Introduction

SAP Analytics Cloud is a public Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product that redefines analytics in the cloud by providing all analytics capabilities (BI, Planning, Predictive) for all users in one product. In SAP Analytics Cloud, you can:

• create models in Sap Analytics Cloud.
• import models from other data sources in Sap Analytics Cloud.
• create live data connection to on-premise or cloud systems without any data replication. This feature allows SAP Analytics Cloud to be used in scenarios where data cannot be moved into the cloud for security or privacy reasons, or your data already exists on a different cloud system.

Purpose

The SAP Analytics and Reporting Approach explains what will be implemented and the SAP Analytics and Reporting Standards details how it will be implemented.

This document explains the landscape and integration of the solution

Scope & Objectives

The existing version of SAC being used by HR and BW will be deprecated

Certain SaaS applications have an embedded version of SAC

• SuccessFactors (used extensively as a single instance and security is natively controlled)
• Asset Performance Management (not to be used as 3 instances and offers no benefit to the enterprise version discussed here)

Terminology

• SAP Business Content (BCT): Predefined solution provided by SAP for a functional area 
• Instance: An entity refers to the entire system including the software and all technical components (DB, application server etc.). E.g., SAC Production.
• Environment/Tier: Refers to systems that are used for the different stages of the project lifecycle. Each environment serves a distinct purpose and has a dedicated instance to ensure stability and integrity. E.g., Development, QAS. 
• Landscape: Refers to all the environment for an application or entire project. E.g., S/4HANA landscape, SyWay landscape.
• CUI: CUI and export controlled data are both highly sensitive.  
• CMMC 2: Second iteration of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification
• SaaS Deployment Model: Subscription where you pay for the service vs Consumption where you pay for the usage

Application Architecture

Architectural Decisions and Requirements

Below Table provides the details of the architectural decisions made based on the rationale.

Application Architecture Design

Application Architecture Components

SAC is the presentation tool for SAP solutions as depicted below:

Connections

SAP Analytics Cloud provides you the possibility to define live data connections to on-premise or clouds systems.

Data is “live”, meaning that when a user opens a story in SAP Analytics Cloud, changes made to the data in the source system are reflected immediately.

With live connection, data volume is processed in your back-end system. There is no theoretical limitation. Query is executed in back-end system. Query should limit volume returned to Web Browser by applying adequate input control or aggregation.

Some benefits of live data connection are:

• No data replication and prevents transfer of large data sets from source systems
• Automatically updated with current data – “live” data
• Create complex models and calculation in source systems and leverage them within SAC
• Sensitive data can stay in local network, behind your firewall

 In case of live data connection, only metadata is stored in SAP Analytics Cloud. The browser is sending the queries direct to the back-end and any chart is rendered in base of queries results.

SAP Datasphere (DSP)

DSP is the cloud data warehouse used to extract transform and load data from SAP systems

SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Datasphere tenants can only be linked in a 1:1 relationship. One SAP Analytics Cloud tenant can be linked with only one Datasphere tenant.

Freeze stable connections/models/stories and Whitelist Applications to avoid the constant change of these crucial parameters.

We are not planning on importing any data directly from SAP systems into SAC, but rather via DSP. Represented as 1 in the diagram

Live Connection

With Live Connection, data securely remains in your back-end and queries are performed in your data source server. Result of query is sent back to your browser which renders your Dashboard.

Browser interacts directly or thru proxy with SAP Analytics Cloud, identity provider and all connected data sources. Then browser manages three types of communication tunnel:

• • Get/Post requests from Browser to SAP Analytics Cloud are dedicated to metadata.
  • Get/Post requests from Browser to Identity Provider are dedicated to SAML 2 Assertions.
  • Get/Post/Options requests from Browser to Back-end data sources are dedicated to Data.

• Local (Cloud data sources) - represented as 2 in the diagram

All data stays within the SAP Cloud Platform. The data is not replicated to SAP Analytics Cloud. Modelling and model security is managed on the source system. Data connection between systems is secured within SAP Cloud Platform.

Add the URL of your SAP Analytics Cloud as a trusted origin in your SAP Datasphere system.

