Introducing ODP

For SAP BW/4HANA, there is a new, more efficient data loading technology called Operational Data Provisioning (ODP) that replaces many of the data loading techniques used by SAP BW. It first appeared in SAP BW 7.40 in a basic form, but has become more advanced for SAP BW/4HANA.

Operational Data Provisioning (ODP) provides a data distribution framework that offers a unified technology for data provisioning and consumption in general. The ODP framework supports extraction and replication scenarios for various target applications and supports delta mechanisms in these scenarios. With its service for extraction, transformation and loading (ETL), it supports data transfer to the target applications SAP BW and SAP BW/4HANA, as well as to SAP Data Services or SAP HANA Smart Data Integration (SAP HANA SDI).

To support the delta procedure, the data from a source is automatically written using an update process to a delta queue, known as the Operational Delta Queue (transaction code ODQMON), and passed to the delta queue using an extractor interface. Sources, also known as ODP providers that can provide the delta queues with data, are at present DataSources (extractors), ABAP Core Data Services Views (ABAP CDS Views), SAP BW or SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT), and SAP HANA Information Views (calculation views). The target applications (referred to as subscribers or ODP consumers) retrieve the data from the delta queue and continue processing it. Monitoring of data extraction and data replication is performed using the delta queues.

In SAP BW/4HANA, ODP represents a core interface for (mainly) SAP sources and replaces the existing interfaces to SAP sources of the past. ODP encompasses the Operational Delta Queue (ODQ) and as a technology it acts as the hub for all data flowing into SAP BW/4HANA from external sources. In SAP BW/4HANA, Operational Data Provisioning has become the central infrastructure for data extraction and data replication from SAP ABAP applications.

Key aspects of Operational Data Provisioning:

• ODP is an SAP NetWeaver-based framework and became available with NetWeaver 7.30, but for SAP BW with release 7.40 only. The ODP Queue as persistency resides where the ODP is installed. Normally, this is the providing source system, but exceptions apply (see ODP - SAP HANA Information Views).

• ODP does not require SAP HANA. It works for SAP BW (anyDB), SAP BW powered by SAP HANA, as well as SAP BW/4HANA.

• Although SAP BW/4HANA is not SAP NetWeaver-based, the relevant ABAP components for the ODP framework are included in the SAP BW/4HANA ABAP Application Server, and so ODP is a core component of SAP BW/4HANA as well.

• The same data can be requested by more than one subscriber.

• It offers intelligent parallelization options for subscribers in high volume scenarios.

• The Operational Delta Queue offers a time stamp based recovery mechanism, and thus configurable data retention periods.

• The Operational Delta Queue offers a highly efficient compression mechanism, with data compression rates up to 90%.

Compared to loading data using InfoPackages and PSA tables, with the use of ODP in SAP BW/4HANA the Persistent Staging Area (PSA tables) is obsolete (only in SAP BW/4HANA), because data is loaded directly to a target SAP BW/4HANA-subscriber by using Data Transfer Processes. Also the run time is reduced by more than 40% when loading from the ODQ in the source system via Data Transfer Processes (DTP) to a target SAP BW/4HANA-subscriber.

All of these ODP scenarios (often referred to as contexts) run with SAP BW/4HANA or SAP BW powered by SAP HANA, as well as SAP BW classic, except ODP - SAP HANA Information Views, which requires SAP HANA as a database for SAP BW.

The following ODP-related source system types are available for an SAP BW/4HANA system as a target:

• ODP - SAP Extractors (ODP_SAP):

  This context exposes BW DataSources as so-called Operational Data Providers. A BW DataSource defines an extraction structure that is filled by an extractor, implementing the logic to retrieve the relevant data from the ABAP system.

  Without additional configuration, the ODP framework supports DataSources that have been released by the application owner. Most released DataSources are part of SAP Business Suite. Consumers access these ODPs via the RFC implementation of the ODP consumer interface. Available since SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SP23.

• ODP - ABAP CDS Views (ODP_CDS):

  ABAP Core Data Services (CDS) enhance SQL to allow defining and consuming semantically rich data models natively in SAP HANA applications. This improves productivity, consumability, performance, and interoperability. The key concept for expressing semantics of ABAP CDS models is annotations, which are attached to elements of a model (entities, views). Applying annotations with analytical semantics, ABAP CDS views can be annotated so that the resulting meta data would allow the generation of transient Operational Data Providers. This technology is core for SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics and for SAP S/4HANA extraction. Available since SAP BW 7.5 SP04.

• ODP - BW (ODP_BW):

  SAP BW/4HANA exposes its data as so-called Operational Data Providers for extraction purposes. All relevant SAP BW/4HANA InfoProviders are supported as a source. The ODPs are accessible via the RFC implementation of the ODP consumer interface. Available since SAP BW 7.0 SP36.

• ODP - SAP HANA Information Views (ODP_HANA):

  This context enables SAP HANA Views as Operational Data Providers. It allows replication of the view data into another data warehouse system. It also allows you to perform BW queries directly on SAP HANA views. Such queries can be defined on top of transient BW InfoProviders, which are provided for the transient Operational Data Providers and can be identified by their name prefix "2H". Consumers access these Operational Data Providers via the RFC implementation of the ODP consumer interface. This implementation opens up the possibility to shift business logic from the ABAP-based BW warehousing and query layers to the SAP HANA database. Examples include calculations of key figures, restricted key figures, currency conversions, and joins and unions, which can be defined in SAP HANA views. The results of such calculations can then also be accessed via ODP. Available since SAP BW 7.30 SP05.

• ODP - SLT Queue (ODP_SLT):

  Using the ODP infrastructure and the trigger-based replication of SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server (SLT), data can be transferred in real time from several source systems to one or more data target systems, and SAP BW/4HANA can be one of these. SLT Replication Server acts as a provider for the ODP infrastructure. It can make tables from SAP sources available as delta queues. Available since DMIS 2011 SP05 and SAP BW 7.30 SP08.

Note

There's also an ODP context for SAP Business by Design, where data represented with ByDesign’s multidimensional analytical views (MDAVs) can be extracted via ODP from the system. More information can be found here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_BW4HANA/107a6e8a38b74ede94c833ca3b7b6f51/ca14c0899cb04f16929b5d88e147fc8f.html