Reserved key words for SAP table fields

When it comes to table creation in SAP Data Dictionary (DDIC) there is a check performed whether particular field (names of table columns) is not reserved. If so the dictionary object cannot be activated. This applies regardless the table is created manually or generated by the system. Automatically generated dictionary objects can involve in BW objects like aDSOs, Open Hubs, etc. In other applications, it can involve automatic generation of tables for CDS views.

The check if the field is or is not reserved is performed in ABAP Data Dictionary. The dictionary has a list of reserved words that may not be used for database objects. The list depends on the database system and is present in the system in a form of database table called TRESE. The table has two colons:

NAME – represents the reserved key word itself

SOURCEHINT - reason for reservation, means what DB type the keyword is reserved for

 

In summary there is the table TRESE in ABAP dictionary that stores reserved or protected names that cannot be used within the dictionary objects names.

 

Unavailable SAP Notes

There are a few cases when SAP Notes or Knowledge Base Articles (KBA) are not available to be viewed on SAP for Me (formerly ONE Support Lunchpad (OSS)) site.

 

1. SAP Note/KBA XXXXXXX is being updated. This happens when there is a new version of particular Note being prepared. As usually the Notes has initially a version in its master language it can be that, there is a few days delay when the Note is translated (e.g. from German to English). The translation part can cause that delay. If the Note is still not around for a few days, you can approach the SAP via e.g. social media and ask for the Note. That usually helps to speed up the updating process.

What makes it a bit unfortunate and frustrating too is that during the updating the former version of the Note is not accessible either. This issue was raised many times to SAP however it is not solved yet. SAP claims that sometimes the old version is not correct (even it can be harmful) thus they decided to take the whole Note offline for a while.

 

2. Sorry! You are not entitled to access SAP Note/KBA. This message is so called a maintenance terminated status. The message is present when customer number to which your support site user is linked to lost an access to the software component which the Note is related to. Means that e.g. license to that software is not provisioned or wasn’t provision to your customer number. In this  case you need to raise this issue to your SAP representative (account manager).

More information:

3233516

ABAP Platform Trial 1909 SP07

Last time when SAP released an on premise version of SAP ABAP Platform/NetWeaver developer edition was on Feb 15th 2021. It was a version called SAP ABAP Platform 1909, Developer Edition and it was provided as a Docker image allowing developers run it on its own machines as a container. That edition was available till Dec 2021 when Log4J vulnerability was revealed. The ABAP Platform 1909 became a victim of Log4J as many other software due to fact that software vendors decided to pull it off till the vulnerability is not properly addressed. SAP took a time a decide on the fate of the ABAP Platform 1909 container image. Initially the decision was scheduled to be announced on January 10^th 2022. That was delayed till mid of Oct 2022 (23th of Oct) when SAP announced that “SAP’s product and delivery standards have evolved…”. Basically the statement said that SAP is preferring cloud versions over something that independed developers can install by themselves. And, in fact meanwhile a CAL versions were provided. Anyhow, this move sparked quite an discussion and criticism (e.g. here (363 comments), or here) within SAP developers community. Following all that an idea was created on Dec 12^th 2022 on SAP influence page. It got an attention of 278 voters. After approximately 7 months the idea status moved suddenly to Delivered. Via blog SAP announced that docker based version of ABAP Server is back. This is it is again ABAP Platform Trial 1919 by slightly higher Service Pack version – 07.

How to make it run? Just follow instructions at docker hub page. All you need is to have a machine with a lot of memory (32+ GB), DockerHub account, and if you are on WINDOWS OS – a Docker Desktop. Linux and MacOS is supported as well. Once you get the Docker Desktop up and running fire up a below command to pull the image from the hub to yoru machine:

docker pull sapse/abap-platform-trial:1909

After 30min or so (depending on speed of internet connection), image extraction part starts that created a new contained in your Docker:

Once it is finished start the container with below command:

docker run --stop-timeout 3600 -i --name a4h -h vhcala4hci -p 3200:3200 -p 3300:3300 -p 8443:8443 -p 30213:30213 -p 50000:50000 -p 50001:50001 sapse/abap-platform-trial:1909 -skip-limits-check

Once you get a message in the command prompt saying “*** Have fun! ***” the ABAP trial is up and running.

