What are AMDPs…

ABAP Managed Database Procedures are a new feature in AS ABAP allowing developers to write database procedures directly in ABAP. You can think of a Database Procedure as a function stored and executed in the database. The implementation language varies from one database system to another. In SAP HANA it is SQL Script. Using AMDP allows developers to create and execute those database procedures in the ABAP environment using ABAP methods and ABAP data types. This video will show you more details...

AMDPs are introduced to easily enable you to get the best out of ABAP for HANA following the “code push-down” paradigm first introduced with SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4 last year. More information on this paradigm can be found here: ABAP for HANA and "Code Push-Down".

… and why should I use them ?

As you can imagine (and hopefully have already experienced) calculations executed while retrieving the data from the database can significant reduce the runtime of an ABAP program. Especially when the calculations can be parallelized.

Using SQL and all of its possibilities is one example of this. But this has limitations. A SQL statement always has one result set and the calculation must be done in one single step. If you have complex calculations which you want to execute on the database you need other possibilities. In those cases and many more, database procedures come into the game. And the vehicle of choice to implement database procedures as an ABAP geek are AMDPs.

Sounds great - How do I create an AMDP ?

Creating an AMDP is as easy as it can get in ABAP. You can simply implement SQLScript in an ABAP method:

METHOD <meth> BY DATABASE PROCEDURE
    FOR <db>
    LANGUAGE <db_lang>
    [OPTIONS <db_options>]
    [USING <db_entities>].

< Insert SQLScript code here >

ENDMETHOD.

Also important to know is that every class containing an AMDP must contain the interface IF_AMDP_MARKER_HDB. But that’s all – You don’t need anything else. For more details on the syntax and the different options just take a look at our ABAP Documentation.

Enough talking - Show us an example !

Here we go – a very very simple example but it should give you an idea. A real life example is of course much more complex and normally has more in- and/or output parameters.

In this example we have created a database procedure for SAP HANA (FOR HDB) using SQLScript (LANGUAGE SQLSCRIPT) which simply selects the company name for our top business partners. The number of business partners to be selected is passed as an input parameter (iv_number) which is used in the SQL Script statement.

Carine has also prepared a video with a little more complex example for you:

OK great, but what do I need to use AMDPs ?

AMDPs are available with SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4 SP5. Currently AMDPs are only available with SAP HANA as primary persistence and can only be written in SQLScript.

To create an AMDP you need to use at least ABAP Development Tools in Eclipse 2.19 ( see Get ABAP Development Tools 2.19 and find out what's new). By the way it is of course still possible to open an AMDP with se80 /se24, but you won’t be able to edit it,

All set and ready but are there any limitations ?

Yes, there are some limitations, but only based on the parameters:

The parameters have to meet the following prerequisites:

• Exporting, importing and changing parameters are allowed
• Methods with returning parameters cannot be implemented as AMDPs
• Method parameters have to be tables or scalar types
• Method parameters have to be passed as values

Come on - I want to know more…

As already mentioned we will continue with more technical deep dives (e.g. debugging an AMDP) and a more complex example to show you more benefits of AMDPs.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction and stay tuned

Jens

Getting Started

ABAP for SAP HANA Reference Scenario - Overview Presentation  and / or

ABAP for SAP HANA Reference Scenario - Overview Video

Implementation Overviews

The documents in this chapter gives you an overview about the development objects available with AS ABAP 7.4 of the Open ItemsAnalytics Implementation

General Guides & Tutorials

End to End Development Example with SAP NetWeaver 7.4 and SAP HANA

Tutorial: How to consume SAP HANA Procedures in ABAP

Tutorial: How to consume SAP HANA Views in ABAP

How to transport ABAP for SAP HANA applications with HTC

This document provides an overview on the SAP HANA Transport Container (HTC) and demonstrate how to use it.

Videos

Overview Page of our HowTo Videos for External Views, Stored Procedure Proxies and HANA Transport Container:

Video Tutorials

How To...

... get the Development Tools & a ABAP for HANA 7.4 Trial

HowTo install trial version of SAP HANA Studio and ABAP Development Tools

Here you will find a short guide where to download the development tools and how to install them.

... consume HANA artifacts in ABAP

Related Resources

ABAP for SAP HANA @SAP HANA Academy (Direct access to Video Tutorials)

Additional Information

Hello All,

I was checking all through SCN if I could get some way out to practice with ADT - the tool and the new features of programming with ABAP.

But could only see the CAL and AWS way where I need to pay for the hosting charges.

As far as I remember there was a Trial Developer Edition of AS ABAP 7.03 which was compatible to run with ADT, but could not find that standalone download of the AS ABAP on SCN.

So my question in short is :

Is there any way to practice with the ABAP on Eclipse for free ie. by having some standalone AS ABAP installed on local system ?

Thanks in advance,

Rahul

Hello experts,

When i am changing the Sales order in fiori app,

After pressing the change address one popup is coming but that is empty. pl verify below screen shot

Even after pressing next nothing is happening.

and cant we change the order quantity in change SO app..?

and cant we add other items in change SO app..?

if yes pl provide the process.

please help me here.

Thanks and regards,

Prasanth.

Hello experts,

Can any one explain the process of how to change the SO quantity in change so app in application.

And pl explain about how to add another material to existing sales order through the change SO app.

Thanks and regards.

Prasanth.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use the new the "Top-Down"-approach for consuming HANA procedures provided by means of ABAP Managed Database Procedures delivered with SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4, Support Package 5.

You'll be guided in a step-by-step manner over the creation, implementation and consumption of an ABAP Managed Database Procedure (AMDP) on HANA.

