Replication services and Security in SAP HANA

Replication services and Security in SAP HANA : SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT) provides real-time data replication from SAP and non-SAP Sources. The data replication is done differently in each of these methods. 1) Trigger-Based Data Replication, 2) Extract, transform, load (ETL) based data replication, 3) Transaction Log-Based Data Replication. The access to the SAP HANA database from the client networks are secured by authentication and authorization.

Replication services and Security in SAP HANA

1.Replication services

SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT) provides real time data replication from SAP and non SAP Sources. SAP LT Replication Server does not have to be a separate SAP system and can run on any SAP system with SAP NetWeaver 7.02 ABAP stack. There are different methods available for data replication from a source system to a HANA database. The data replication is done differently in each of these methods.

Replication and Security SAP HANA

• Trigger Based Data Replication
• Extract, transform, load (ETL) based data replication
• Transaction Log Based Data Replication

a) Trigger Based Data Replication

The Trigger Based Data Replication using SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server is based on capturing database changes via a trigger base recording mechanism in the connected SAP and/or non SAP source systems. This method of replication benefits from being database independent, and also can parallelize database changes on multiple tables or by segmenting large table changes. This allows real time and scheduled, data replication, only replicating the relevant data into HANA. It also provides the ability to migrate data into HANA format while replicating data in real-time. The set up of SAP LT Replication Server is simple and fast which can be done in a day and is fully integrated with HANA Studio.

Configuration steps for SAP LT Replication Server:

• Define a schema for each source system
• Define connection to source system
• Define DB connection into SAP HANA
• Define replication frequency (real-time; frequency for scheduled replication)
• Define maximum number of background jobs for data replication.

Set-up of data replication in SAP HANA:

• Select relevant source system
• Start (initial load only and / or continuous replication)

b) Extract, transform, load (ETL) based data replication

Extract, transform, load (ETL) based data replication uses SAP Business Objects Data Services to extract the relevant business data from a source system such as ERP and load it into a HANA database. In addition, the ETL based method offers options for the integration of third-party data providers. Replication jobs and data flow are configured in Data Services. This permits the use of multiple data sources including external ones and data validation.

c) Transaction Log Based Data Replication

Transaction Log Based Data Replication using Sybase Replication is based on capturing table changes from low level database log files. This method is database dependent. Database changes are propagated for each database transaction, and they are then replayed on the HANA database. This maintains consistency, but can not use parallelizing to propagate changes.

2.Security in SAP HANA

The access to the SAP HANA database from the client networks are secured by authentication and authorization. Using the user and role management functions in SAP HANA, customers can implement their user and role concept. Roles are assigned to users, and roles can also be assigned to roles.

Security and role based permissions are managed by the Authorization Manager in HANA DB. Besides standard database privileges such as create, update or delete HANA DB also supports analytical privileges that represent filters and control access privileges to values with certain attributes. HANA DB components invoke the Authorization Manager whenever they need to check on user privileges.

The Roles allow grouping privileges. Roles are created for specific tasks, e.g. Create data models, Activate data models, Manage users etc. All types of privileges can be granted to a role. Roles and privileges can be assigned to users.

Types of Privileges in SAP HANA:

• System Privileges where restrictions can be done on actions in the database
• SQL Privileges where restrictions can be done on access to data containers
• Analytic Privileges which can be done on row-level security for data models
• Package Privileges which can provide restrictions around modeling

SAP HANA provides audit logging which are stored using syslog.