How to Choose a Connection Type in SAC | SAP Analytics Cloud Tutorial [Updated 2024] - igmGuru
Channel: igmGuru
Date: 28/02/2023

To know more, Visit: https://www.igmguru.com/erp-training/sac-analytics-cloud-online-training/

One of the most important topics in SAP Analytics Cloud is setting up the connection type. While this is one of the most basic steps when it comes to configuration there are some open questions regarding performance, fine-tuning, and sizing.


You will also find in this article a wide range of resources that will help you gain knowledge and tools regarding the connection setup and capabilities.

Connection types
There are two main connection types in SAP Analytics Cloud :
Live and imported

Live connection – is completely based on the back end (On premise) ,there is no data replication, the data stays in the in the source system while the data model and security profile applies .Another of way to putting it is that a direct secured connection is created between the browser (Chrome & Edge are the strategic browsers SAP are focusing in) to the source system while only metadata is stored in SAP Analytics Cloud.
Source : SAP data insightThe meta data stored is basically anything related to column names ,connection type & name ,calculation or universe name and so forth ,nothing that has to do with the actual data accessed .due to the fact that data isn’t transferred you won’t find any sizing recommendation nor limits that comes with this type of configuration ,the usual rule of thumb will apply here :data volumes accessed in source system , network bandwidth ,type of query ,are we using optimized objects  ,in terms of HANA : did we use best practices when building the calculation view and so on.Any performance issue you suspect is coming from SAP Analytics Cloud side will have to be supported with Google Developer tools for example to analyze the page behavior (rendering time of components for example ,web sniffer tools alike for analyzing get response but again – nothing to to with the data itself.

Import connection – this type of connection connects to the data source and in order to retrieve the data set ,data is actually imported /copied to SAP Analytics Cloud.This type of connection enables us to connect to different type of data sources that for example are nor model ready ,it also enables to enhance specific SAP Analytics Cloud capabilities such as planning and & Smart assist ,the connection can be scheduled so SAC can keep a back to back data refresh with the database timestamp.