Step-by-step: Setup SDI for your HCP account (part 1)

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For an introduction on smart data integration (SDI) for HCP check this post > Smart Data Integration available for HCP

This current blog will provide step-by-step instructions on how to set up SDI for your HCP account. The prerequisite will be that you have an HCP account with a HANA database-as-a-service and also have a license that enables you to use SDI and download the required components from SAP service market place. A future blog post will explain how you can use SDI on the trial landscape (not available yet).

We'll cover the end to end process until you see some sample data from an onPremise source (we will use a file for simplicity) in your HANA database on HCP. Once you reach this step, you'll be able to extend it yourself to more advanced scenarios.In summary, we'll go to these steps:

1. Download the required software components
2. Use HANA Studio to enable the Data Provisioning Server
3. Import the SDI delivery unit
4. Create HANA users with the required permissions
5. Install and configure the SDI agent to connect to your cloud instance
6. Setup a test to read a file and load to a HANA table

1. Download the required software components

First we will download the SDI agent and SDI delivery unit. Customers with a valid license for SDI will be able to see the downloads from SAP service market place. Please make sure you go to the "Support packages and patches" or "Maintenance Product" area to see all available versions (and not just the initial release). The easiest way to find the downloads is use the Search capability on https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter and search for SDI.

The choice of which support package (SP) of SDI you need depends on your HANA database. SDI SP01 was released for HANA SPS10, SDI SP02 for HANA SPS11 and SDI SP03 for HANA SPS12. However each SDI SP has a backward and forward compatibility for one HANA version.

The table below lists the supported combinations of SDI agent and HANA database version :

	HANA SPS10 (available on HCP, also used for HCP trial)	HANA SPS11 (available on HCP)	HANA SPS12 (released in May 2016, not available on HCP yet)
SDI SP01	Yes	Yes (1 forward)	-
SDI SP02	Yes (1 backward)	Yes	Yes (1 forward)
SDI SP03	-	Yes (1 backward)	Yes

We currently recommend to use SDI SP02 because it can be used with all available HANA versions on HCP. Also make sure you take the latest patch for SP02.You need at least patch 3 for the SP02 SDI agent and patch 2 for the SP02 SDI delivery unit, these patches have critical enhancements for using SDI with HCP.

You will find the SDI delivery unit via this navigation path: SAP HANA SDI >> SAP HANA SDI 1.0 >> COMPRISED SOFTWARE COMPONENT VERSIONS >> HANA DP 1.0 >> # OS INDEPENDENT >> SP02 Patch2 for HANA DP 1.0 = HANAIMDP02P_2-70000027.ZIP

You will find the SDI agent via this navigation patch: SAP HANA SDI >> SAP HANA SDI 1.0 >> COMPRISED SOFTWARE COMPONENT VERSIONS >>

HANA DP AGENT 1.0 >> select Windows or Linux in dropdownbox >> SP02 Patch 3 for HANA DP Agent 1.0 =

IMDB_DPAGENT100_02_3-70000175.SAR (Windows) or IMDB_DPAGENT100_02_3-70000174.SAR (Linux)

Note in order to unpack the .SAR file, you will also need the SAPCAR utility, which can be download from the software center as well. SAPCAR is a command line utility, similar to the linux "tar" command, also with similar syntax. The command to unpack the agent would be:
sapcar.exe -xvf IMDB_DPAGENT100_02_3-70000175.SAR

2. Use HANA Studio to enable the Data Provisioning Server

For most of the steps in this blog, we will use the web based UIs, however there's a one-time setup step to enable the data provisioning server that requires HANA Studio. Where possible we will use the HANA WebIDE, but if you prefer HANA Studio you can also do the remaining steps in Studio.

As a pre-requisite you will need to have HANA Studio installed, with the plugin for the HANA Cloud Platform so that you can connect to the HANA database on HCP. How to obtain HANA Studio and the plugin is installed on this page in the help portal:SAP HANA Cloud Platform.

In HANA Studio, create a connection to your HANA database on HCP.

• Right click on the system name in the list of systems and select "Configuration and Monitoring" -> "Open Administration"
• Go to the "Configuration" tab
• Navigate to "daemon.ini" -> "dpserver"
• Double click on the "instances" property to change the value from 0 to 1

No save or restart needed, the dpserver will get started right away and will be available within seconds. On the "Landscape" tab under "Services" you should see the dpserver service running now.

3. Import the SDI delivery unit

The SDI delivery unit need to be imported in your HANA database in order for the agent to communicate over HTTPS to your data provisioning server. The same delivery unit will also add the SDI monitoring user interface.Once you have downloaded the .ZIP file from service market place, unzip to get the .tgz file which contains the delivery unit. It will be named like HANAIMDP.tgz. You can import the delivery unit through the web based ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) application, but since we have HANA Studio still open, let's use HANA Studio.

1. In HANA Studio go to the menu File / Import...
2. Select in the folder "SAP HANA Content" > "Delivery Unit"
3. In "Systems for import" select your HCP HANA database
4. Select file from "Client" and browse to the .tgz file with the delivery unit.
5. Click Finish

For the next steps go the part 2 of this blog: Step-by-step: Setup SDI for your HCP account (part 2).