is set ok. The Web IDE can see the data source and fill the App fields, but when we run the App through web IDE, shows NO DATA

A: Since this is a detailed implementation question we suggest considering the following two options:

- If this might be an implementation issue you could raise the question within the SAP Community Network (SCN). There are a lot of technical experts (e.g., on database, programming, architecture level) which might provide you with valuable insights.

- If you believe this is a bug in our HCP environment you could create a support ticket.

Q: As a follow up question to the discussion about the virtual machines that will become available, will the Virtual Machines be able to reach a database we have on our HCP account? And would a java application deployed in our HCP account be able to reach, via a socket connection, an application running on our Virtual Machine?

A: Yes, of course. A possible scenario you might think of: Calling an R-Server which runs within an HCP virtual machine from your HCP account, doing statistical calculations in the R-Server and sending back the results to the calling applications.

Q: When looking at the pricelist there are limits for bandwidth on database services and application services level. How is this bandwidth limits measured? How is it handled if we order both packages (e.g., database services and AppServices).

A: As of now you/customers are paying for the outbound traffic leaving SAP’s datacenters. But please expect that there might be changes in the future. E.g., because there might be IoT-Scenarios causing a lot of inbound-traffic and making the current metering/offering inefficient. If you order packages for database services and Appservices the bandwidth limits included in these packages will be added.

Q: When might SPS 10 come to HCP

A: Current planning is, that SPS 10 will be available in Oct/Nov. 2015.

Q: What is the "smallest" package a customer can purchase to use a partner app?

A: The answer to this question depends on the use case the customer has. So we suggest to have an individual follow up on this topic.

Q: Will multi tenancy in SPS 10 on HCP be truly multitenant? I.e. will the SAP HANA MDC.'s be securely segmented so multiple end user can from different customers could access the same SAP HCP instance?

- one instance, multiple different "companies"

A: Yes, MDC allows for splitting up the whole HANA instance into isolated tenants. This should allow partners or customers to offer “own secure DB” to their customers.

Q: Does ext app. developed for C4C which can be accessed in C4C mash-up UI require HANA Cloud Portal? Would the upcoming ASE resource be available As-a-Service ?

A: Yes, the upcoming ASE will be an alternative to HANA on the Database as a Service Level.

Q: We have a prospect who wants to have some BI functionality with his HCP-integrated app. More specifically he wants to run analytics on HCP and then create a visualization using BI. Since BI is not available as a service, he is thinking about using HCI to integrate HCP with an onPrem BI install. Is this feasible? Any considerations to keep in mind?

A: This is possible but we suggest to have an individual follow to discuss the scenario.

September 24th

Q: A prospect would like to know if HCP supports ORM tools such as Hibernate? http://hibernate.org/

A: If tools or apps developed by partners can bind to the persistence layer of HCP using Java Persistence API (JPA) they can be used. But please note that there might be special “tweaks” of 3rd party software tool vendors which are not standard and cause the tools to be incompatible with the standard and HCP.

Q: A HCP partner need to replicate the BSEG table from ERP onPremise to HCP with the same structure. How do they can implement it? Where is the best place to find this info?

A: This blogpost would be a good starting point for replication questions. Moreover we suggest that you raise your specific question in SCN.

Q: We received this question from one prospect from Canada who wants to sign for HCP:

“Currently the Data Center options are only in the US, EMEA and AJP and not Canada. When releasing a cloud app solution to customers, would US customers have their data placed in the US data center while Canadian customers have their data placed in the Canadian data center? This is a concern for some Canadian companies wish to keep their data on Canadian soil.”

Are there any plans to open a Canadian data center?

A: Right now we are working to strengthen our data center presence+coverage in several regions. The next step is Japan in the next month. But no plans for Canada yet. With our shift to an openStack-and CloudFoundry-based architecture there might be options for private deployments of HCP in Canada.

Q: Is there support for RabbitMQ or other message queues? Does HCP support deployment of containers (e.g. docker)?

A: There are planned innovations to add technologies like RabbitMQ and containers technologies during our shift to CloudFoundry and OpenStack. For more details please have a look at our roadmap. But please note that this planning might change without any further notice.

Q: We want to use Cloud Identity Service as part of our HCP PE4AD license. Is that possible? Can we have access to admin console for our environment?

If it is an additional offering of the innovation pack this is possible.

A: Cloud Identity can be purchased by the partner as addl. service – see SAP PartnerEdge for Application Development Partner Center.

It is planned to add the Cloud Identity service to the HCP Innovation pack of the SAP PartnerEdge for Application Development offering.

