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About the Cover Image

he cover image is a European No Speed Limit sign. If youve ever driven on the

Autobahn in Germany, this sign will immediately bring a smile to your face because you can
step on the accelerator and drive as fast as you want to or as fast as your car can go (which
ever comes first). In terms of SAP HANA, we selected this image because SAP HANA
allows your company to run at top speed with no artificial limit to how fast it can go. If you
ever go visit SAP headquarters in Germany, youll see this sign about 2 miles south of the
Frankfurt airport on the A5 and theres no speed limit on your way to visit SAP.

Note from the Author

ince this book is about the shift to real-time business, its fitting that weve been writing

this book in real-time and will be delivering it in real-time. Basically, that means that we
cant wait around for everything in the SAP HANA world to settle down and solidify before
writing each chapter and expect everyone to hold their breath until the entire book is
finished and ready to print. And trust me, SAP HANA is moving extremely fast right now and
you could be holding your breath for quite a while waiting for that day.
Just like SAP HANA is disrupting the status quo in the database world and breaking lots
of ossified rules of the game, well be doing much the same with this book. Who says you
have to wait till the whole book is written to release it? Who says you have to charge $$ for
an extremely valuable book? Who says it has to be printed on paper with ink and sold in a
bookstore?
Weve decided to break all those traditional publishing rules and release chapters as
they are finished and then release the remaining chapters as they are completed later.
Since this is a digital-only book, its important that readers keep connected to learn about
the release of new chapters and content updates. Thats pretty easy: Follow the book on
twitter @EpistemyPress and @jeff_word, sign up for the email updates from the
saphanabook.com website when you register to download the ebook and keep watching
saphana.com.

Table of Contents
1 SAP HANA Overview
Updated with SP7 details
Updated RDS Information

2 SAP HANA Architecture

3 SAP HANA Business Cases
4 SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA
5 SAP Business Warehouse Powered by SAP HANA
6 Introduction to SAP Big Data Technologies (NEW CHAPTER)
7 Data Modeling with SAP HANA (NEW CHAPTER)
8 Application Development with SAP HANA
9 SAP HANA Administration & Operations
10 SAP HANA Hardware
Updated PAM, Cisco, HP, IBM, HuaWei, VCE, Fujitsu sections
Updated Data Center topics

11 SAP HANA Projects & Implementation

Updated RDS section and new advice section

Acknowledgments

lthough were at the beginning of this journey, many people have already been

phenomenally helpful in the scoping, content preparation and reviewing of this book. Their
support has been invaluable and many more people will be involved as the book
progresses.
Many thanks to all of you for your support and collaboration.
Jeff

SAP Colleagues
Margaret Anderson, Puneet Suppal, Uddhav Gupta, Storm Archer, Scott Shepard, Balaji
Krishna, Daniel Rutschman, Ben Gruber, Bhuvan Wadhwa, Lothar Henkes, Adolf Brosig,
Thomas Zureck, Lucas Kiesow, Prasad Ilapani, Wolfram Kleis, Gunther Liebich, Ralf
Czekalla, Michael Erhardt, Roland Kramer, Arne Arnold, Markus Fath, Johannes Beigel,
Ron Silberstein, Kijoon Lee, Oliver Mainka, Si-Mohamed Said, Amit Sinha, Mike Eacrett,
Andrea Neff, Jason Lovinger, Michael Rey, Gigi Read, David Hull, Nadav Helfman, Lori
Vanourek, Bill Lawler, Scott Leatherman, Kathlynn Gallagher, David Jonker, Naren Chawla,
David Porter, Steve Thibodeau, Swen Conrad, John Schitka, David Jonker

SAP Mentors
Thomas Jung (SAP), Harald Reiter (Deloitte), Vitaliy Rudnytskiy (HP), John Appleby
(Bluefin), Tammy Powlas (Fairfax Water), Vijay Vijayasankar (IBM), Craig Cmehil (SAP),
Alvaro Tejada (SAP)

SAP Partners
Lane Goode (HP), Tag Robertson (IBM), Rick Speyer (Cisco), Andrea Voigt (Fujitsu),
Nathan Saunders (Dell), KaiGai Kohei (NEC), Chris March (Hitachi), Thorsten Staerk (VCE)

Production
Robert
Weiss
(Development
Michele
DeFilippo
(1106
Sophie Jasson-Holt & Deb Cameron (Evolved Media)

Editor)
Design)

How to use this book

May you live in interesting times

his book is designed to provide an introduction to SAP HANA to a wide range of

readers, from C-level executives down to entry-level coders. As such, its content is
necessarily broad and not-too-technical. This book should be the first thing everyone reads
about SAP HANA, but will provide easy links to Level 2 technical content to continue
learning about the various sub-topics in more detail. The content is structured so that
everyone can begin with the introduction chapter and then skip to the subsequent chapters
that most interest them. Business people will likely skip to the applications and business
case chapters while techies will jump ahead to the application development and hardware
chapters. In fact, it would probably be odd if anyone actually read this book from beginning
to end (but go ahead if you want to).
Although a great deal of this book focuses on living in a world without compromises
from a technology and business perspective, weve unfortunately had to make a few
compromises in the scope and depth of the content in order to reach the widest possible
audience. If we hadnt, this would be a 10,000-page encyclopedia that only a few hundred
people would ever read. Weve tried to make this book as easy to read as possible to
ensure that every reader can understand the concepts and get comfortable with the big
picture of SAP HANA. Weve also tried to cover as many of the high-level concepts as
possible and provide copious links to deeper technical resources for easy access.
Hopefully, you will enjoy reading the chapters and find it quite easy to punch out to
additional technical information as you go regardless of your level of technical knowledge or
business focus.
The knowledge you will find in this book is the first step on the journey to becoming a
real-time enterprise, but in many ways, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Were working on
several Level 2 technical books on SAP HANA and are committed to providing as much
technical and business content as possible through the saphana.com website and other
channels. Please refer to the last chapter to get a listing of additional free information
sources on SAP HANA.
Given the massive strategic impact of SAP HANA on the medium and long-term IT

architectures of its customers, SAP felt that every customer and ecosystem partner should
have free access to the essential information they will need to understand SAP HANA and
evaluate its impact on their future landscape. SAP sponsored the writing of this book and
has funded its publication as a free ebook to ensure that everyone can easily access this
knowledge.
SAP HANA is a rapidly evolving product and its level of importance to SAP customers
will continue to increase exponentially over the next several years. We will attempt to
provide updated editions of this book on a semi-annual basis to ensure that you can easily
access the most up-to-date knowledge on SAP HANA. Please continue to visit the SAP
HANA Essentials website to download updated and revised editions when they are released
(typically in May and November of each year). You can also follow @EpistemyPress on
Twitter for updates.

Foreword
By
Vishal
CEO
of
Infosys
Board Member, SAP AG

Sikka,
&

Former

Ph.D.
Executive

ime magazine picked The Protester as its person of the year for 2011, recognition of

individuals who spoke up around the world from the Arab countries to Wall Street, from
India to Greece individuals whose voices were amplified and aggregated by modern
technology and its unprecedented power to connect and empower us. Twitter and
Facebook, now approaching 800 million users (more than 10% of humanity), are often
viewed as the harbinger of social networking. But social networking is not new. A recent
issue of the Economist described Martin Luthers use of social networking, especially the
Gutenberg press, to start the Protestant Reformation. During the American Revolution,
Thomas Paine published his Common Sense manifesto on a derivation of the Gutenberg
press. Within a single year, it reached almost a million of the 1.5 million residents of the 13
American colonies about two-thirds of the populace, and helped seed democracy and
Americas birth.
I believe that information technologies, especially well-designed, purposeful ones,
empower and renew us and serve to amplify our reach and our abilities. The ensuing
connectedness dissolves away intermediary layers of inefficiency and indirection. Some of
the most visible recent examples of this dissolving of layers are the transformations we
have seen in music, movies and books. Physical books and the bookstores they inhabited
have been rapidly disappearing, as have physical compact discs, phonograph records,
videotapes and the stores that housed them. Yet there is more music than ever before,
more books and more movies. Their content got separated from their containers and got
housed in more convenient, more modular vessels, which better tie into our lives, in more
consumable ways. In the process, layers of inefficiency got dissolved. By putting 3000
songs in our pockets, the iPod liberated our music from the housings that confined it. The
iPhone has a high-definition camera within it, along with a bunch of services for sharing,
distributing and publishing pictures, even editing them services that used to be inside
darkrooms and studios. 3D printing is an even more dramatic example of this

transformation. The capabilities and services provided by workshops and factories are now
embodied within a printer that can print things like tools and accessories, food and musical
instruments. A remarkable musical flute was printed recently at MIT, its sound
indistinguishable from that produced by factory-built flutes of yesterday.
I see layers of inefficiency dissolving all around us. An empowered populace gets more
connected, and uses this connectivity to bypass the intermediaries and get straight at the
things it seeks, connecting and acting in real-time whether it is to stage uprisings or rent
apartments, plan travel or author books, edit pictures or consume apps by the millions.
And yet enterprises have been far too slow to benefit from such renewal and
simplification that is pervading other parts of our lives. The IT industry has focused on too
much repackaging and reassembly of existing layers into new bundles, ostensibly to lower
the costs of integrated systems. In reality, this re-bundling increases the clutter that already
exists in enterprise landscapes. It is time for a rethink.
At SAP, we have been engaged in such rethinking, or intellectual renewal, as our
chairman and co-founder Hasso Plattner challenged me, for the last several years, and our
customers are starting to see its results. This renewal of SAPs architecture, and
consequently that of our customers, is driven by an in-memory product called SAP HANA
which, together with mobility, cloud computing, and our principle of delivering innovation
without disruption, is helping to radically simplify enterprise computing and dramatically
improve the performance of businesses without disruption.
SAP HANA achieves this simplification by taking advantage of tremendous advances in
hardware over the last two decades. Todays machines can bring large amounts of mainmemory, and lots of multi-core CPUs to bear on massively parallel processing of
information very inexpensively. SAP HANA was designed from the ground-up to leverage
this, and the business consequences are radical. At Yodobashi, a large Japanese retailer,
the calculation of incentives for loyalty customers used to take 3 days of data processing,
once a month. With SAP HANA, this happens now in 2 seconds a performance
improvement of over 100,000 times. But even more important is the opportunity to rethink
business processes. The incentive for a customer can be calculated on the fly, while the
customer is in a store, based on the purchases she is about to make. The empowered
store-manager can determine these at the point of sale, as the transaction unfolds. With
SAP HANA, batch processing is converting to real time, and business processes are being
rethought. Customers like Colgate-Palmolive, the Essar Group, Provimi, Charmer Sunbelt,
Nongfu Spring, our own SAP IT and many others, have seen performance improvements of
thousands to tens of thousands times. SAP HANA brings these benefits non-disruptively,
without forcing a modification of existing systems. And in Fall 2011, we delivered SAP
Business Warehouse on SAP HANA, a complete removal of the traditional database
underneath, delivering fundamental improvements in performance and simplification,
without disruption.
SAP HANA provides a single in-memory database foundation for managing
transactional as well as analytical data processing. Thus a complex question can be posed
to real-time operational data, instead of asking pre-fabricated questions on pre-aggregated
or summarized data. SAP HANA also integrates text processing with managing structured
data, in a single system. And it scales simply with addition of more processors or more
blades. Thus various types of applications, across a companys lines of businesses, and
across application types, can all be run off a single, elastically-scalable hardware

infrastructure: a grand dissolving of the layers of complexity in enterprise landscapes. SAP

HANA hardware is built by various leading hardware vendors from industry standard
commodity components, and can be delivered as appliances, private or public clouds. While
this architecture is vastly disruptive to a traditional relational database architecture, to our
customers it brings fundamental innovation without disruption.
Looking ahead, I expect that we will see lots of amazing improvements similar to
Yodobashis. Even more exciting, are the unprecedented applications that are now within
our reach. By my estimate, a cloud of approximately 1000 servers of 80-cores and 2
terabytes of memory each, can enable more than 1 billion people on the planet to
interactively explore their energy consumption based on real-time information from their
energy meters and appliances, and take control of their energy management. The
management and optimization of their finances, healthcare, insurance, communications,
entertainment and other activities, can similarly be made truly dynamic. Banks can manage
risks in real-time, oil companies can better explore energy sources, mining vast amounts of
data as needed. Airlines and heavy machinery makers can do predictive maintenance on
their machines, and healthcare companies can analyze vast amounts of genome data in
real time. One of our customers in Japan is working on using SAP HANA to analyze
genome data for hundreds of patients each day, something that was impossible before SAP
HANA. Another customer is using SAP HANA to determine optimal routes for taxicabs. The
possibilities are endless.
Just as the iPod put our entire music libraries in our pockets, SAP HANA, combined with
mobility and cloud-based delivery, enables us to take our entire business with us in our
pocket. Empowering us to take actions in real time, based on our instincts as well as our
analysis. To re-think our solutions to solving existing problems and to help businesses
imagine and deliver solutions for previously unsolved problems. And it is this empowerment
and renewal, driven by purposeful technologies, that continually brings us all forward.
Dr. Vishal Sikka is a the CEO of Infosys and a former member of the Executive Board of
SAP AG who led the development of SAP HANA.

Chapter 1

SAP HANA Overview

Significant shifts in market share and fortunes occur not because companies try to play the
game better than the competition but because they change the rules of the game
Constantinos Markides1

very industry has a certain set of rules that govern the way the companies in that

industry operate. The rules might be adjusted from time to time as the industry matures, but
the general rules stay basically the same unless some massive disruption occurs that
changes the rules or even the entire game. SAP HANA is one of those massively disruptive
innovations for the enterprise IT industry.
To understand this point, consider that youre probably reading this book on an e-reader,
which is a massively disruptive innovation for the positively ancient publishing industry. The
book industry has operated under the same basic rules since Gutenberg mechanized the
production of books in 1440. There were a few subsequent innovations within the industry,
primarily in the distribution chain, but the basic processes of writing a book, printing it, and
reading it remained largely unchanged for several hundred years. That is until Amazon
and Apple came along and digitized the production, distribution, and consumption of books.
These companies are also starting to revolutionize the writing of books by providing new
authoring tools that make the entire process digital and paper-free. This technology
represents an overwhelming assault of disruptive innovation on a 500+ year-old industry in
less than 5 years.
Today, SAP HANA is disrupting the technology industry in much the same way that
Amazon and Apple have disrupted the publishing industry. Before we discuss how this
happens, we need to consider a few fundamental rules of that industry.

The IT Industry: A History of Technology Constraints

Throughout the history of the IT industry, the capabilities of applications have always been
constrained to a great degree by the capabilities of the hardware that they were designed to
run on. This explains the leapfrogging behavior of software and hardware products, where
a more capable version of an application is released shortly after a newer, more capable

generation of hardware processors, storage, memory, and so on is released. For

example, each version of Adobe Photoshop was designed to maximize the most current
hardware resources available to achieve the optimal performance. Rendering a large image
in Photoshop 10 years ago could take several hours on the most powerful PC. In contrast,
the latest version, when run on current hardware, can perform the same task in just a
couple of seconds, even on a low-end PC.
Enterprise software has operated on a very similar model. In the early days of
mainframe systems, all of the software specifically, the applications, operating system,
and database was designed to maximize the hardware resources located inside the
mainframe as a contained system. The transactional data from the application and the data
used for reporting were physically stored in the same system. Consequently, you could
either process transactions or process reports, but you couldnt do both at the same time or
youd kill the system. Basically, the application could use whatever processing power was in
the mainframe, and that was it. If you wanted more power, you had to buy a bigger
mainframe.

The Database Problem: Bottlenecks

When SAP R/3 came out in 1992, it was designed to take advantage of a new hardware
architecture client-server where the application could be run on multiple, relatively
cheap application servers connected to a larger central database server. The major
advantage of this architecture was that, as more users performed more activities on the
system, you could just add a few additional application servers to scale out application
performance. Unfortunately, the system still had a single database server, so transmitting
data from that server to all the application servers and back again created a huge
performance bottleneck.
Eventually, the ever-increasing requests for data from so many application servers
began to crush even the largest database servers. The problem wasnt that the servers
lacked sufficient processing power. Rather, the requests from the application servers got
stuck in the same input/output (IO) bottleneck trying to get data in and out of the database.
To address this problem, SAP engineered quite a few innovative techniques in their
applications to minimize the number of times applications needed to access the database.
Despite these innovations, however, each additional database operation continued to slow
down the entire system.
This bottleneck was even more pronounced when it came to reporting data. The
transactional data known as online transaction processing, or OLTP from documents
such as purchase orders and production orders were stored in multiple locations within the
database. The application would read a small quantity of data when the purchasing screen
was started up, the user would input more data, the app would read a bit more data from the
database, and so on, until the transaction was completed and the record was updated for
the last time. Each transactional record by itself doesnt contain very much data. When you
have to run a report across every transaction in a process for several months, however, you
start dealing with huge amounts of data that have to be pulled through a very slow pipe
from the database to the application.
To create reports, the system must read multiple tables in the database all at once and
then sort the data into reports. This process requires the system to pull a massive amount of
data from the database, which essentially prevents users from doing anything else in the
system while its generating the report. To resolve this problem, companies began to build

separate OLAP systems such as SAP Business Warehouse to copy the transaction data
over to a separate server and offload all that reporting activity onto a dedicated reporting
system. This arrangement would free up resources for the transactional system to focus on
processing transactions.
Unfortunately, even though servers were getting faster and more powerful (and
cheaper), the bottleneck associated with obtaining data from the disk wasnt getting better;
in fact, it was actually getting worse. As more processes in the company were being
automated in the transactional system, it was producing more and more data, which would
then get dumped into the reporting system. Because the reporting system contained more,
broader data about the companys operations, more people wanted to use the data, which
in turn generated more requests for reports from the database under the reporting system.
Of course, as the number of requests increased, the quantities of data that had to be pulled
correspondingly increased. You can see how this vicious (or virtuous) cycle can spin out of
control quickly.

