Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with SAP HANA

  • Article

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate SAP HANA with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate SAP HANA with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to SAP HANA.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to SAP HANA with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To configure Microsoft Entra integration with SAP HANA, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription
  • A SAP HANA subscription that's single sign-on (SSO) enabled
  • A HANA instance that's running on any public IaaS, on-premises, Azure VM, or SAP large instances in Azure
  • The XSA Administration web interface, as well as HANA Studio installed on the HANA instance

Note

We do not recommend using a production environment of SAP HANA to test the steps in this tutorial. Test the integration first in the development or staging environment of the application, and then use the production environment.

To test the steps in this tutorial, follow these recommendations:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a Microsoft Entra environment, you can get one-month trial here
  • SAP HANA single sign-on enabled subscription

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra single sign-on in a test environment.

  • SAP HANA supports IDP initiated SSO.
  • SAP HANA supports just-in-time user provisioning.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

To configure the integration of SAP HANA into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add SAP HANA from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type SAP HANA in the search box.
  4. Select SAP HANA from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for SAP HANA

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SAP HANA using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in SAP HANA.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SAP HANA, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra test user - to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with Britta Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra test user - to enable Britta Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure SAP HANA SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create SAP HANA test user - to have a counterpart of Britta Simon in SAP HANA that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > SAP HANA > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, enter the values for the following fields:

    In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<Customer-SAP-instance-url>/sap/hana/xs/saml/login.xscfunc

    Note

    The Reply URL value is not real. Update the value with the actual Reply URL. Contact SAP HANA Client support team to get the values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  6. SAP HANA application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format. Configure the following claims for this application. You can manage the values of these attributes from the User Attributes section on application integration page. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, click Edit button to open User Attributes dialog.

    Screenshot that shows the "User Attributes" section with the "Edit" icon selected.

  7. In the User attributes section on the User Attributes & Claims dialog, perform the following steps:

    a. Click Edit icon to open the Manage user claims dialog.

    Screenshot that shows the "User Attributes & Claims" dialog with the "Edit" icon selected.

    image

    b. From the Transformation list, select ExtractMailPrefix().

    c. From the Parameter 1 list, select user.mail.

    d. Click Save.

  8. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, click Download to download the Federation Metadata XML from the given options as per your requirement and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to SAP HANA.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > SAP HANA.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure SAP HANA SSO

  1. To configure single sign-on on the SAP HANA side, sign in to your HANA XSA Web Console by going to the respective HTTPS endpoint.

    Note

    In the default configuration, the URL redirects the request to a sign-in screen, which requires the credentials of an authenticated SAP HANA database user. The user who signs in must have permissions to perform SAML administration tasks.

  2. In the XSA Web Interface, go to SAML Identity Provider. From there, select the + button on the bottom of the screen to display the Add Identity Provider Info pane. Then take the following steps:

    Add Identity Provider

    a. In the Add Identity Provider Info pane, paste the contents of the Metadata XML (which you downloaded) into the Metadata box.

    Screenshot that shows the "Add Identity Provider Info" pane with the "Metadata" and "Name" boxes highlighted.

    b. If the contents of the XML document are valid, the parsing process extracts the information that's required for the Subject, Entity ID, and Issuer fields in the General data screen area. It also extracts the information that's necessary for the URL fields in the Destination screen area, for example, the Base URL and SingleSignOn URL (*) fields.

    Add Identity Provider settings

    c. In the Name box of the General Data screen area, enter a name for the new SAML SSO identity provider.

    Note

    The name of the SAML IDP is mandatory and must be unique. It appears in the list of available SAML IDPs that is displayed when you select SAML as the authentication method for SAP HANA XS applications to use. For example, you can do this in the Authentication screen area of the XS Artifact Administration tool.

  3. Select Save to save the details of the SAML identity provider and to add the new SAML IDP to the list of known SAML IDPs.

    Save button

  4. In HANA Studio, within the system properties of the Configuration tab, filter the settings by saml. Then adjust the assertion_timeout from 10 sec to 120 sec.

    assertion_timeout setting

Create SAP HANA test user

To enable Microsoft Entra users to sign in to SAP HANA, you must provision them in SAP HANA. SAP HANA supports just-in-time provisioning, which is by enabled by default.

If you need to create a user manually, take the following steps:

Note

You can change the external authentication that the user uses. They can authenticate with an external system such as Kerberos. For detailed information about external identities, contact your domain administrator.

  1. Open the SAP HANA Studio as an administrator, and then enable the DB-User for SAML SSO.

  2. Select the invisible check box to the left of SAML, and then select the Configure link.

  3. Select Add to add the SAML IDP. Select the appropriate SAML IDP, and then select OK.

  4. Add the External Identity (in this case, BrittaSimon). Then select OK.

    Note

    You must populate the External Identity field for the user, and that value needs to match the NameID field in the SAML token from Microsoft Entra ID. The Any checkbox should not be checked, as this option requires the IDP to send a SPProviderID property in the NameID Field, which is currently not supported by Microsoft Entra ID. For more information, see Single Sign-On Using SAML 2.0.

  5. For testing purposes, assign all XS roles to the user.

    Assigning roles

    Tip

    You should give permissions that are appropriate for your use cases only.

  6. Save the user.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

  • Click on Test this application, and you should be automatically signed in to the SAP HANA for which you set up the SSO

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the SAP HANA tile in the My Apps, you should be automatically signed in to the SAP HANA for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Provisioning from SAP Cloud Identity Services to SAP HANA is a beta feature available on SAP Business Technology Platform. For more information, see how to configure provisioning of users from Microsoft Entra ID to SAP Cloud Identity Services, and how to configure provisioning of users from SAP Cloud Identity Services to SAP HANA Database (Beta).

Once you configure SAP HANA for SSO, you can enforce session control, which prevents exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.