HANA CDS is located on the SAP HANA database directly and is meant to support the development of SAP HANA native applications (SAP HANA XS). It makes liberate use of features which are unique to SAP HANA.

ABAP CDS is located on the Application server ABAP, where it is fully integrated in the ABAP Dictionary and thus in the ABAP transport system, lifecycle management etc. The goal of ABAP CDS is to support the implementation of ABAP applications – independent of the database system. Therefore, its initial focus is on view building, and not on building models from scratch – although this might become possible in future.

CDS-related Repository objects

• Data Definition:
• Also referred to as DDL source
• Contains the definition of either CDS view or a CDS table function
• Access Control
• Also referred to as DCL source
• It contains the definition of authorization rules that are automatically checked when a program accesses a certain CDS view or CDS table function.