The Solution: InIn-Memory Architecture

This is the reality that SAP was seeing at their customers at the beginning of the 2000s.
SAP R/3 had been hugely successful, and customers were generating dramatically
increasing quantities of data. SAP had also just released SAP NetWeaver2, which added
extensive internet and integration capabilities to its applications. SAP NetWeaver added
many new users and disparate systems that talked to the applications in the SAP
landscape. Again, the greater the number of users, the greater the number of application
servers that flooded the database with requests. Similarly, as the amount of operational
data in the SAP Business Warehouse database increased exponentially, so did the number
of requests for reports. Looking forward, SAP could see this trend becoming even more
widespread and the bottleneck of the database slowing things down more and more. SAP
was concerned that customers who had invested massive amounts of time and money into
acquiring and implementing these systems to make their businesses more productive and
profitable would be unable to get maximum value from them.
Fast forward a few years, and now the acquisitions of Business Objects and Sybase
were generating another exponential increase in demands for data from both the
transactional and analytic databases from increasing numbers of analytics users and
mobile users. Both the volume of data and the volume of users requesting data were now
growing thousands of times faster than the improvements in database I/O.
Having become aware of this issue, in 2004 SAP initiated several projects to innovate
the core architecture of their applications to eliminate this performance bottleneck. The
objective was to enable their customers to leverage the full capabilities of their investment in
SAP while avoiding the data latency issues. The timing couldnt have been better. It was
around this time that two other key factors were becoming more significant: (1) internet use
and the proliferation of data from outside the enterprise, and (2) the regulatory pressures on
corporations, generated by laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley, to be answerable for all of their
financial transactions. These requirements increased the pressure on already stressed
systems to analyze more data more quickly. The SAP projects resulted in the delivery of
SAP HANA in 2011, the first step in the transition to a new in-memory architecture for
enterprise applications and databases. SAP HANA flips the old model on its head and
converts the database from the boat anchor that slows everything down into a jet engine
that speeds up every aspect of the companys operations.

SAPs Early InIn-Memory Projects

SAP has a surprisingly long history of developing in-memory technologies to accelerate its
applications. Because disk I/O has been a performance bottleneck since the beginning of
three-tier architecture, SAP has constantly searched for ways to avoid or minimize the
performance penalty that customers pay when they pull large data sets from disk. So, SAPs
initial in-memory technologies were used for very specific applications that contained
complex algorithms that needed a great deal of readily accessible data.

The Beginnings: LiveCache and SAP BWA

When SAP introduced Advanced Planning Optimizer (APO) as part of its supply chain
management application in the late 1990s, the logistics planning algorithms required a
significant speed boost to overcome the disk I/O bottleneck. These algorithms some of the
most complex that SAP has ever written needed to crunch massive amounts of product,
production, and logistics data to produce an optimal supply chain plan. SAP solved this
problem in 1999 by taking some of the capabilities of its open-source database, SAP
MaxDB (called SAP DB at the time), and built them into a memory-resident cache system
called SAP LiveCache. Basically, LiveCache keeps a persistent copy of all of the relevant
application logic and master data needed in memory, thus eliminating the need to make
multiple trips back and forth to the disk. LiveCache worked extremely well; in fact, it
processed data 600 times faster than disk-based I/O. Within its narrow focus, it clearly
demonstrated that in-memory caching could solve a major latency issue for SAP customers.
In 2003, a team in SAPs headquarters in Waldorf, Germany, began to productize a
specialized search engine for SAP systems called TREX (Text Retrieval and information
EXtraction). TREX approached enterprise data in much the same way that Google
approaches internet data. That is, TREX scans the tables in a database and then creates an
index of the information contained in the table. Because the index is a tiny fraction of the
size of the actual data, the TREX team came up with the idea of putting the entire index in
the RAM memory of the server to speed up searches of the index. When this technology
became operational, their bosses asked them to apply the same technique to a much more
imposing problem: the data from a SAP BW cube. Thus, Project Euclid was born.
At that time, many of the larger SAP BW customers were having significant performance
issues with reports that were running on large data cubes. Cubes are the basic mechanism
by which SAP BW stores data in multidimensional structures. Running reports on very large
cubes (>100GB) was taking several hours, sometimes even days. The SAP BW team had
done just about everything possible in the SAP BW application to increase performance, but
had run out of options in the application layer. The only remaining solution was to eliminate
the bottleneck itself. In the best spirit of disruptive innovators, the TREX team devised a
strategy to eliminate the database from the equation entirely by indexing the cubes and
storing the indexes in high-speed RAM.
Initial results for Euclid were mind-blowing: The new technology could execute query
responses for the same reports on the same data thousands of times faster than the old
system. Eventually, the team discovered how to package Euclid into a stand-alone server
that would sit next to the existing SAP BW system and act as a non-disruptive
turbocharger for a customers slow SAP BW reports. At the same time, SAP held some
senior-level meetings with Intel to formulate a joint-engineering project to optimize Intels
new dual-core chips to natively process the SAP operations in parallel, thereby increasing

performance exponentially. Intel immediately sent a team to SAP headquarters to begin the
optimization work. Since that time the two companies have continuously worked together to
optimize every successive generation of chips.
In 2005, SAP launched the product SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator,
or BIA. (The company subsequently changed the name to SAP NetWeaver Business
Warehouse Accelerator, or BWA) BWA has since evolved into one of SAPs best-selling
products, with one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings. BWA solved a huge pain
point for SAP customers. Even more importantly, however, it represented another
successful use of in-memory. Along with LiveCache, the success of BWA proved to SAP
and its customers that in-memory data processing just might be an architectural solution to
database bottlenecks.

The Next Step: The Tracker Project

Once the results for BWA and LiveCache began to attract attention, SAP decided to take
the next big step and determine whether it could run an entire database for an SAP system
in memory. As well see later, this undertaking is a lot more complicated than it sounds.
Using memory as a cache to temporarily store data or storing indexes of data in memory
were key innovations, but eliminating the disk completely from the architecture takes the
concept to an entirely different level of complexity and introduces a great deal of unknown
technical issues into the landscape.
Therefore, in 2005, SAP decided to build a skunkworks project to validate and test the
idea. The result was the Tracker Project. Because the new SAP database was in an early
experimental stage and the final product could seriously disrupt the market, the Tracker
Project was strictly Top Secret, even to SAP employees.
The Tracker team was composed of the TREX/BWA engineers, a few of the key
architects from the SAP MaxDB open-source database team, the key engineers who built
LiveCache, the SAP ERP performance optimization and benchmarking gurus, and several
database experts from outside the company. Basically, the team was an all-star lineup of
everyone inside and outside SAP who could contribute to this big hairy audacious goal of
building the first in-memory database prototype for SAP (the direct ancestor of SAP HANA).
In the mid-1990s, several researchers at Stanford University had performed the first
experiments to build an in-memory database for a project at HP Labs. Two of the Stanford
researchers went on to found companies to commercialize their research. One product was
a database query optimization tool known as Callixa, and the other was a native in-memory
database called P*Time. In late 2005, SAP quietly acquired Callixa and P*time (as well as a
couple of other specialist database companies), hired several of the most distinguished
database geniuses on the planet, and put them to work with the Tracker team. The team
completed the porting and verification of the in-memory database on a server with 64gb of
RAM, which was the maximum supported memory at the time.
In early 2006, less than four months after the start of the project, the Tracker team
passed its primary performance and reality check goal: the SAP Standard Application
Benchmark for 1000 user SD two-tier benchmark with more than 6000 SAPs, which
essentially matched the performance of the two leading certified databases at the time. To
put that in perspective, it took Microsoft several years of engineering to port Microsoft SQL
to SAP and pass the benchmark the first time. Passing the benchmark in such a short time
with a small team in total secrecy was a truly amazing feat. Suddenly, an entirely new
world of possibilities had opened up for SAP to fundamentally change the rules of the game

for database technology.

Shortly after achieving this milestone, SAP began an academic research project to
experiment with the inner workings of in-memory databases with faculty and students at the
Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam in Germany. The researchers
examined the prototypes from the Tracker team now called NewDB and added some
valuable external perspectives on how to mature the technology for enterprise applications.

SAP In-Memory Technology Evolution

However, passing a benchmark and running tests in the labs are far removed from the
level of scalability and reliability needed for a database to become the mission-critical heart
of a Fortune 50 company. So, for the next four years, SAP embarked on a bullet-proofing
effort to evolve the project into a product.
In May 2010, Hasso Plattner, SAPs supervisory board chairman and chief software
advisor, announced SAPs vision for delivering an entirely in-memory database layer for its
application portfolio. If you havent seen his keynote speech, its worth watching. If you saw
it when he delivered it, its probably worth watching again. Its Professor Plattner at his best.

Different Game, Different Rules: SAP HANA

One year later, SAP announced the first live customers on SAP HANA and that SAP HANA
was now generally available. SAP also introduced the first SAP applications that were being
built natively on top of SAP HANA as an application platform. Not only did these revelations
shock the technology world into the new reality of in-memory databases, but they initiated
a massive shift for both SAP and its partners and customers into the world of real-time

business.
In November 2011, SAP achieved another milestone when it released SAP Business
Warehouse 7.3. SAP had renovated this software so that it could run natively on top of SAP
HANA. This development sent shockwaves throughout the data warehousing world
because almost every SAP Business Warehouse customer could immediately3 replace their
old, disk-based database with SAP HANA. What made this new architecture especially
attractive was the fact that SAP customers did not have to modify their current systems to
accommodate it. To make the transition as painless as possible for its customers, SAP
designed Business Warehouse 7.3 to be a non-disruptive innovation.

Innovation without Disruption

Clay Christensens book The Innovators Dilemma was very popular reading among the
Tracker team during the early days. In addition to all the technical challenges of building a
completely new enterprise-scale database from scratch on a completely new hardware
architecture, SAP also had to be very thoughtful about how its customers would eventually
adopt such a fundamentally different core technology underneath the SAP Business Suite.
To accomplish this difficult balancing act, SAPs senior executives made the teams
primary objective the development of a disruptive technology innovation that could be
introduced into SAPs customers landscapes in a non-disruptive way. They realized that
even the most incredible database would be essentially useless if SAPs customers couldnt
make the business case to adopt it because it was too disruptive to their existing systems.
The team spoke, under NDA, with the senior IT leadership of several of SAPs largest
customers to obtain insights concerning the types of concerns they would have about such
a monumental technology shift at the bottom of their stacks. The customers provided
some valuable guidelines for how SAP should engineer and introduce such a disruptive
innovation into their mission-critical landscapes. Making that business case involved much
more than just the eye-catching speeds and feeds from the raw technology. SAPs
customers would switch databases only if the new database was minimally disruptive to
implement and extremely low risk to operate. In essence, SAP would have to build a hugely
disruptive innovation to the database layer that could be adopted and implemented by its
customers in a non-disruptive way at the business application layer.

The Business Impact of a New Architecture

When viewed from a holistic perspective, the entire stack needed to run a Fortune 50
company is maddeningly complex. So, to engineer a new technology architecture for a
company, you first have to focus on WHAT the entire system has to do for the business. At
its core, the new SAP database architecture was created to help users run their business
processes more effectively4. It had to enable them to track their inventory more accurately,
sell their products more effectively, manufacture their products more efficiently, and
purchase materials economically. At the same time, however, it also had to reduce the
complexity and costs of managing the landscape for the IT department.
Today, every business process in a company has some amount of latency associated
with it. For example, one public company might require 10 days to complete its quarterly
closing process, while its primary competitor accomplishes this task in 5 days even
though both companies are using the same SAP software to manage the process. Why
does it take one company twice as long as its competitor to complete the same process?
What factors contribute to that additional process latency?

The answers lie in the reality that the software is simply the enabler for the execution of
the business process. The people who have to work together to complete the process, both
inside and outside the company, often have to do a lot of waiting both during and between
the various process steps. Some of that waiting is due to human activities, such as lunch
breaks or meetings. Much of it, however, occurs because people have to wait while their
information systems process the relevant data. The old saying that time is money is still
completely true, and latency is just a nice way of saying money wasted while waiting.
As we discussed earlier, having to wait several minutes or several hours or even several
days to obtain an answer from your SAP system is a primary contributor to process latency.
It also discourages people from using the software frequently or as it was intended. Slowperforming systems force people to take more time to complete their jobs, and they result in
less effective use of all the systems capabilities. Both of these factors introduce latency into
process execution.
Clearly, latency is a bad thing. Unfortunately, however, theres an even darker side to
slow systems. When businesspeople cant use a system to get a quick response to their
questions or get their job done when they need to, they invent workarounds to avoid the
constraint. The effort and costs spent on inventing workarounds to the performance
limitations of the system waste a substantial amount of institutional energy and creativeness
that ideally should be channeled into business innovation. In addition, workarounds can
seriously compromise data quality and integrity.
As we have discussed, the major benefits of in-memory storage are that users no longer
have to wait for the system, and the information they need to make more intelligent
decisions is instantly available at their fingertips. Thus, companies that employ in-memory
systems are operating in real time. Significantly, once you remove all of the latency from
the systems, users can focus on eliminating the latency in the other areas of the process.
Its like shining a spotlight on all the problem areas of the process now that the system
latency is no longer clouding up business transparency.

The Need for Business Flexibility

In addition to speeding up database I/O throughput and simplifying the enterprise system
architecture, SAP also had to innovate in a third direction: business flexibility. Over the
years, SAP had become adept at automating standard business processes for 24 different
industries globally. Despite this progress, however, new processes were springing up too
fast to count. Mobile devices, cloud applications, and big data scenarios were creating a
whole new set of business possibilities for customers. SAPs customers needed a huge
amount of flexibility to modify, extend, and adapt their core business processes to reflect
their rapidly changing business needs. In 2003, SAP released their service-oriented
architecture, SAP NetWeaver, and began to renovate the entire portfolio of SAP apps to
become extremely flexible and much easier to modify. However, none of that flexibility was
going to benefit their customers if the applications and platform that managed those
dynamic business processes were chained to a slow, inflexible, and expensive database.
The only way out of this dilemma was for SAP to innovate around the database problem
entirely. None of the existing database vendors had any incentive to change the status quo
(see The Innovators Dilemma for all the reasons why), and SAP couldnt afford to sit by and
watch these problems continue to get worse for their customers. SAP needed to engineer a
breakthrough innovation in in-memory databases to build the foundations for a future
architecture that was faster, simpler, more flexible, and much cheaper to acquire and

operate. It was one of those impossible challenges that engineers and business people
secretly love to tackle, and it couldnt have been more critical to SAPs future success.

Faster, Better, Cheaper

Theres another fundamental law of the technology industry: Faster, Better, Cheaper. That
is, each new generation of product or technology has to be faster, better, and cheaper than
the generation it is replacing, or customers wont purchase it. Geoffrey Moore has some
great thoughts on how game-changing technologies cross the chasm. He maintains,
among other things, that faster, better, and cheaper are fundamental characteristics that
must be present for a successful product introduction.
In-memory computing fits the faster, better, cheaper model perfectly. I/O is thousands to
millions of times faster on RAM than on disks. Theres really no comparison in how rapidly
you can get memory off a database in RAM than off a database on disk. In-memory
databases are a better architecture due to their simplicity, tighter integration with the apps,
hybrid row/column store, and ease of operations. Finally, when you compare the cost of an
in-memory database to that of a disk-based database on the appropriate metric cost per
terabyte per second in-memory is actually cheaper. Also, when you compare the total
cost of ownership (TCO) of in-memory databases, theyre even more economical to operate
than traditional databases due to the reduction of superfluous layers and unnecessary
tasks.
But faster, better, cheaper is even more important than just the raw technology. If you
really look at what the switch from an old platform to a new platform can do for overall
usability of the solutions on top of the platform, there are some amazing possibilities.
Take the ubiquitous iPod for example. When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it
revolutionized the way that people listened to music, even though it wasnt the first MP3
player on the market. The key innovation was that Apple was able to fit a tiny 1.8-inch hard
drive into its small case so you could carry 5gb of music in your pocket, at a time when most
other MP3 players could hold only ~64mb of music in flash memory. (This is a classic
illustration of changing the rules of the game.) I/O speed wasnt a significant concern for
playing MP3s, so the cost per megabyte per second calculation wasnt terribly relevant. By
that measure, 5gb of disk for roughly the same price as 64mb of RAM was a huge
difference. It wasnt significantly faster than its competitors, but it was so phenomenally
better and cheaper per megabyte (even at $399) that it became a category killer.
In hindsight, Apple had to make several architectural compromises to squeeze that hard
drive into the iPod. First, the hard drive took up most of the case, leaving very little room for
anything else. There was a tiny monochrome display, a clunky mechanical click wheel
user interface, a fairly weak processor, and, most importantly, a disappointingly short
battery life. The physics needed to spin a hard disk drained the battery very quickly. Despite
these limitations, however, the iPod was still so much better than anything else out there it
soon took over the market.
Fast-forward six years, and Apple was selling millions of units of its most current version
of the classic iPod, which contained 160gb of storage, 32 times more than the original 5gb
model. Significantly, the new model sold at the same price as the original. In addition to the
vastly expanded storage capacity, Apple had added a color screen and a pressure-sensitive
click wheel. Otherwise, the newer model was similar to the original in most ways.
By this time, however, the storage capacity of the hard drive was no longer such a big

deal. Hard drives had become so enormous that nobody had enough music to fill them. In
fact, in 2001 people had been thrilled with 5gb of storage, because they could download
their entire CD collection onto the iPod. Meanwhile, Moores law had been in effect for four
full cycles and 16gb of memory cost about the same as a 160gb hard drive. In 2007, Apple
could build an iPod with 16gb of solid-state RAM storage which was only one-tenth of the
capacity of the current hard drive model for the same price as the 2001 model.
It was the shift to solid-state memory as the storage medium for iPods that really
changed the game for Apple. Removing the hard drive and its spinning disks had a huge
impact on Apples design parameters, for several reasons. First, it enabled the company to
shrink the thickness and reduce the weight of the iPod, making it easier to carry and store.
In addition, it created more room for a bigger motherboard and a larger display. In fact,
Apple could now turn the entire front of the device into a display, which it redesigned as a
touch-screen interface (hence the name iPod Touch). Inserting a bigger motherboard in
turn allowed Apple to insert a larger, more powerful processor in the device. Most
importantly, however, eliminating the physical hard drive more than doubled the battery life
since there were no more mechanical disks to spin.
These innovations essentially transformed a simple music player into a miniature
computer that you could carry in your pocket. It had an operating system, long battery life,
audio and video capabilities, and a sufficient amount of storage. Going even further, Apple
could also build another model with nearly all of the same parts that could also make phone
calls.

