If you are wondering how to integrate a Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake to your SAP PaPM Cloud then this blog is for you.

Let me start with a bit of introduction of what  SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake is.

There are two types of SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake:

1. Embedded SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake means that the data lake is provisioned as an extension of a SAP Hana Cloud database instance. The Remote connections between these provisioned SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake and SAP HANA Cloud Database are automatically created. In order to access data from Embedded SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake, then virtualization, or creating virtual tables on top of the data lake table can be performed. Since SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake is provisioned specifically for that SAP HANA Cloud Database, it was not designed to be integrated with external sources.
2. Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake on the other hand, means that the SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake is provisioned separately of the SAP Hana Cloud database instance wherein connections between are not automatically created. Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake is treated as a separate application with its own UI and an available separate credentials. This also implies that it is capable to be connected to different sources.

Base information from above comparison is also available here:
Spotlight: SAP HANA Cloud, data lake stands alone

In this blogpost, we will focus more on consuming data from Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake through SAP PaPM Cloud’s underlying database which is SAP HANA Cloud. And in order to do this, the following steps should be performed.

1. As a prerequisite, an available Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake instance is needed. If not, you can visit Ways to Create a Data Lake
2. In order to setup a Standalone SAP Hana Cloud, Data Lake into your SAP PaPM Cloud’s underlying database which is SAP HANA Cloud, you can look into the following tutorials:
   Provision a Standalone Data Lake in SAP HANA Cloud
   Access a Standalone Data Lake in SAP HANA Cloud
3. Once above steps are configured, Login as SAP_PAPM_ADMIN in the underlying database of SAP PaPM Cloud. Go to the Remote Sources and create the connections necessary. To create a remote source, you can check the steps in this help portal section:
   Create an SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake Relational Engine Remote Source
   Below is a snippet of the code in help portal. 

   --Sample Code 
   
   CREATE REMOTE SOURCE MY_HDL ADAPTER "iqodbc" 
       CONFIGURATION 'Driver=libdbodbc17_r.so;host=<hdl_host>;
       ENC=TLS(trusted_certificates=<certificate_string>;direct=yes)'
       WITH CREDENTIAL TYPE 'PASSWORD' USING 'user=<user_name>;password=<password>';​

    

4. Once completely established, as SAP_PAPM_ADMIN you can now proceed in using the Tables and views from the source in SAP PaPM Cloud via creating a Virtual Table being stored in one of SAP PaPM Cloud Schema.A. Choose the Database
   B. Choose Remote Sources
   C. Choose the created remote source from Step 3
   D. Choose the Data Lake Table
   E. Create Virtual Table
   
   You can also create a virtual table using below sql commands: 

   --SAP_PAPM_ADMIN authorization so the Virtual Table can be created
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON SCHEMA "<LocalSchema>" TO SAP_PAPM_ADMIN;
   
   --Creation of Virtual Table to the LocalSchema using SAP_PAPM_ADMIN
   CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE "<LocalSchema>"."<TableName>" AT "<RemoteSource>"."<NULL>"."<SchemaRemoteSource"."<DL Table>"; 

    

5. Virtual Table is now available in your schema. As per my colleague, Justine Angeles‘  blogpost,
   

   This virtual table then is possible to be used for reading/writing by establishing a HANA Table Source in Connections which will then be consumed afterwards in SAP PaPM Cloud modeling through Model Table HANA or Model View HANA. In the modeling screen, shall you get activation issue due to authorization, please ensure to provide read and write privileges to SAP_PAPM (SAP PaPM DB user responsible to create procedure after activation or run papm procedure during calculation) on the schema you used in step 4.

   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON SCHEMA "<SCHEMA>" TO SAP_PAPM WITH GRANT OPTION

    

Your SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake table is now available for use in SAP PaPM Cloud. I hope this blogpost will help you on your next SAP PaPM Cloud integration journey related to Standalone SAP HANA Cloud, Data Lake.

Goodluck and have fun!