Creating Repository Roles in SAP HANA Studio

What are Repository Roles?

Repository roles are roles that are created as development artifacts within the SAP HANA system. They start as design-time objects and become runtime objects upon activation. They can be utilized within a security model just like database roles. However, they offer numerous advantages over catalog or database roles.

Why Should I Use Repository Roles?

• The definition of the repository role is stored in the SAP HANA system repository. Using package security, we can control access to individual repository roles for a diverse group of security administrators. For example, super administrators can be given access to change the definition of all repository roles while a department level administrator can be given limited access to roles that affect only his/her users.
• They help prevent assigned privileges from being deleted from the system when the grantor’s user account gets deleted. Repository roles are granted as the system user _SYS_REPO and this account cannot be deleted from your system.
• They are owned by _SYS_REPO. This system account cannot be deleted, unlike database roles that can be removed from the system when their creator’s database user account is deleted.
• Repository roles can be transported from one HANA system to another using HANA Application Lifecycle Management (HALM) or using the Delivery Units (DU) Export and Import process.
• Through auditing, we can track the true grantor of the repository roles.
• When a user is coped in SAP HANA Studio, all of the repository roles are also copied.
• Because they are development artifacts, the standard SAP HANA Version management tools are supported.
• They are granted and revoked via special stored procedures. Users only need EXECUTE access to these procedures to grant and revoke rights. Unlike database roles which can only be revoked by the original grantor.

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About Jonathan Haun

Jonathan Haun is a Director in the Data & Analytics solution at Protiviti. He has over 15 years of BI and IT experience. He currently focuses exclusively on Business Intelligence tools, technologies and EIM processes. He has helped hundreds of companies implement BI tools and strategies over the past 10 years.