Comparison of Apple iPod Models

Source: Apple Inc.

Once a large number of people began to carry a computer around in their pocket, it only
made sense that developers would build new applications to exploit the capabilities of the
new platform. Although Apple couldnt have predicted the success of games like Angry
Birds, they realized that innovation couldnt be unleashed on their new platform until they
removed the single biggest piece of the architecture that was imposing all the constraints.
Ironically, it was the same piece of technology that made the original iPod so successful.
Think about that for a second: Apple had to eliminate the key technology in the iPod that
had made them so successful in order to move to the next level of success with the iPod
Touch and the iPhone. Although this might seem like an obvious choice in retrospect, at the
time it required a huge leap of faith to take.
In essence, getting rid of the hard drive in the iPods was the most critical technology
decision Apple made to deliver the iPod Touch, iPhone, and, eventually, the iPad. Most of
the other pieces of technology in the architecture improved as expected over the years. But
the real game changer was the switch from disk to memory. That single decision freed
Apple to innovate without constraints and allowed them to change the rules of the game
again, back to the memory-as-storage paradigm that the portable music player market had
started with.
SAP is convinced that SAP HANA represents a similar architectural shift for its
application platform. Eliminating the disk-based database will provide future customers with

a faster, better, and cheaper architecture. SAP also believes that this new architecture, like
the solid-state memory in the iPod, will encourage the development of a new breed of
business applications that are built natively to exploit this new platform.
Note: as of late 2013, Apple still makes and sells the classic iPod (160gb/$249), but it is a tiny
fraction of their overall iPod sales. So, somebody must be buying the old iPods and Apple must
be making some money off of them, but do you know anyone whos bought a hard-drive based
iPod in the last five years? Youd have to really need all that storage to give up all the features of
the iPod touch.
SAP thinks that there will also be a small category of its customers who will continue to want the
old architecture so theyll continue to support that option, but theyre predicting a similar
adoption trend for migrations to the SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA. At that point, youll need
an overwhelmingly compelling business reason to forego all the goodness of the new architecture
and renovated SAP apps on top of SAP HANA.

InIn-Memory Basics
Thus far, weve focused on the transition to in-memory computing and its implications for IT.
With this information as background, we next dive into the deep end of SAP HANA. Before
we do so, however, here are a few basic concepts about in-memory computing that youll
need to understand. Some of these concepts might be similar to what you already know
about databases and server technology. There are also some cutting-edge concepts,
however, that merit discussion.
Storing data in memory isnt a new concept. What is new is that now you can store your
whole operational and analytic data entirely in RAM as the primary persistence layer5.
Historically database systems were designed to perform well on computer systems with
limited RAM. As we have seen, in these systems slow disk I/O was the main bottleneck in
data throughput. Today, multi-core CPUs multiple CPUs located on one chip or in one
package are standard, with fast communication between processor cores enabling
parallel processing. Currently server processors have up to 64 cores, and 128 cores will
soon be available. With the increasing number of cores, CPUs are able to process
increased data volumes in parallel. Main memory is no longer a limited resource. In fact,
modern servers can have 2TB of system memory, which allows them to hold complete
databases in RAM. Significantly, this arrangement shifts the performance bottleneck from
disk I/O to the data transfer between CPU cache and main memory (which is already
blazing fast and getting faster).
In a disk-based database architecture, there are several levels of caching and
temporary storage to keep data closer to the application and avoid excessive numbers of
round-trips to the database (which slows things down). The key difference with SAP HANA
is that all of those caches and layers are eliminated because the entire physical database is
literally sitting on the motherboard and is therefore in memory all the time. This
arrangement dramatically simplifies the architecture.
It is important to note that there are quite a few technical differences between a
database that was designed to be stored on a disk versus one that was built to be entirely
resident in memory. Theres a techie book6 on all those conceptual differences if you really
want to get down into the details. What follows here is a brief summary of some of the key
advantages of SAP HANA over its aging disk-based cousins.

Pure InIn-Memory Database

With SAP HANA, all relevant data are available in main memory, which avoids the
performance penalty of disk I/O completely. Either disk or solid-state drives are still required
for permanent persistency in the event of a power failure or some other catastrophe. This
doesnt slow down performance, however, because the required backup operations to disk
can take place asynchronously as a background task.

Parallel Processing
Multiple CPUs can now process parallel requests in order to fully utilize the available
computing resources. So, not only is there a bigger pipe between the processor and
database, but this pipe can send a flood of data to hundreds of processors at the same time
so that they can crunch more data without waiting for anything.

Columnar and RowRow-Based Data Storage

Conceptually, a database table is a two-dimensional data structure with cells organized in
rows and columns, just like a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Computer memory, in contrast,
is organized as a linear structure. To store a table in linear memory, two options exist: rowbased storage and column storage. A row-oriented storage system stores a table as a
sequence of records, each of which contains the fields of one row. Conversely, in column
storage the entries of a column are stored in contiguous memory locations. SAP HANA is a
hybrid database that uses both methods simultaneously to provide an optimal balance
between them.
The SAP HANA database allows the application developer to specify whether a table is
to be stored column-wise or row-wise. It also enables the developer to alter an existing table
from columnar to row-based and vice versa. The decision to use columnar or row-based
tables is typically a determined by how the data will be used and which method is the most
efficient for that type of usage.
ColumnColumn-based tables have advantages in the following circumstances:

Calculations are typically executed on a single column or a few columns only.

The table is searched based on values of a few columns.

The table has a large number of columns.

The table has a large number of rows, so that columnar operations are
required (aggregate, scan, etc.).

High compression rates can be achieved because the majority of the

columns contain only few distinct values (compared to the number of rows).
RowRow-based tables have advantages in the following circumstances:

The application needs to only process a single record at one time. (This
applies to many selects and/or updates of single records.)

The application typically needs to access a complete record (or row).

The columns contain primarily distinct values so that the compression rate
would be low.

Neither aggregations nor fast searching is required.

The table has a small number of rows (e. g., configuration tables).

Compression
Because of the innovations in hybrid row/column storage in SAP HANA, companies can
typically achieve between 5x and 10x compression ratios on the raw data. This means that

5TB of raw data can optimally fit onto an SAP HANA server that has 1TB of RAM. SAP
typically recommends that companies double the estimated compressed table data to
determine the amount of RAM needed in order to account for real-time calculations, swap
space, OS and other associated programs beyond just the raw table data.

Persistence Layer
The SAP HANA database persistence layer stores data in persistent disk volumes (either
hard disk or solid-state drives). The persistence layer ensures that changes are durable and
that the database can be restored to the most recent committed state after a restart. SAP
HANA uses an advanced delta-insert approach for rapid backup and logging. If power is
lost, the data in RAM is lost. However, because the persistence layer manages restore
points and backup at such high speeds (from RAM to SSD) and recovery from disk to RAM
is so much faster than from regular disk, you actually lose less data and recover much
faster than in a traditional disk-based architecture.

SAP HANA Architectural Overview

Now that weve discussed the key concepts underlying in-memory storage, we can focus
more specifically on the SAP HANA architecture. As we noted earlier, conceptually SAP
HANA is very similar to most databases youre familiar with. Applications have to put data in
and take data out of the database, data sources have to interface with it, and it has to store
and manage data reliably. Despite these surface similarities, however, SAP HANA is quite
different under the hood than any database in the market. In fact, SAP HANA is much
more than just a database. It includes many tools and capabilities in the box that make it
much more valuable and versatile than a regular database. In reality, its a full-featured
database platform.
In what ways is SAP HANA unique? First, it is delivered as a pre-configured, preinstalled appliance on certified hardware.7 This eliminates many of the typical activities and
problems you find in regular databases. Second, it includes all of the standard application
interfaces and libraries so that developers can immediately get to work using it, without relearning any proprietary APIs.

SAP HANA inin-memory appliance

Finally, SAP HANA comes with several ways to connect easily to nearly any source
system in either real-time or near real-time.
These features are designed to make SAP HANA as close to plug-and-play as it can
be and to make it a non-disruptive addition to your existing landscape. Well spend a few
moments here explaining these capabilities at a basic level. Well discuss them in much
more technical detail in the SAP HANA Architecture chapter.

Programming Interfaces for SAP HANA

SQL
SQL is the main interface for client applications. The SQL implementation of the SAP HANA
database is based on SQL 92 entry-level features and core features of SQL 99. However, it
offers several SQL extensions on top of this standard. These extensions are available for
creating tables as both row-based and column-based tables and for conversion between
the two formats. For most SQL statements it is irrelevant whether the table is column-based
or row-based. However, there are some features for example, time-based queries and
column-store specific parameters that are supported only for columnar tables.

SQLScript
The SAP HANA database has its own scripting language, named SQLScript, that offers
scripting capabilities that allow application-specific calculations to run inside the database.
SQLScript is similar conceptually to stored procedures, but it contains several modern
innovations that make it much more powerful and flexible.

MDX Interface
The SAP HANA database also supports MDX (MultiDimensional eXpressions), the de facto
standard for multidimensional queries. MDX can be used to connect a variety of analytics
applications like SAP Business Objects products and clients such as Microsoft Excel.

Engines
The core of the SAP HANA database contains several engines that are used for specific

tasks. The two primary engines are the planning engine and the calculation engine.

Planning Engine
The SAP HANA database contains a component called the planning engine that allows
financial planning applications to execute basic planning operations in the database layer.

Calculation Engine
What truly makes SAP HANA unique is that, in addition to its being a standard SQL
database, it also natively supports data calculation inside the database itself. By
incorporating procedural language support C++, Python, and ABAP directly into the
database kernel through a dedicated calculation engine, it can achieve exceptional
performance because the data do not need to be moved out of the database, processed,
and then written back in.

Libraries
The technical details of communicating with the SAP HANA database are contained in a set
of included client libraries for standard platforms and clients. The following client libraries
are provided for accessing the SAP HANA database via SQL or MDX:

JDBC driver for Java clients

ODBC driver for Windows/Unix/Linux clients, especially for MS Office

integration

DBSL (Database Shared Library) for ABAP

Application Function Library

SAP has leveraged its deep application knowledge from the ABAP stack to port specific
functionality as infrastructure components within SAP HANA to be consumed by any
application logic extension. Examples of common business functions are currency
conversion and calendar functionality.

SAP HANA Studio

The SAP HANA Studio is the primary interface for developers, administrators, and data
modelers. It is based on the open-source Eclipse framework, and it consists of three
perspectives: the administration console, the information modeler, and lifecycle
management.
The administration console of the studio allows system administrators to administer
and monitor the database. It includes database status information as well as functions to
start/stop the database, create backups, perform a recovery, change the configuration, and
so on.
The information modeler is used for modeling data. It enables users to create new data
models or modify existing ones.
The lifecycle management perspective provides an automated SAP HANA service
pack (SP) for updates using the SAP Software Update Manager for SAP HANA (SUM for
SAP HANA).

Data Modeling in SAP HANA

Business and IT users can either create on-the-fly non-materialized data views or build
reusable ones on top of standard SQL tables via a very intuitive user interface, which
utilizes SQLScript and stored procedures to perform business logic on the data models.

Information models created in SAP HANA can be consumed directly by Business Objects BI
clients or indirectly by using the Universe/Semantic Layer built on top of SAP HANA views.
Information models in SAP HANA are a combination of attributes/dimensions and
measures. SAP HANA provides three types of modeling views:
1.
Attribute views are built on dimensions or subject areas used for business
analysis.
Analytical views are multidimensional views or OLAP cubes, which enable
2.
users to analyze values from single-fact tables related to the dimensions in the
attribute views.
3.
Calculation views are used to create custom data sets to address complex
business requirement using database tables, attribute views, and analytical views
in on-the-fly calculations.
In traditional databases, users experience bottlenecks when changing business
requirements require modifications to the existing data model, which requires users to
delete and re-load data into materialized views. In contrast, in SAP HANA, dynamic data
modeling on the lowest granular level is loaded into the system. Raw data is constantly
available in memory for analytical purposes, and it is not pre-loaded in cache, physical
aggregate tables, index tables, or any other redundant data storage.

Data Provisioning for SAP HANA

SAP HANA offers both real-time replication and near real-time/batch replication to move
data from source systems to the SAP HANA database. Replication-based data provisioning
like Sybase Replication Server or SAP SLT (System Landscape Transformation) provide
near real-time synchronization of data sets between the source system and SAP HANA.
After the initial replication of historical records, the changed data are pushed from the
source to SAP HANA based on triggers such as table updates. SAP SLT can also be used
to direct write data back to the source system in scenarios where write back or round
trip synchronization to the SAP source system is needed.
ETL-based data provisioning is primarily accomplished with SAP BusinessObjects Data
Services (DS). DS loads snapshots of data periodically as a batch and is triggered from the
target system. The type of data provisioning tool used is primarily determined by the
business needs of the use case and the characteristics of the source system.

RealReal-Time Replication Using SLT

SLT replicator provides near-real-time and scheduled data replication from SAP source
systems to SAP HANA. It is based on SAPs proven System Landscape Optimization (SLO)
technology that has been used for many years for Near Zero Down Time upgrade and
migration projects. Trigger-Based Data Replication using SLT is based on capturing
database changes at a high level of abstraction in the source SAP system. It benefits from
being database and OS agnostic, and it can parallelize database changes on multiple tables
or by segmenting large table changes. SLT can be installed on an existing SAP source
system or as an additional lightweight SAP system side-by-side with the source system.

RealReal-Time Replication with Direct Write/WriteWrite/Write-back

SAP HANA also supports real-time replication with direct write using database shared
library (DBSL) connection. Using DBSL, the SAP HANA database can be connected as a
secondary database to an SAP ECC system and provide accelerated data processing for

existing SAP applications. Applications can use the DBSL on the application server layer to
simultaneously write to traditional databases and the SAP HANA database.

Extraction (ETL) / Periodic Load

The ETL-based data load scenario uses SAP BusinessObjects DataServices to load the
relevant business data from virtually any source system (SAP and non-SAP) to the SAP
HANA database. SAP BusinessObjects Data Services is a proven ETL tool that supports
broad connectivity to databases, applications, legacy, file formats, and unstructured data. It
provides the modeling environment to model data flows from one or more source systems
along with transformations and data cleansing.

SAP HANA Database Administration

The SAP HANA Studio Administration Console provides an all-in-one environment for
System Monitoring, Back-up & Recovery, and User provisioning.

System Monitoring
The Administration console provides tools to monitor the systems status, its services, and
the consumption of its resources. Administrators are notified by an alert mechanism when
critical situations arise. Analytics and statistics on historical monitoring data are also
provided to enable efficient data center operations and for planning future resource
allocations.

Backup & Recovery

The Administration console in the SAP HANA Studio supports the following scenarios:

Recovery to the last data backup

Recovery to both the last and previous data backups

Recovery to last state before the crash

Point-in-time recovery

Storage snapshots (SP7)

Log replay on storage snapshots (SP7)

Scale-out support (new hosts are backed up automatically, also added in

SP7)
In the event of disaster scenarios such as fires, power outages, earthquakes or
hardware failures, SAP HANA supports Hot Standby using synchronous mirroring with the
redundant data center concept including a redundant SAP HANA system in addition to
Cold Standby using a standby system within one SAP HANA landscape, where the failover
is triggered automatically.

User Provisioning
SAP HANA supports user provisioning with authentication, role-based security and analysis
authorization using analytic privileges. Analytical privileges provide security to the analytical
objects based on a set of attribute values. These values can be applied to a set of users by
assigning them to user/role.

SAP HANA SP7 Update

Ever since SAP HANA was initially released in 2010, SAP has demonstrated an unwavering
commitment to innovation and continual product improvements. In the previous service
packs (SP5/SP6), SAP added extensive new functionality, such as collapsing the

architectural layers between application and data processing, as well as converging

database and application services into a single, in-memorybased architecture. SAP HANA
SP5 also supplied numerous capabilities such as enhanced security, high availability via
data replication, more sophisticated text analysis, and an array of functionality known as
SAP HANA Extended Application Services to provide developers access to the database
via a consumption model over HTTP. Taken together, these improvements greatly
bolstered SAP HANA proficiency in large-scale data center deployments.
With SAP HANA SP6, SAP builds on this solid legacy by debuting SAP HANA smart data
access technology. This technology helps enterprises dynamically derive real-time insights
across heterogeneous sources such as Hadoop. New in-memory spatial capabilities in SAP
HANA enable organizations to uncover richer and more meaningful signals from business
and geospatial data. And the completion of the integration of Sybase data management
with SAP HANA will further transform customers end-to-end data management landscape.
SAP HANA SP7 improvements can be broken into three primary categories:
1.
Enhanced information processing to help customers get the most from their
data.
2.
Augmented developer and DBA productivity to deliver applications more
quickly.
3.
Operational improvements to extend performance and reliability.

Enhanced information processing

Managing the massive data volumes that characterize Big Data environments is very costly:
it takes a lot of time, requires additional, often redundant storage and network capacity, and
mandates superfluous maintenance activities. It also delivers results more slowly to users.
Thus, avoiding unnecessary large-scale data movements is a core best practice for optimal
Big Data productivity; its simply better and more efficient to bring the computation to the
data, rather than the other way around. This tactic is particularly powerful when combined
with in-memory processing.
By expanding upon the inherently powerful SAP HANA information processing
capabilities, SAP enables application developers to leverage the full strength of the
database through analytics libraries, predictive results exploration, text search, geospatial
data, and soon. Developers are able to process Big Data and combine the results with realtime analytics, in a single query. This also makes it feasible to access and synthesize
enterprise data regardless of location, size, and representation without needing to move
any information.

