IDM and Limited DB Supported !!

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

It's very disappointing to know that IDM support ONLY Oracle & SQL Server Databases according to PAM (product availability matrix). It's very strange that such a strategic product support very limited DB vendors only !!! Can any body explain?

Does anybody know if there is any plan to support other DB vendors (i.e DB2, MaxDB ..etc) in the near future?

Rgds,

Sheikh

[Kaempfer · Accepted solution]

Dear  Sheikh,

SAP NetWeaver Identity Management is one of the very few products of SAP, which is not database independent. The prodcut is using stored procecures since SAP bought the product in 2007.

SAP is planning to support also DB2. DB2 is supporting also the code syntax of some Oracle databases so we are checking at the moment if a migration of the code is possible to DB2.

Regards

Matthias

[former_member2987 · Accepted solution]

I've heard that support for DB2 will be coming in the next version, tentatively being referred to as 7.3, but have not gotten a public confirmation.

Not sure how one could engineer something as complex as IDM without stored procedures to evaluate and work with data.

Regardless, this is the architecture we have. 

M

[Kaempfer · Accepted solution]

Hi matt,

the solution is not in ramp up yet. There will be of course a offical communication if this is general available. I expect that the ramp up will already start in 2012.

Regards

Matthias

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matthias,

will the DB2 support be added to IdM 7.2 within a new SP or is this a planned feature for the next version as Matt already stated?

Regards,

Andreas

[Kaempfer · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas,

We will try it without a complete new release. A official answer I can give you after a successful ramp up phase. Please keep in mind that SAP can always change its planned features without a notice until it is general available.

Regards

Matthias

[Former Member]

Hi All,

Interesting thread and I agree with all that is said. IdM on HANA surely is a natural step, as the move with HANA is to push processing down to the database layer to allow the benefits of HANA to pay off, rather than lifting the processing out of the database.

Just a thought!

Ian

[mvoros]

Hi,

SAP bought Norwegian company MaxWare (that's why you have prefix MX_). I believe it was their decision to rely on stored procedures and they decided to support only two DBs. II agree that it's a pity.

Cheers

[former_member2987]

Martin,

The decision from the MaXware days, was that it was an issue of choosing a Database that supported the Stored Procedures, not just any two Database Systems. There was talk about DB2 for years, but the demand just wasn't there. Between SQL Server and Oracle the majority of the database world was covered.

Back in the day we just never got enough interest to pursue other Databases. Maybe one day there will be more support. Best thing to do is let the Product Managers know so that they can consider it.

I'm still wondering what other databases would be desired.

[mvoros]

Hi,

I don't need any other DB. You are right that Oracle and MS SQL covers majority of enterprises. Probably cost of introducing additional DB such as DB2 would be too much to justify. Still maybe deciding not to use stored procedures was another option.

If I was thinking about implementing IdM from scratch right now then I would probably use NoSQL DB instead of traditional relational database. It does not look right to object with various attributes in relational databases. What's your opinion on this?

Cheers

[former_member2987]

Not familiar with NoSQL, so I can't really comment.

There's also been some talk about using Sybase back in the day but again, there would have to be a strong business case for it.

I don't really see any big database changes coming up right now. I think there's still too much to do with updaing the management console away from MMC (Been waiting YEARS for that) and further integration with the general SAP appearance and functionality. Plus other fun things like REST whic makes the application available on a much broader basis.

Just my toughts, I don't work for or speak for SAP.

Matt

[former_member2987]

Just wondering what other databases you would like to see supported?

From my knowledge of the software an database, triggers and stored procedure objects are heavily relied on so only fully ANSI SQL compliant databases will even have a chance of working.

I've heard discussions of supporting DB2 on and off but I'm pretty sure that MaxDB and MySQL are not currently supportable by the IDM infrastructure needs.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Currently we are using DB2 for our ERP and Maxdb for SAP DMS.

Any one of them would be fine for us which will apparently save the cost of adding a third DB vendor to our environment, in term of licensing cost and resource skill availability.

Rgds,

Sheikh

[Former Member]

Hi

I fully agree, it IS a pity.

I don't think it will change in the near future.

See also here:

BR

Michael