For  a quick and comprehensive introduction into the ABAP Managed Database Procedures, read the Introduction into AMDP written by Jens Weiler and also check the ABAP Development Tools Help (menu entry Help > Help Content). Information, guides and tutorials about the development of ABAP for SAP HANAapplications - meaning applications built out of ABAP and HANA development entities-, visit our SCN Page.

Prerequisites

• SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.4 Support Package 5 (or higher) running on SAP HANA
• SAP HANA Appliance Software SPS 05 (or higher)
• SAP HANA DB SQLScript V2.0 (or higher)
• ABAP Development Tools for SAP NetWeaver (version 2.19)

Tutorial Objectives

After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Declare an AMDP class
• Declare an AMDP method
• Implement an AMDP method
• Consume an AMDP method in ABAP

Use Case Description

The Account Receivables accountant of your company want to be able to display the so-called top and flop customers in regards to their payment ability based on the gross amount of the open invoices.

The company accountant should be able to select how many customers have to be displayed per category and due to the regular update of the business data, the categorization have to be executed on-the-fly. Millions of open item invoices are typically processed in such tasks.

More information about the Open Items Analysis reference scenario underlying this use case is available under http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41248.

Procedure Overview

Step-by-Step Procedure

Step 1: Create an AMDP Class

In this step, you will create a regular global class and then mark it as AMDP class by specifying the tag interface for the SAP HANA database platform.

1. Start the ABAP Development Tools (aka ABAP in Eclipse) - or your SAP HANA Studio - and open the ABAP perspective by selecting menu entry Window > Open perspective > Others…, and choosing the ABAP entry  in the appearing dialog box.

    

2. Go to your ABAP project in the Project Explorer and create a new class in the package of your choice by selecting the context menu entry New… > ABAP Class

    

3. Maintain the required information (e.g. ZCL_OIA_TOPANDFLOP as name and “EPM OIA: Best and Worst Customers” as description) and click on Next.
   Select a transport request if required and confirm the creation dialog.
   

    

4. Now go to the class definition and insert following line directly after PUBLIC SECTION:
         INTERFACESif_amdp_marker_hdb.

    

5. Save.
   
   
   You've just created your first AMDP class!
   
   

Step 2: Declare an AMDP Method

You will now declare the method get_top_and_flop which will be implemented as AMDP method later on. This method has an importing parameter for specifying the number of customers to be retrieved for each category (top and flop), and two exporting parameters getting for the two requested result sets.

Before going ahead with the method definition, we first have to defined the type of the result sets.

1. Define the two types ty_bupa_selection and tt_bupa_selection in the PUBLIC SECTION of the class definition - With ty_bupa_selection defining the table line of our return set, and tt_bupa_selection defining the type of the returned tables.
   For that just copy the below coding after the interface declaration done in the previous steps:
   
   TYPES:
     BEGIN OF ty_bupa_selection,
       company_name TYPE c LENGTH 80,
       gross_amount TYPE p LENGTH 8 DECIMALS 2,
     END OF ty_bupa_selection.
   
   TYPES:
     tt_bupa_selection TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF ty_bupa_selection WITH EMPTY KEY.
   

    

2. Now define the public static method get_top_and_flop.
   Just copy and pase the coding below directly after the type definitions in the public section:
   
   CLASS-METHODS get_top_and_flop
     IMPORTING
       VALUE(iv_number) TYPE i
     EXPORTING
       VALUE(et_top)    TYPE tt_bupa_selection
       VALUE(et_flop)  TYPE tt_bupa_selection.
   
   

    

3. An error will be displayed in the editor due to the missing method implementation. Just use the Quick Fix (Ctrl+1) function “Add implementation for get_top_and_flop” to quickly solved this issue.

    

4. Save your AMDP class.

Step 3: Implement the AMDP Method

You will now implement a relatively simple SQLScript-based AMDP method, which retrieves the best and worst customers depending on the gross amount of open invoices.

1. Mark the method implementation as an AMDP method.
   Go to the class definition and enhance the method with the required additions as displayed below:
   
   METHODget_top_and_flopBY DATABASE PROCEDURE
                             FOR HDB
                             LANGUAGE SQLSCRIPT
                             OPTIONS  READ-ONLY
                             USING snwd_so_i snwd_so snwd_bpa.
   
   ENDMETHOD.
   
   The compiler now knows, that the implementation of the method get_top_and_flop of the class ZCL_OIA_TOPANDFLOP is an SQLScript-based AMDP for the HANA database platform.The addition USING contains the name of the DDIC tables which will be used in the implementation.

    

2. Now implement the database procedure by copying the SQLScript source below
   
   --retrieve the best customers
   et_top = selecttop :iv_number bp.company_name as company_name, sum(soi.gross_amount) as gross_amount
             from snwd_so_i as soi
             inner join snwd_so  as so on so.node_key = soi.parent_key
             inner join snwd_bpa as bp on bp.node_key = so.buyer_guid
             group by company_name
             order by gross_amount desc;
   --retrieve the worst customers
   et_flop =selecttop :iv_number bp.company_name as company_name, sum(soi.gross_amount) as gross_amount
             from snwd_so_i as soi
               inner join snwd_so  as so on so.node_key = soi.parent_key
               inner join snwd_bpa as bp on bp.node_key = so.buyer_guid
               group by company_name
               order by gross_amount asc;
   
   

   Note: The purpose of this tutorial is not to introduce the SQLScript programming language or to demonstrate how complex the logic of a database procedure can be. The above procedure implements a relatively simple data-intensive function, but of course very complex logic (making even use of the advanced HANA features and functions such as data mining and predictive analysis) can be implemented.

