This page provides general guidelines on setting up Snowflake Storage to work with Kyano Storage Management.

1 1. General prerequisites
- 1.1 1.1 Network Connectivity
- 1.2 1.2 Warehouse and Database
- 1.3 1.3 Snowflake user
2 2. OS prerequisites (On SAP host)
- 2.1 2.1 OS Directory with JDBC Driver and Snowflake Ingest SDK
3 3. SAP Configuration
- 3.1 3.1 JAVA Connector
- 3.2 3.2 Kyano Storage Management Setup

With the introduction of Snowpipe Streaming, the connection setup procedure differs slightly from the previous Batch Load data replication method.
The crucial differentiator is whether Snowflake Ingest SDK is to be used or not. Because this SDK contains an internal driver manager conflicting with the default one used by the SNP Kyano JavaConnector, the Snowpipe Streaming needs to be fully separated from any other connections.
This is further explained in the instructions below.

1. General prerequisites

1.1 Network Connectivity

To enable SAP systems to communicate with the Snowflake environment, a set of hosts/ports related to your Snowflake account must be reachable from the SAP system.

You can execute SELECT SYSTEM$ALLOWLIST(); or SELECT SYSTEM$ALLOWLIST_PRIVATELINK(); to generate a CSV file with a list of hosts and ports that are involved in the communication. All communication is outbound from the SAP perspective.

For more information, see the official Snowflake Documentation.

1.2 Warehouse and Database

The Snowflake warehouse and database must already exist.

1.3 Snowflake user

You must create Snowflake technical users with full privileges on the chosen Snowflake database schema.
The recommended privilege for Snowflake technical users is OWNERSHIP of the Snowflake database.
If you cannot assign ownership of the database to a technical user, the minimum requirements are as follows:

GRANT ALL ON DATABASE <DATABASE> TO ROLE <ROLE>
GRANT USAGE ON WAREHOUSE <WAREHOUSE> TO ROLE <ROLE>
GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA <SCHEMA> TO ROLE <ROLE>

We recommend using a one-to-one relationship between Snowflake schemas and every SAP system connected. This ensures that the replicated data is isolated.

2. OS prerequisites (On SAP host)

This group of requirements relates to the operating systems underlying the SAP system, with all its application servers.
SNP products such as Kyano Glue and Kyano Outboard Datatiering have been developed and tested in the SUSE Linux environment and using Windows Server 2012.
However, by design, these products are not limited by the choice of operating system if the requirements listed in this user guide are met.

2.1 OS Directory with JDBC Driver and Snowflake Ingest SDK

The JDBC protocol and Ingest SDK is used to connect to Snowflake. Snowflake drivers need to be uploaded to the operating system manually, and they must be accessible to the connector.

We recommend using the latest version of the Snowflake JDBC driver (Snowflake JDBC driver repository) and the latest version of Snowflake Ingest SDK (Snowflake Ingest SDK repository).
We recommend storing the drivers in a file system that is shared between the application servers, organized into subdirectories to avoid possible conflicts. This is because some customers connect to multiple platforms and services. Important information is that while the path to the driver directory is defined in the storage connection (SAP GUI), the drivers themselves are loaded by the SNP Kyano JavaConnector.

Sample directory with both the JDBC driver and the Snowflake Ingest SDK:

$ ls -l /sapmnt/<SID>/drivers/snowflake
-rw-r--r-- 1 <sid>adm sapsys 57903156 Dec  1 16:31 snowflake-ingest-sdk-4.3.2.jar
-rw-r--r-- 1 <sid>adm sapsys 78671124 Jan 31 11:53 snowflake-jdbc-3.27.1.jar

Set its ownership and permissions appropriately to <sid>adm[:sapsys].

For compatibility with the SNP Kyano JavaConnector, the Snowflake JDBC driver file name must begin with the prefix snowflake-jdbc. If multiple versions of the Snowflake driver exist, the latest version is used. We recommend keeping only one version of the JDBC driver within the Snowflake driver directory.

The Snowflake Ingest SDK JAR file name must begin with the prefix snowflake-ingest. Similarly, if multiple versions of the Snowflake Ingest SDK exist, the latest version is used. We recommend keeping only one version of both the JDBC driver and the Snowflake Ingest SDK within the Snowflake Streaming driver directory.

Note that there was an issue with the SSL handshake in older versions of the driver (3.13.x). This issue was fixed in version snow-jdbc-3.13.21.

3. SAP Configuration

3.1 JAVA Connector

The SNP Kyano Java Connector is a critical middleware component. Follow the steps in the chapter (SM-2508) SNP Kyano Java Connector Setup before you continue.

The (SM-2508) SNP Kyano Java Connector Setup#Java-runtime-environment is restricted by Snowflake JDBC driver requirements. The driver must be installed in a 64-bit environment and requires Java 1.8 or higher. For more information, see the official Snowflake documentation.

If you are running SNP Kyano JavaConnector on JDK 16, you must add a custom argument. To do so, proceed as follows:

Start transaction /DVD/JCO_MNG.
Go to the Advanced tab.
In the field Additional Java starting arguments, enter -Djdk.module.illegalAccess=permit

JDK 16 introduced strong encapsulation of JDK internals that caused problems in combination with the Snowflake JDBC driver. For more information, see the official Oracle documentation.
In JDK 17, the entry -Djdk.module.illegalAccess=permit no longer works. It is therefore unusable for a connection using the current Snowflake JDBC driver. For more information, see the official Oracle documentation.

In cases where the user wants to utilize both the Snowflake Batch Load connection and Snowpipe Streaming connections simultaneously, it is required to set up separate Java Connector instances for each replication method.

3.2 Kyano Storage Management Setup

The final step in setting up SAP and Snowflake connectivity is the creation of appropriate storage connections in transaction /DVD/SM_SETUP

For the Batch Load replication method, SNOW_STAGE and SNOWFLAKE type connections need to be configured (the first one for data file upload, the second for SQL communication with Snowflake API):

3.2.1 Snowflake Stage (SNOW_STAGE)

Binary storage points to the Internal Stage of the Snowflake user. It is used for data transfer, leveraging the extended functionality of the Snowflake JDBC driver.

Proceed as follows to create a Snowflake stage storage:

Start transaction /DVD/SM_SETUP.
Click
Create to create a new storage.
Enter a Storage ID.
In the Storage type field, enter SNOW_STAGE.
Click Confirm.
Specify the required parameters:

Storage ID: Logical name of the storage connection.
Storage type: Type of storage (SNOW_STAGE – Snowflake internal stage).
Java connector RFC: TCP/IP RFC destination used for communication with the SNP Kyano JavaConnector.
Account name: Name of the Snowflake account without .snowflakecomputing.com.com.com domain, in the format: <account name>.<region>.<platform> (For more information, see Snowflake account name doc).
User role: User role used for data insertion.
JAVA Call Repeat: Number of times that failed JDBC calls are retried.
Repeat delay (seconds): Delay in seconds between retried calls.
Custom location: If enabled, the domain .snowflakecomputing.cn is used. If disabled, the default domain .snowflakecomputing.com is used.
Driver path: Absolute path to the directory containing the Snowflake JDBC driver.
NOTE: In previous versions of Kyano Storage Management, the SAP logical file of type DIR (directory) was used. This is now automatically converted to a physical path.

(SM-2508) Snowflake Storage Setup