After the evolution of SAP HANA, one of the most important topic which encountered much by SAP Software Developers is Core Data Services. People who have been developing SAP ABAP software for many years, has neglected to use this new approach at first because of common habits and also lack of features of CDS, is still not given much importance. However, SAP adds a number of features to CDS Views every day, with each new version, and tries to pull access to the database in this direction by increasing the usage areas.
In the rest of the article, we will look at CDS views technically and see the important points about their usage.
What makes CDS views so important?
Basically a CDS view is the new programming and data model of SAP, which is similar to the old ABAP dictionary views but offers much more features and possibilities and is developed using SQL.
Technically, it is an SQL-based development that introduces a new Data Definition Language (DDL) to identify meaningful and rich database units and user-defined data models.
SAP named this new model as ‘Code-Pushdown’ or ‘Code-to-Data’. The reason for naming it like this is that it performs the process of accessing and preparing the data at the database level, and loads it to the database rather than doing it on the application server.
While creating CDS view;
• Both Eclipse ve Hana Studio can be used. It is not possible to create using SAP GUI. Especially Eclipse is recommended because its success on code completion, code suggestions and error indications.
• We can take advantage of SQL features such as JOINs and mathematical operations.
• Relational data models can be created by establishing relations between tables and views inside CDS views. In this way, we can manipulate the data directly on the database and bring it to the application server in the format we want.
• By using the data types in the ABAP dictionary, we can easily access their features.
• We can use a CDS view in another and also extend an existing CDS view with a new one.
• CDS can work with most databases used, so Hana DB is not required.
Where can we use CDS Views?
1- In the simplest way, if we want to access unified information from different data sources (tables, views), if we are going to use some mathematical operations, data transformations, JOINs while obtaining the data, it will be the best decision to create a CDS view that will fulfill our requests. Then we can use this CDS in our ABAP code blocks.
2- If we need reporting on the SAP Fiori side and want to do this with minimum coding, maximum performance and reliability, we should prefer CDS view. Now, we can simply convert a CDS view to an OData service and by using this service, we can create a Fiori screen that brings many reporting features as standard. We can even set the selection parameters on the Fiori screen in CDS.
3- By combining meaningful data from multiple data sources, we can easily export this combined data to SAP Analytical systems in the form of data cubes. Thus, for example; We can turn our sales data on ERP into meaningful CDS cubes and use them in our analytical management reports.
4- Also, you can use all these features and capabilities at any point where you need performance depending on your design power.
When you enter the world of CDS, I guess that you will enjoy the technical uses and capable development environment you encounter and you will want to use it wherever possible. As software developers, we should always be in favor of using new generation models such as CDS to give the right to the work we do, to use the systems in the most optimum way possible, to provide our customers with maximum efficiency at minimum cost and to easily adapt to new technologies.
I tried to give you information about the capabilities and usage areas of CDS as much as I can, it is up to you to learn the technical details of the job. You can still contact me for issues I can help with.
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