SAP HANA smart data access

SAP HANA smart data access provides data virtualization capabilities that expedite
dynamic data queries across heterogeneous relational and non-relational database
systems such as Hadoop, SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP Sybase ASE),
SAP Sybase IQ, Teradata, and SAP HANA itself. In SP7, support for Oracle and Microsoft
SQL Server was added as well as the ability to use Sybase Event Stream Processor as a
data source. Using the generic adaptor framework, other data sources can be added as
well, provided those data sources support ODBC.
SAP is bringing the complete potential of the SAP HANA platform to provide data
virtualization, which will simplify data queries across heterogeneous sources, while
optimizing response time based on where data is stored and how it is used. SAP HANA

smart data access helps customers construct real-time big data applications with fast and
secure query access to data across their business networks, while minimizing unnecessary
data transfers and data redundancy.

Spatial data processing

SAP has expanded the scope of the SAP HANA platform with the incorporation of new
spatial data processing capabilities that combine geospatial data with business data,
resulting in a new dimension for real-time business applications. Customers and ISVs are
able to process blends of spatial, predictive, and text analysis results within one SQL
statement, providing simplified development of intelligent and intuitive location-based
solutions. Additionally, SAP HANA customers are able to utilize geo-content at no additional
charge, making it possible to seamlessly develop and deploy spatially-based solutions
using native in-memory processing, mapping content, and services.
These new spatial capabilities, content, and services will be exceptionally useful for
industries that require real-time, mission-critical location solutions for planning, monitoring,
and analytics, combined with faster performance, and decreased total cost of ownership
(TCO).
For example, energy infrastructure companies can employ the spatial processing
capabilities in SAP HANA to immediately identify and take action on high-risk pipeline
components based on numerous variables, all in real-time. This newfound agility will help
reduce potential outages, maintenance costs, and the risk of catastrophic failure.
For more information, see the SAP HANA Spatial Reference.

Extended natural language processing

SAP HANA SP6 and SP7 furnish developers with an assortment of new and augmented
techniques for working with natural language via full text and fuzzy searches. In particular,
fuzzy search now incorporates compound words, column conditions, predefined columns,
and additional filter conditions. Text analysis has been strengthened with new language
identification intelligence, along with greater fact extraction throughput.
SAP HANA multilingual text mining capabilities have also been enhanced to support
additional languages such as Simplified Chinese.
This makes it much easier to measure and monitor client sentiment instantaneously, and
thus use the voice of the customer to pinpoint sentiments, problems, and requests. The
result: better, more informed decisions.

Extremely large data warehouse with integrated nearnear-line store

Fully exploiting the power of Big Data means gaining insight into the entire range of the
enterprises information. Its now possible to fuse data from SAP HANA and SAP Sybase IQ
into a single logical database thats visible from SAP Business Warehouse. This means that
customers can now achieve real-time, in-memory processing with near-line storage at
petascale data size, along with full visibility across all information siloes.

Integrated stream processing

Complex event processing has proven to be one of the most prolific sources for Big Data.
SAP Sybase Event Stream Processor (ESP) is now integrated with SAP HANA, simplifying
comprehensive integration with machine and event-driven data.
This amalgamation means that customers can now construct queries and applications
that associate structured and unstructured data, including the massive streams of

information captured by SAP Sybase ESP.

Augmented developer and DBA productivity

Enterprises rely on their teams of software developers and DBAs to create the next
generation of applications to properly leverage Big Data. SAP HANA SP6 supports these
critical constituents with a collection of powerful capabilities aimed at increasing their
effectiveness.

Simplified predictive application development

The application function modeler in SAP HANA studio presents model-driven access to
native functions and predictive algorithms, which helps speed the software development
process. Meanwhile, SAP HANA Extended Application Services (SAP HANA XS) provide a
faster, more open, and highly flexible application and web server services supporting
HTML5 and server-side JavaScript. This reduces TCO and development times, thanks to
the minimized layers required to deploy applications. It also provides an enhanced
architecture with a collection of essential capabilities such as:

High availability failover.

Expanded OData support.

Authentication.

Increased connectivity options.

New lighter-weight, browser-based IDEs for SAP HANA native development.

SAP HANA SP6 provides an easy integration between SAP HANA studio and SAP
HANA repository. This lets developers browse design-time related objects in the repository,
as well as use context-sensitive menus to perform the most regularly used commands
related to the repository. A command line interface is available, too.
SAP HANA SQL has been expanded, with new statements for access control, data
definition, and system management. There are also many new SQL functions to assist
developers and DBAs. SP7 built on these changes, adding even more SQL statements and
functions. For more information, see the SAP HANA SQL and System Views Reference.
SAP HANA SP6 also expands on the databases SQLScript capabilities, including
ARRAY, APPLY_FILTER, column view parameter binding, and scalar user-defined
functions. The SAP HANA SQLScript Editor has benefited from enrichments such as a
wizard to create new procedures, aids for building templates, and noteworthy new
debugging capabilities.
Developers and DBAs are now free to define the appropriate access techniques for each
deployed application package, including:

Authentication method.

Anonymous SQL connection enablement.

Cache control.

Cross-origin requests.

Default entry.

Integrated data provisioning and modeling

SAP HANA SP6 introduces the Data Provisioning Workbench. This is a new editor inside
SAP HANA Studio that furnishes developers and DBAs with a common unified data model
and user interface for end-to-end replication scenarios. It makes it much easier to create,

develop, administer, and manage data provisioning workflows. SAP HANA open unified
architecture supports administration and monitoring API Services for all Data Replication
components.

Enhanced data services

SAP HANA SP6 supplies database administrators with a native extract, transform, load
(ETL) solution that boosts performance, and an innovative, guided advisor that profiles and
assesses the quality of incoming data. Traditionally, ETL tasks have proven to be some of
the more problematic areas of configuring a comprehensive Big Data environment.
Consequently, by streamlining and simplifying this essential process, SAP lets developers
and DBAs focus on their main responsibilities rather than time-consuming ancillary tasks.

Embedded interactive education

SAP HANA interactive education is a pre-packaged, interactive learning offering consisting
of business applications, data models, sample data and application code, and data
generation tools. It serves as a source of best practice implementation examples, and
accelerates development of quality customer and partner content. This approach augments
the knowledge of developers and DBAs, while furnishing a baseline model for use in SAP
educational materials that customers and partners can tap for self-study.
SAP HANA interactive education contains 17 models across 22 database tables, with
scalable data record sizes via a configurable data generator. Its also aligned with SAP
HANA Academy educational content, and base for openSAP courses.

EnterpriseEnterprise-wide data modeling

SAP HANA, in concert with SAP Sybase PowerDesigner, generates and shares the
necessary metadata to drive end-to-end data modeling, from planning to implementation.
This integration makes it possible for developers and DBAs to close the loop with
complete visibility into the full range of the organizations data. They can then build more
comprehensive, and accurate, applications and reports.

More sophisticated monitoring

DBAs benefit from a collection of monitoring improvements to SAP HANA studio, such as
additional visibility into the costs of statement execution, the ability to repeat SQL statement
execution, and supplementary metrics and alerts of critical situations such as:

Savepoint duration.

Column-store unloads.

Status of Python trace.

Operational improvements
Enterprises are increasingly relying on Big Data to drive critical business decisions. This
dependency demands a fresh look at key technology infrastructure, with a particular
emphasis on reliability, security, and high availability.

Streamlined configuration
The new SAP HANA Platform Lifecycle Manager incorporates the major functions of the
Software Update Manager for SAP HANA, and streamlines major administrative tasks such
as:

Integrating the SAP HANA system in the landscape.

Administering SAP HANA systems and hosts.


Managing SAP HANA applications content.

Updating SAP HANA systems with single support packages as well as

support package stacks.

Managing additional components.

Deploying products and transports.

The essential tasks of backup and recovery have also been improved through
enhancements to the backup editor including the Backup Wizard in SAP HANA studio.
Its now possible to view details about the most recent successful backup, along with
information about active backups. Administrators are able to delete old backups, as well as
split data backups into files of limited size. They may also instruct the Recovery Wizard to
ensure that all required log backups are available before starting the recovery process.
Finally, its now possible to copy a database in a scale-out environment by using SAP HANA
backup and recovery capabilities.

Enhanced disaster recovery

SAP HANA SP6 introduces new asynchronous and asymmetrical long-distance remote
data center failover capabilities. This supports maximum data protection performance for
disaster recovery across long geographic distances (>50 km) with enhanced system
availability and recovery capabilities via Asynchronous System Replication (based on
transactional sub-system). Additionally, it expands system availability and business
continuity with near-zero downtime for upgrades, and patches targeted at disaster recovery
systems. It also reduces effort and improves flexibility with enhanced system copies, with
snapshot support and asymmetrical disaster recovery support systems. SAP HANA SP6
also extends its data center replication capabilities for upgraded system availability and
business continuity.

Open hardware architecture for tailored data center integration

SAP has introduced an initiative to drive the availability and the openness of the SAP HANA
platform. It includes tailored data center integration to provide customers the choice to
integrate the SAP HANA platform with their existing network storage infrastructure.
Moreover, the new program will also involve the existing certification program for SAP
HANA, which targets third-party tools such as business intelligence (BI), ETL and
backup/recovery products.
In addition, SAP HANA SP6 concludes the pledged integration with Sybase Data
Management technologies such as:

SAP Sybase ASE.

SAP Sybase IQ.

SAP Sybase Event Stream Processor (SAP Sybase ESP).

SAP Data Services.

SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere.

SAP Sybase Replication Server.

SAP Sybase PowerDesigner.

Mobile synchronization
Mobile devices are an increasingly popular method for capturing and working with
enterprise data. The SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere mobile and embedded database now

supports bi-directional synchronization with SAP HANA across wireless networks. This
gives authorized users the ability to securely interact with their data on the device of their
choice.

System management
The new and enriched SAP HANA data center management environment provides
extended system management, visibility, and monitoring capabilities for more productive
and effective enterprise system administration. It offers enhanced table distribution and
partitioning management, for both scale out and scale up, along with tracing capabilities for
high-performing, scalable systems. It also delivers a comprehensive collection of security
improvements designed to safeguard information through:

Authentication mechanisms that now include SAML 2.0 and X.509 client
certificates.

Encryption via automatic inclusion of the secure store file system (SSFS) in
backup and recovery.

Access authorization that covers validity period, time zone, email address,
and locale.

Additional privilege categories.

Password configuration directly through SAP HANA studio.

Supplementary audit logging capabilities for actions such as session

disconnects, dropping tables, repository interaction, and backups/recoveries.

A secure internal credential repository that permits safe storage of

credentials for outbound connections from SAP HANA applications.

Improved authentication and access control options for connections to

remote data sources that will be presented as if they were stored in SAP HANA.
For more information on SP6 features and capabilities, please see the SP6 Release Notes.
SP 7 incorporates additional security features, including

SPNEGO support for SAP HANA XS

SAP Logon Ticket and SAP Assertion Ticket support

Flexibility around password changes

The ability to set a validity period for a user in SAP HANA Studio

The ability to create users by copying existing users

New privileges for repository change management, debugging SQLScript

code, and smart data access

Support for SAPs new cryptographic library, CommonCryptoLib

SSL support for system replication

For more details, see the SP7 Release Notes and the SP7 Security Overview presentation.

SAP HANA Hardware

SAP HANA is delivered as a flexible, multipurpose appliance that combines SAP software
components optimized on hardware provided by SAPs leading hardware partners such as
Cisco, Dell, IBM, HP, Hitachi, NEC, and Fujitsu, using the latest Intel Xeon E7 processors.
SAP HANA servers are sold in t-shirt sizes ranging from Extra-Small (128GB RAM) all the
way up to Extra Large (>2TB RAM). Because RAM is the key technology for SAP HANA,
SAP uses the amount of RAM to determine the servers t-shirt size as well as its price.

SAPs underlying philosophy is the more processors (cores), the better, so it does not
impose a per-processor charge for SAP HANA.
With the current certified Scale-Out options from SAP HANA hardware providers,
companies can deploy up to 16 Extra Large server nodes into on logical database instance,
which equates to a maximum of 32TB of RAM and 128 CPUs with 1280 total cores. SAP is
currently testing a 60 node SAP HANA instance in the labs.
The hardware vendor provides factory pre-installation for the hardware, the OS, and the
SAP software. It may also add specific best-practices and configuration. The vendor
finalizes the installation with on-site setup and configuration of the SAP HANA components,
including deployment in the customer data center, connectivity to the network, Solution
Manager setup, SAP router connectivity, and SSL support. The customer then establishes
connectivity to the source systems and clients, including the deployment of additional
replication components on the source system(s) and, potentially, the installation and
configuration of SAP BusinessObjects business analytics client components.
Although the term appliance suggests a black box that plugs into an outlet, in reality
installing SAP HANA requires on-site activities and coordination on a high technical level.
The appliance approach for SAP HANA systems reduces the implementation and
maintenance effort significantly, but it does not eliminate it completely. Furthermore, as of
SP7, SAP HANA can be deployed in another way, through the SAP HANA tailored data
center integration, which is aimed at large customers with a substantial investment in
storage.

SAP HANA Use Cases

Because SAP HANA is both a database (in the traditional sense) and a database platform
(in the modern sense), it can be used in multiple scenarios and deployed in several ways.
SAP HANA performs equally well for analytic and transactional applications. Due to its
hybrid table structure, however, it really shines in scenarios that involve both types of data.
Its important to remember that SAP has developed SAP HANA to be a non-disruptive
addition to existing landscapes. With this point in mind, well discuss the key use cases that
are most typical for SAP HANA deployments today, and well consider some potential future
scenarios.
In its current form, SAP HANA can be used for four basic types of use case: agile data
mart, a primary database for the SAP Business Suite, a primary database for SAP
Business Warehouse, and a development platform for new applications. As SAP HANA
matures and SAP renovates its entire portfolio of solutions to take advantage of all the
horsepower in SAP HANA, you can expect to see nearly every product that SAP provides
supported natively on SAP HANA as a primary database, as well as many more new
native-HANA applications.

For a listing of hundreds of permutations of these core use cases and details on current
SAP HANA live customers by industry and function, please visit the SAP HANA Use Case
Repository.

Agile Data Mart

The earliest scenarios where SAP HANA has been deployed in production are as a standalone data mart for a specific use case. In this scenario, SAP HANA acts as the central hub
to collect data from a few SAP and non-SAP source systems and then display some fairly
simple and focused analytics in a single-purpose dashboard for users.
This use case has the advantages of (1) being completely non-disruptive to the existing
landscape and (2) providing an immediate, focused solution to an urgent business analytics
problem. These projects are also typically completed very quickly, sometimes in just a few
weeks, because the business problem is well known and the relevant data and source
systems are easily identified. SAP HANA is set up as a stand-alone system in the
landscape, which is then connected to the source systems and displayed to a small number
of users in a simple Web-based or mobile user interface. This process involves zero
disruption to the existing landscape, and companies get instant value because they can
now do things that were impossible before they acquired SAP HANA.
Additionally, the development cycles for these use cases are typically very short,
because most of these scenarios use a standard SAP BusinessObjects front end with selfservice analytics or Microsoft Excel. We label these systems agile data marts because
they perform a few of the same functions as a traditional data mart ETL, data modeling,
analytic front end but they are very fast to set up and flexible to use.
The key advantage of SAP HANA for the agile data mart scenarios is that these
scenarios were either completely impossible to build in a traditional database architecture or
they were so cost prohibitive that companies could not justify building them. The scenarios
might be straightforward, but the deficiencies of the old database world made them

unfixable.
You can access the videos listed below to listen to a few highly satisfied customers
talking enthusiastically about their agile data mart scenarios with SAP HANA.

Nongfu Spring
Medtronic
SAP provides a special licensing bundle to build an agile data mart use case with SAP
HANA that includes the extractors and connectors needed to obtain data from source
systems and the front-end tools needed to build analytical applications on top of the data.

SAP Business Suite

The second major scenario where SAP HANA is being used is to accelerate transactions
and reports inside the SAP Business Suite. As of mid-2013, SAP HANA can now be used as
the primary database under every application in the SAP Business Suite (excl. SAP SRM).
SAP HANA can be set up as either a stand-alone system in the landscape, side-by-side with
the database under the SAP Business Suite applications or as the primary database for the
entire SAP Business Suite. In this scenario, however, SAP HANA is being used to off load
some of the transactions or reports that typically take a long time (hours or days) to run, but
it is not being used as the primary database under the application.
We explained earlier that certain transactions or reports inside the SAP Business Suite
can be very slow, due primarily to the slow I/O of the disk-based database underneath the
system and the huge requests for data generated by these transactions and reports.
Budgeting and planning transactions in SAP require the system to call data from many
different tables in order to run its calculations and present a result. Reports are also very
data-intensive, involving vast amounts of data contained in multiple tables. For both
transactions and reports, then, the application must request the data from the database,
load it into a buffer table in the SAP application server, run the algorithm or calculation, and
then display the results. Sometimes, that completes the process. Other times, however, the
user needs to make some adjustments to the results and then save the changes back to the
database. Quite often, this process is iterative, meaning that the user must run the report or
transaction, review the results, make some changes, and then run the report or transaction
again to reflect the changes. Imagine a scenario where every time the transaction or report
runs, it takes one hour to finish (from when you press Enter until the results are displayed
on the screen). What if it took several hours or even a day or two to run that transaction or
report? Clearly, system latency can seriously slow down the entire company.
Please see the chapter on SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA for many more
details.

