Comparison of the Two Methods for Creating Views in SAP HANA for BW Objects
There are two ways of creating SAP HANA views for BW objects: From the BW system or from SAP HANA Modeler. Although they present a number of differences, both approaches can be recommended in equal measure.
Generating SAP HANA views from the BW system is recommended if:
- you mainly use the BW Enterprise Data Warehouse layer and plan to execute queries directly on the data models, without OLAP functions.
- you want the SAP HANA view to be automatically adjusted when changes are made in BW
- you want the SAP HANA view to be part of the BW transport system
- you want SAP HANA users to be automatically assigned SAP HANA privileges
- you want CompositeProviders or queries to be used for SAP HANA views
- you want to access the near-line storage or use non-cumulative key figures
However, importing BW objects from the SAP HANA Modeler is recommended if:
- you mainly use SAP HANA Modeler and your own ETL tools
- the content package can be individually configured for each object
- you want to keep changes made to the generated SAP HANA view after a re-import
Generating from the BW System |
Importing from SAP HANA Modeler | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool | Is entered when modeling BW objects (push) | Is triggered from SAP HANA Modeler (pull) |
| Update if changes are made to a BW object: | The SAP HANA view is also automatically updated in BW if changes are made to the object | The SAP HANA view is only updated by a re-import |
| Transport: | Is transported with BW transport | Is transported with SAP HANA transport |
| Supported object types: | InfoCube, DataStore object (classic and advanced), InfoObject, query as InfoProvider, CompositeProvider, query | InfoCube, standard DataStore object (classic), InfoObject, query as InfoProvider |
| Authorizations: | Generation of SAP HANA privileges and automatic assignment to SAP HANA user; authorization type: SQL Analytic Privileges | Optional generation of SAP HANA privileges and manual assignment to SAP HANA user; authorization type: Analytic Privileges |
| Content package: | A central content package where all SAP HANA views are saved | Can be configured for each object |
| Manual changes to the generated view: | are not allowed; changes are overwritten | are allowed; calculated attributes and calculated key figures and restricted key figures are retained - if the SAP HANA view is updated by a re-import |