Manage SAP BDC metadata in Knowledge Catalog

This page describes how SAP BDC Core Schema Notation (CSN) metadata is represented, discovered, and managed in Knowledge Catalog.

When you connect SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) to Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg, SAP CSN metadata is automatically ingested into Knowledge Catalog to provide a rich semantic layer over your SAP data assets.

Overview of SAP CSN metadata

Core Schema Notation (CSN) is an open specification format for declaring Cloud Application Programming (CAP) model definitions and domain schemas. When SAP BDC Data Products are shared with Google Cloud, the underlying CSN metadata is imported into Knowledge Catalog as system-managed aspects.

This metadata includes:

  • Entity descriptions, titles, and labels.
  • Element (column) display names, tech names, and descriptions.
  • Semantic annotations (for example, key indicators, aggregation behaviors, and foreign key relations).

Importing CSN metadata allows data governance teams and AI tools to understand the business context and semantic structure of your SAP data without needing direct access to the SAP backend system.

View SAP CSN metadata in Knowledge Catalog

To view ingested CSN metadata in Knowledge Catalog:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Knowledge Catalog page.

    Go to Knowledge Catalog

  2. In the search bar, enter your catalog, share, or table name, or search using aspect filters.

  3. Select the SAP table entry from the search results.

  4. Click the Aspects tab.

  5. Look for the SAP CSN Metadata aspect type to inspect the full CSN schema definitions and annotations for the entry.

Search and filter by SAP CSN metadata

You can search for SAP assets using CSN metadata filters:

  • To find all assets with CSN metadata, search using aspect type: aspect:sap-csn-metadata
  • To search for specific entity titles or element names, enter terms matching the CSN annotations in the search bar.

Automated AI semantic grounding

Because CSN metadata provides standardized semantic definitions, AI applications and agents built on Google Cloud can consume this metadata to ground models on SAP business definitions. This enables natural language querying over SAP schemas with precise context awareness.

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