Q: Does HCP support OpenID Connect ootb?

A: HCP and it’s security services support user stores and identity management using the SAML2-standard.

Q: Can you describe the deployment of an app built in partner dev tenant to customer productive tenant?

What info does the customer need from the partner to get the deployment done?

A: There is a help page on which provides some more information on this topic.

Q: Can you help me understand when the orca analytic offering will be available on HCP?

A: Right now we do not have an official roadmap for this.

Q: Is HANA HCP 9 multi-tenant? What are the restrictions we should know about?

A: This link provides some more info on implementing multi-tenancy, also on DB level.

At the moment, MDC is not available in HANA HCP yet.

Q: What is the primary difference between HCP base Edition and Platform edition - connectors to other SAP applications?

A: Please have a look at this Blogpost on the differences between HCP base and platform edition.

Q: If we start with base edition - can we “upgrade’ to the platform edition easily - what disruption will it cause to our production environment?

A: From a technical point of view there would be now disruption while upgrading. Please not that you will have to change your contract, too.

Q: On HCP are there any restrictions in terms of licensing or subscriptions to named users through cloud ID service, or concurrent users etc.?

A: Based on the subscription you have, there is a restriction of the number of logon requests/month. But you can buy additional logon requests.

Q: We currently have “8002709 - SAP HANA dedicated instance (32GB)” Partner edition for development We are looking for the equivalent to use for production. From the HCP purchase order form I think it is: “8003371 - SAP HANA DB Services, Base Edition 64GB”. Is this correct?

A: Yes it is on the pricelist. There is a new service ‘Base Edition 32GB’, material 8003545.

Q: Can a partner connect HCP via Boomi.

A: If Boomi supports the APIs provided by HCP this connection could be done. But please consider that the suggested and supported tool for integration in HCP is Hana Cloud Integration (HCI) and we cannot guarantee that external 3rd party tools will flawlessly work.

September 10th

Q: A partner has development on the free trial HCP instance. They will be signing the partner HCP innovation pack and would like to port development from the trial instance to the partner instance. How easy/complicated is this?

A: In HCP there are no transport mechanisms like e.g. In ABAP dev environments right now. So If you want to port your development artifacts which you did in the free trial HCP account than you have to export and/or redeploy them (e.g. war-files, html5, Hana XS code as well as data) to the new accounts. The same if you want to have several accounts as DEV/QA/PROD accounts and want to transport artifacts betweens these accounts.
Update: Info on the transport capabilities can be found here.

Q: We know that for a partner to develop HANA applications, he/she requires the SAP HANA DBaaS (i.e. the dedicated instance).

Is this the same thing as the “productive SAP HANA Instance”, described here?

A: From a technical perspective these are the same things. But please note, that from a licensing perspective they are different: The dedicated instance is something which is included in your innovation pack and allows you for developing applications on top of our HANA Database. But if you want to use these developments productively (or resell them) then you will need to subscribe to a productive HANA instance, which allows for productive usage.

Q: What is the difference between Identity and Access Management feature available with HCP and SAP Cloud Identity service?

A: Identity and Access Management in general allows you to do authentification and authorization for HCP apps and e.g. lookup user data/logon information from Identity Providers (Idp) via SAML2.0. E.g. you can bin to your SAML2.0 compliant on-premise IdP or the SAP ID-service. For more details on using/invoking IdPs for authentication and authorization please see here. Cloud Identity service is an additional service with extended functionality like e.g. which can act as an Identity Provider (IdP) in invoked by HCP. For more details on Cloud Identity Service please visit the documentation.

Q: Do you support SAML

A: Yes, SAML 2.0 is supported.

Q: Compute unit lite with a HANA DBaaS, is it possible to increase the RAM the lite compute unit provides

A: Yes, you can order additional/larger resources and compute units.

Q: Question on the API management service compared to HCI and if this make sense for partners

A: Right now we see a customer use case – not a partner case.

August 27th

Q: Cloud identity: is it possible to have 3 Mio Logons technically from a performance perspective (150.000 per day)? Is HCP able to handle this?

A: As per Cloud Identity service team, this is possible.

Q: Customer should acquire an account on HCP, can’t the customer use the partner account? How to service multiple customers out of one account?

A: Partner account can only be used in the embedded or OEM license model. Multi-tenancy is generally supported in HCP, see the documentation for general information on HCP multi-tenancy. Please note that on the application layer there is support for java only. You can use Data Isolation / Multitenancy on the Database Layer (DBaaS). More information can be found here. So you can implement this kind of multi-tenancy on a database level by your own without placing a special request

Q: IoT when will it become GA?