   
   

   Info: In order to quickly visualize whether a class contains AMDP methods and where, it is recommended to set a different background color for embedded languages – such as native SQL and SQLScript. To achieve this, go to the ADT menu entry Windows > Preferences and select the path General > Appearance > Color and Fonts > ABAP > Syntax Coloring > Embedded Languages (background color) and set the background color of your choice.

3. Save and activate your AMDP class.
   
   You're now ready to test your AMDP method!
   

Step 4: Create an ABAP Report consuming the AMDP method

We will now create and implement a simple ABAP report which call the AMDP method and display the result sets on the screen.

1. Create the ABAP program ZR_OIA_TOPANDFLOP.
   Select the package of your choice, right-click on it and choose context menu entry New > ABAP Program.
   
   Enter the required information (name, a description - e.g. “Retrieve and Display Sales Order with Open Days and BuPa Data”-) and press Next.
   
   Select a transport request if required and press Finish to confirm the creation dialog.

    

2. Now implement the report.
   For this purpose, just copy & paste the source code below into the ABAP editor.
   
   PARAMETER pnumber TYPE i DEFAULT10.
   
   DATA: lv_number TYPE  i.
   
   * set the value of the procedure input parameter
   lv_number = pnumber.
   * call  AMDP methods
   zcl_oia_top_and_flop=>get_top_and_flop(
                   EXPORTING iv_number = lv_number
                   IMPORTING et_top =data(lt_top)
                             et_flop =data(lt_flop) ).
   * display the returned itab with TOP customers
   WRITE:/ 'Best customers:'COLOR COL_POSITIVE.
   LOOP AT lt_top ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<f>).
     WRITE:/<f>-company_name , <f>-gross_amount.
   ENDLOOP.
   * display the returned itab with FLOP customers
   ULINE.
   WRITE: ' Worst customers:' COLOR COL_NEGATIVE.
   LOOP AT lt_flop ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<g>).
     WRITE:/<g>-company_name , <g>-gross_amount .
   ENDLOOP.
   

    

3. Save and activate your test report.

    

4. You can now run the report (press F8) and see the result of your effort.
   

Summary

Congratulations! You have just experienced how easy it is to implement an SQLScript-based AMDP and consume it in ABAP.

Regarding the transport aspect, AMDP classes are transported similarly to regular ABAP classes using the standard ABAP transport mechanism. No HANA artifacts have to be transported. This means that the HANA transport container and the HANA delivery units are not involved in this process.

You can have a look at video tutorials demonstrating how to create an AMDP and how to debug an AMDP here.

Related Content

• Find more content under ABAP for SAP HANA,SCN space
• ABAP for SAP HANA Reference Scenario, SCN document
• SAP HANA SQLScript Reference, SAP Help Guide

After conducting the ABAP on HANA CodeJam in Istanbul last month, we went back to our desks and started to update the content of our CodeJam.

Having all the new cool features in the AS ABAP 7.4 Support Package 5 (see e.g. New ABAP for HANA features in SAP NW 7.4 SP5 blogged by Jens), a lot new hands-on exercises enter the game.

Curious?

... join the event!

The next CodeJam event takes place February, 26th 2014 in Bielefeld ( SAP CodeJam Bielefeld - ABAP on HANA Registration, Bielefeld - Eventbrite ). You have the chance to meet ABAP and HANA experts from the SAP development, and to put your hands on the new features for ABAP on HANA development.

... or organize it yourself!

If your are interested to participate but there is no CodeJam event available near to your location, why not host own yourself? Click here for more information!

We are looking forward to meet you at CodeJam!

DSAG-Technologietage 2014, Stuttgart Feb-18 and Feb-19: For two days 1950 participants created one of the biggest technology events in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (thereby achieving an all-time high at DSAG). During this conference all questions concerning custom development using SAP HANA Platform and SAP NetWeaver played a central role (certainly not the only one, many other technology topics were covered as well). The following notes comprise my takeaways with respect to custom development and extensions of SAP solutions.

"Level completed? Embark on the journey to the new world of technology" – this theme was illustrated by

Andreas Giraud, DSAG board member for Tecchnology, in his opening keynote.  Andreas explained

how technology acts as a driver for business innovations.

In the SAP space, a survey on planned investments at DSAG members provides helpful

insight into the trends of 2014 (Mobile, User Experience, SAP HANA etc.).

Many customers and partners plan innovation projects with SAP HANA,

with special emphasis on hybrid solutions (cloud and on-premise).

Vishal Sikka (SAP board member heading Products and Innovations) presented

major priorities in a short video message. Based on the paradigms of Timeless Software,

Design Thinking and SAP HANA, he outlined the five growth opportunities of this year:

- SAP HANA, special attention is paid to simplicity, user and developer experience (collaboration, real-time source code analysis etc.)

- Cloud Services (creating the freedom to innovate)

- Core Apps (realtime apps, merging OLAP and OLTP, simplifying landscapes and applications, potential to remove 90% of tables) 

- Edge Apps (innovative apps and realtime business networks)

- Co-innovation (pursuing new frontiers, custom development plays an important role)

He summarized his findings by the observation, that trusted co-innovation is at the heart of this journey.

Bernd Leukert (Member of the Global Managing Board of SAP AG) provided an overview of

technology investment areas at SAP in his keynote. With SAP HANA Cloud Platform,

a new developer experience is offered to the community .Even more general,

SAP HANA as Innovation Platform enables a significant simplification of developemnt and operations.