Eliminating System Latency: The Case of Hilti

To illustrate severe system latency, lets consider the case of Hilti, the global construction
tools manufacturer. Hilti used to generate a list of 9 million customers from 53 million
database records in its SAP ERP system in about three hours.
hours A salesperson used to hit
Enter and then return three hours later to obtain the results. Significantly, 99% of the time
the system took to generate that list came from simply retrieving the records off the diskbased database. Once the data were conveyed to the SAP application, the algorithm only
took a few fractions of a second to calculate. This major and unnecessary delay was the
epitome of latency.

To eliminate this latency problem, Hilti set up an SAP HANA system next to their
production SAP ERP system and then copied the relevant tables into SAP HANA. The
results? Hilti can now run the exact same report in about three seconds. In addition,
installing SAP HANA was totally non-disruptive. It required no changes to the algorithm, no
changes to the production database, and no changes to the user interface. In fact, the users
didnt even realize there had been any change to the system until they ran the report for the
first time. They expected the process to take several hours as always so they got up
from their desks to do something else. To their complete surprise, the completed report
appeared on their screen before they could get out of their chairs. Watch Hiltis SAP HANA
story here.
Technically, there is very little that needs to be done to accelerate a few problematic
transactions or reports in an SAP Business Suite application. Well discuss this topic that in
detail in the chapter on the Accelerated SAP Business Suite. In summary, SAP has already
delivered the content for most of the truly problematic transactions and reports as part of the
latest service packs for the SAP Business Suite for free. Once the relevant tables have
been replicated to the SAP HANA system, there is a quick change in the configuration
screen to redirect the transaction to read from the SAP HANA database instead of the
primary database and thats about it. Users log in as they normally do, execute the
transaction or report, and the results come back incredibly fast. SAP has also set up special
fixed-price, fixed-scope SAP rapid deployment solutions (RDS) to assist customers in the
rapid implementation of these accelerated transactions and reports.

Accelerated SAP ERP Transactions and Reports

You can expect to see many more problem transactions and reports generated at
previously unimaginable speeds as SAP introduces enhancement pack updates to SAP
HANA. Heres a short listing of some of the SAP ERP transactions and reports that are
currently available:

Sales Reporting
Quickly identify top customers and products by channel with real-time sales reporting.
Improve order fulfillment rates and accelerate key sales processes at the same time, with
instant analysis of your credit memo and billing list.

Financial Reporting
Obtain immediate insights across your business into revenue, customers, accounts
payable and receivable, open and overdue items, top general ledger transaction, and days
sales outstanding (DSO). Make the right financial decisions, armed with real-time
information.

Shipping Reporting
Rely on real-time shipping reporting for complete stock overview analysis. You can better
plan and monitor outbound delivery and assess and optimize stock levels with accurate
information at your fingertips.

Purchasing Reporting
Gain timely insights into purchase orders, vendors, and the movement of goods with realtime purchasing reporting. Make better purchasing decisions, based on a complete analysis
of your order history.

Master Data Reporting

Obtain real-time reporting on your main master data including customer, vendor, and
material lists for improved productivity and accuracy.

SAP Solutions for Accelerated Applications

SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10.0 Powered
by SAP HANA
The power of SAP HANA dramatically enhances unified planning, budgeting, forecasting
and consolidation processes. Powered by SAP HANA, SAP BusinessObjects Planning and
Consolidation 10.0, version for SAP NetWeaver aims to increase agility by helping
enterprises harness big data to plan better and act faster with better insight into all relevant
information and rapid write-back. The application is planned to be the first enterprise
performance management (EPM) application to support the SAP Business Warehouse
component, powered by SAP HANA announced last year. SAP intends to allow customers
running the application that have invested in SAP HANA to leverage the power of inmemory computing technology to boost performance by accelerating planning and
consolidation processing.

SAP COCO-PA Accelerator

SAP CO-PA Accelerator dramatically improves the speed and depth of working with
massive volumes of financial data in ERP for faster and more efficient profitability cycles.
The solution helps finance departments to perform real-time profitability reporting on large
scale data volumes and to conduct instant, on-the-fly analysis at any level of granularity,
aggregation, and dimension. Furthermore, finance teams can run cost allocations at
significantly faster processing time and be empowered with easy, self-service access to
trusted profitability information.
This solution can also be implemented alongside the wider SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise Performance Management solutions portfolio to help organizations create a
complete picture of their cost and profit drivers.

You can try the solution on your own with the SAP CO-PA Accelerator TestDrive and
visit the website to discover how organizations are generating significant business value
with the solution.

SAP Finance and Controlling Accelerator

SAP Finance and Controlling Accelerator supports finance departments with instant access
to vast amounts of ledger, cost and material ledger data in ERP as well as easy exploration
of trusted and detailed data. The solution offers four implementation scenarios Financial
Accounting Controlling Material Ledger and Production Cost Analysis, which can be
implemented individually or in any combination.
The power of SAP HANA combined with SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
empowers financial professionals to perform faster reporting and analyses, accelerate
period-end closing, and make smarter decisions.

SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis

With SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis powered by SAP HANA, sales departments can get realtime insight into massive volumes of pipeline data in CRM while performing on the fly
calculations and in-depth analysis on any business dimension. Sales managers can now
leverage the power of SAP HANA combined with SAP Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) for complete and instant visibility of accurate and consolidated pipeline data. They
can react more quickly to changing sales conditions with real-time information, and
accelerate deals through the pipeline with powerful and user-driven analytics. As a result,
best-run businesses can unlock hidden revenue opportunities as well as significantly
increase profits and sales effectiveness.

SAP Customer Segmentation Accelerator

The SAP Customer Segmentation Accelerator helps marketing departments build highly
specific segmentations on high volumes of customer data and at unparalleled speed.
Marketers can now work with large amounts of granular data to better understand customer
demands, behaviors and preferences targeting the precise audience with the right offers
across every customer segments, tactics and channels. The power of SAP HANA combined
with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) empowers marketers to maximize
profits with highly tailored campaigns, dramatically reduce the cost of marketing by targeting
more easily high margin customers, and react quicker to optimize campaigns and tactics.

You can view a demonstration of the solution and discover how organizations like yours
are generating significant business value by visiting this website.

SAP HANA Rapid Deployment Solutions

A great majority of these solutions powered by SAP HANA can be deployed as rapiddeployment solutions in order to ensure a quick time to value. The rapid deployment
solutions streamline the implementation process bringing together software, best practices,
and services ensuring maximum predictability with fixed cost and scope editions.
SAP Rapid Deployment solutions leverage an innovative delivery model to accelerate
the implementation times and lower risk. Implementation is supported by a standardized
methodology, accelerators developed uniquely for each offering, and predefined best
practices, meeting typical business requirements to address the customers immediate
needs. Even as customers benefit from prebuilt functionality, these solutions provide a
platform designed to evolve and extend as the customers business grows.

SAP HANA Rapid Deployment Solutions

A great majority of SAP HANA use cases can be deployed as rapid deployment solutions in
order to ensure a quick time to value. SAP Rapid Deployment solutions combine SAP
software with content based on best practices and an innovative delivery model with a
predefined scope and at predictable costs. This helps to accelerate the implementation
times and lower risk.

Background
Rapid-deployment solutions came to exist in response to customers need for simple, ready
to consume solutions, offering integration and responding to business needs.
Organizations that deploy SAP HANA can leverage the innovative SAP Rapid
Deployment solutions delivery model to accelerate the implementation times and lower the

deployment project risks such as scope creep, schedule and budget overages.
Implementation is supported by a standardized methodology and content based on best
practices developed uniquely for each offering.
The best practices provide a solid foundation for SAP Rapid Deployment solutions and
consist of tested configuration and implementation content, methodologies and step-bystep approaches to run specific key processes with minimal implementation effort.
Even as customers benefit from the pre-defined scope and prebuilt functionality, these
solutions do not limit the customers in terms of scope. An SAP HANA rapid-deployment
solution provides the SAP HANA customer with a platform designed to evolve and extend
as the customers business grows. In addition, you get immediate value through prebuilt
analytical content that comes with most of the SAP HANA rapid-deployment solutions.
While rapid-deployment solutions are traditionally available for on-premise deployment,
now they are also available to be deployed in the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud.
Rapid-deployment solutions allow customers to evaluate, implement and go live with
HANA-based solutions on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud in weeks, further simplifying and
helping companies to achieve real-time enterprise faster.
By deploying rapid-deployment solutions in the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, the
customer can be more competitive, by shortening the time-to-value, accelerating the speed
of innovation, reducing the total cost of implementation, and reducing the implementation
risks.
As part of the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud offering, rapid-deployment solutions are
available for on-boarding customers to the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, but also preassembled and ready-to-use. This combination of rapid-deployment solutions and a
deployment in the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud helps customers to speed up adoption of
new technologies and processes and to have a fast return on invest.

Availability of SAP HANA rapidrapid-deployment solutions

SAP Rapid Deployment solutions are available through SAP, as well as SAP partners. The
offerings from SAP and partners can be found on SAP Store. The broad portfolio of rapiddeployment solutions for SAP HANA covers areas like BW on HANA, Suite on HANA, Big
Data and Analytics on HANA, Enterprise Performance Management on HANA, Finance on
HANA, and Analytics on HANA. All of the solutions come to speed up the implementation of
SAP HANA by delivering documentation and content based on best practices. A good
example is the SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment solution. With the SAP HANA Live rapiddeployment solution, customers get pre-configured content in form of pre-built reports
covering a broad range of operational reporting that offer immediate insight into essential
business operations, are easy to use and can be customized based on specific business
needs.
Another example is the SAP Business Intelligence Adoption rapid-deployment solution.
It helps customers make the right choice of the right reporting tool for the right reports. It
provides a complete offering for a successful BI adoption for SAP BW, SAP HANA, and the
SAP ERP application and includes pre-built reports in all relevant ERP areas.
Besides packages that speed up the implementation of business use cases there are
packages that focus on a smooth technical transition from an existing SAP implementation
to HANA like the rapid database migration of SAP BW to SAP HANA or the rapid database
migration of SAP Business Suite to SAP HANA. Those solutions enable you to replace the

actual underlying relational database of SAP BW or SAP Business Suite with SAP HANA as
a database quickly and without disruption.
Customers implementing SAP ERP can benefit from a holistic implementation scenario
for SAP Business Suite combined with the newest technologies from SAP the SAP ERP
Foundation rapid-deployment solution. The SAP ERP foundation extension is leveraging
SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA by combining it with complementary SAP
innovations from UX, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Technology to provide a complete suite
of applications, fully integrated, with consistent master data, enabling real time information,
anywhere and anytime throughout the organization.
To support a fast implementation of the SAP ERP foundation extension at affordable
cost, several rapid-deployment solutions have been pre-assembled that are covering
business application, user experience and real-time analytics.
For customers planning to implement new use cases for Big Data based on SAP HANA
various rapid-deployment solutions are available. Here are two examples:
The new solution SAP HANA Customer Engagement Intelligence can be implemented
quickly with the corresponding SAP HANA Customer Engagement Intelligence rapiddeployment solution. This rapid-deployment solution delivers additional value with the
included content, like a prebuilt integration into SAP CRM, pre-defined SAP BusinessObject
reports, and detailed configuration documentation.
The SAP Predictive Analytics Content Adoption rapid-deployment solution helps to
quickly implement a predefined predictive analysis use case for a variety of lines of
business and industry scenarios. For a smooth and rapid implementation the solution
delivers prebuilt SAP BusinessIntelligence content and preconfigured content for both SAP
and data sources from non-SAP software.

SAP Business Warehouse Powered by SAP HANA

In this scenario, companies replace the entire database under their SAP BW 7.3 system
with SAP HANA. They simply swap out whatever disk-based database their system is
currently running on with SAP HANA in just a few weeks.8
Recall from our earlier discussion of early SAP in-memory projects that SAP BW was the
first SAP application that was renovated and updated to natively run on SAP HANA as its
primary run-time database. Most of these renovations were necessary to more closely tie
the SAP BW application to the SAP HANA database. In a disk-based architecture, SAP BW
is separated from the database by an abstraction layer, essentially making it impossible for
the application to see anything in the database other than bare tables. Once the
abstraction layer is removed, the SAP BW application cannot only see everything in the
database, but the entire database is designed around the needs of that specific application.
This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for SAP customers.
With SAP HANA, SAP BW now generates turbo-charged query responses natively,
without the need for any side-car accelerators or crazy multi-layered third-party
architectures. Because the entire database under the SAP BW system physically sits in
memory, every activity not just queries is executed orders of magnitude faster.
SAP released the 7.3 version of SAP BW in general availability in early 2011 and then
released the SAP HANA-enabled version into general availability in April 2012. SAP NW
BW on SAP HANA is now Generally Available to all customers globally. All of the SAP
HANA-specific enhancements were bundled into the SPS05 update, and customers who

had already upgraded to 7.3 could install the service pack and migrate to SAP HANA in a
matter of days (seriously).
Red Bull was the first live customer of SAP BW on SAP HANA. They told the world about
their amazing 10-DAY project to get up and running at the Sapphire Now 2011 conference
in Madrid, Spain. The whole effort was incredibly non-disruptive. SAP is seeing similar
results with the other customers in the ramp-up project. All of the changes on the SAP BW
side are delivered under the hood in the service pack, and the database migration can be
performed without any changes to the SAP BW application. All of the customers content
and configuration are completely unchanged. Have a look at the end-to-end migration guide
for a great overview of the SAP BW database migration process. You should also read a
great blog post by John Appleby, a consultant who performed one of the first SAP BW on
SAP HANA migrations.
The speed and flexibility acquired by replacing the old database with SAP HANA reflect
two fundamental benefits of keeping the entire database in memory: (1) This architecture
eliminates the need to send huge amounts of data between application and DB servers, and
(2) it allows users to execute performance-critical operations directly on the data in the
database itself. Basically, running SAP BW on SAP HANA completely eliminates nearly
every one of the nasty things that historically slowed down the system, from both a user
perspective and an administration perspective. Well explore all of the technical
enhancements in the SAP BW on SAP HANA chapter.
SAP offers a specific run-time only license option to utilize SAP HANA as the primary
persistence layer for SAP BW. If you are already an SAP BW customer, the company offers
several options for license credits based on previous SAP BW and BWA licensing. Consult
your SAP account executive for the details. SAP has also set up a special migration fund to
provide professional services credits to migrate to SAP BW on SAP HANA. If you want to
implement some scenarios based on SAP BW powered by HANA, the available rapiddeployment solutions will help to migrate your data, make your SAP BW system lean, and to
profit from new reports and use cases. Here is a choice of the available solutions including
SAP BW powered by SAP HANA:

Rapid database migration of SAP BW to SAP HANA supports the migration

of an existing SAP Business Warehouse installation to the SAP HANA database
system without disruption of the existing Business Warehouse content in. Go live
in only 810 weeks.

Rapid data migration to SAP BW supports the migration of data from

virtually any existing data warehouse system to SAP BW, optionally running in the
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud.

SAP BW Near-Line Storage rapid-deployment solution helps reducing the

data stored in the database for SAP BW by leveraging a nearline storage based on
SAP Sybase IQ. By doing this, SAP BW gets easier to maintain and the underlying
database gets leaner, whilst the archived data is still right at your fingertips.

SAP Business Intelligence Adoption rapid-deployment solution provides a

complete offering for a successful BI adoption for SAP BW, SAP HANA (optional),
and the SAP ERP application and helps customers make the right design choices
on how to consume existing and new content. Go live in as little as 310 weeks.
SAP HANA CRM Analytics rapid-deployment solution helps you quickly analyze large

volumes of data in real time, using role-based reports and dashboards to better
understand your customers. Go live in as little as 12 weeks.

SAP HANA Asset Analytics rapid-deployment solution, offers visual

simplicity in analysis. It uses a new BW data model optimized for HANA, and
supports the BI platform, and options for mobility. It leverages operational and
planning data from SAP EAM plant maintenance.

SAP Enterprise Risk Reporting for Banking rapid-deployment solution,

provides a risk data model with preconfigured data flows, analysis, and reports for
risk management reporting in banks. In addition the solution contains the most
important key performance indicators according to the Basel III regulation.

SAP HANA as an Application Development Platform

Probably the most wide-open innovation opportunity for SAP HANA is as an application
platform. If the speed and simplification that were achieved by porting SAP BW are any
indication, users can realize an unbelievable amount of value not only by renovating
existing applications (SAP and non-SAP) to run natively on SAP HANA, but by also building
entirely new applications that are designed from scratch to maximize SAP HANAs powerful
capabilities. The performance limitations of traditional databases and processing power
have often led organizations to compromise on how to deploy business processes on their
enterprise platforms. Now, these organizations can choose to liberate themselves from
these constraints and optimize business processes in ways that are more natural to the way
their employees actually perform their work. This is where SAP sees a clear parallel to the
Apple App Store evolution. When Apple first released the App Store, most of the first apps
available were mobile-ized versions of desktop or Web apps (email, browser, etc.).
However, once developers considered the possibilities of combining the new capabilities of
the device and writing native applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch (Angry Birds,
Foursquare), innovation exploded.
There are three basic types of applications being built on SAP HANA today:

New apps built by SAP,

New and renovated apps built by partners such as independent software

vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs),

Custom apps built by companies for internal use.

SAP brands applications that leverage SAP HANA as a database as Powered by SAP
HANA. Partners whose applications have been certified by SAP can also add the Powered
by SAP HANA brand to their solution name.

SAPSAP-built Applications for SAP HANA

SAP is delivering a new class of solutions on top of the SAP HANA platform that provide
real-time insights on big data and state-of-the-art analysis capabilities. These innovative
solutions can empower organizations to transform the way they run their businesses by
making smarter and faster decisions, responding more quickly to events, unlocking new
opportunities, and even inventing new data-driven business models and processes that
were simply not possible with disk-based databases. Below are a few examples of nativeSAP HANA applications. Well consider them in greater detail in the SAP HANA Applications
chapter.

