Let's now explore how remote tables can be used for data provisioning.
Data Federation with Remote Tables
Data federation is a powerful data management strategy that enables seamless integration and efficient utilization of disparate data sources. In this approach, the data is left where it resides and virtualization techniques are used to provide a unified view.
In SAP Datasphere, a remote table is a virtual object that provides direct access to data residing in a source system.
You can use the option Import Remote Tables on the Data Builder landing page or the Repository Explorer to create a remote table.
Data Replication with Remote Tables
By default, when you import a remote table, its data is not replicated and must be accessed using federation each time from the remote system. You can improve performance by replicating the data to SAP Datasphere and you can schedule regular updates (or, for many connection types, enable real-time replication) to keep the data fresh and up-to-date.
The Data Integration Monitor offers the following data replication options for remote tables:
Snapshots:
Start Data Replication: Directly start a copy of the full set of data from the source in the background.
Remove Replicated Data: Stop replication and delete data from the replica table.
Real-time replication:
Enable Real-Time Data Replication: Start replication of data changes in the source in real-time.
Disable Real-Time Data Replication: Disable real-time data replication and switch the data access from Replicated (Real-time) to Replicated (snapshot). It preserves the replica table and its replicated data to allow further actions on the remote table such as deleting or changing the properties of the connection.
Validation for Remote Tables
The option Validate Remote Tables can be used to identify available table structure updates for all tables sharing the same source connection, and avoid errors and impact on dependent objects and run times in SAP Datasphere resulting from these updates, such as view runs, remote table replications or deployment. Data valuation is available for remote tables with or without persistence.
Mass validation offers to validate multiple remote tables at once. You can select an entire connection for validation.
The Remote Table Monitor provides ongoing runtime validation by showing the replication status for each remote table, error messages when real-time replication fails or stalls.