In particular, he mentioned these tasks:

- Identify business processes, which provide competitive advantage

- Componentization: Focus on custom development

His keynote was completed by a compelling demo on developer experience.

After this series of keynotes, all participants were invited to one of 6 parallel breakout session.

I choose some lectures from track “Application Development, Portals and UI”.

Andreas Wesselmann (SAP) started with an overview session on “Application Development
with SAP HANA Platform”, where he identified new types of applications, e.g.,
in health (cancer diagnostics and treatment) or soccer (training analysis).
Certainly, optimization of existing custom development solutions also plays a
very important role. A major pillar of this optimization is given by the
paradigm of “code pushdown”, i.e., delegating data intensive calculations from
AS ABAP to SAP HANA. While BW on HANA served as a frontrunner, other scenarios
can be achieved by a co-deployment of AS ABAP and HANA. In addition, hybrid extensions
of existing on-premise solutions can be easily established with SAP HANA Cloud
Platform (HCP). HCP can also be used for on-demand extensions and net-new apps.
Fiori apps can be easily created via HCP.

Customers using SAP NetWeaver could get a concise overview of “SAP NetWeaver 7.4” in the
subsequent lecture given by Karl Kessler (SAP), who elaborated on Big Data as key
driver for this release. While the application server layer delegates major tasks
to HANA (code pushdown) and SAPUI5, still many application services remain
there. These principles were explained in detail using the reference scenario “Open
Item Analytics”. Karl also pointed out that SAPUI5 is contained in NW 7.4 out
of the box, while it still can be used as add-on for lower releases. OpenUI5 is
an ambitious invitation for developer community to contribute and participate
at innovation cycles.

Dirk Basenach (SAP) explained how to run “Application Development in Cloud”, where
he provided deep insights in to SAP HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), the Platform as
a Service offering (PaaS) from SAP. Starting from the observation that businesses
today show an increasing demand for efficient cost control, fast innovation
cycles and minimizing risk, Dirk pointed out that HCP as a public cloud fulfills
these requirements. SAP offers also dedicated packages for special purposes,
e.g., SuccessFactor extension package, hybrid extensions of on-premise solution,
and net-new apps (e.g., SAP Mobile Documents, SAP Precision Marketing, SAP
Service on Demand). HCP enables an accelerated development with open and
modular services, e.g. document service (CMIS), connectivity service (using
reverse proxy approach, http and RFC), identity service (SAML based SSO,
support of SAP and 3rd party identity providers). It is possible to use Java
and HANA native development on HCP. Several customer success stories (Accenture,
Danone, OPAL etc.) completed the big picture of this story.

Day 2 of DSAG Technologietage is always devoted to work groups (AK = Arbeitskreis),

this year with 22 parallel sessions (from  AK Application Integration” to “Virtualization and Cloud Computing”).

Here are my notes from the sessions I attended today:

AK Development, Jochen Kleimann (Mahle Behr), Jürgen Stolz (StolzIT), Peter Barker
(SAP) on „Best practices: Betriebsmittelverwaltung with Interactive Forms“: The
speakers explained how Mahle Behr established cross organization processes with
interactive offline forms. They achieved the goal to minimize training effort
for hundreds of suppliers globally. Main technologies are Floorplan Manager
(FPM), Sidepanel and SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe (IFbA, While they shared
best practices and major achievements, they also identified some gaps, e.g., regarding
integration of BW data in FPM. Finally, Peter outlined how IFbA will enable
Mobile Forms (HTML5) and Cloud Forms (ADS on HCP) starting in 2014.

AK Development, Tobias Kaufman (SAP) on “Native HANA Development”: Tobias demonstrated
how to build custom specific applications using the two-tier architecture of
SAP HANA XS and SAPUI5, including recommendations “When to use what (ABAP or
XS)”. He provided a detailed insight how to use server-side JavaScript,
Outbound Connectivity (e.g., http-request to other servers) and OData. Tobias
also explained that SQLScript should be used for heavyweight calculation logic
in the HANA DB, and that the benefits of Application Function Library can be
easily obtained in many cases (e.g., Predictive Analysis). He shared details
and best practices regarding data acess with XSJS, XSODATA and Core Data
Services. In addition, special attention wa paid on the River concept (single
language for data modeling, business logic and UI), best suitable for data
driven apps. He illustrated these observations at a reference scenario (SHINE  = SAP HANA Interactive Education).

AK Development, Jakob Mainka (Linde AG) on “Implementation of ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC)
at Linde AG”. These lecture offered helpful information how Linde is operating
a global business, where custom development plays an important role (e.g., 100,000
new lines of code created by 120 developer every month). Obviously, quality
assurance and compliance according to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) is
mission critical in this environment. While Linde spent high effort and managed
tedious processes for code review in old systems (4.6, 6.0), they have chosen ATC
as an alternate approach for better quality and agility. With ATC, they have
less effort and costs. Jakob Mainka explained how quality assurance of external
development projects is managed (e.g., internal definition of check variants),
and how a proper configuration (release of transports, periodic jobs etc.)
can further simplify processes and increase quality.

AK Portal and Development: Daniel Rothmund (Geberit) on “Project ‘Mobile Invoices’
with SAPUI5”. The speaker explained how Gebereit uses Portal, Gateway and
multiple ERP systems in this ambitious project. While the straightforward use
cases were implemented quickly, additional requirements could also be mastered,
e.g., offline scenarios (based in Roundtrips to Gateway), or using a multi origin
function at write operation in OData batch mode (with BADI Destination
Finder). At Gebereit, they were also able to define and implement custom
specific controls. Productive start of this project was very successful, they
achieved a high level of acceptance, no classroom training was needed.

