THIRD-PARTY CLOUD CONNECTORS

FOR FDMEE AND CLOUD DATA

MANAGEMENT
ODTUG Webinar
12/09/2019
Francisco Amores – Domain Lead Master Data Management and EPM Integration
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Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential – Oracle Internal 3
That’s me
• Domain Lead – EPM Integration @inlumi
• 13 years (From Sunopsis…HAL to Cloud)
• Based in Malaga (Spain)
• Trail Running Lover
• Oracle ACE & Blogger
• Proud Father of Large Family
 Design & Build
EPM Roadmap
Test & Roll Out Managed Services
Methodology
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Process
Performance Cloud Solutions
Improvement
Testing 24x7 Support
Best Practices
Training

Advisory Implementation Operations

Inlumi in the World
Helsinki

Base locations in Oslo

Europe Copenhagen
Stockholm

We follow the sun and London

Utrecht
provide our services all over
the world

Málaga
Agenda

01
Why today’s topic?
02
3rd Party Cloud
03
Exporting data from
04
3rd Party Cloud
05
OData at a glance
Connectors Landscape 3rd Party Cloud Connector for EPM

06 07 08 09
Use Cases Design Conclusions Q&A
Considerations
Why today’s topic?

It’s Cloudy Time is New

• The Cloud world is growing by leaps
and bounds Precious Landscape
• Many of our source systems are • Extracting data to files means time • With upcoming EPM Agent the
flying towards the cloud and space landscape changes

• Concerns are now related to how do
we get data from the Cloud
• Manual actions unless automated
• Direct integration with Cloud is the
key
• Direct integration between EPM
Cloud and 3rd Party Cloud is now a
reality
• Learning Web Services is the right
direction
New Oracle EPM
Landscape Cloud System Write-back (POST)

ERPs moving to the Cloud

• MS Dynamics 365
• SAP S/4 Hana Data Extract
• Infor Custom Connector
• Workday…

Different extract methods

• Files
• Replica Database
EPM Agent
• Web Services APIs

FDMEE and Cloud DM are ready

• Custom Connector
• FDMEE – BefImport Script
• CDM – EPM Agent BefExtract The EPM Agent cannot be used to export data from EPM Cloud yet
Extracting data from 3rd Party Cloud
Files
• Asynchronous (generated from the
source Cloud)
• If file generation is not automated,
EPM users must go to the source
Cloud
• Source data can be manually
adjusted
• Commonly requires manual
interaction
• Multiple steps for end-to-end
automation
Replica DB
• “Mirror” database in the Cloud
• Almost real-time data
• Does not impact on Cloud activity
• Offline reporting
• SQL data extracts (more flexibility)
• Ex: Dynamics 365 BYOD (Bring
Your Own Database)
Web Services
• Commonly defined as the corporate
strategy for Cloud integration
• Real-time data
• Need to learn new technologies
(REST, ODATA, JSON, etc.)
• Each Cloud has its own WS
implementation.
• Ex: REST to generate file + REST to
download file (Anaplan)
• Ex: ODATA to return data in the
response (SAP S/4 HANA or MS
Dyn365)
• Documentation might be poor so
discovery work is key
3 Party Cloud Connector in FDMEE and CDM
rd
High Level Solution for Web Service Integration
1. Send request to Web Services exposed by the Cloud (REST, ODATA, SOAP)
2. Read response
3. Parse data extracted into expected format
• Data extract triggered from EPM
• The Cloud EPM Agent consumes a file but this a totally transparent process
• Can be automated/scheduled
OData at a glance
OData = Open Data Protocol = ODBC for the Web = Data is the response
• Supports select, filtering, paging, top, relations, etc.
• Different output formats like JSON and XML
• Aggregates data based on select clause

Data in JSON format

S/4 HANA Use Case for FDMEE
Core Data Services Application Views (CDS) exposed as OData Service
2 1

3 4 5 6

• Use Java URL and JSON to send OData request and parse data in the response
Spoiler – The EPM Cloud Agent
First adoption is with EPM Cloud Planning (planned for 19.10)
• For on-prem database integration, you can setup queries in Query Definition (Data Integration SUI)
• Queries can be assigned at DLR level
• Query → File happens automatically
• For Web Services integration, you can skip default actions in the BefExtract script
→ By default the EPM agent executes a Query against a source DB)
→ Skip default action, send request to the Web Service, get response, parse data and generate the source file the Agent expects

Agent Configuration
• Design Agent architecture (Sync/Async, Cluster, etc.)
• Configure agentparams.ini file
• Start agent
Spoiler – The EPM Cloud Agent
Start adopting new SUI aka Data Integration (19.09 is only available for EPM Planning Cloud)

You can see agents registered against the EPM Cloud instance
Spoiler – The EPM Cloud Agent
Standard Configuration
Create Query (SUI)
Create CSV with header columns
Register Data Source (output data) using CSV
Setup Data Source (variables, jdbc, drill, etc.)
Setup your data integration

When Data Integration has 100% parity with Data Management,

it will replace it. At the moment, some configuration is done
in DM and some in DI
SAP ByDesign Use Case for EPM Agent
Data Source (Table) or Report exposed as OData Service

2 S/A
1

3 4 5 6

• The EPM Agent must generate a file with format expected by Data Management
• File generation is performed in the BefExtract agent script
→ Jython (2.7)
→ Groovy
→ Can import external Jars
→ Agent API object
→ Logging
SAP ByDesign Use Case for EPM Agent
BefExtract Script
1. Get OData query from EPM Cloud
2. Get DLR parameter values
3. Build the final Url with parameter values
4. Send OData request
5. Parse response into the temp file that EPM agent will consume
Design and Technical Considerations (Web Services)
Authentication
• Basic Authentication, OAuth2, Certificate, Authentication Service, etc.
• Try to keep it simple and use unique credentials

TLS
• FDMEE – upgrade to Java version supporting the TLS version supported by the source Cloud
• Most of the Cloud Services do not support TLS1.0/1.1 anymore.

Big Volumes
• Define strategy to manage big data volumes depending API used to extract data. Consider impact on Cloud
• Multi-threading for extract in chunks
• Evaluate Drill-Through

Researching and Prototyping

• Each ERP Cloud has its own API (REST, ODATA, SOAP) so take your time to see how data is extracted, which limitations, which methods are
available to extract big volumes of data, etc.
• Try to find someone at the customer that is familiar with API
• Start prototyping with REST/ODATA/SOAP clients (PostMan, REST Client, Boomerang, SOAP UI, etc.)
Conclusions

Customers are adopting the Cloud fast

Not only EPM but ERP/BW Clouds
FDMEE has been always ready for Cloud data integration
EPM Cloud is going to be ready very soon (19.10)
Manual data extract is always an option
On-demand direct integrations gives the ownership to EPM users
Design is key to meet all expectations
Don’t be shy and ask

Francisco Amores
francisco.amores@inlumi.com
http://fishingwithfdmee.blogspot.com
@akafdmee