Outlining Spaces

Spaces are secured virtual work environments which:

• provide isolation for metadata objects and space resources.

• define storage quota, control resource usage, and workload class settings.

• maintain space-specific source system connections and a common time dimension.

• manage user access for space members in combination with Scoped Roles.

• enable sharing of data and currency conversion settings with other spaces.

Space data can not be accessed outside the space unless it is shared to another space or exposed for consumption.

You can create spaces with different types of storage:

• SAP HANA Database (Disk and In-Memory): use SAP HANA database storage (disk and in-memory) for traditional data warehousing needs. You allocate disk and memory storage, set a priority, and can limit how much memory and how many threads its statements can consume.

• SAP HANA Data Lake Files: file spaces are intended for loading and preparing large quantities of data in an inexpensive inbound staging area and are stored in the SAP Datasphere object store. You allocate compute resources.

When you define a space, the Space ID can contain a maximum of 20 characters and cannot be changed later. The valid characters for the Space ID are: A - Z, 0 - 9, and _. The Space Name contains a maximum of 30 characters and can be changed any time.

Let's explore several settings when defining a space.

In a space with storage type SAP HANA Database (Disk and In-Memory), the storage size needs to be defined. The default storage size is 2 GB for disk and 1 GB for in-memory storage. Using the + and - buttons you can change the size by 1 GB. If you need to scale up or down in smaller sizes you can also change the size in 100 MB increments by directly editing the values with one decimal.

In a space, users can be assigned with a space administrator role. With this role they can manage users, create connections to source systems, secure data with data access controls, and manage other aspects of the space. As a prerequisite, an administrator needs to assign a scoped role to the space.

Users with a space administrator role can create database users. A database user in SAP Datasphere is a technical user that provides secure access to the underlying SAP HANA Cloud database using Open SQL Schema, enabling external tools and applications to connect directly to space data through standard SQL protocols.

You can define how a database user can use the Open SQL Schema functionality:

• Enable read access (SQL)
• Enable write access (SQL, DDL, DML)
• Enable Automated Predictive Library and Predictive Analysis Library
• Enable audit logs for read/change operations

For each space, you need to define a dedicated database user because each such user can only access the specific database schema of its corresponding space.

An HDI (SAP HANA Deployment Infrastructure) container in SAP Datasphere is a secure, isolated database environment that stores design-time artifacts, for example tables and views, and their corresponding deployed run-time catalog objects. HDI containers function as specialized storage units for database development artifacts, providing a declarative approach for defining database objects and ensuring consistent deployment into the underlying SAP HANA Cloud database.

You can enable access to HDI containers in your space. Modelers can use HDI artifacts as sources for views and HDI clients can access space data.

You can create a time-related table for your space.

Information such as years, quarters, months and days enrich your models even further by providing additional time-related information. By creating hierarchies based on a specific granularity, time dimensions also allow you to drill down on stories. You can create a time dimension table within a space, which then allows you to add the time dimensions to your objects in the modeling tools. A time table is created only once per space.

You can control your data by creating an audit log.

You can choose whether you want a read log or a change log to be created for a space. You will be able to see who made changes to your data or who read the data. This is for the data created within your space. For data coming in from third-party clients, an individual audit log should be created by editing your database user.

The log files are saved to an SAP HANA audit log. This log has to be mapped to a space if you want to read the data. We recommend creating a dedicated space for audit logs only. This way you can make sure that only eligible users can view the data. Map the audit log to this space in Administration→Audit and then select the dedicated space in the dropdown list.

In this simulation, you will create a space.

In this simulation, you will add a scoped role to a space.

Workload management in SAP Datasphere allows administrators to control resource allocation, processing priorities, and statement limits for spaces to optimize performance and prevent resource contention. This ensures balanced workload distribution and prevents individual operations from consuming excessive system resources.

With space prioritizing you can decide how important your space should be treated compared to other spaces.

Spaces send queries or jobs to the database. The database then has to decide which job or query has to be dealt with first. Queries from important spaces can be favored, meaning they will be processed faster than queries from other spaces. spaces with a priority of 5 have the highest available priority. The lowest setting is 1.

You can set maximum total thread and memory limits that statements running concurrently in the space can consume. You can select either of the following:

• Default: The default configuration provides generous resource limits, while preventing any single space from overloading the system. The default configuration is applied by default to new spaces.

• Custom: You can set custom maximum total thread and memory limits that statements running concurrently in the space can consume.