AK Virtualization and Cloud Computing, Jana Richter (SAP) on “Flexible ABAP Server”. Jana provided
very helpful explanations and demos for these aspects:

- Optimized ressource consumption, support of adaptive computing (e.g., dynamic parameter
values at server start and during operations, flexible license management)

- Ensure Business continuity, simplify maintenance (e.g., soft shutdown, Rolling Kernel
Switch with Scale In scenario and dynamic configuration)

- Extended monitoring and troubleshooting options (SM04, SM51, SM50 etc.)

- Outlook (NW 7.4 SPS 08, reduced downtime (SUM), co-deployment ABAP and HANA)

Overall, I have seen an encouraging spirit at this conference. Custom Development is seen as a
major use case by almost all SAP customers. DSAG offered a great opportunity to
learn more how to optimize and modernize development processes, with many helpful
insights from customers, partners and SAP.

Welcome back to another round of SQL Monitor hands-on action. While previous posts in this series were concerned with analyzing the recorded data, today we will focus on administrative tasks. In particular, I will guide you through a full administrative cycle of the SQL Monitor.

In general, such a cycle begins with the selection of a suitable measurement period. For example, you might decide to monitor a specific time slice – for instance 7 days – to inspect day-to-day business in your system. Alternatively, the measurement period can also be determined by certain events such as a year-end closing. In either case, you should make sure to limit code changes to a minimum during the monitoring interval since these changes might distort the recorded data and complicate the analysis.

Having decided for a monitoring interval, the next steps are to activate the SQL Monitor and to ensure that it remains in a consistent state throughout its operation. At the end of the measurement period you can then either deactivate the SQL Monitor manually or take advantage of the automatic deactivation feature which will be described later in this article. Afterwards you may analyze the recorded data and adapt your source code to improve its performance. Finally, to analyze the effect of your adaptions, you should reset the previously recorded data and start the monitoring cycle over again.

Summarizing this brief description, the monitoring cycle consists of the following phases

1. Activation – activate the monitoring
   
   
2. Monitoring – check & ensure the monitoring status
   
   
3. Deactivation – deactivate the monitoring
   
   
4. Reset – archive the collected data & reset the monitoring
   
   

Each of these steps will be described in detail in the remainder of this post. Before diving into the specifics of the different phases, however, there is one important point worth covering: authorizations. The SQL Monitor’s authorization concept involves two different roles – the data analyzer and the administrator. The former, evaluates the recorded data with the data display transaction SQLMD while the latter administrates the monitor using transaction SQLM. Both of these roles require the authorization profile for object S_DEVELOP (activity 03) as the bare minimum. In addition, you’ll need the authorization profile for object S_ADMI_FCD with value SQMD for the data analyzer role and value SQMA for the administrator role, respectively.

That being said, let’s turn to the individual administrative phases 1 to 4.

Phase 1 – Activation

As mentioned earlier, the starting point of all administrative tasks is the transaction SQLM. Its main screen (see Screenshot 1) contains information about the current status of the monitor (section “State”) as well as a number of control buttons (sections “Activation / Deactivation” and “Data Management”).

As you can see, the monitoring is currently deactivated (field “Activation State” in section “State”). To activate it, you can use the buttons “All Servers” and “Select Servers” in section “Activation / Deactivation”. The former activates the monitoring globally – that means for every application server in the system – whereas the latter allows you to control the activation for each server individually.

In general, you will want to track all processes that are executed in your system and so you should usually activate the monitoring globally. For demonstrative purposes, however, let’s assume that we wanted to activate the monitoring on the local application server only. After clicking the button “Select Servers” a popup window appears in which we can select the individual servers for activation. The local application server is marked with an arrow which makes the task of locating and selecting it a breeze.

After selecting the local server and confirming the popup another popup appears and asks us to specify an expiration date for the activation. The monitoring will automatically be deactivated when the specified date and time are reached. Setting the expiration date is mandatory and has two benefits. Firstly, it lets you plan the length of your monitoring phase ahead of time so you don’t need to remember to come back and deactivate the monitoring. Secondly, if for any reason you forget to deactivate the monitoring, the automatic deactivation avoids recording of unneeded monitoring data.

Note that you can always change the scheduled deactivation date and time after the monitor was activated by using the application menu (from the menu bar select “SQL Monitor” > “Maintain Deactivation Schedule”).

After confirming the popup the monitoring is, finally, activated for the local server and the state information on the main screen is updated accordingly. In addition, we see a tabular representation of the activation state for the individual servers.

Every time you change the activation state of the SQL Monitor a corresponding log entry will be created in the SQL Monitor log. The log can be accessed via the “History” (in later versions “Log”) toolbar button on the main screen of transaction SQLM (see Screenshot 4). It collects all past administrative actions that were performed on the SQL Monitor and help you answer questions such as “How long did we run the monitoring last time?” or “When was the data reset the last time?”.

Now that the SQL Monitor is active we can switch to the second phase – the actual monitoring.

Phase 2 – Monitoring

Having activated the SQL Monitor there is not much to do for you from an administrator point of view. It might, however, be good practice to cast an eye on the monitoring status from time to time for the rare case of failure. That’s monitoring of the monitor if you like.

