SAP MII 15.0:HANA as a back-end ! Distributed Architecture

[Former Member]

Dear MII Consultants & Architects,

I have a query here regarding SAP MII 15.0 when it is deployed as de-centralized.

Lets say there are 3 Plants.Each plant needs a local MII system.

How a local MII system will interact with HANA if HANA is a central entity?

Will all the local MII installations which have their respective SQL/Oracle do a SLT replication with HANA?

Regards,

Muddassar

[salvatore_castro · Accepted solution]

There's not just a single way to interact between MII & HANA; there are many options that are available so that we can support the underlying business scenario in the best way.  For options and architectures that support them have a look here:

I also have a technical architectures deck that I can share with you if you like just email me directly for it.

Please let me know what you think of my post about MII & HANA,

Sam

[swaroop_anasane · Accepted solution]

Thanks Sam for your response.

This would surely help us.

Would let you know on the post.

Best Regards,

Swaroop

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for replying to my qquery.

Your post gives a good outlook and it will serve as a cookbook while designing Architecture.

I am not able to send you a direct message here.Please tell me how can I share my email id with you?

Regards,

Mudddassar Khan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Swaroop,

Thanks for your help as well.

Your efforts are appreciated.

Regards,

Muddassar Khan

[salvatore_castro · Accepted solution]

My email is just my firstname.lastname@sap.com

firstname = Salvatore

lastname = Castro

- Sam

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Sam,

I have sent one email from my official Id.

Please share the deck over the same id.

Thanks a lot.

-Muddassar

[former_member4529 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As SAP MII 15.0 can use HANA as database, I was wondering how MII can leverage the features and power of HANA for its development.

If we write the calculation logic in BLS only, it won't use the power and features of HANA. Ideally the complex data logic should be embedded in calculation views when MII is installed on HANA.

As I understand MDOs created in MII are created as columnar tables in HANA, but with cryptic names of tables and columns (MDOxx, FIELDxx) in the HANA (DB) layer. As there is no provision to create the attributes, analytics and calculation views in MII directly, those need to be created in HANA layer from HANA studio. Now the issue is how can we identify and access the correct MDO tables as those are not visible in HANA with the user-defined MDO names.

The other option may be creating the tables also directly in HANA, but that will bypass the MDO features and content management features of MII. My understanding is the HANA tables and views can be accessed from MII from the SQL query templates.

Can anyone please throw some light on this on how we can leverage the features of HANA in this case?

Thanks,

Dipankar

[salvatore_castro · Accepted solution]

Hello Dipankar,

If you deploy MII on the HANA DB the PIC, MDO, and KPI features will all take advantage of the scale and power of HANA.  The primary benefits are that the KPI objects can be larger in size than on a traditional DB which means more granular analytic capability and also you don't have to purchase another DB license for a central instance of MII.

The Table definitions of the MDO objects isn't the same name as the table created under the hood in MII mainly because you can have invalid characters or very long MDO Object and MDO Column names that are not compliant with OpenSQL.  Therefore we use the File ID of the object as identified in the XMII_FILES table as a postfix for the 'mdo' text.  So it looks like mdo<fileid>.

Hope this helps,

Sam

[former_member4529 · Accepted solution]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the insight. I understand MII on HANA can leverage the massive data storage capacity of HANA, but to leverage the performance improvement features provided by HANA ideally we should use the analytic and calculation views (code push-down) instead of writing complex application logic in the application layer i.e. BLS in this case. Infact from HANA development perspective it is not recommended to create the queries directly on the column tables, but instead use analytic and calculation views on which we can write the queries.

So now the issue is if we use MDO we can't easily develop the HANA views on it (as MDO names are cryptic in DB layer) and if we use HANA tables and views it'll be bypassing the content management and other features of MII. What you suggest in this scenario? Is there any enhancements being planned on MII for future releases to be more tightly coupled with the HANA platform and leverage the HANA features? If yes any timeline for that and what possibly we can expect going forward?

Also can you please clarify if the HANA database objects (tables and views) are accessible from MII SQL Query templates or do we need to use only oData services to call any query/views?

Thanks,

Dipankar

[salvatore_castro · Accepted solution]

This is why we introduced the native HANA SDA interface to SAP MII which exposes the query template layer of MII on demand for data retrieval into the HANA application layer:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_mii150sp03/helpdata/en/4c/72e07ce631469ee10000000a15822d/content.htm

Please let me know if you have additional questions or suggestions.

Thanks,

Sam

[former_member4529 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Sam. I think SDA adapter is useful when MII is on traditional platform/DB and expose its queries for accessing from a central HANA platform to provide real-time data processing and analytics on HANA.

But when MII is installed on HANA itself, my expectation is MII should leverage the HANA capabilities which is there in the underlying platform, as we may still need to do the analytics on MII itself where we need to access PIC and other configuration data stored in MII.

I am interested to know the direction and roadmap in this aspect if any for MII and other SAP Manufacturing products to have more tighter integration and capability leverage of HANA.

Thanks,

Dipankar

[salvatore_castro · Accepted solution]

I have confirmed that the above is a known scenario by our product development team and they have plans to address this in a feature pack of MII 15.1 in the early 2016 timeframe.  Do you need this sooner than that?  If so drop me a mail directly so that we can discuss.

Sam

[former_member4529 · Accepted solution]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your help. I have sent you the email with the details.

Also I am writing a blog on this topic and shall publish it soon to summarize the findings.

Thanks,

Dipankar

[RajeevKansal]

We plan to remove the restriction of generated table name and field name for MDO/KPI as a SP to 15.1. This issue has already been identified considering customer would like to create calculation views from different MDO/KPI tables. you can easily call a calculation view using IDBC connector from MII. as a short term solution, we can provide the name of MDO table name and field name in the MDO definition. thanks. Rajeev