SAP BusinessObjects Sales Analysis for Retail powered by SAP

HANA
This solution provides retailers with real-time access to critical information and allows nearly
real-time interactive analysis, which is not possible with traditional database technology. It
offers prebuilt data models, key performance indicators (KPIs), role-specific dashboards
and customized reports to provide retailers with a deeper understanding of all factors
influencing the merchandising life cycle. SAP BusinessObjects Sales Analysis for Retail
aims at providing the integration needed for improved scalability and performance for
retailers operating in separate sales, inventory and promotions systems. The new service
provides Point-of-Sale (POS) analysis allow retailers to assess performance and generate
quick responses through the use of prebuilt dashboards, interactive reports and more than
70 KPIs and inventory management to provide retailers with the ability to identify critical
stock and margin issues through close inventory alignment.

SAP Smart Meter Analytics

SAP Smart Meter Analytics is a native-HANA application that was designed for utility
companies facing an exponential increase in data volume driven by their deployment of
smart meters. This new application enables utility companies to turn massive volumes of
smart meter data into powerful insights and transform how they engage customers and run
their businesses. With SAP Smart Meter Analytics, utility companies can:
Instantly aggregate time of use blocks and total consumption profiles to
analyze their customers energy usage by what neighborhood they are in, the
size of their homes or businesses, building type, and by any other dimension
and at any level of granularity
Segment customers with precision based on energy consumption patterns
that are automatically generated by identifying customers that have similar
energy usage behavior
Provide energy efficiency benchmarking based on statistical analysis so that
utility companies can help their customers understand where they stand
compared to their peers and how they can improve their energy efficiency
Empower customers with direct access to energy usage insights via web
portals and mobile devices connected to SAP Smart Meter Analytics via web
services
These capabilities delivered by SAP Smart Meter Analytics enable utility companies to
increase adoption of service options such as demand response programs, launch targeted
energy efficiency programs, improve fraud detection capabilities, and develop new tariffs
and more accurate load forecasts.

SAP Sales & Operations Planning

SAP Sales & Operations Planning is a next generation planning application that is powered
by SAP HANA and delivered in the cloud. The solution enables:
Planning and real-time analysis with a unified model of demand, supply chain,
and financial data at any level of granularity and dimension
Rapid, interactive simulation and scenario analysis, using the full S&OP data
model to support demand-supply balancing decisions
Embedded, context-aware social collaboration enables rapid planning and
decision-making across the organization
These capabilities enable companies to align demand and supply profitably, reduce
supply chain costs, and drive revenue growth.

SAP Supplier InfoNet

SAP Supplier InfoNet is a cloud-based solution, powered by SAP HANA, that enables
companies to:
Minimize supply chain disruption by proactively monitoring and predicting
real-time supply risks across a multi-tier supplier network
Drive stronger supplier performance by benchmarking supplier performance
for your company against others in the business network and identifying
significant shifts and trends in supplier performance using leading-edge
machine learning and statistical analysis
Manage your supply base by aggregating and transforming supplier data to
deliver instant insights into the operational health of the supply base.

Recalls Plus
Recalls Plus is SAPs first consumer mobile app that enables parents to proactively monitor
recalls of their kids strollers, cribs, toys, and other items for greater safety and peace of
mind. Features of the app include:

Search recall history by brand or category

Create a personal watch list of items like car seats, cribs, strollers and so on
Track allergen related recalls
Share relevant recalls with others
Read and monitor recalls from all relevant US government agencies: CPSC,
NHTSA, FDA and USDA
Recalls Plus is available for free and can be accessed via an iPhone app or a Facebook
app:
iPhone app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recalls-plus/id499200328
Facebook app: https://apps.facebook.com/recallsplus

PartnerPartner-built Applications for SAP HANA

The SAP partner ecosystem provides thousands of SAP-certified software solutions that
plug into SAPs applications to provide a variety of value-added extensions and process
enhancements. From that perspective, anything that speeds up an SAP system will also
have a positive impact on any partner solutions that are integrated with that system. There
are also numerous SAP partner solutions that need to turbocharge themselves to increase
their own performance and to keep up with the turbocharged SAP systems coming on top
of SAP HANA in the future.
Regardless of the programming language these partner apps are written in, they all can
be ported over to SAP HANA in a fairly straightforward way. However, just as SAP is

renovating its existing applications, partners too can approach re-platforming as an

opportunity to rethink some of the design parameters that they employed in the original
solution design and to rebuild their apps to take advantage of SAP HANAs many benefits
natively.
Oversight Systems is one of the first ISVs to renovate their SAP-certified solution along
these lines. Oversight Systems provides solutions that continuously monitor user activities
in real-time inside SAP systems to detect policy violations and potentially fraudulent
transactions, such as travel and expenses, accounting and reporting, and HR and payroll.
Their solution conducts complex, on-the-fly calculations that demand a great deal of I/O
performance from databases. Therefore, the addition of SAP HANA underneath their
solution makes perfect sense.

Custom Applications for SAP HANA

As stated earlier, SAP HANA is a full-blown, do-just-about-anything-you-want application
platform. It speaks pure SQL and it includes all of the most common APIs, so you can
literally write any type of application you want on top of it. There are a few rules and guide
rails that are designed to keep things from going wrong, but the sky truly is the limit when it
comes to imagining what to build with SAP HANA.
Although SAP HANA is valuable for all types of activities, it shines particularly well in a
few unique situations. For example, if youre building an enterprise-scale application for a
business scenario that (1) needs to search or aggregate huge volumes of data, (2) requires
detailed/granular data analysis and/or complex algorithmic or statistical calculations, or (3)
suffers from latency between transactional recording and reporting, then SAP HANA is a
great choice.
Thats not to say that SAP HANA cant run your standard applications it certainly can
do that (really fast). Nevertheless, the most exciting use cases SAP is seeing for SAP HANA
as the foundation of custom apps are situations where a company has an urgent business
need that is literally impossible to automate today due to the limitations of traditional
databases or the lack of a supercomputer. If youre a business owner who has a killer idea
that fits the above description, then SAP HANA could be the solution that makes the
impossible, possible.
This is where the Angry Birds analogy really starts to make sense. Once the SAP
ecosystem of ISVs, SAP partners, and SAP customers starts to unleash their innovation on
top of SAP HANA, there literally is no limit to the amazing and game-changing applications
they can build. It is incredibly important for SAP to renovate its portfolio and build amazing
new applications to exploit the vast potential of SAP HANA. It is even more important,
however, for the SAP ecosystem to do this, because there are millions of unrealized
business ideas in their companies that SAP HANA can bring to life.

SAP HANA Roadmap

The future roadmap for SAP HANA is actually very simple: Continue to make SAP HANA
faster, better, cheaper plus BIGGER and BROADER.
Moores law doesnt look as though its going to be slowing down anytime soon. It is
likely, then, that were only a few years away from having more than 1000 cores and 10TB
of RAM on a single medium SAP HANA server. With that much processing power and
high-speed RAM available, there really are no limits to how fast SAP can speed up its own
apps and literally any other app on the planet. SAP will continue co-innovating with Intel and

other hardware partners to ensure that SAP HANA is continuously updated and optimized
to take advantage of the latest and greatest technology advances to become even faster
than it is today.
Although the speed boost generated by the hardware is exciting, it is only half of the
equation. Renovating applications to take advantage of the ever-increasing horsepower is
also critical. Theres a great deal of value that can be achieved by doing things better in
the applications. Renovating and re-imagining how applications work and how they deal
with data in the no constraints paradigm represents a fundamental philosophical shift for
application developers. There are enormous opportunities to streamline, optimize, and
simplify application architectures by adding SAP HANA as the database engine underneath
them. SAP will invest an enormous amount of resources to extend SAP HANAs capabilities
as an application platform for both its own applications and non-SAP applications. This
investment will result in an increasingly rich and robust set of developer tools to renovate
and re-imagine any application and to build amazing new applications.
This opportunity for optimization and simplification not only makes things even faster
than just the hardware speed boost, it also results in significantly lower TCO for companies.
SAP HANA can have a massive impact on reducing TCO and improving business value.
Cheaper isnt achieved only through industry-standard processors, RAM, and servers.
Cheaper is a holistic mindset that starts from application design and then progresses
through user efficiency all the way to administration and operations. SAP will continue to
invest heavily in many areas to make SAP HANA the cheapest and most efficient database
to operate in production environments. These efforts include innovating in new landscape
configurations such as native cloud deployments of SAP HANA.
Significantly, however, SAP isnt satisfied to only be the fastest, best, and cheapest
database on the planet. SAPs goals also include enabling the BIGGEST data scenarios by
offering integrated solutions with Sybase Big Data products and open-source projects like
Hadoop.
In November of 2012, SAP showed the extreme scalability of SAP HANA by showcasing
a 250TB RAM SAP HANA system with 250 nodes.

In addition, with a robust ecosystem of ISVs, system integrators, and SAP customers
building their innovative applications on SAP HANA, SAP intends to become the

BROADEST database platform for new applications. In just the first year since SAP HANA
became available, over 100 startups have been founded to harness this power to drive their
innovation. Just as Apple provided the platform for App Store developers, SAP will provide
SAP HANA as a platform for thousands of amazing new enterprise applications for the
ecosystem.
SAP customers need to understand that SAP HANA not only is the engine that powers
the current generation of SAP applications, but it will be the growth engine for all kinds of
amazing NEW SAP apps. Over the next few years, SAP HANA will become the primary
database for EVERY enterprise application in the SAP portfolio. Thats true for standard,
on-premise applications like the SAP Business Suite; SME solutions like SAP Business
One, SAP Business ByDesign, and SAP All-in-One; and the emerging portfolio of cloud/ondemand solutions. In poker terms, SAP is going all in with SAP HANA. SAP has made a
passionate commitment to innovate for the future of its ecosystem, and the benefits of this
shift for SAPs customers and partners are too overwhelming for the company to do
anything less.
SAP HANA will be the heart and soul of SAPs real-time data platform design
philosophy to renovate all existing applications and build amazing new applications.

The renovation work is moving very quickly inside SAP, so much so that it has
surpassed even the most optimistic timelines. The SAP BW renovation and porting to SAP
HANA was the first major step towards a completely renovated SAP Business Suite. The
next major step was the release of its flagship application, SAP Business Suite SAP CRM,
SAP SCM, SAP PLM on SAP HANA. In parallel, SAP is adding SAP HANA to all of the other
applications in the portfolio, and it will release them as they come on line.
Renovating these applications involves much more than simply replacing the database.
Over the years, SAP has had to make many adjustments in its application layer to avoid the

I/O bottleneck associated with the database. Unfortunately, these database avoidance
techniques have resulted in extensive plaque buildup inside the applications, in the forms
of redundant code, tedious data aggregations and transformations, replication of data, and
so on. These problems were necessary evils to work around the constraints of the diskbased architecture. In an SAP HANA world, however, theyre completely unnecessary and
therefore need to be removed from the system.

Obviously, SAPs renovation efforts will involve a great deal of streamlining and cleanup.
At the same time, however, this renovation also represents a golden opportunity for SAPs
engineers to reimagine all of the things that these applications do from the perspective of
living in a world with no constraints. These experts can question their original assumptions,
invent better ways of doing things, remove latency from the processes, and program their
applications to perform calculations more efficiently deep inside the database. All of these
developments will lead to lower TCO and more flexibility for customers, which in turn will
make their investment in SAP much more valuable.
This exercise is also having an amazing effect on the SAP culture. Going back into the
code of all of their apps with a fresh eye and ambitious dreams free from constraints has
rekindled a firestorm of innovation within the SAP development group. The coffee corners in
SAP labs around the world are literally buzzing with new ideas and passionate discussions.
In fact, you can often see code samples from these discussions written on the windows
because the participants ran out of whiteboard space (as in the movie A Beautiful Mind).
This is the intellectual renewal that SAP executives have been talking about, and it is
having a monumental impact on the speed and volume of innovation coming from SAP.
SAP HANA has literally awakened a sleeping giant of innovation inside SAP. Moreover, this
enthusiasm appears to be contagious: People are witnessing the same type of awakening
throughout the SAP ecosystem.
In the long run, once the entire SAP portfolio has been HANA-fied,9 SAP will be able to
deliver a vastly simplified landscape for its customers. By merging OLAP and OLTP into a
single SAP HANA instance, SAP can provide a massive reduction in layers and TCO in the
landscape while at the same time providing much more flexibility and business value
through real-time access to all of the relevant data. It will take SAP several years to

engineer and deliver this vision to its customers. If the past five years of in-memory
(r)evolution at SAP are an indication, however, the next five years of this journey will be
extraordinarily fast and exciting.

Chapter 2

SAP HANA Architecture

COMING SPRING 2015

Chapter 3

Developing A Business Case for SAP

HANA
This chapter was written with the expert assistance of David Porter, Sr. Director, SAP Value
Engineering and Steve Thibodeau, Sr. Principal, SAP Value Engineering.

Introduction
SAP HANA is really, really fast!
Unless youve missed all the SAP marketing blurbs, analyst reports, and trade articles
over the past year, its pretty likely that you know that SAP HANA is an incredibly fast
database. In fact, SAP HANA is sometimes more than 100,000 times faster than traditional
databases for query response times.
So what???
In general, fast is regarded as a positive attribute for a product. However, that quality
alone is seldom sufficient to justify a purchase. If you cant figure out how a super-fast
database can help you run your business better, then how can you justify the expense and
effort required to buy and implement it?
The approach to building a business case presented in this chapter avoids the speeds
and feeds argument that has long plagued the software industry. Instead, it examines how
SAP HANA can enable organizations to execute their business processes more quickly and
efficiently. It also focuses on the value of the real-time information that SAP HANA makes
available, as well as the resulting level(s) of business value it delivers. The primary goal of
this chapter is to help you address and answer the So what? question and to provide
some guidelines on how to construct a convincing business case in order to justify an
investment in the SAP HANA platform.

Why Do You Need A Business Case, Anyway?

There are various reasons for building a convincing business case, and the relative
importance of each reason will vary from organization to organization. Some of the most
fundamental reasons are:

To demonstrate overall business value for the project


To provide an initial financial justification for purchase and implementation

To ensure that the project is aligned with the organizations business goals
and/or initiatives

To establish the base-line expectations for subsequent assessment of the

projects success

To provide internal documentation explaining the expected business benefits

to users (and possibly to other departments in the organization)
A well-developed business case is not just a collection of data. Rather, it is also a
collection of opinions and views from relevant stakeholders both supporters and
detractors as well as representation from both the business and IT departments.
If the primary goal of a business case project is to calculate total cost of ownership
(TCO) and/or return on investment (ROI) of an investment in new software, then that case
will likely provide an incomplete and potentially unreliable forecast of the quality of that
investment. An effective business case must quantify not only the tangible value proposition
of the project but also the intangible value, because both metrics are components of overall
business value.
A strong business case for SAP HANA typically includes multiple use cases or projects
concrete examples of how the organization will utilize the product in the course of business.
The key here is to Think big, start small. The big picture helps shape the long-term value
from the investment, but starting small enables you to build in quick wins that establish
success early and then continue to build business momentum with later projects.
Going further, some uses cases should reflect stretch goals ambitious projects that
may span several years. At the same time, they should include projects that not only can be
implemented quickly, but also demonstrate measurable business value. The final collection
of use cases can then be used to build a roadmap for current and future deployments of
SAP HANA. The roadmap will balance each projects business value against the
corresponding difficulty of implementation and/or risk involved. This approach will enable
your organization to prioritize its various projects in a thoughtful and comprehensive
manner, thus maximizing the likelihood that the entire initiative will be approved.

Methodology
For each business case you build, we recommend the following multistep approach:
1.
CREATE the storyline
2.
ADD the financial dimension
3.
TIE it all together
The first step, creating the storyline, is fundamental to any SAP HANA business case.
The storyline is what makes the business case unique to your organization. The use cases
in the storyline should map to goals and processes that distinguish your organization from
the competition.
After you have created a viable storyline, the next step is to add the financial dimension.
No matter how impressive the story, by itself it isnt sufficient to obtain funding for the
project. Adding the financial dimension extends the storyline to the expected business value
and provides some quantitative measures that can be used in the evaluation process.
After these two steps have been completed, the final step is to package up the business
case in a format that is appropriate for the individuals who will evaluate the project.

We will discuss each of these steps in greater detail throughout this chapter. Before we
proceed, however, we need to consider the fundamental concept of business value.

Levels of Value
Weve mentioned business value a couple of times already in this chapter. Exactly what do
we mean by this term?
Business value actually covers a relatively wide range of benefits, both quantitative
and qualitative. Moreover, there are different levels, or degrees, of business value. The
chart below illustrates a useful model for categorizing these levels. This model identifies
three levels: Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Transformation. Lets take a closer look at each
one.

1. Efficiency
The first level of business value, Efficiency, is the result of doing things the right way.
Typically this means doing things faster, better, or cheaper or otherwise improving the way
you do things (but not what you do). Of all the levels of business value, the gains from
efficiency are the easiest to quantify. There are two basic subcategories of Efficiency: IT
Efficiency and Business Efficiency.

IT Efficiency
Organizations are likely to focus heavily on IT Efficiency when (1) the software investment
under consideration is part of a broader effort such as creating an analytics center of
excellence or shared analytical services and (2) the main rationale for doing so is to reduce
IT costs. At this level of business value, IT is viewed as a cost center within the organization
an expense or overhead item that needs to be managed and contained. The following list
identifies some common examples of IT Efficiency.


