Adding to an earlier indication by Duke Xu, and as highlighted in Hana SPS07, the spatial engine and taking a byte out of the Big Apple, there are some functions not supported by SRID 4326, including functions ST_CONTAINS, ST_WITHIN, ST_COVERS and ST_COVEREDBY.
Example SQL
select A.name as "POI A", B.name as "POI B",
A.shape.ST_COVERS(B.shape) as "Covers" from
SpatialLocations A ,
SpatialLocations B where A.id = 1 and B.id = 2;
Error
Could not execute 'select A.name as "POI A", B.name as "POI B", A.shape.ST_COVERS(B.shape) as "Covers" from ...' in 54 ms 697 µs .
SAP DBTech JDBC: [7]: feature not supported: Unsupported function: st_covers() on the round earth Spatial Reference System: 4326 at function st_covers()
Q. Are there alternatives for determining containment of one geometric shape within another (casting to another SRID, side effects?).
Q. Can future documentation explicitly state if functions are applicable to round earth systems?