With the increasing complexity of business relationships and networks, traditional relational data models sometimes fall short in effectively representing and analyzing interconnected data. Graph processing has emerged as a powerful paradigm to explore relationships, dependencies, and patterns within data.
In the SAP ecosystem, Core Data Services (CDS) Views play a critical role in data modeling and exposure, especially in the SAP HANA Live framework for real-time operational reporting. This article explores how graph processing concepts can be integrated and utilized through CDS views to enrich analytical capabilities in SAP HANA Live.
Graph processing refers to the analysis and traversal of data structured as graphs—composed of nodes (entities) and edges (relationships). Common use cases include:
Graph queries often involve traversing relationships multiple levels deep, pattern matching, and exploring connectivity.
While CDS views primarily operate on relational data models, they can be designed to represent graph-like structures and facilitate graph processing to a certain extent:
Example:
define view ZEmployee as select from snwd_bpa {
key BusinessPartnerID,
FirstName,
LastName
}
define view ZEmployeeManager as select from snwd_bpa_mgr {
key ManagerID,
key EmployeeID
}
Here, ZEmployee represents nodes, and ZEmployeeManager models the edge (manager-employee relationship).
CDS associations enable navigational queries between related nodes:
define view ZEmployeeWithManager as select from ZEmployee
association [0..1] to ZEmployee as _Manager on $projection.BusinessPartnerID = _Manager.BusinessPartnerID
{
key BusinessPartnerID,
FirstName,
LastName,
_Manager.FirstName as ManagerFirstName,
_Manager.LastName as ManagerLastName
}
This allows direct navigation from an employee to their manager.
For multi-level graph traversal (e.g., organizational hierarchies), CDS currently does not natively support recursion, but you can simulate hierarchy levels using:
SAP HANA’s Graph Engine offers advanced graph processing beyond CDS capabilities but CDS views can still model and query shallow graph structures efficiently.
Using CDS, you can perform graph-like queries such as:
Example: Fetch employees and their direct managers.
select BusinessPartnerID, FirstName, LastName, ManagerFirstName, ManagerLastName
from ZEmployeeWithManager
For complex graph algorithms—like shortest path, centrality, or community detection—SAP HANA provides a dedicated Graph Processing Engine. CDS views can complement this by:
Although CDS views are inherently relational, they provide powerful constructs like associations that enable graph-like data modeling and navigation within SAP HANA Live scenarios. For advanced graph processing, combining CDS with SAP HANA’s native graph engine delivers a comprehensive approach.
Understanding how to model and query graph data with CDS views equips SAP professionals to address modern business challenges involving complex networks and relationships, driving richer insights and operational excellence.