When using the SAC – Datasphere live connection, SAC currently has the following product limitations:

Analytics

• • Custom Shapes for Geo Maps are not supported
  • Version based variance features are not supported on SAP Datasphere data.
  • Version Mapping is not supported for SAP Datasphere data.
  • Blending is not supported.
  • Linked Dimension is only supported for SAP Datasphere models from the same Space. It is not supported across Spaces.
  • R-Visualizations are not supported. 
  • Comment Widgets are not supported
  • Copy Widgets between stories is not supported
  • Import Pages from Stories that contain Datasphere models is not supported

Planning

• • SAC Planning data can now be stored in Datasphere with seamless planning. However, seamless planning still requires the import of data into the SAC model and is not based on the SAP Datasphere live connection. 

• Remote (On-premise data sources like S/4) - represented as 3 in the diagram
  • With CORS, all data stays within the remote (customer) landscape. The data is not replicated to SAP Analytics Cloud. Modelling and model security is managed on the source system.
  • With tunnel, the data is returned to SAC momentarily while being used

The capability exists but it is not envisaged that this type of connection will be required, as it connects to a single system.

We can route S/4 via remote tables in DSP and union the data before being analysed in SAC.

OData

With seamless planning the data resides in DSP, but retraction only works from SAC to S/4, hence the data needs to be loaded into SAC first. 

OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code with the values for your SAP Datasphere OAuth client ID

OAuth clients with a Technical User purpose cannot, at this time, consume data from assets that are protected by data access controls.

SAML2 flow

SAML 2 (Security Assertion Markup Language) is an Oasis standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains. SAML 2.0 is an XML-based protocol that uses security tokens containing assertions to pass information about a principal (usually an end user) between an identity provider and a web service provider (SAP Analytics Cloud). SAML 2.0 enables web-based authentication and authorization scenarios including single sign-on (SSO)

With the provided Identity Provider (IdP) by SAP it is recommended to activate the SAML2/SSL Provider. To authenticate a user with SAC, the system uses assertion tickets based on Security Assertion Markup Language, version 2.0 (SAML2).

The use of HTTPS with valid SSL certificate is mandatory

Application Security

Classification

Authentication

End to end SSO is accomplished with SAML 2.   In order, both SAP Analytics Cloud and on-premise data source has to be configured to trust the same identity provider, such as your SAP Cloud Identity or your Active Directory using ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services). This means that the data security implemented at the source data will always be respected for each request.

All communications between browser and SAP Analytics Cloud are always encrypted.  The on-premise communications from your reverse proxy to back-end data sources should also be encrypted using TLS.   All data and metadata persisted on SAP Analytics Cloud are also fully encrypted.

When custom Identity Provider is set, you have to map users between your Identity Provider and SAP Analytics Cloud. The login credential depends on the User Attribute you selected when you set Identity Provider. If you have selected custom SAML User the login credential should be the user Id of your account on your SAML Identity Provider.

If Email is selected, the login credential should be the email address of your account on your SAML Identity Provider. If User is selected, Login Credential is set to your SAP Analytics Cloud user name by default.

At the beginning, it is very important to have an alignment between Identity Provider and Service Provider (SAC) user list. You can manually enter user, but, mapping attribute is case sensitive. 

Authorisation

Communication Security

The same-origin policy is an important concept in the web application security model. Under the policy, a web browser permits scripts contained in a first web page to access data in a second web page, but only if both web pages have the same origin. It is a critical security mechanism for isolating potentially malicious documents.

In Live Connection, browser has to access Both SAP Analytics Cloud for metadata and back-end data sources (HANA, BW, S4/HANA or Universe). Then, SAP Analytics Cloud provides two ways to enable Cross Sharing Resources accessed by the same web page in Browser:

-        Via CORS (recommended): Cross-origin resource sharing is a mechanism that allows restricted resources on a web page to be requested from another domain outside the domain from which the first resource was served. A web page may freely embed cross-origin web page, images, stylesheets, scripts, iframes, and videos.

Data Security

Other Controls

System Landscape

Development Environment

Project Test Environment

Quality Environment

Production Environment

Operation Architecture

Change and Configuration Management

Transport Management

Release Management

Monitoring

Application Monitoring

System Monitoring

Sizing

High Availability

Disaster Recovery

Backup/Restore

Maintenance Plan

Service Introduction

Application Category

Support Team

Skill required

Checklist

Exceptions

See also

Change log

Workflow history