Reducing the annual maintenance costs of older applications and databases

Reducing the internal costs of enhancing or upgrading software

Reducing the IT FTE resources required to manage older applications and

databases

Reducing the hardware infrastructure to simplify administration and minimize

floor space/carbon footprint

Business Efficiency
The Business Efficiency level extends beyond issues that are purely related to the IT
department. However, business efficiency/productivity is only an intermediate step in
assessing the overall value of a project.
Line of Business Examples:

To better identify the most promising sales opportunities

To gain an enhanced perspective on cost drivers

To increase the productivity of knowledge workers

2. Effectiveness
The second level of value Effectiveness redirects the focus from doing things the right
way to doing the right things at the right time. To properly assess this level, we need to
discard many of the prevailing assumptions that underlie current business processes.
Although efficiency can deliver a fair amount of business value, effectiveness offers the
promise of much more. In fact, SAP HANA provides organizations with the opportunity to
fundamentally rethink their basic business processes (i. e., what they do and when and how
they do it).
For example, organizations rarely, if ever, depend exclusively upon a total cost of
ownership (TCO) analysis (i.e., Efficiency) to justify a business analytics initiative. Although
cost is a concern, the top-performing companies in each industry incorporate analytics into
their infrastructure in order to create and maintain competitive advantage.
At the Efficiency level of business value, business performance is improved first through
visibility and then through insight. Visibility provides the ability to access relevant
information quickly and in context. Then, insight provides a deeper understanding of the
underlying causes of a situation or the likely outcome of a course of action under
consideration.
Recall from previous chapters that SAP HANA a disruptive technology. Consequently,
the business benefits it delivers extend far beyond improvements in IT operations. The
examination of effectiveness gains makes the assumption that IT is a strategic enabler and
value creator, and not just an organizational cost center.
Although effectiveness gains are usually more difficult to quantify than efficiency gains,
their monetary value is frequently greater. Instead of precise estimates, effectiveness gains
can be expressed as ranges of financial value, as illustrated by the following list.

Higher customer value

Improved product mix (margins)

Better sales pipeline conversion ratio

Enhanced customer retention

More accurate demand forecasts

More successful segmentation

Enhanced understanding of real costs

Greater production yields
More efficient order fulfillment
Faster collections
Lower production costs
Reduced risk/impact of risks
More timely anticipation of market changes
More efficient asset utilization

3. Transformation
Business Transformation is the highest level of business value, but also the most difficult to
achieve. Transformation goes well beyond Effectiveness by enabling new business models
and processes. Sometimes called innovation or The Art of the Possible, business
transformation can generate extraordinary financial gains. However, the potential monetary
value from this level of business value is the most difficult to quantify. By definition,
Transformation involves things that have never been done before. Consequently, there are
no baseline data to use for comparison.
At the Transformation level, the focus is on use cases that involve the invention of new
business models and processes by leveraging innovative solutions and technologies, such
as SAP HANA.
Examples:

Identifying and serving new market segments before your peers can

Providing personalized customer pricing and services

Enabling new products or pricing models

Creating new business models

Improving time to market

Reducing inventory

Increasing market share

Improving P/E ratio

Hopefully you now have a more nuanced understanding of business value. Having
covered this topic, we return to our discussion of the three-step process for building
effective business use cases. We begin with the first step creating the storyline.

Creating the Storyline

Its likely that you already have at least one specific use case in mind for SAP HANA
otherwise, you wouldnt be reading this chapter! However, as we mentioned previously, its
preferable to develop multiple use cases as part of the overall business case. Also, keep in
mind the Levels of Value section of this chapter when youre developing the use cases.
Specifically, try to map to each level of business value with one or more use cases.
The process of creating the storyline should not be conducted exclusively by IT. Rather,
it is critical to involve the business side of the organization up front and throughout the
process.
SAP HANA is a disruptive technology, so the typical approach to building a technical
business case does not necessarily apply here.
Here are some questions to get you thinking about potential use cases:


Whats happening at other companies in your industry?

What elements in your organizations strategic plan could benefit from highperformance analytics or process optimization?

Does your organization own any data that no one else has (and can that data
be exploited)?

What mega-trends in the industry represent opportunities for new value?

A. Categorization/Business Attributes
Sometimes its easier to create use cases when you can place each one into a convenient
category, or container. Below we list samples of potentially useful categories. Note that
these categories may not be mutually exclusive. Some of your use cases can cross
boundaries, especially in the case of innovations. Please refer to the SAP HANA Use Case
Repository for the most current list of use cases.

IndustryIndustry-specific

Consumer Products: (Supplier Risk Mgt., Track and Trace, Product Recall,
Product Lifecycle and Cost Mgt., EPA Standards Compliance, Real-Time Warranty
and Defect Analysis)

Financial: (Fraud Detection, Risk Analysis, Credit Scoring, Program Trading,

Customer Profitability)

Manufacturing: (Supply Chain Optimization, Production Planning,

Operational Performance Mgt., Real-Time Asset Utilization)

Retail: (POS/Fraud Detection, Business Planning, Price and Merchandising

Optimization)

Telecom: (Investment Planning, Network Equipment Planning &

Optimization)

Utilities: (Smart Metering, Demand Side Management, Balance and

Demand Forecasting, Churn Management, Outage Management, Investment
Planning, Grid Management)

CrossCross-Industry

Finance: (Planning and Budgeting, Consolidation)

HR: (Workforce Analytics)

IT: (Landscape Optimization)

Order Management: (Available to Promise, Price Optimization)

Sales and Marketing: (Marketing Analytics, Customer Segmentation, Trade

Promotion Management)

Supply Chain: (Transportation Planning, Inventory Mgt., Demand and

Supply Planning, Supply Network Planning)

B. SelfSelf-Discovery
After reading about the methodology and techniques discussed in this chapter, some
customers may feel comfortable building business cases on their own. The SAP HANA Use
Case Repository and SAP HANA Value Calculator (described below) can provide invaluable
assistance with this task.

C. Assisted Discovery
Many other customers, however, will prefer to leverage the expertise of SAPs Value
Engineering (VE) group in constructing a convincing business case for SAP HANA. One of
the ways in which the VE organization can help you construct an SAP HANA business case
is through a Value Discovery Workshop. Over the course of this workshop, you will have the
opportunity to identify, validate, and prioritize a number of SAP HANA use cases. These use
cases can describe your organizations internal usage, and perhaps also how your
organization interacts with its external customers.
The workshop is intended to address business outcomes as well as technical feasibility.
Therefore, the project sponsor, business unit representatives, domain experts, and IT staff
should all participate. The workshop will provide you with detailed information on data,
processes, roles, modeling, consumption, clients, and security requirements for your
applications. In addition, it will help you identify the degree of match, potential value-add,
and customer interest for each use case.
The figure below reproduces a sample value map created during the first portion of a
workshop for a customer in the chemical industry.

The next illustration is an example of one of the process analysis outputs created at a
later stage in another workshop.

Finally, after you have completed the workshop, VE resources may be available to assist
you in building a formal business case. Please check with your SAP Account Executive for
further information on this service.

D. SAP HANA Use Case Repository

SAP maintains a centralized SAP HANA website (http://www.saphana.com) that contains
an ever-growing number of example use cases for SAP HANA. In the Resources section of
the site, youll find sample use cases of SAP HANA that have either been implemented by a
customer or discussed with a prospect.
Perhaps the most obvious way to use this site is to check the category for your industry
to determine which of the existing use cases reflect your organizations needs or strategic
direction. You may not find an exact match, but its extremely likely that youll find one or
more themes that closely resemble some of your business issues and/or conditions.
A second and perhaps more useful approach is to use the repository as a
brainstorming tool. It can be quite enlightening to study use cases from industries that are
seemingly unrelated to yours. In many instances, you will recognize a common thread that
will encourage you to adopt a broader perspective than if you limited your exploration to use
cases in your industry.

Whichever approach you adopt, a guiding principle is to focus on things that you cant do
today. In addition, always keep in mind that SAP HANAs strengths are in applications that
have never been built before. If youre looking to SAP HANA for competitive advantage,
then you are not likely to find a close match in the repository.

1. SAP HANA Use Case Categories

Currently, the SAP HANA website has SAP HANA Use Cases categorized by industry and
selected process areas:

Aerospace & Defense

Automotive

Banking

Chemical

Consumer Products

Cross-Industry

Customer Service

Finance

Healthcare

High Tech

Industrial Machinery & Components

Insurance

Life Sciences

Manufacturing

Marketing

Media

Mill Products

Mining

Oil & Gas

Professional Services

Public Sector

Retail

Sales

Supply Chain

Telecommunications

Transportation

Utilities

Wholesale Distribution

Adding the Financial Dimension

Now that youve developed a good storyline, its time to map it to the expected business
value for each and every use case. No matter how captivating your storyline, it must be
backed up with hard numbers. Although it is important to have quantitative results, some
quantitative measures are more defficult to obtain and monitor than others.

A. Importance of Benefits Quantification

It is critical to acknowledge the value of IT investments through benefits measurement and

post go-live monitoring. An SAP Value Management study determined that organizations
that develop business cases and measure post-go live success are 1.9 times more likely to
deliver projects on time. They are also 1.5 times more likely to deliver on budget and to
realize up-front benefits.
In most current use cases, the business value for SAP HANA is measured in a similar
manner to other business analytics investments. The capabilities of SAP HANA are seen
across many areas of an organization with an increasing number of benefit scenarios. The
one fundamental difference is that analytical use cases for SAP HANA consider how the
availability of real-time data impacts the organizations ability to realize value. The SAP
HANA benefits quantification evaluates what the organization can accomplish now that it
can better manage data and interpret the resulting insights at lightning-fast speeds. Data
volume is exploding, resulting inthe need to store and move significant amounts of data. As
a result, it slows down the ability to analyze data. In addition, data variety is continually
expanding with the usage of Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, the traditional processes that
organizations have used to consolidate and analyze data are no longer sufficient in the new
environment of real-time data.
IT research firms have already concluded that investing in business analytics technology
generates tangible benefits. Moreover, in 2010, IDC completed a study that concluded that
business intelligence investments delivered the following return on investment:

112 % median ROI

54% process benefit improvement (Business effectiveness measures)

42% productivity gains (Business efficiency)

4% technology gains (IT efficiency)

In February 2011 Aberdeen completed a real-time business study that found that
organizations wanted more accurate operational information. A case study concluded that
manufacturing organizations yielded a 2% increase in production efficiencies, returning tens
of millions of dollars in savings. The independent study demonstrates that quantitative
benefits are being realized with real-time information. Production yield is an excellent
example of benefits quantification. Increased yield reduces the cost of operations. This
section will help you identify these business areas and quantify the benefits.
SAP has come to realize that organizations can struggle with analytics benefits
quantification. Organizations utilize various approaches to business case benefit
development; however, they may not have the experience to transfer that approach to
business analytics and SAP HANA business cases. To address this problem, SAPs Value
Engineering organization has taken the methodology that has been used for the past eight
years and applied it applied it to SAP HANA benefits quantification. We discuss the value
engineering and the value management approach later in the chapter.

B. Types of Quantification
SAP Value Management has created a framework for analyzing benefits that also applies to
SAP HANA. This framework, which is illustrated below, places benefits in one of four
categories:

Strategy Enablement

Measurable Benefits

Risk and Compliance

Innovation

Financial measurement, known as hard benefits, typically falls within the measurable
benefit category. However, risk mitigation and compliance can deliver millions of dollars in
savings. Strategy enablement and innovation are usually treated as soft benefits.

It is important to understand that an SAP HANA business case, like an analytics

business case, impacts numerous process areas within an organization. SAP realized that
the underlying transactional systems by themselves release only a percentage of the overall
benefits. Unlocking the remaining benefits requires information insight.
For example, Procuremnt leaders rely on information to understand how an organization
spends money in various categories such as materials, services and IT equipment. The
procurement process controls the flow of money going out of the company for materials and
services. This critical function ensures that an organization manages its spending
strategically. The primary metrics that measure success in this area are overall spending
managed centrally and year-over-year annual savings achieved by the procurement team.
Spend that is not managed centrally does not leverage contracts negotiated with preferred
vendors that include already secured discount levels. Without real-time business insight on
spend, organizations are not fully optimizing savings with consolidated spend. The following
SAP HANA case study illustrates a procurement business case involving a retail grocer.

National Grocery Retailer SAP HANA Business Case:

The retailer had already invested in an ERP system that drove the procurement process with
suppliers; however, it was implemented in a regional format. Thus, the overall spend managed by
the organization was not visible at a national level. Supplier relationships at a regional level ran the
risk of not capturing increased discounts and creating redundancies in process.

Objective:
Deliver national spend visibility and drive procurement savings
Shift from regional vendor relationships and contract terms to a
national level

Challenge:

Significant data volumes residing with four regional data

warehouses. Data created from regional procurement systems

Four regional warehouses housing ERP structured system data

No infrastructure in place to automate the data consolidation for a

national view of supplier spend levels

Approach:
Evaluate the SAP HANA solution as the database and analytics
technology to enable a single view of consolidated supplier data

Develop a benefits case based on the regional grocer spend

performance

The four major regions each had consolidated supplier spend

Business Case Development:

The regional procurement spend performance was compared, and
the grocer found that certain regions were outperforming others in yearover-year savings and negotiated discounts

The grocer utilized SAPs global benchmarking data to compare

year-over-year savings and spend managed strategically with retail peers

The grocer determined that additional savings would be possible if

the organization better understood the underlying procurement data

XXX calculated a conservative benefits estimate of $50 million in

savings over a multiyear period

Results and Business Benefit:

Begin realizing $50 million in savings on supplier spend with one
national view of vendor spend

Remove supplier negotiation and contract administration

redundancies with one process, managed by a national supplier

Significant supplier data compression with transfer of spend and

supplier data from four regional systems to one single instance of SAP
HANA

Real-time and automated data transfer that was previously not

possible with four different regional systems

Granular reporting analysis resulting in visibility on optimal supplier

discounts and redundant buying

Elimination of vendor spend with contracts that do not offer

maximum discount levels.

Renegotiation of national vendor contracts demonstrating higher

discount levels on aggregated spend

1. Tangible (Hard) Benefits

A tangible or hard benefit is defined as an outcome that increases revenue in for-profit
organizations and reduces cost in all organizations. In addition, hard benefits can increase
the cash flow that the organization utilizes to generate additional return on investments. An
example of a cash flow benefit is the reduction of aging receivables. Efficiency gains can
result in tangible benefits if resulting costs are removed from the gain. An example of a hard
benefit efficiency gain is the reduction of people completing a manual reporting task.
As we discussed, quantifying SAP HANA benefits follows a similar approach to other

traditional benefits quantification. The areas of improvement are derived by identifying

areas of value within major business process areas. Common benefit KPIs are broken down
within the process areas. A few of the key business benefit KPIs and key metrics are
outlined below. SAPs Value Engineering organization has a full repository of all business
benefits.

Demand Generation
Marketing
Benefit: Optimized marketing spend through improved campaign effectiveness

Metrics:
Average cost of a marketing campaign launch
Current time to measure campaign effectiveness
Campaign conversion rate measured in sales or pipeline generated

Outcome:
Reduced marketing spend by minimizing the cost of ineffective campaigns
Increased annual revenue through campaign execution

Sales Execution
Benefit: Increased sales conversion rate, thereby increasing annual revenue

Metrics:
Current pipeline conversion percentage
Current revenue per sales employee
Current sales team efficiency measured by time with customer and
administrative time

Outcome:
Increased pipeline conversion rate and sales
Increased total revenue per salesperson
Reduced administrative time

Demand Fulfillment
Procurement
Benefit: Reduced annual spend with increased visibility on supplier metrics

Metrics:
Percent of spend managed strategically by category; direct, indirect and
services
Year-over-year annual savings
Evaluation of vendors utilized and product categories
Effort spent currently managing vendor relationships

Outcome:
Reduced annual spend by category
Reduced efforts by buyers to manage and track vendor relationships

Manufacturing Process

Benefit: Reduced inventory levels and enhanced visibility of the short horizon of stock
levels

Metrics:
Current inventory levels of finished goods
Current inventory carrying costs
Percentage of inventory obsolescence

Outcome:

Reduced inventory levels of finished goods

Reduced annual inventory carrying costs
Greater annual cash flow
Reduced cost of inventory obsolesce

Information Technology Management

Information Management
Benefit: Improved insight into information and reduced IT effort to prepare data

Metrics:
Cost of data storage
Cost and effort of transferring data from source systems to a centralized data
repository
Effort to prepare data for reporting
Effort to build standard reports

Outcome:
Reduced cost of information management
Improved granular insights delivered in real time

Organizational Performance Management

Profitability Analysis
Benefit: Improved profitability analysis by product, region, and segment

Metrics:
Current profit level by product, region, and segment
Effort required to deliver profitability analysis
Current pricing processes

Outcome:
Increased profit by product, region, and segment
Elimination of unprofitable items
Less effort required to monitor profitability

Workforce Management
Benefit: Improved worker utilization levels and reduce level of overtime

Metrics:
Worker utilization levels
Overtime percentage and cost

Outcome:
Reduced labor costs
Improved worker output measured

Fraud Management
Benefit: Improved fraud detection, thus reducing the costs associated with additional
insurance claims

Metrics:
Current combined ratio (claims and expense measured against premiums
collected)
Measured fraud investigations

Outcome:
Reduced cost of fraud investigations
Reduced combined ratio
The metrics and outcomes listed in the table span many major business process areas.
However, they all have a common theme; namely, to manage information from diverse data
sources and to deliver real-time insights for decision making. In each case the results are
measured in revenue, expense, and cash flow impacts.

2. Strategic (Soft) Benefits

Strategic or soft benefits are commonly linked to the tangible benefits measured above.
The strategic benefits impact the organizations overall strategies and can support the
tangible benefits.
In some cases, productivity or efficiency metrics do not directly result in reduced costs.
An example is a scenario in which labor costs are not reduced, but the organization utilizes
appropriate metrics to deliver greater throughput with the same staff. The labour budget is
not reduced, but the workforce is able to manage increasing workload. Often, improved
employee engagement and work-life balance is another soft benefit outcome. Similarly,
improved decision-making can generate indirect impacts on the organization, such as better
execution of the corporate values for accountability. Many organizations find it difficult to
drive accountability with poor information. Department leads cant drive improvements if
there is no trust in the data comprising the actual results. In creating and evaluating a
business case, you need carefully consider both tangible and strategic benefits.

