Introduction
SAP Landscape Transformation, or SAP LT, is a part of SAP’s Business Technology Platform, and it’s capable of supporting real-time data replication.
Sounds astonishing, right?
Well, that’s what I thought when I first read about it.
A software solution that can replicate information or data in real time? And you can take the data both from SAP or any other third-party system to evaluate whatever you have quickly?
Well, yes. SAP LT can do all that without requiring any external assistance. If you want to get an idea about how it performs the miraculous task, don’t forget to read the article till the end.
What is SAP LT Replication Server?
SAP LT is an ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) application published by SAP, the German multinational conglomerate. And as stated before, it’s capable of replicating data in real-time or through scheduling – however you want to complete the task.
But how does it work, though?
SAP LT employs a unique trigger-based replication approach to pass the replicated data from the source to the target system. The replication of data occurs through DB triggers that occur whenever data is being populated in your system’s logging table.
The Benefits of SAP LT
SAP LT can be highly beneficial, especially when seen from an organizational perspective. Here’s what you need to know about it.
- With SAP LT, you can perform real-time and scheduled-time data replication.
- SLT is integrated with the HANA studio. So, you can directly replicate that data too.
- It’s possible to replicate both the Pool and the Cluster table with SAP LT.
- There is a table and a rule setting available in SLT. Both of them have transformation capabilities as well,
- Owing to the integration with SAP Solution Manager, SAP LT can proffer you potent monitoring capabilities too.
In addition to these, SLT is capable of replicating data and, at the same time, transforming it into a HANA format during real-time scheduling. Besides, the support provided by SAP LT can automatically shuffle between non-Unicode and Unicode conversion during data loading or replicating. (Similar to ASCII, Unicode is a character-based encoding system that covers a lot more characters than its competitor, ASCII.)
What Can A Landscape Transformation Server Do?
The key capabilities of an SAP LTR server include the following –
1: Offer Transactional Security.
- Enable extensive logging capabilities for the user.
- Provider to the project’s point-in-recovery time.
- Integrating the SAP LT tool with high-availability setups.
2: Lower Configuration Time and Effort.
- It can be used to offer support to or use cluster, pool, and INDX-like tables.
- It’s able to automate non-Unicode and Unicode conversion during the time of loading and replication.
- LTR can also be employed to translate complex SAP-based infrastructures instantly in a clearer and better table.
3: Transformative Abilities.
- LTR is capable of offering an extensive amount of structure-based transformation and informational capabilities.
- You can use it to convert, enrich, and decrease the available target records.
- It’s able to offer flexible filtering options to reduce the prominence of data records that are available in the core source table.
How Do You Configure SAP LT for the Source System?
If you want to establish the connection between SAP Source and the HANA database, you’ll need to configure SAP LT first. Here’s what you need to do in this regard –
- Step – 1: Firstly, you will need to log in to the SAP LT server and Call transaction “LTR” from the SLT replication server. Next, a web dynamo pop-up window will appear in front of you to log in to the SLT server. Now, you will need to do two things –
- Enter the Client name or User ID.
- Type in your password.
- Tap on the Log On tab once you are done.
After this, a new pop-up screen related to the configuration will appear in front of you. Click on the “New” button to create the brand-new configuration.
- Step – 2: Now, in this step, you will need to do seven specific tasks accordingly. Here is what the process will entail now –
- Please enter the name of the configuration and the description associated with it.
- Choose the core SAP infrastructure as your source system.
- Enter the RFC connection for your SAP system.
- Type in your Password, Username, Hostname, and Instance number.
- Write down the details regarding your job options, including –
- The number of calculation jobs.
- The number of data transfer jobs.
- Then, choose “real time” as your replication option.
Once you are done with maintaining all these settings accordingly, don’t forget to click on “OK” to initiate a new schema in SAP LT.
What Does The Structure of SLT Look Like?
The architecture of SAP LT is pretty simple and consists of five different components. It generally includes the following –
- DB Triggers: It monitors the events that usually take place in the application table. A DB is curated within the source system in most cases.
- Logging Table: If and when DB triggers, the logging table will begin storing the triggered data in the system. It’ll be created in the logging table as well.
- Read Engine: It is responsible for reading the data from your system’s logging table and passing the same to the SAP LT replication server.
- Write Engine: As the name implies, it’ll write the data into HANA DB from the SAP LT replication server.
- Transformation and Mapping Engine: It will be solely responsible for giving a structure to the data during the transformation.
Ending Note!
When it comes to replicating data, using SAP LT should always be your first step.
However, if you don’t have any idea on how to employ it properly, make sure to talk to an SAP consulting service. With their experience and expertise, they help you learn more about the way you can formulate the DB triggers and proceed with the replication procedure accordingly.
Just make sure that you are informing them all about how you want to proceed with the project. This way, they’ll have a vision of how the process should be done and what method they must use to execute it properly. Good luck!