A: IoT is GA for customers right now. For partners we have a different situation: Partners can already try IoT in beta mode. But not in their productive environment. Right now the colleagues are working to commercialize IoT services for partners too. This should happen in the next few months. But please note, that this can change without any further notice.

Q: HANA EIM available when on HCP?

A: There are two parts in EIM: SDI, SDQ. It is planned to bring SDI (not for SDQ) to HCP at the end of the year/beginning of next year. But please note that this might change without further notice.

Q: Question related to multi-tenancy on the HANA DBaaS (dedicated instance): If I need the dedicated database as in a ‘Multi-tenant’ configuration, is it supported? Do I need to make that request or I can switch it myself later.

A: Help Link to Multi-tenant Applications. The feature is for Java only. For HANA native/XS not yet available.

August 13th

Q: Are trials on S4/HANA differently equipped to previous HANA trials; partner would like to use XS and not Java to build Web applications, would like to use XS on S4/HANA, is this included in the free trial?

A: First, we need to clarify that S/4HANA and HCP are different offerings. S4/HANA is the successor of the business suite and not the HCP. On HCP you can use XS in the trial landscape. E.g. in to push down code to the HANA DB layer and build data intensive apps. In the S/4 trial actually there is XS code included “under the hood”. According to our S/4 colleagues you will not be able to develop your own XS apps within the trial landscape.

Q: We are unable to go for subscription model (multiple users, need to deploy the app several times in separate accounts) for the UI5 Applications that are hosted on HCP. We found that, as of now it is possible only for Java Apps at this point of time. Is it true? If yes, how can we handle this and solve topics/issues like authentication in that case.

A: This is correct, “multi-tenant apps” are only supported for the Java runtime as of now, see the documentation. In terms of deploying the apps to multiple customers an idea might be having several customer accounts and deploy apps inside and resell them. Authentication: As each (sub-) account can be mapped to it’s own IdP that should work.

Q: What about new/coming features in HCP?

A: The Product Road Map for the HANA Cloud Platform explaining the product in its today form, planned innovations and future direction can be found in the Service Marketplace under Product -> Road Map -> HANA Cloud Platform. See the actual version. Moreover, the HCP product team provides release notes about new shipments of the platform, shipped every 14 days.

Please note, that there might be differences between the landscapes (trial, productive), e.g. in terms of availability of certain services.

Q: Hi, I have a question regarding Hadoop. During SAPPHIRE it was mention that there are plans to have that type of storage on HCP

A: Hadoop on HCP is on our list of planned innovations. But at the moment we cannot communicate any fixed release date for this offering.

Q: Can we build KPI apps in HCP? meant Analytical FIORI apps, I see we can build transactional apps. Can you provide us with some documents?

A: Yes, right now it is possible to build analytical apps with the means inbuilt in HANA. Regarding public available information to guide you: Unfortunately, there is not that much material available on best practices on how to build analytical apps or model KPIs. But there are plans to add SCN blogs and further documentation when new features esp. in the context of “analytical services” within HCP will be released.

Q: At the moment the partner will receive HCP updates on the platform at the same time as the customers. If there are breaking changes in the platform the partner will not be able to test the apps in front of publishing this changes. What possibility do partners have to avoid problems about this?

A: We have same release cycles for partner and customer productive systems. But there should be no backwards incompatible changes to the runtime or platform services, since we have a delicate continuous delivery process in place to ensure that. Moreover, new services (betas) can be tested on the trial landscape before the turn to be GA and are available in a productive manner to customers.

Q: In trial I do not have the possibility to run XS apps. Therefore I need a dedicated Hana DB?

A: Our trial landscape offers the possibility to run XS apps without the need to have a dedicated HANA DB. But in order to do so, you first need to create your own HANA instance (equivalent to a database schema) within the trial landscape environment. See the documentation for a guide how this can be done. Afterwards you will be able to run XS apps.

Update: On the trial landscape you can use MDC. On a regular account you need a dedicated HANA DB, in future you can use MDC there as well.

Q: C++ AFL SDK support still not in sight / planned on HCP?

A: Right now we do not have no C++ AFL SDK support. Having an architectural shift in 2016 (planned innovation, please note that this can be changed without any further notice) towards Cloud Foundry there will be support for additional runtimes / languages by invoking so called build packs. So if there is a build pack for C++ AFL, there might be support.

Q: Are there any plans for Sybase IQ?

A: Yes, it is stated in our roadmap. But it’s a stretch goal and no concrete timeline yet.

Q: is there a feature matrix available which services are in HCP available with HANA DB and in HCP with ASE DB?