In general, all required status information and any failures will be presented to you on the start screen of transaction SQLM. One of the things you should watch out for here is an explosion in the number of collected monitoring records. Such a situation could occur if lots of generated coding is executed in your system. The SQL Monitor internally uses a number of aggregation strategies to limit the number of monitoring records but depending on your particular case there might be a rare chance that these counter-measures prove ineffective. Therefore, it is advisable to keep a close eye on the number of monitoring records (field “Number of Records” in section “State”) during the first few hours of operation. In general, the number will quickly saturate. If, however, you find the number of records to rise indefinitely without showing signs of saturation, you should deactivate the monitoring to prevent unnecessary high data volumes. At this point it might be worth mentioning that if you have SAP Note 1972328 applied in your system, the SQL Monitor will automatically shut off when the number of records exceeds 2,000,000. Besides, this note also contains tons of other enhancements and fixes so you should definitely take a look at it.

Other possible but rare failures include unscheduled batch jobs. During operation the SQL Monitor writes recorded data to the application servers’ shared memory space from where it is later collected and persisted into the system’s database. This requires periodic execution of the reports RTM_COLLECT_ALL and RSQLM_UPDATE_DATA. The scheduling of both of these jobs is automatically ensured when you active the monitoring in transaction SQLM. If for any reason one or both of these jobs are unscheduled afterwards, you will see a warning on the start screen of transaction SQLM. If you come across such a warning message, you need to either reschedule the batch job manually or renew the SQL Monitor activation by using the buttons “All Servers” or “Select Servers” in section “Activation / Deactivation”.

Finally, there is one particular type of error that is not immediately apparent after firing up transaction SQLM – inconsistent activation states. An inconsistent activation state exists when the expected activation state differs from the actual activation state. In other words, the SQL Monitor is activated on a particular server but it is not actually running on that server (or the other way around). This could, for instance, happen when the server becomes unreachable during the activation process. To check the activation consistency you can click the “Servers” button in the toolbar on the main screen of transaction SQLM. This will establish the tabular display of the per-server activation state shown in Screenshot 4. In the rare case of inconsistencies you can try to repair the activation by using the application menu (from the menu bar select “SQL Monitor” > “Server States” > “Ensure”).

Phase 3 – Deactivation

As mentioned in the description of phase number one, the activation expiration will lead to an automatic deactivation of the SQL Monitor once the specified date and time are reached. If, for any reason, you want to halt the monitoring before, you can do so by using the button “Deactivate” in section “Activation / Deactivation”. Both options for deactivating the monitor are globally effective and stop the monitoring on all available application servers.

Phase 4 – Reset

As mentioned earlier, the monitoring data is most valuable when it was recorded in a period without code changes. However, as you analyze the data you will likely want to change certain sections of code to improve performance. These code changes in turn will lead to a gradual distortion of the monitoring results which makes it harder to draw conclusions from the recorded data. Therefore, it is advisable to reset the SQL Monitor data whenever the source code in the system was changed to a significant extent (for instance due to imported transports).

Prior to erasing all SQL Monitor data from the system you have the opportunity to download the data to a file by using the button “Download Data” in section “Data Management”. The button will take you to a new screen that allows you to apply basic filtering (for instance on the package name) in order to limit the amount of downloaded data. Downloading the recorded data can be advantageous for archiving purposes or if you plan to import the data into a different application such as the SQL Performance Tuning Worklist (transaction SWLT).

Note that in later versions of the SQL Monitor you can also archive the recorded data into a so called snapshot. You can then display and analyze the snapshot’s data at any later point in time without independently of the currently recorded monitoring data.

Whether or not you have downloaded or archived the recorded data, you can easily wipe all SQL Monitor data off the system by clicking the button “Delete Data” in section “Data Management”. Note, however, that this is only possible when the SQL Monitor is deactivated.

Wrap-Up

In today’s hands-on example I gave you an introduction to the administrative site of the SQL Monitor. As you’ve seen the administrative cycle consists of the four phases: activation, monitoring, deactivation and reset. The central access point for all of these phases is the transaction SQLM. The main screen of this transaction offers valuable status information and a set of control buttons. As result, tasks like activating, deactivating or resetting the Monitor are breeze.

I hope you had fun working through the present as well as any previous hands-on scenarios. I for sure did! This post marks the end of my series – at least for the time being. As we add new features to the SQL Monitor, I’m sure to return with another pack of hands-on scenarios soon!

In case you missed previous posts, you should start working through my series from the initial article: SQL Monitor Unleashed

Hi all SCN members,

In this blog I would like to mention the key points that I have jotted down in the technical session happened at SIT, Hyderabad on ABAP IN HANA by Sundaresan Krishnamurthy from SAPLABS. This 30 minutes was absolute enjoyment for all ABAPers, all credits to the presenter. It was again another useful session for all the attendees. Sundaresan was awarded with the winner award for his presentation on this session.

Introduction:

ABAP in HANA is upcoming and one hot topic in the SAP domain. Though HANA also playing a significant role in other fields of SAP its role in ABAP is immeasurable. In this blog I will be explaining in brief about the different aspects and role of HANA in ABAP.

Role of ABAP for development on HANA:

It basically deals with the following aspects,

• SAP business Suite: it concentrates mainly on how customer can optimize and develop more applications.
• SAP Net weaver BW: it concentrates on updation aspects.
• New Application: concentrates on developing new applications.

Advantages of ABAP in HANA:

1. Deeper and better integration with real time data access.
2. New tools to detect optimization potential.
3. Delightful user experience.
4. New possibilities to build applications.
5. Real time analysis.
6. ABAP in eclipse (develop like never before).

ABAP code benefits from SAP HANA:

1. SAP HANA platform is a complete relational database, hence no problem in using same code.
2. Custom codes must be taken care during transition.
3. Optimization potential will be high and transparent. That is fast data access and presence of optimized statements.
4. In memory computing.
5. Programming is near data base.
6. HANA specific features are used.
7. No message checks happen during transition.

