Connecting MS SQL System on Windows NT OS with BW System on Linux OS

[Former Member]

I have a requirement where i have to bring data from a MS SQL system to BW ( BI 7.0 version) system. While the MS SQL System is on Windows NT OS the BI system is on Linux OS. I cannot use DB Connect since i can connect the source and target only if both the OS's are Windows NT.

What is the work around for that, can you send me some documentation or steps for the same.

Thanks

Rashmi.

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

Hi Rashmi,

interestingly I got exactely the same requirement today in one of the support messages I'd to work on.

Actually there is not much of a 'workaround'.

To access the MS SQL db you will need a database client for that on Linux.

There is no such thing available from Microsoft - that's why SAP is unable to provide a DBSL for MSSQL on any non-Windows-platform.

You may check support note #178949 - "MSSQL: Database-MultiConnect with EXEC SQL" for details on this.

So, what can you do?

This heavily depends on the needs you've for the data access.

If it's possible to change the MS SQL system to a different DBMS you may just do that and access the data in the new database simply over one of the available DBSLs (BTW: afaik AS/400 and MSSQL are the only DBMS supported by SAP that have such a nasty limitation. Oracle, Informix and MaxDB - they all have database clients available for all supported platforms!)

Another, more simple solution can be to install a small NetWeaver AS on Windows and access the data just from this AS.

Yet another option (technically) might be to use Oracle as the main NetWeaver DB and the Heterogenous Services to access the MS SQL database. Anyhow, on non-Windows-platforms you'll have to resort to 3rd party ODBC drivers to do that; which is not supported by SAP. That means: if you get trouble with this setup, you won't get a fix from SAP.

Finally you may think about what way of data access is really necesary.

Perhaps you just can push the data from the MS SQL to a staging database/schema and access this staging data from your SAP application.

These are the options I can think about. Maybe other users have other ideas/experiences?

Would be interesting to learn these solutions!

regards,

Lars

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Lars,

Appreciate your response. Changing the MS SQL DBMS is not a possibility. I was wondering if I can use UD Connect to do this. Apart from this is there any other work around without changing the DBMS.

Thanks

Rashmi.

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

Hi Rashmi,

UD connect might be an option as there actually is a JDBC driver [available|http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e22bc83b-32ff-4474-a44a-22b6ae2c4e17&displaylang=en] from MS that is supposed to be running on linux.

Check [BI Java Connectors|http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/EN/a6/c0e51914e842e19bda39dbbe4fe78c/content.htm] and especially the "BI JDBC Connector" mentioned there.

regards,

Lars

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

These are the options I can think about. Maybe other users have other ideas/experiences?

Would be interesting to learn these solutions!

Years ago (in the last century) we did something like that using a Sybase database client on Linux to access an SQL Server 6.0 on Windows. Technically it was a bit of hickup but it worked. Since then a lot of time passed and I´m not sure if the protocols are still similar enough...

Markus

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

>Sybase database client on Linux to access an SQL Server 6.0 on Windows. >Technically it was a bit of hickup but it worked.

Hmm... afaik the client protocol in fact has changed since then - but anyhow: nice workaround. Unfortunately I guess you'll never get support for such a setup (or did you?).

KR Lars

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> Hmm... afaik the client protocol in fact has changed since then - but anyhow: nice workaround. Unfortunately I guess you'll never get support for such a setup (or did you?).

AFAIK SQL Server 7.0 was a complete rewrite of the engine (and of the protocols) so I doubt that this will still work

No support - of course not - but we needed to query only two tables in a report once a month so this was not a showstopper - and it worked pretty well at that time.

It would be an interesting study project to get a BODE environment (Build Once Debug Everywhere, aka J2EE) running on Linux connecting to an SQL Server on Windows...

Markus