Ever wondered how you can get data out of SAP without violating the license agreement? You’re not alone. Most organisations planning to move SAP data up to a Cloud Data Platform are struggling with that very question. Here is a little explainer which hopefully helps you understand what you can or cannot do. But first:
Disclaimer
The terms and conditions of your contract with SAP are agreed between your company and SAP. I don’t know the specifics of your contract, nor am I able to provide legal advice. This article is based on my observation and interpretation. When you are planning to take data out of SAP, I recommend you consult with your SAP account manager and your legal team to ensure you comply with the terms and conditions of the contract.
Enterprise license vs Runtime license
You might have heard that for certain extraction methods an ‘enterprise license’ is required. This is to do with how the database on which the SAP system runs is licensed. When you run an SAP system, you have to install a database system first. SAP ERP can run on a variety of database systems (Oracle, IBM, MS SQL Server, and so on, as well as SAP HANA (the database). The SAP S/4HANA ERP system only runs on SAP HANA. The license restriction applies regardless of what database system you run the SAP ERP application on.
Runtime license
You can purchase a runtime license for the database with your SAP ERP license. The runtime license allows you to run SAP ERP, but nothing else. The SAP application is the only direct user of the underlying database. All other users and usage is managed through the SAP application. Having a runtime license means you cannot create tables directly in the database, but you can create tables in the SAP application (which in turn results in a table creation in the database, with the SAP system as owner). The license agreement does not let you create stored procedures or extraction programs in the database directly. You are also not allowed to read the database directly, or extract data from the database directly or extract data from the database log tables, without going through the SAP application.
Enterprise license
An enterprise license gives you unlimited rights on the database. You can create your own tables and applications on the database as well as running the SAP application. In this case, you are allowed to extract data from tables directly, either by using a 3rd party application which connects to the database or by creating your own extraction processes. An enterprise license will be significantly more expensive than a runtime license. If your company does not have an enterprise license and you want to take data out of SAP, you need to find a way to go through the application layer, instead of the database layer.
Using standard SAP interfaces
SAP has APIs and OData services for getting data out of SAP. Most of these are designed for operational purposes. For example: Give me the address of customer abc. Or: update the price of material abc. These are not really suitable for data extraction. The exception to this are the function modules related to the ODP framework: They can be consumed through OData, and this is still allowed by SAP. You can find more information on using OData for data extraction through ODP here.
Note that it is not permitted to use the ODP function modules through an RFC connection.
Please refer to this blog for more info on that .
There is a standard function module which can be used through RFC, which is the RFC_READ_TABLE or even better, one of the successors of that function module. (RFC_READ_TABLE can’t handle wide tables). Which versions are available depend on your system version, so best to search for it on the SAP system itself. I have the fewest problems with /BODS/RFC_READ_TABLE2. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to build a data warehouse solution based on this extraction method, not least because I am pretty sure SAP have specified somewhere that these FMs are meant for internal use, and might be changed at any time. I wouldn’t be surprised if SAP announces it will forbid the use of these function module in a similar fashion as the ODP function modules.
Third party applications
Third party applications can either use the APIs (Function Modules) mentioned above or create their own application logic to get data out of SAP. If they are using the standard function modules then the same restrictions apply. This means ODP extraction through RFC is not allowed – even if this process is managed by a 3rd party application.
Applications which implement their own interfaces on the SAP system are ‘safe’ – at least for the time being. The small downside of this approach is that you need to implement a piece of code (delivered by the application vendor) in each SAP system you want to connect to. The upside is that the end-to-end process is more robust, better performing and easier to maintain than solutions built on the SAP standard APIs.
Be mindful of third party applications which read the database log or otherwise connect directly to the database layer: You will need an Enterprise license for this, using a 3rd party application does not make a difference from a licensing perspective.
SAP Datasphere
And then there is SAP. SAP Datasphere is perfectly capable of getting data out of SAP, and onto the cloud data platform of your choice. If this would be the only use case you have for SAP Datasphere, then I would imagine this is a very pricy solution. Still, I wanted to make sure I cover all the options.
