LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson covers the interfaces used by administrators and developers.
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Work with the SAP HANA Studio
● Describe the SAP Web Development Workbench
Connectivity to SAP HANA
There are various interfaces that are used to access SAP HANA for installation, administration, and development purposes. SAP HANA Studio and SAP HANA Web Workbench are two important user interfaces used by administrators and developers to access SAP HANA.
The SAP HANA Studio was developed with the first version of SAP HANA and is used by administrators and developers. For many people, it is the only interface they need. It is installed locally and is based on Eclipse and is developed in Java. The SAP HANA Web Workbench came along later and was targeted at developers who needed only a light and portable interface for application development where the SAP HANA Studio was considered too complex and heavy. A third interface is called SAP HANA Cockpit and is based on the SAP Fiori design. With each new release more of the administration features that are available in SAP HANA Studio are finding their way to SAP Cockpit. SAP Fiori provides an excellent interface for SAP HANA Cockpit and is able to quickly present system KPIs and alerts to the administrators. So the need to install SAP HANA Studio will continue to reduce and eventually access by administrators and developers will become browser based. However, for now SAP HANA Studio continues to be extremely popular and is an excellent interface for us to use in this overview course as it provides 100% of the features we need to cover and this means we do not have to jump around different interfaces to reach all the areas where we go.
Connecting SAP HANA Studio to SAP HANA Workbench
To get started with SAP HANA Studio you must first create a connection to the SAP HANA target system that you want to work with.
Note:
When using the SAP HANA Web Workbench the connection information is part of the URL so you do not need to create connections. See separate lesson later for details.
Figure 29: Connecting SAP HANA Studio to SAP HANA Systems
When defining the connection you will be asked to specify two important pieces of information:
1. The host and instance (this pair of details identifies the exact target system) 2. A valid SAP HANA user and password that has previously been created on the target
system
You can create as many connections as you wish. This means you can open the SAP HANA Studio once and then navigate between SAP HANA systems easily.
You can optionally give each connection a description so it is easy to identify to purpose of each system when the list of connections becomes long.
When you log back on to the SAP HANA Studio where connection already exists you will need to provide the passwords for each connection again.
It is possible to export the list of connections to a file so these can be imported by others so they do not have to manually define the connections. Of course the user credentials are not saved.
You can also use the exported list of connections and share them as a central store. Each user creates a link to this central store and does not need to either create their own connections or import connections. This means all connection information is managed centrally so any changes are made in just one place.
SAP HANA Studio
Let’s look in detail at the SAP HANA Studio.
Figure 30: SAP HANA Studio
The SAP HANA Studio is delivered as part of the SAP HANA installation package, and provides an environment for administration, modeling, development and data provisioning. It can be installed on any client PC that has a connection to the SAP HANA system.
The SAP HANA studio is a Java-based application that runs on the Eclipse platform. For more information on the Eclipse IDE (Integrated Development Environment): http://
www.eclipse.org).
Perspectives in the SAP HANA Studio
When you start the SAP HANA Studio for the first time, you must choose a perspective.
Perspectives are predefined User Interface (UI) layouts that contain several views. One or several perspectives address the needs of a particular SAP HANA user role. For example, a System Administrator uses the SAP HANA Administration Console perspective.
A view is a pane of varying sizes within a perspective that provides specific information, such as a Where Used list. Each view can be moved around via drag and drop. You can also customize a perspective by adding or removing views. Views can appear in multiple perspectives, for example, the System view is used in most perspectives as it presents a hierarchical list of objects in each SAP HANA system that is useful to everyone.
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
Figure 31: Perspectives are Based on Views
Example of Perspectives
Here is an example of some perspectives that are available in the SAP HANA Studio.
● SAP HANA Modeler
The SAP HANA Modeler perspective is used by Data Architects to create Information Models, as a combination of attributes, dimensions, and measures, included in different types of modeling views.
● Administration Console
The Administration Console perspective is used by SAP HANA Administrators to administrate and monitor the whole SAP HANA system.
● Resources
The Resources perspective is used to organize files, such as text files, sql scripts, and so on, by project.
● Other perspectives
Some perspectives in the SAP HANA Studio are designed for SAP HANA applications development, Java development and Lifecycle Management.
Opening a Perspective
Figure 32: Opening a Perspective
To open a perspective, choose Windows→ Open Perspective, then select a perspective from the list, or choose Other....
It is possible to have several perspective open at the same time, and to switch from one perspective to another. To do so, in the perspective switcher in the upper-right corner of the screen, choose the perspective you want to open.
Adding a View to a Perspective
Figure 33: Adding a View to a Perspective
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
To add a view to a perspective, choose Windows→ Show View, then select a view from the list, or choose Other....
Note:
The SAP HANA Studio is based on Eclipse. Eclipse is an industry standard open source software product and comes with many ready made views. You will find many of these very useful when working with SAP HANA, but there are many views that you may never need to use. For this reason, you will see a lot of views in the Show View dialog box. SAP have delivered many views that are specifically designed to work with SAP HANA and these are located in the following folders:
● SAP HANA
● SAP HANA Modeler
● Help (Cheat Sheets and Help views)
● General (Project Explorer and Properties views)
Customizing the Systems View
Figure 34: Customizing the Systems View
Some views can be customized. This includes the Systems view. To customize a view, choose the View Menu button, and choose Customize View... .
Resetting a Perspective
Figure 35: Resetting a Perspective
Any perspective can be reset to its default layout in order to restore the default views in their original positions and sizes. To do so, choose Window→ Reset Perspective... .
Adding a System to the SAP HANA Studio
When you start the SAP HANA Studio for the first time, there is no connection to any SAP HANA system available. You must create a first connection to an SAP HANA system.
