SAP ECC OCF Connector: Overview

The OCF Connector for SAP ECC was developed by Alation and is available as a Zip file that can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application. The connector is compiled together with the required database driver, so no additional effort is needed to procure and install the driver.

To download the SAP ECC OCF connector package, go to the Alation Connector Hub available from the Customer Portal. Go to Customer Portal > Connectors > Alation Connector Hub. Only Alation users with access to the Customer Portal can access the Alation Connector Hub. If you don’t have access to the Customer Portal, contact Alation Support.

Extraction from an SAP ECC data source requires the use of a separate tool—Alation Rala.

Note

Create a ticket with Alation Support about receiving the SAP ECC connector package, Alation Rala installer, and Rala documentation.

Cataloging an SAP ECC data source in Alation includes two stages:

1. Using Alation Rala to extract metadata from SAP ECC and export it to JSON files.

2. Using the OCF Connector for SAP ECC to extract metadata from the source JSON files into Alation.

The exported JSON files that you want ingested into the Alation catalog need to be placed onto a supported storage system. The connector can work with three storage systems:

• Amazon S3

• Azure Storage

• Windows SMB file share.

The connector can be used on both Alation on-premise and Cloud Service instances. It extracts and catalogs such SAP ECC assets as:

• Schema

• Table

• View

• Column

• DataAsset

• DataAssetGroup

Object Mapping Between SAP ECC and Alation

Refer to the table below for information on how the extracted SAP ECC objects are mapped onto Alation objects:

• Asset types are represented as schemas.

• Tables are inferred from Table asset names. The logical name and the full path to a table-level object will be extracted into the Source Comments field on the catalog page of this object.

• Columns are inferred from Column asset names.

SAP Asset Type	Alation object
Schema Table View DataAsset DataAssetGroup	Schema
Table asset name	Table
Column asset name	Column

Tables and columns are mapped to asset names. In the example below, the asset with assetName = /ABC1/NAME will be a table /ABC1/NAME under a schema named Table in Alation:

{
 "assetType": "Table",
 "assetName": "/ABC1/NAME",
 "displayName": "/ABC1/NAME",
 "attributes":
    {
     "PhysicalName": "/ABC1/NAME",
     "LogicalName": "Shipped items",
     "LongDescription": null,
     "TableType": "Transparent",
     "RowCount": 0,
     "MetaDataChanged": "2004-02-10T13:59:10"
    }
}

In the next example, the asset with the assetName = /ABC1/NAME > DEF2 will be a column with the name DEF2 under the table /ABC1/NAME in Alation:

{
  "assetType": "Column",
  "assetName": "/ABC1/NAME > DEF2",
  "displayName": "DEF2",
  "attributes":
    {
      "PhysicalName": "DEF2",
      "LogicalName": "Client",
      "LongDescription": "A legally independent unit",
      "ColumnPosition": 1,
      "IsPrimaryKey": true,
      "IsNullable": false,
      "DataType": "CLNT",
      "LogicalDataType": "String",
      "DbmsDataType": "VARCHAR2(3)",
      "Size": 3,
      "DataElement": "DEF2",
      "Domain": "DEF2"
    }
}

Supported Relationships

The connector processes asset-to-asset relationships in SAP exports in order to build foreign key and lineage relationships in the Alation catalog. The following relationships are analyzed:

Relationship	Used for
ColumnFKeyColumn	Table-level lineage or foreign key relationships
ViewComposedOfTable	Table-level lineage
ViewComposedOfView	Table-level lineage
ColumnViewLinkColumn	Table-level lineage or foreign key relationships
DataAssetGroupHierarchyRef	Table-level lineage
DataAssetGroupToDataStructure	Table-level lineage

Supported Asset Attributes

Asset Attributes	Is Supported?	Extracted as
PhysicalName	Yes	Name of the Alation object
LogicalName	Yes	Source Comments
ColumnPosition	Yes	Ordinal position of column object
IsPrimaryKey	Yes	Primary key information
IsNullable	Yes	Column properties
DataType	Yes	Column properties
LongDescription	No
TableType	No
RowCount	No
Size	No
DecimalPlaces	No
DataElement	No
Domain	No
LogicalDataType	No
DbmsDataType	No
IsMarkedColumn	No
IsLinkedToMarkedColumn	No
IsMarkedOrLinkedColumn	No
MetaDataChanged	No

Team

You will need the assistance of your SAP administrators and your infrastructure administrator to configure the use of the SAP ECC connector end to end, which involves the following activities:

• Install Alation Rala in your network

• Provide a database as the Alation Rala Repository

• Grant the appropriate access rights for Alation Rala to connect to SAP ECC

• Extract metadata from SAP ECC into Alation Rala Repository

• Export metadata from Alation Rala to the JSON format

• Procure storage for the exported JSON files and collect access information for Alation

• Install the connector in Alation

• Create and configures an SAP ECC data source in Alation

More details are available in SAP ECC OCF Connector: Install and Configure.

Scope

The table below describes which metadata objects are extracted by the connector and which catalog functionality is supported.

Feature	Scope	Availability
Authentication
Depends on the storage system	Azure Storage Azure Storage account name Azure Storage key Windows SMB SMB file share user SMB file share password Amazon S3 User access key ID User secret access key	Yes
SSL		No
Kerberos	Not applicable	No
LDAP	Not applicable	No
Metadata extraction (MDE)
Default MDE (full extraction)	Extraction of metadata from JSON exports stored on a supported storage system. Selective MDE is not supported.	Yes
Custom query-based MDE	Not applicable	No
Extracted metadata objects
Data Source	Data source object in Alation that is parent to extracted metadata	Yes
Schemas	List of schemas	Yes
Tables	List of tables	Yes
Columns	List of columns	Yes
Views	List of views	Yes
Source comments	The LogicalName field value is extracted as source comments.	Yes
Primary keys	Primary key information for extracted tables	Yes
Foreign keys	Foreign key information for extracted tables	Yes
Sampling and Profiling		No
Query Log Ingestion (QLI)		No
Compose		No
Lineage
Direct lineage based on MDE *	Alation calculates lineage based on the relationship files exported from SAP ECC. The relations represent references between SAP ECC assets. Alation extracts the source asset names, target asset names, and relationship type, and builds lineage between source tables, target tables, and dataflow objects. The name of the relationship is added to the dataflow content. Lineage data is available on the Lineage tab on catalog pages of tables.	Yes

* Direct lineage extraction from OCF data sources is enabled by default from version 2023.1. It is controlled by the alation_conf parameter alation.ocf.mde.direct_lineage.enable_extraction. With this setting in True, Alation will calculate the direct lineage data for your ECC data source during MDE.

Limitations

• The connector does not support parallel streaming and only streams from one source at a time.

• You may notice a delay in displaying lineage after a successful MDE, as the direct lineage calculation takes some time to complete. The delay is proportional to the size of the extracted data and may vary from several seconds to 1 minute.

• Some assetName values may include the “greater than” special character >. The connector splits such values and ingests the content after the “greater than” symbol as the column name. As the result, you may see an incorrect column name on the corresponding catalog page.