To stop it just hit CTRL+C in the terminal window which started it. There will be logs like below popping up:

Interrupted by user

My termination has been requested

Stopping services

Terminating -> Worker Processes (2919)

..

Finally passing away ...

Good Bye!

To start it again run the container (aka regular start) with below command:

docker start -ai a4h

In my case as I run the Docker on WSL2 (there are different engines available to power it) I faced an issue during first attempt to run the container. It hanged “HDB: starting” and not going anywhere for couple of hours.

WARNING: the following system limits are below recommended values:

  (sysctl kernel.shmmni = 4096) < 32768

  (sysctl vm.max_map_count = 65530) < 2147483647

  (sysctl fs.file-max = 2668219) < 20000000

  (sysctl fs.aio-max-nr = 65536) < 18446744073709551615

Hint: consider adding these parameters to your docker run command:

  --sysctl kernel.shmmni=32768

Hint: if you are on Linux, consider running the following system commands:

  sudo sysctl vm.max_map_count=2147483647

  sudo sysctl fs.file-max=20000000

  sudo sysctl fs.aio-max-nr=18446744073709551615

sapinit: starting

start hostcontrol using profile /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/host_profile

Impromptu CCC initialization by 'rscpCInit'.

  See SAP note 1266393.

Impromptu CCC initialization by 'rscpCInit'.

  See SAP note 1266393.

sapinit: started, pid=14

 

HDB: starting

 

This is due to fact that in WSL2 case there is no sizing options. WSL2 has an in-built dynamic memory and CPU allocation feature that means that the Docker can utilize only the required memory and CPU. But as there are other processes in WIN OS that need an OS resources too it started to be a problem because WSL2 consumed all available memory. This can be solved by editing a .wslconfig file located in WIN’s USERPROFILE folder. I altered the file as below:

[wsl2]

memory=26GB   # Limits memory to docker in WSL

processors=5     # Limits no processors

 

Other option than to .wslconfig file modification is to start the docker image deployment with addition to following parameters (on bold) of “docker run” command.

docker run --stop-timeout 3600 -i --name a4h -h vhcala4hci -p 3200:3200 -p 3300:3300 -p 8443:8443 -p 30213:30213 -p 50000:50000 -p 50001:50001 -m 26g --cpus 5 sapse/abap-platform-trial:1909 -skip-limits-check

 

If you can’t get your container up and running there are couple of things to be checked with the respect to HANA DB:

/usr/sap/HDB/HDB02/vhcala4hci/trace

/usr/sap/HDB/HDB02/vhcala4hci/trace/DB_HDB

You may need to review log files in those folder. In most cases it will be an issue of lack of operating memory or hard drive space.

For extending the licenses of either ABAP Platform (AS ABAP) or HANA DB see my post here.

One more thing to clarify is a naming convention. Difference between SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition and SAP ABAP Platform Trial. One part is that SAP has shifted away from the NetWeaver to ABAP Platform. Technology wise the ABAP trial is delivered as Docker container whereas Netweaver Developer Edition are based on Virtual Machine software like Oracle Virtual Box.

In closing I must say that I really appreciate an effort all of the people who made this great distribution of ABAP Platform available again. I especially appreciate that SAP made a commitment to deliver also feature releases release (version 2023, 2025 and 2027 according to the release strategy for SAP S/4HANA). Even more they plan to release the ABAP Platform Trial subsequently whenever there is a new SP update. Thanks again for that!

More information:

Power up your SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP Developer edition

SAP ABAP Platform 1909, Developer Edition – installation on WINDOWS OS