SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics as the name suggests are part of the standard SAP S/4HANA installation and is used to perform sophisticated real-time reporting and analysis on live transactional data. The key architectural components of SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics [
SAP introduced a set of domain-specific languages and services called Core Data Services (CDS) for defining and consuming semantically rich data models which are represented as CDS views. CDS also offers capabilities beyond the traditional data modeling tools, including support for conceptual modeling and relationship definitions, built-in functions, and extensions.
SAP provides a set of CDS views to serve as the functional representation of the operational data (includes both transactional and master data tables of SAP S/4HANA). These virtual data models are the foundation of the SAP S/4HANA system and used by both business process and analytics to access data from the underlying physical tables. These virtual data models are also used for extracting data from the SAP S/4HANA system to external systems like SAP BW.
SAP-delivered CDS views can be extended, and new CDS views can be built to
enhance the virtual data model. CDS views are developed, maintained, and extended in the ABAP layer of the SAP S/4HANA system, so promotion of CDS views between systems can be managed by the standard SAP transport process.
The key principle of the VDM is to build a semantic layer on top of the existing SAP S/4HANA database model, hiding its technical details. Based on the provisioned content and reuse option, the CDS views of the VDM are classified as interface or consumption views as illustrated in
These views are private in nature and not meant for end user consumption. Private interface views are technically driven auxiliary views and are introduced to facilitate transformation of the underlying data model towards the public view model. Technical names of private CDS views start with P_. It is not recommended to change or extend the private views.
Interface views are the most important constituent of the VDM. Theses consist of reusable entity views, which are defined with a focus on business semantics. Interface views are public, stable, and reusable views for any consumer. The structure of public interface views should not be affected due to corrections, patches, and upgrades.
There two types of interface views:
Basic interface views represent core entities without data redundancy that is, with a single representation of each core entity (e.g., exactly one customer or sales order) and only with those fields that are dependent on the core entity itself and cannot be calculated from other fields. Basic views form the low-redundancy
model and simple projection on top of the SAP Business Suite database tables.
Composite Interface views are derived from multiple basic interface views and may offer associations, aggregations, and complex calculations. They can be specific to a consumption domain or reusable by many and always expose redundant data by design. Depending on the use case, there may be multiple layers of composite interface views.
As the name suggests, these views are exposed for end user consumption and created using one or more interface views. These are public domain-specific views for analytics, search, and transactional applications. The guiding principle of the VDM model is that database tables must not be accessed directly by consumer views of the VDM (bypassing the interface layer).
Extension include views are used to expose custom new fields created as part of customer project implementations. SAP-delivered extension includes views (for that matter, any views) can be extended to add additional fields. The customer extension include view is created and transported as a separate DDL source.
Although SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics is powered by the high-perfor- mance SAP HANA database, it’s essential for the computation to be pushed to the database layer to attain optimum performance. Therefore, during the activation of CDS views (in the ABAP layer), the system generates SQL runtime views in the SAP HANA database to execute the data read and transformation inside the SAP HANA database layer as illustrated in
Please note, certain analytic features of CDS views are not (yet) supported in SAP HANA SQL runtime views; these features are computed by the analytical engine in the SAP S/4HANA ABAP application server.
The generated SQL runtime views in SAP HANA database views can also be used in native SAP HANA information views (like calculation views) for agile data mart reporting in the SAP HANA database.
SAP Gateway exposes consumption CDS views as an OData service, allowing SAP Fiori, SAP BusinessObjects BI tools, and third-party UIs/clients to access the consumption views directly or via the analytical engine.
Starting from SAP NetWeaver 7.0, an SAP BW component has been included part of SAP NetWeaver ABAP installation; this component is normally referred to as embedded SAP BW. The embedded SAP BW system is responsible for OLAP functions and services for other SAP BW functionalities (like planning
and the SAP HANA application process designer). It also compensates for functionalities (pivoting, hierarchies, aggregations, and formula execution) not (yet) available in SAP HANA.
Upon activating consumption CDS views, a transient provider or transient SAP BEx query is created in the embedded SAP BW system. SAP BusinessObjects BI tools (like SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio) use these transient providers to query data from the consumption CDS views.
SAP S4/HANA analytics provides data access using OData, SAP HANA InA, and Business Intelligence Consumer Services (BICS) interfaces, depending on the client tools. The frontend applications use mostly OData as the communication protocol inside the SAP Fiori interface. There are some exceptions, such as SAP Lumira, SAP Design Studio, and enterprise search, which uses SAP HANA InA protocols because they don’t yet have OData implementations.