CODE PUSHDOWN:

This is the main concept that explains the HANA functionality.

Usually in ABAP, data is transformed into code and then calculations happen alternatively in HANA the code is transformed into Data. This concept is called CODE PUSHDOWN.

Code pushdown need not necessarily be above example alone. A simple select query when transformed from SELECT SINGLE into SELECT FOR ALL ENTRIES also comes under CODE PUSHDOWN.

General Points:

• In ABAP coding is sequential where as in HANA coding is parallel.
• For getting started with HANA, ABAP 7.4 trial is used as virtual appliance.
• During transition select query based on index will automatically get deleted, hence no index in picture.
• As far as open SQL is concerned extended join support is provided.
• Support for literals. For e.g. till now in ABAP select statements we have only fields which should be present either in structure or in table but with HANA even constants can be present in select statements.

SQL MONITOR- The tool of HANA:

• This is an important tool that customer must be provided first incase he need to use HANA.
• The T-Code used for SQL tool monitor is SQLM.
• This tool is mainly used to analyze the code and check for its effectiveness.
• There is another transaction used namely SWLT which mainly uses ABAP test cockpit to prioritize which line of code is used more.
• In general it is similar to our ST05 with a difference that ST05 gives the trace for the entire code in the order in which it is executed but SQLM gives the trace on the basis of codes that are used more.
• In short SQLM can serve as an input to ST05.

TAKEAWAYS:

1. ABAP is and will continue to be basis for applications.
2. ABAP 7.4 facilitates leveraging which is a SAP HANA feature.
3. SAP HANA offer many new possibilities for ABAP based applications.
4. HANA deals only with INSERT statements with database.
5. Right time to get started with ABAP in HANA.

Conclusion:

The session actually gave me a good idea on what is HANA and what role does ABAP has on it. Thanks to the presenter such efforts with demo and explanations which made the subject more interesting.

Hope I shared all the content that was taught in the session, please feel free to correct for any mistakes. Question and answer session actually made the session more interesting.

Hats off to Sundaresan for this wonderful session.

Thanks for reading the blog   Hope you found it useful

Note: For more information about the happenings in SIT Hyderabad please read the below blog

http://scn.sap.com/community/events/inside-track/blog/2014/02/24/sit-hyderabad-an-overview-on-the-technical-track

LETS LEARN SHARE AND COLLABRATE

Thanks and Regards,

Satish kumar Balasubramanian

Hello all,

I would like to share my knowledge, which I gained from SIT (SAP Inside Track), 2014. Before getting started with a particular topic, I would like to share my experience on SIT, which was conducted in Hyderabad. It was a great pleasure for me to be a part of SIT. There were many valuable sessions throughout the day for 3 tracks (Technical, Functional and Analytical). As basically I am from technical side, the topics which they chosen are really excellent and presented in a very good manner.

Let me share you some of the points in ‘ABAP ON HANA’ which I learnt from the sessions, along with the points I collected apart from sessions, which I hope will be useful for you all to get the overview of this topic.

INTRODUCTION:

• The main theme of this topic is: ‘Accelerate, Extend, Innovate using as ABAP and SAP HANA’.
• This topic shows how, capabilities of ABAP have been enhanced for HANA development.
• All ABAP applications have been optimized for SAP HANA:
  • Deeper and better integration with accelerate and real time data access.
  • New tools to optimization potential.
  • Delightful user experience and easy access.
  • New possibilities to build applications.
  • Real-time analysis with embedded analysis.
  • Develop like never before using ABAP in Eclipse.

MIGRATION FROM ABAP TO HANA:

• ABAP code only using database independent features continue to run after migration to HANA.
• General performance guidelines stay valid for SAP HANA.
• Custom code transition:
  • Avoid (Functional) regression.
  • Detect (Additional) performance optimization potential.
• Required and recommended adaptions:
  • Database migration related
  • Functional related
  • Performance related

NEW PARADIGM:

• Code pushdown means delegating data intense calculations to the database layer. It does not mean push ALL calculations to the database, but only those that make sense.
• Example: If you want to calculate the amount of all positions of invoices. You should not select all positions of those invoices and calculate the sum in a loop. This can be easily done by using an aggregation function ( SUM() ) on the database.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABAP AND HANA:

• One basic difference between ABAP and HANA is, ABAP is based on sequential execution while HANA is based on parallel execution.
• Widely used Insert statement in ABAP is replaced with Delta Merging in HANA.

SQL MONITOR:

• Transaction code: SQLM.
• It displays performance data on process level.
• It allows drill down from process level to single database operation
• Can run in production with minimal overhead (Less than 3%).
• The monitoring cycle consists of 4 phases:
  • Activation – Activate the monitoring.
  • Monitoring – Check & ensure the monitoring status.
  • Deactivation – Deactivate the monitoring.
  • Reset – Archive the collected data and reset the monitoring.
• Below are some screenshots of SQL monitor.
  • It consists of following buttons:
    • All Servers: To select all servers for monitoring.
    • Select Servers: To select some particular servers for monitoring.
    • Activate/Deactivate: To Activate/Deactivate the monitoring.

     Main Screen of SQLM:

     Log History:

• Log History shows all the SQL statements running under the server along with following details:
  • Number of times the statement runs.
  • Duration of each statement.
  • Program in which the SQL statement is executing.
  • Data and Time of execution, etc.

CONCLUSION:

• ABAP is and will continue to be basis for applications.
• ABAP 7.4 facilities leveraging SAP HANA features.
• SAP HANA offers many new possibilities for ABAP based applications.