A: There is an abstraction layer/persistence service decoupling the database layer/service from other services. So all other services should be available for both database types. For a comparison on the differences between Hana OnPrem vs. on HCP and the different features enabled in the different versions, please see this blog.

Q: Is there a Bill of Material (BOM) about the features of the trial landscape?

A: This SCN document provides some information. This page is work in progress right now. Moreover there is page on the documentation.

July 13th

Q: Can we create multiple users for single application and per user can we connect to respective on-premise system using HANA Cloud Connector? If so then can I get some documentation on this.

A: Accessing on-premise systems is done via SAP Cloud Connector. For authentication options for on-premise systems via SCC, please check Authenticating users for on-premise systems.

Q: Is there a database comparison tool that could compare a HANA instance against another vendor's instance and a HANA database against another HANA database?

A: Since HANA allows you to use SQL, you can use any database comparison tool which allows to compare the result sets of SQL queries. Within these tools you have to do SQL queries to the databases/instances you want to compare and afterwards let the tool compare the result sets of the several queries. However, if you ask for a suggestion which tool to use: There is no preferred (SAP) tool to do that kind of database comparison.

Q: Can Hana Cloud Integration be used to access Data from SuccessFactors? Or is it only for accessing OnPremise systems?

A: Check the HANA Cloud Integration Content Catalog.

More information about the success factors adapter in Hana Cloud Integration (HCI) is available here.

Q: Can we find license information on HCI license?

A: See Application Development Partner Center

Q: According to our scenario, we would like to use HCP as IaaS and not as PaaS. Is it possible, and is there some limitations?

A: HCP is a PaaS offering for building enterprise class applications, we do not offer an IaaS solution from SAP. For HANA we do offer a Bring your own license (BYOL)offering. This can be used by partners and customers to mobilize their existing HANA licenses in the cloud. This is restricted to HANA only

Q: Is there some possibility to install HCP "on premise" on your cloud in order to avoid limitation regarding protocols and libraries supported by HCP?

A: Today we do not offer an HCP installation in customer/partner data centers. HCP runs only in SAP Data centers. We do however plan to offer HCP in non-sap data centers by mid next year

Q: Will be possible in your Datacenter? Let say that we buy IaaS in your Datacenter. Could it be possible in that scenario?

A: We do not have an IaaS offering. Currently we do not plan this scenario unless we have daunting business case for this. This is not a planned scenario yet

Q: I’m searching PRO's and CON's for either Java or XS/Javascript development. We've so far used the XS-Javascript, but may be Java is more convenient ? Or to ask it differently: What is used more by HCP Developers / Partners ? May be there is a DOC with some comparisons ?

A: HANA Native applications offer value for data centric applications. In cases where you want to work more intensively with massive amounts of data. Java applications of course on the other offer a full fledged application programing capabilities. On HCP we have a good mix of both.

Q: When you say "HANA native", it's Java ?

A: It is HANA XS development using SAP HANA tools. HANA XS is related to Javascript, therefore NOT Java.

Q: We are in the process of building a HANA Cloud application and we are in the process of getting all our infrastructure setup. Replicate some ECC tables to HANA and build a UI5 application around those tables. Do we need a dedicated HANA instance?

A: With the HCP innovation pack of SAP PartnerEdge for Application development, partners receive access to a shared HANA DB for JAVA development (1 GB structured storage). If you build Java applications on UI5, no separate HANA instance is necessary, the shared DB for Java Development of the development environment can be used. See details here. To leverage the full power of SAP HANA with the use of SAP HANA native development capabilities which allows you to build and execute native SAP HANA XS applications, a dedicated HANA instance is necessary. There are quite small instance available, starting with 32 GB. See details here.

Q: What tools we need to replicate data from ECC to HANA , we came across SLT and BODS but both needs more paid software, does HANA provide any tool inbuilt to do the replication?

A: It is planned to offer Smart Data Integration/HANA Information Management in HCP, which provides HANA native capabilities to replicate data into HANA, only requiring a small agent OnPremise. At the moment we target on Q4/2015, but be aware that this date might change without further notice.

Q: If we have S/4 can we use that instead of using another HANA Instance?

A: Depends, what kind of S/4 you are talking about. If you have a S/4HANA onPremise (or ABAP system with HANA database), you could create UI extensions in the cloud, e.g. using WebIDE to connect via SAP HANA Cloud Connector to according OData Services. What does not work: if you are a S/4 HANA Cloud edition customer, you cannot use the same HANA instance from your HCP account (but of course here you could create UI extensions in the same way as described before as well).