SAP HANA XS Advanced - Cross-container access

This tutorial uses the SAP HANA INteractive Education model as an example of a target HDI container. Create this target container by following the XSA-specific instructions found in the SHINE source code repository. In this tutorial, we will refer to this container as the target container.

Your current database module will use two containers, the hdi-container created with the database module and the target container from the SHINE application.

• If you are using SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04 or later, right-click on the db module and choose New > SAP HANA Service Connection

  

  Choose the service from within the list and click Finish.

  

  Continue with step 2.

• If you are using SAP HANA 2.0 SPS03, right-click on the db module and choose Modeling Actions->Add External SAP HANA service

  

  Choose the service from within the list and click Finish

  

  Continue with step 2.

• If you are using SAP HANA 2.0 SPS02 or lower:

  Find out the name of the target container using command xs s from the command line interface (CLI):

  

  The CLI client can be executed from a HANA express command line as user hxeadm or downloaded to your computer using the download manager available after you register to download SAP HANA, express edition Open the mta.yaml file in your consuming application and go to the Resources tab. Create a new resource of type org.cloudfoundry.existing-service.

  Call it consumed-core-container and a new parameter with service-name as a key and the name of the service from command xs s

  

  Add a property with key consumed-service-name and value ${service-name}

  

  Save the mta.yaml file. Open the consuming hdi-container resource definition and take note of the name of the variable that has the service name assigned to its value:

  

  Select the consuming database module and add a property with key TARGET_CONTAINER and refer to the variable set with the name of the consuming hdi-container:

  

  Add group SERVICE_REPLACEMENTS with key consumed-db and the value of the variable used to hold the value of the service name in the consuming hdi-container (consumed-service-name in this example).

  

  Except for the name of the hdi-container from the external application and the environment variable service-name, the names of the variables can be adjusted to fit your needs.

As a reference, the relevant parts of the mta.yaml file in this example look like this:

modules:
  - name: form_data
    type: hdb
    path: form_data
    requires:
      - name: hdi_form_data
        properties:
          TARGET_CONTAINER: '~{hdi-container-name}'
      - name: consumed-core-container
        group: SERVICE_REPLACEMENTS
        properties:
          key: consumed-db
          service: '~{consumed-service-name}'
resources:
  - name: hdi_form_data
    parameters:
      config:
        schema: FORMS
    properties:
      hdi-container-name: '${service-name}'
    type: com.sap.xs.hdi-container
  - name: consumed-core-container
    type: org.cloudfoundry.existing-service
    parameters:
      service-name: 'XSA_DEV-zkway5plof6jgxab-hana-shine-xsa-shine-container'
    properties:
      consumed-service-name: '${service-name}'

The technical users created for the consuming hdi-container will need to be granted permissions in the target or consumed container. The permissions can be roles in the target container.

In the SHINE application, the available roles are admin.hdbrole and core-db. You will use the admin role in this tutorial but if you are using a different container or would like to restrict access further, you can create a new one:

The # (pound) sign at the end of the name of a role means it contains privileges with grant option and will be assigned to the schema owner technical user.

Create a file with extension .hdbgrants in a folder called cfg in your module.

You can use the option New->File to create both a folder and a file in the latest version of SAP Web IDE for SAP HANA

Here is a sample file to grant permissions to both an administration and application user. The names of the roles match the roles created in the target container as noted in the first step:

{
  "consumed-db": {
    "object_owner" : {
      "container_roles":[ "admin"]
    },
    "application_user" : {
      "container_roles":["admin"]
    }
  }
}

Important

Further restrictions and different roles between the owner and application user should be applied in productive applications.

See the current documentation about creating design-time roles or about .hdbgrants

Create a file with extension .hdbsynonym in a folder called synonyms under src. You can use the + sign to add synonyms from the target container:

For example:

Build the consuming database module.

Check the optional synonym configuration files

You can move the configuration to a .hdbsynonymconfig file. This will allow you to reference the target schema dynamically, without indicating the name explicitly, among other options. Check the documentation for your version on the Help.

Here is a sample view using the synonyms for the target hdi-container. You can create one in a new or existing .hdbcds artifact

using "PO.Header" as HEADER;

context quality{

define view PO_QA  
	as select from HEADER {
            "HEADER"."PURCHASEORDERID" as "PURCHASEORDERID",
            "HEADER"."APPROVALSTATUS" as "APPROVALSTATUS",
            "HEADER"."GROSSAMOUNT" as "GROSSAMOUNT",
            "HEADER"."CURRENCY" as "CURRENCY"
    };

}

Save and build the artifacts.

You can see the results in the database explorer

You can check the synonyms first

Or the view you have created