Thanks & Regards,

Imran Khan.

Hi Experts,

I already have a HANA studio installed in my system (Version 58), now I want to add the ABAP development and UI5 plugins. I tried to do that by going to Help->Add new software and giving the URL as https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/juno. Though I can see the plug-ins but when I add them and go to the next screen, I see an error message.

The error message is:

“Software being installed: ABAP Connectivity And Integration Development Tools (Developer Edition) 1.0.4 (com.sap.adt.pitools.tlf.devedition.feature.group 1.0.4).

  Missing requirement: ABAP Connectivity And Integration Development Tools (Developer Edition) 1.0.4 (com.sap.adt.pitools.tlf.devedition.feature.group 1.0.4) requires 'org.eclipse.emf.query.feature.group [1.5.0,2.0.0)' but it could not be found”.

As I already have HANA studio which is also eclipse based, so I think we do not need to install one more eclipse for ABAP. Please help me in getting started to work on ABAP in HANA, the Eclipse way.

Hi pundits,

I am working on case where I need to show an example to store information in HANA Geospatial data types, can fetch it and put it into an local file. I awas going through the internet though I've got some information but not which can help me out.

Vaibhav

Overview

What's in?

• Download & install the Eclipse-based SAP HANA Studio Developer Edition
• Install the ABAP Development Tools as Plug-in for the SAP HANA Studio Developer Edition

For whom?

• ABAP for SAP HANA CodeJam participants (Focus group of this HowTo)
• Developers working with ABAP on SAP HANA trial editions (more informationhere)

What else is important?

• You will need administrator rights on the machine you are installing SAP HANA Studio Developer Edition and the ABAP Development Tools for SAP NetWeaver
• The downloaded development tools are not released for productive but only for trial usage
• If you are using Windows, please ensure that you have installed the SAP GUI for Windows 7.20, patch level 9 or higher.
  

1^st step - Download & install SAP HANA Studio Developer Editon

The first part of this HowTo shows the installation of the SAP HANA
Studio.

1. Open the URL https://hanadeveditionsapicl.hana.ondemand.com/hanadevedition/
2. Select the HANA Studiotab
   
3. Download the SAP HANA Studio depending on for your operating system. In this this document we are using the Win86 (32 bit) version:
   Please also take care to select the correct Revision (1.00.60, 1.00.68 or 1.00.70).
   
4. Accept and Download the Developer Licence Agreement:
   
5. Open the downloaded installation file and execute the SAP Hana Database Installation Manager (e.g. hdbsetup.exe)
6. In the SAP HANA Database Installation Manager wizard, select the option Install new SAP HANA Studio and enter an installation path, e.g.
   C:\temp\hdbstudio\hdbstudio_CodeJam - Please do not install it in Program Files as suggested.
   
7. Review and confirm the second installation step:
   
8. The software is being installed (this might take a couple of minutes):
   
   
   and will inform you about the success of the installation once it is finished:
   
9. After successful installation via the SAP HANA Database Installation Manager, open the SAP HANA Studio in the installation folder:
   

2^nd step - Install ABAP Development Tools for SAP NetWeaver

The second part of this HowTo shows the installation of the ABAP Development Tools as a plug-in in the SAP HANA Studio. As a result of this approach, both tools will be running in the same Eclipse installation.

1. In the Menu, select Help > Install New Software...
   
2. In the installation dialog window, ensure the following update sites are listed in the drop-down list:
   • Juno: http://download.eclipse.org/releases/juno
   • Xtext All In One - Release: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/xtext/updates/composite/releases/
     
     Note: If one of these entries is missing, insert them as described for the ABAP Development Tools in the next steps.
     
3. In order to enhace the list of Available Update Sites, press the Add... button. In the Add Repository dialog window, enter name and location of the ABAP
   Development Tools update site, i.e. ABAP Development Tools - https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/juno, and continue with Next
   
   
4. Select the ABAP Development Tools update site in the drop-down list. In the list of available software for the update site, select ABAP Development Tools for SAP NetWeaver and continue the installation with Next
   
5. A list of installation details is displayed, you can continue with Next
   
6. The final step is to accept the License agreements. Finalize the installation process via the Finish button
   
7. During the installation, you’ll be asked to confirm the Security Warning. You can continue the process via the OK button
   
8. In order to finalize the installation process, a restart of the SAP HANA Studio is required, which can be triggered via the OK button
   

Now you are ready to use the SAP HANA Studio and the ABAP Development Tools for SAP NetWeaver in one single Eclipse-based IDE.

Hi

I am interested in knowing more and learning about SAP HANA and ABAP for HANA.

I found a few links on SDN, but am not sure where to start from. Is there any link where I can start learning about it from basics?

Thanks

Hi,

What is SAP HANA in basic terms. After my lot of search on internet, what I understood is SAP HANA is a Database Technology like Oracle, SQL . Is it correct? Is SAP HANA a replacement for the Database in SAP ERP ? Presently I use Oracle in the back end for database in my SAP ERP ECC 6.0 . So can it be replaced with SAP  HANA. In future, will SAP HANA replace the Oracle in SAP ERP ECC .  Should a person have ABAP knowledge to learn SAP HANA. CAn you please clarify my doubts ??

Hi Jens,

        Successfully connected and thanks Thorsten, the problem is using special char in password.

        By changing it the problem was solved.

                   Can u tell me the diff b/w HANA Client & HANA studio.

Hi All,

  Please give some ideas of how to store the data from table control into the ztable database.

There is a table control in which the end user enters the data manually and clicks the save button. Then, the data from the table control will go and store in the ztable.

regards

Vicky Kumar