To add a system to SAP HANA Studio, you must open a perspective where the Systems view is included. For example:
● The SAP HANA Administration Console perspective.
● The SAP HANA Modeler perspective.
To add an SAP HANA system, you need the following information:
● The name of the server that runs the SAP HANA Engine.
● The instance number. This is a two-digit number that determines the communication port to the SAP HANA system.
For example, if you connect to an SAP HANA system with instance 00, the port used to communicate with the server will be 30015.
● The credentials of a user that is defined in the SAP HANA system. This user must be active.
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
Note:
● It is possible to connect to several SAP HANA systems within one single instance of the SAP HANA Studio.
● You can connect to the same SAP HANA system with two different users.
There are two methods to add a system to the SAP HANA Studio:
● Manually
With this method, you add one SAP HANA system at a time.
In the Systems view, right-click any blank area and choose Add system....
Fill in the server name, instance number and system description, and choose Next.
Fill in the user name and password, and choose Finish.
● By importing a Landscape
This method allows you to connect to several SAP HANA systems at the same time, by importing an XML file generated previously by a landscape export from the SAP HANA Studio installed on your computer or another one.
Choose File→ Import and choose SAP HANA→ Landscape.
Specify the landscape file location, the destination folder for the import, and choose Finish.
Note:
The landscape XML file does not contain a password. You will have to specify the user and password for any system added to the Systems view.
Systems View
Figure 36: The Systems View
The Systems view lists all the systems that have been registered (manually, or by a landscape import). For each system, the content is organized as follows:
In the SAP HANA Studio, one central point of access is the Systems view, which is usually placed on the left side of the screen.
● Catalog
As in many database structures, the catalog contains tables, views, and indexes. All these objects are organized into schemas. Schemas are used to categorize a database content according to customer defined groupings that have a particular meaning for users.
Schemas also help to define access rights to the database objects.
Note:
From a modeling standpoint, schemas can help to identify which tables to use when defining information models. But a model can incorporate tables from multiple schemas. Schemas do not limit your modeling capabilities.
The column views that you create are always located in schema _SYS_BIC, their metadata in schema _SYS_BI.
If you run an SAP Application directly on SAP HANA, then the schema will always be SAP<SID of the system>. For example, if your productive CRM System is called CRP, the corresponding schema will be SAPCRP.
● Content
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
The Content folder of the catalog is where you store all the HANA-specific modeling objects.
Note:
The physical tables are the only storage area for data within SAP HANA. All the information models that will be created in the modeler will result in database views. As such, SAP HANA does not persist redundant data for each model, and does not create materialized aggregates.
● Provisioning
The Provisioning folder is related to Smart Data Access, a data provisioning approach in which you can combine data from remote sources (Hadoop, SAP ASE, SAP IQ) with data of your SAP HANA physical tables, by exposing them as virtual tables.
● Security
In the Security folder, the System Administrators define users and roles.
System Administration and Monitoring
To administer and monitor one or several SAP HANA systems, you can use the following views:
● The System Monitor view
● The Administration view The System Monitor View
Figure 37: The System Monitor View
The System Monitor view gives you a summarized view of the system landscape. By default, all the systems that are listed in the Systems view appear in the System Monitor view. You get the most important information about system status, alerts, as well as disk space, memory and CPU usage.
You can customize this view by adding or removing columns. To do so, choose the Configure Viewer button. Alternatively, you can right-click in the System Monitor view and choose Configure Table .
If you want to filter the list of systems that are shown in the view. right-click in the System Monitor view and choose System Filter.
Administration View
Figure 38: The SAP HANA Administration Console Perspective
The SAP HANA Administration Console is a perspective that is pre-delivered by SAP. This is the main view to administrate SAP HANA systems. In this view, you can do the following tasks:
● Start and stop a system
● Configure a system
● Monitor a system
● Backup and restore a system
● Perform a problem analysis
To open the Administration view, you can:
● Double-click the system in the System Monitor view
● Double-click the system in the Systems view SAP HANA Modeler Perspective
To create Information Models in the SAP HANA Studio, open (or switch to) the SAP HANA Modeler perspective. To do so, choose Window→ Open Perspective→ SAP HANA Modeler.
The Quick View is a practical entry point, dedicated to the modeler perspective. From this view, you can create, manage and transport information models (packages, views), define or execute data provisioning and define schema mapping, and so on.
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
Note:
You can define your favorite actions (for example, Export, Import, and Validate, and display only a custom list of these favorites.
Figure 39: The SAP HANA Modeler Perspective
Quick View
When you want to perform an action from the Quick View, you must first select the SAP HANA system on which the action will be executed.
Note:
You actually select both a System and a User logged on to the System.
If you are logged on to the same SAP HANA system with two (or more) different users, the action will be authorized based on the privileges of the user you have selected.
The SAP HANA Studio offers other perspectives for debugging, resource, team synchronizing and more.
If you have closed the Quick View and want to reopen it, you can do one of the following actions:
● Choose Help→ Quick View.
● Reset the Modeler perspective.
Note:
The Quick View only displays within the Modeler perspective.
Systems View – Modeling Content
Figure 40: The Systems View – Modeling Content
The Content node of the Systems view displays the data from a data modeling perspective.
The information views, along with other modeling objects such as analytic privileges or procedures, are organized in packages. Each package is a repository that you can assign to a delivery unit in order to transport the objects it contains.
What would you find in a package?
X A Information Views X B Analytic Privileges X C Procedures X D Tables
SAP HANA Development Perspective
The SAP HANA Studio includes a development perspective. This is used by application developers. For example, here is where you would create Javascript and HTML that will be used in your applications. There are plenty of tools to support the developer including trace, debug, code prompts, check-in, and check-out.
Lesson: Working with Interfaces for Administrators and Developers
Figure 41: The SAP HANA Development Perspective