Hi all,
Need some collaborative thinking here. We are currently starting to transport our HANA views to target Q and P systems as per usual build process. Id like to collect some feedback on best practices in the transport area as I can find little content on this. If anyone has links, documents please share. A useful one I have found is here: Export and Import feature in HANA Studio - http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-26381
As I understand it delivery units are the method of transport which authenticate the import/export process. EG as per practice you should assign packages to delivery units and then all package content is exported and imported into the target system when a delivery unit is requested for export/import - similar to BW transports.
But what about global package areas? If HANA is meant to eventually supply data to all SAP applications then surely most content will be global and should be organisaed as such. For Example, we are making our models as global as possible and have organised content in 3 distinct package areas:
1) Master Data - holding all global reuseable master data attribute views
2) Foundations - holding all global subject matter attribute and analytic views
3) Applications - holding all project/application specific attribute, analytic, calculation views.
*Each of these areas can be further organised into subpackages (EG in master data package we have a customer, material, distribution channel packages which hold relevant models and make it easier to locate specific master data.
Based on this organisation delivery units only make sense for the last option. EG a delivery unit is assigned to project team. Then when they are ready to transport they assign all the packages to the delivery unit for transport. This works in this last option because all build is owned by the project and thus should be managed appropriately (EG a transport of the package should not be requested if development of an object is not finalised). We get around this by enforcing a role for developers to only copy models into the above areas once they have been unit tested and approved in a special development area.
However how can we ensure that the global areas (Most import views and content) can be safely transported without risk to the target system integrity? As discussed above if I create a new build under the master data package I have to transport the entire package content. But I only have visibility and knowledge of my model and no one elses. How do I know that my request isnt going to allow for the possibility that one of the other modelers has performed a modification on another view within this area to be transported. Short answer is I dont.
So my question is how to we ensure the integrity of transports and the target system? I know you can export import individual objects to target with the developer mode but this says to be used in extreme situations. To me this isnt an extreme situation but common practice. Can HANA provide a authenticate import/export process which is object specific?
Pleased to hear thoughts.
Kind regards,
Danielle