Transaction:

/DVD/GLIP

Glue InfoProviders can be used in SAP BW analytics with external storage data access such as Hadoop. They can be used as standard SAP BW InfoProviders, with the advantage, that it is not required to replicate the Hadoop data into SAP, but the data can be virtualized instead.

InfoProvider Operations

You can perform all the operations related to Glue InfoProviders from the Initial Screen.

You can Display, Change, Create, Activate or Delete an InfoProvider.

Create Infoprovider

To create an InfoProvider, use the following steps:

Specify its name and press Create. If InfoProvider with such a name already exists, an error message is displayed.
Fill in all remaining fields in the InfoProvider Settings section:
- Short Description – description of the InfoProvider
- GlueTable – existing Glue table from which the data is loaded
- InfoArea – InfoArea in which the Infoprovider is created

In case InfoArea is not specified, InfoProvider is created in the"Unassigned Nodes" category.

Please note, that this may be required behavior, e.g. when transferring InfoProviders to another system using Glue Transport Management System.

3. Save the InfoProvider.

4. Specify the mapping of Glue table fields to InfoObjects.

You can directly type in the name of the InfoObject or use the F4 help. With F4 help, a list of all InfoObjects is displayed (see figure Glue InfoProvider: List of InfoObjects).

Please note, there are the following supported data types based on Glue field types:

Numeric Types (INTEGER, FLOAT, NUMERIC, PACKED, INT1, INT2)
String Types (CHAR, VARNAME, STRING)
Date (DATE)
Time (TIME)

Be aware that some data might be lost due to a conversion of types, i.e. if you choose InfoObject of type char(5) for field type of char(10), values stored in a field will be truncated to length 5.

_{Create InfoProviders: Field mapping}

_{Create InfoProviders: List of InfoObjects}

5. Activate the InfoProvider.

The activation logs are displayed, informing about the status of the activation. If it was successful, the message saying "InfoCube activated" should be displayed at the end of the log.

_{Glue InfoProvider: Activation log}

Once the Glue InfoProvider is activated, you can use it in SAP BW data flow.

You can also go to ListCube transaction by pressing Go To Listcube TA to see the data provided by InfoProvider.

Display Infoprovider

From the initial screen of Glue InfoProviders, you can display the configuration of the specified InfoProvider in display-only mode.

You can also press Edit↔Display to go to edit-mode, but please make sure that the InfoProvider is inactive.

Change Infoprovider

To change the InfoProvider, specify its name and press Change.

The InfoProvider is open in edit mode, only if it is inactive. In case it is active, a display mode is shown together with a warning message "Active Infoprovider cannot be edited. Please deactivate first.".

Deactivation of Glue InfoProvider deletes BW virtual InfoProvider, therefore deactivated Glue InfoProvider can't be used in BW reporting.
When InfoProvider is in edit mode it is possible to update the field structure using Update field structure button.

Delete Infoprovider

Specify an InfoProvider name and press Delete icon to delete it.

_{Delete InfoProvider}

After pressing Delete icon, a popup appears with the information that both InfoProvider and InfoCube (automatically created for the provider) is going to be deleted.

_{Delete InfoProvider Popup}

Once confirmed, the InfoProvider is deleted.

For correct deletion or deactivation, it is necessary that none of the components (SAP InfoProvider, Query) of Infoprovider are displayed or edited through SAP transaction RSA1 or RSRT.

Also displaying or editing by another user will restrain the correct execution of deletion or deactivation.

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