3. New KPIs and Breakthrough Innovations

SAP HANA is an innovative technology that offers a fresh approach to information
management. The ability to deliver innovations by managing complex analysis in real time
reduces time to market and generates new revenue streams. These innovations are the
most difficult to quantify because no baseline data exist. However, first mover advantage
may result in the largest payoffs for a project.
SAP is constantly capturing new innovations delivered with SAP HANA to share the
impact. We have multiple forums to share the benefits of SAP HANA; the external website
mentioned earlier in the chapter capturing use cases and the business transformation
studies captured by Value Engineering. A business transformation study is a brief document
published jointly with our customers to capture benefits realized along with the story of why
the investment was made. It is critical to continually measure the post-implementation

impact of SAP HANA to capture benefits. The best recommendation is to simultaneously

explore innovative SAP HANA scenarios while developing existing process-improvement
scenarios. A simple business case can be developed based on existing processes and then
leveraged to fund breakthrough innovations.
SAP recommends multiple scenarios by which SAP HANA delivers maximum value to
the organization. These scenarios can be incorporated into an analytics roadmap that
prioritizes value and time to value. This strategy will enable IT to jointly manage the
implementation with the relevant business functions.

C. Best Practice Business Case Approach

Before calculating a benefit, an organization must identify a baseline metric derived from
the current state process. After it creates this baseline, it can establish a target benefit
range.
The simple steps listed below present a framework for calculating a baseline metric. We
illustrate this framework using the example of a profitability report.

Document the current state process (e.g., profitability reporting)

Number of business analysts allocated to monthly reporting

Effort taken in hours taken to build monthly package

Associated IT effort to maintain profitability reporting

Current state profitability level of the associated item tracked on the report
As stated above, an organization needs to establish baseline metrics before it can
calculate the value of a benefit. However, baseline metrics in isolation do not allow the
owner of the business case to comfortably develop a target improvement range. These
metrics are simply utilized as a measuring stick of success. The baseline metric allows
organizations to know how much they have improved after the technology has been
implemented. In order to truly define a benefit beyond the current state baseline, SAP Value
Engineering performs this function by providing a triangulated approach to benefits
quantification. Specifically, VE provides SAP Benchmarking data that indicate average and
best-in-class performance, past examples of measured success by other organizations,
and the ability to collect current state processes to best calculate the benefit range. (We
discuss the SAP Benchmarking database in greater detail in Section E.)
After the analysis has been completed, the next step is to identify the associated value
driver outcome(s). The benefit as described in the process areas is typically related to its
impact on revenue and expenses. We strongly recommend that when you calculate a
benefit you apply a benefit range with a conservative and likely metric based on the SAP
Value Engineering approach described above.
One final point: It is commonplace to link benefits to an overall initiative involving
process improvements through technology enablement. Benefits are more widely accepted
when linked to key business initiatives such as improving spend management or improving
pricing within a certain product category. As part of the initial business case development,
discussions with the business unit sponsors ensure linkage to strategy and acceptance of
the SAP HANA investment.

D. SAP HANA Calculator

To make it easier for people to build a value-based business case, SAP Value Engineering
and SAP HANA Solution Management released a web-based SAP HANA benefits

calculator to our customers. The tool covers the most common benefit areas that most
organizations would consider. The calculator provides two or three example benefits for
each of five mega-process areas:

Customer Focus

Procure to Pay

Plan to Produce

Record to Report

Quote to Cash
The benefits calculator enables you to customize the revenue include the number of
employees, and key baseline information for your particular organization. The benefit
ranges are based on the SAP Value Engineering triangulated methodology we just
described. A summary report aggregates all the benefits to determine the overall financial
impact.
SAP designed this tool to be a great launching point for calculating benefits. It generates
ideas on how SAP HANA can impact your business, and it demonstrates how you can
calculate these benefits. Your organization can then continue to develop benefits either in
partnership with SAP VE or on your own.

E. SAP Benchmarking
One of the most valuable resources available to you when building an SAP HANA business
case is the SAP Benchmarking database. SAP Benchmarking is a global program launched
in 2004 to deliver empirical metrics, best practices, and high-impact strategies to
organizations that choose to leverage the program.
SAP Benchmarking is managed through a customer portal, SAP Value Management
Center (https://valuemanagement.sap.com). The link takes you right to the portal to sign in
and utlize the surveys to capture baseline information and determine how you are
performing against best in clauss organizations. This is a significant investment by SAP to
allow organizations to measure performance and build benefit cases.

This portal offers direct access to complete surveys and analysis of results. The data in
the benchmarking resources are collected anonymously from SAP customers who have
participated in the program. These data are incredibly deep and rich, and they enable you to
benchmark your companys current state and potential value against real-world
experiences from other companies in your industry.
SAP Benchmarking program Facts:

Established at the end of 2004

Complimentary service

Available to SAP and non-SAP customers

More than 12,000 participants from more than 3,000 companies

Global in 2010 more than 60% participants of participants were from

outside North America

Partnerships with ASUG and other user groups

Studies available in 12 languages

More than 20 business process assessments including finance,

procurement, supply chain, and sales.

More than 700 KPIs

More than 1,000 best practices

More than 300 peer groups

For SAP HANA, SAP offers the Business Intelligence and Enterprise Information
Management data sets and surveys. In addition, SAP launched a High Performance
Analytics survey to track the importance of complexity and speed in the data management

environment.
As discussed previously, SAP HANA can impact many business process areas
spanning the entire organization. The SAP Benchmarking program allows you to help
choose a few key process areas to determine where SAP HANA best fits as a starting point.
The program provides the flexibility to create a customized survey to capture the key
metrics and best practices identified through the SAP HANA business scenario
development. This process will provide the critical peer comparison that establishes the
appropriate range of improvement. An organization can build a realistic benefit range
improvement by leveraging peer benchmarking data.

Tying It All Together

We now shift our focus to the fourth and most vital stage in the business case process
packaging the business case in a manner that maximizes the likelihood that it will be
funded. To accomplish this objective, the storyline and financial impact have to be
communicated effectively to the stakeholders and decision makers. In addition, the
presentation needs to be easily consumable by senior business executives, because senior
management buy-in and commitment and are critical.

A. Internal Deliverables
As mentioned throughout this chapter, SAP HANA is a disruptive technology. Accordingly,
previous rules about internal business cases may not apply to SAP HANA cases.
Fortunately, SAP Value Engineering has significant experience creating successful
business cases for SAP HANA, and it can assist with your final presentation.
Although there is no set format for final deliverables, successful presentations generally
contain certain critical components, which we list below.

Use case and business process scenarios

Financial and non-financial benefits

Strategic alignment discussion

Risk assessment

Use case prioritization

B. Ongoing Value Management

Most companies realize that the successful utilization of information technologies is critical
to success in the modern business environment. Despite this realization, however, few
companies actually realize the maximum value of their IT investment. SAP addressed this
problem by introducing Value Engineering, a practice that focuses on driving the customer
value that IT is providing to the business. Over the years, SAP has learned a great deal
about how the best-in-class companies continuously select, execute, and measure
successful business-driven IT projects. Utilizing an ongoing processes called Value
Management, SAP Value Engineering has standardized and packaged these best practices
to help organizations deliver value by aligning IT with business goals and processes, and
through maximizing return on IT investment.

1. Value Management
Value Management is a permanent management process that ensures that investments in
information technology are delivered on time, on budget and on value.
The discipline of Value Management is a proven way to realize the promised value from

IT investments and initiatives. The Value Management methodology is intended to keep

companies focused on choosing the right projects, to clearly define ownership and
accountability for business results, and to deliver on these agreed-upon commitments. The
SAP Value Engineering team helps identify the appropriate strategic areas to enable
companies to become best-run businesses.

Value Management Drivers and Lifecycle:

Value Discovery: How do you align your business and IT strategies?

Value Realization: How can the business value be captured?
Value Optimization: How can you maximize the value from your investment?

2. Why Is Value Management Important?

Many companies initiate technology projects with a strong focus on their business
objectives; over time, however, they lose this focus. As a result, they never fully realize their
expected results. Research conducted by SAP indicates that 98% of companies can extract
more value from their initiatives, yet only 35% focus on measuring the value of these
technologies after they have been implemented. This virtuous circle of proper planning,
execution, and ongoing value analysis is critical to building a strategic IT function in
successful companies. Failure to realize maximum benefit from IT is a common problem
that can understandably discourage executives from making the strategic IT investments
needed to compete in todays unforgiving business environment.
SAPs approach to value management focuses on helping you discover the right
projects, measure progress during implementation, and optimize investments across your
IT portfolio. This end-to-end process helps to ensure the business value of your IT
investments.

3. Why Do Customers Like SAPs Value Engineering Process?


Quick turnaround process that delivers a strategic value proposition to
customers in weeks

Minimal disruption to customers ongoing operations using our collaborative

approach

Fact-based, structured problem-solving approach that leverages past

engagement experiences

Hands-on participation from SAP experts solution specialists, industry

practitioners, consultants, and centers of excellence professionals

Mature value management methodology based on experience with 25,000+

customers; leveraging comprehensive knowledge about best practices across
industries and business processes

Scalable, disciplined approach to business value assessments that

establishes a common language between business and IT audiences

4. Role of SAP Value Engineering

Utilizing SAP Value Engineering is not a requirement for building a solid business case for
SAP HANA. However, it certainly can make the process easier and more efficient.
If youve already identified several potential use cases for SAP HANA, VE resources can
help you create a financial justification for the initiative. However, if youre willing to invest
the time in a more immersive process, VE offers a SAP HANA Value Discovery Workshop,
which was described in greater detail earlier in this chapter.

5. Continuous Value Management

At this point, you have completed the Discovery portion of the Value Management Cycle
described earlier in this chapter. The remaining stages in the cycle are Realization and
Optimization. The Discovery phase resulted in the all-important business case, but the other
two phases are no less critical to the process. One strategy to ensure continued success
throughout the implementation of the SAP HANA initiative is to maintain (or establish) a
culture of measurement within the organization.

6. Establish a Culture of Measurement

How serious is your organization about performance measurement? Its nearly impossible
to determine the degree of success of a project unless you have a way to compare the
before and after states. In many organizations, such assessments are mostly subjective
opinions that are not easily validated.
In contrast, objective assessments minimize the element of personal bias and enable
historical comparisons of assessments for different projects. This kind of measurement
philosophy needs to be deeply ingrained in the culture of an organization, ideally as a formal
methodology.
Among other things, here are some of the questions that you should consider when
measuring performance:

What are some of your most important KPIs?

What are some of the underlying metrics that you track?

How do you track and communicate metrics and KPIs?

What adjustments does your organization make based on regular reviews of

KPIs and metrics?

Are there any new KPIs that would be relevant to your organization but
have not been adopted by your industry peers?

Recommendations
The purpose of this chapter is to explain why it is critical to build business use cases and to
provide some guidelines to assist you with this process. However, we did not intend this
chapter to be used as a cookbook for building business cases for SAP HANA. Different
organizations may follow widely varying approaches when building their internal

justifications for SAP HANA.

Whatever your situation, however, we strongly recommend that you keep the following
points in mind during your journey:
1) When identifying use cases, try to go beyond ideas about what you could be doing better.
Consider:

What you cant do today

What you havent even imagined yet

2) Think big, but start small with a quick win to build momentum in business.

Initial success will build credibility internally

The resulting support may be necessary later when you plan and undertake
more ambitious projects
3) Dont view technology or IT as merely an expense or overhead. When leveraged
properly, technology and IT act as a:

Strategic enabler

Value creator
4) Track both hard and soft benefits during the financial analysis of use cases.

Hard benefits are easier to calculate precisely

Soft benefits may outweigh hard benefits

5) Ensure senior executive buy-in and sponsorship from Day 1.
This is a business case, not a technical justification

Chapter 4

SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP

HANA
This chapter was written with the expert assistance of Puneet Suppal (@puneetsuppal),
Simo Said and Amr El-Meleegy (@Meleegy). SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA
Solution Marketing Team

n early 2006, when the project that would result in SAP HANA was in its infancy, the team

proposed several ambitious goals (dreams, really) for the eventual capabilities of an
enterprise-scale in-memory database. The most audacious goal was that this new database
architecture would eventually be able to power the largest, most mission-critical enterprise
systems in the world. In many ways, this was SAPs moon shot declaration.
On January 10th, 2013, less than two years after the first shipment of SAP HANA, SAP
realized the completion of this dream with the announcement of the availability of the SAP
Business Suite powered by SAP HANA (SoH). SAP thus became the first software company
to provide its customers with an integrated, real-time business process platform that unifies
both analytic and transactional data into a single architecture.
It might appear that with the delivery of SoH in 2013, SAP had reached the end of its
journey. But, just as NASA didnt stop innovating and exploring after the first moon landing
more than 40 years ago, SAP is simply transitioning into its next phase of innovation and
renovation. For the first time ever, SAP has created an exceptionally performant database
platform that was engineered to its exact specifications and that provides a myriad of
incredible new capabilities that previously were unavailable to its 20,000 programmers.
Having created this modern platform to power its flagship applications such as ERP, SAP
has begun a multiyear effort to achieve three basic objectives: (1) Become an innovationdriven enterprise: SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA will help organizations
become an innovation-driven enterprise by allowing you to rethink business processes as
and when needed and invent new business models SMARTER. (2) Become a data-driven
enterprise: SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA will help organizations become a

data-driven enterprise by allowing you to collect, consolidate and consume real-time data
FASTER. (3) Become a people-driven enterprise: SAP Business Suite powered by SAP
HANA will help organizations become a people-driven enterprise by providing your
business users with actionable insights on any device to decide and act SIMPLER. In a
nutshell, SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA enables its customers to drive their
business smarter, faster and simpler and do amazing new things that could never be done
in a disk-based architecture.
In this chapter, well
1.
examine the architectural implications of running a mission-critical SAP
Business Suite landscape on SAP HANA,
2.
discuss several scenarios for adding SAP HANA to SAP Business Suite
landscapes,
3.
review some technical and operational aspects of this switch, and
4.
provide some details on several of the enhanced business
processes/scenarios that will immediately benefit from the power of SAP HANA.

Overview
SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA (SoH) delivers a modern, integrated suite of
business-critical applications that unify analytics and transactions into a single in-memory,
real-time data platform. The SAP Business Suite can now provide real-time planning,
execution, reporting, and analysis across end-to-end business processes. It can also
provide business users with unified, 360-degree views of real-time information, such as
machine sensor data and social media feeds, on many devices, across SAP applications as
well as non-SAP systems.

SAP SRM is not included in the scope of applications powered by SAP HANA yet.

Because SAP HANA provides a unique ability to deal effectively with both transactional
(OLTP) and analytical workloads (OLAP), companies can rapidly simplify their IT
infrastructures and reduce the total costs of ownership by consolidating analytics and

transactions into a single database. In this integrated scenario, companies can utilize SAP
HANA as their primary database for SAP Business Suite applications and provide real-time
analytics on live transactional data. Employing the same database to address a companys
analytical and transactional needs eliminates the necessity to replicate data and/or
integrate additional reporting/analytics landscapes.
The SAP HANA platform provides the foundation for companies both to dramatically
increase the performance of their existing SAP Business Suite applications and to continue
to innovate without disrupting their current systems by leveraging a new generation of realtime applications natively built on the platform. It is the perfect starting point to begin taking
advantage of a true real-time data platform.

Architectural Implications of SAP Business Suite powered

by SAP HANA
Over the years, technical limitations in the database layer have forced companies to build
two separate software/hardware landscapes to provide both OLTP and OLAP systems to
address two different business needs: transaction processing and reporting/analysis. It was
simply impossible for disk-based databases to efficiently handle both row-based
transactional writes and column-based analytical reads at the same time. As a result of
this performance dichotomy, database management systems currently on the market are
typically optimized for either transactional workloads or analytical workloads, but not both.
Compounding this problem is the fact that data have to be copied between the two systems.
This inefficiency not only generates significant costs, but it forces organizations to adopt
measures to ensure data integrity and usability between multiple systems. A final issue is
the inevitable lag time that occurs when transactional data are exported to analytical
systems on a daily or weekly basis.
SAP HANA is the first commercial database system that successfully eliminates this
false performance dichotomy as well as the resulting need to develop and maintain
separate OLTP and OLAP systems. Because SAP HANA can process transactional and
analytical workloads fully in-memory, it combines the best of both worlds. You dont need to
take the time to load data from your transactional database into your reporting database, or
even to build traditional tuning structures to enable that reporting. As transactions are
happening, you can report against them live, from the same database tables. By
consolidating two landscapes (OLAP and OLTP) into a single database, SAP HANA
provides companies with massively lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) in addition to
mind-blowing speed. With all the relevant transactional and analytical data integrated in a
single system that is updated in real time, companies can truly become real-time
businesses.
Beyond the architectural simplification and cost savings that SAP HANA can bring to
enterprise architectures, another, more transformational shift is underway. Nearly every
application in operation today was constructed in a programming approach where data are
transmitted from the database to the application, where they are then transformed for
calculation by the application logic or algorithm. This bring the data to the algorithm
approach was necessary because a disk-based DBMS has very limited capability to do
anything more complex than rudimentary calculations.

In contrast, SAP HANA enables application developers to completely flip that model on
its head (see Chapter 8) and begin to leverage the systems incredibly powerful engines
inside the database. Developers can now extract data-intensive operations and algorithms
from the application layer and insert them into the database layer for execution.
Applications thus become much leaner, and they focus on business logic. In essence, the
database becomes a data engine that spits out the answers whenever they are needed,
rather than simply serving up chunks of data to the apps. This new bring the algorithm to
the data approach is much more elegant than the old way of programming, and it
significantly reduces the amount of data being moved in and out of the database. Not only
do these new apps increase performance by having fast access to data in memory, they
also gain additional exponential speed by executing core application logic and algorithms
inside the database, on the raw data. This is when companies begin to realize process
performance increases of 50,000 to 200,000 times.
Going forward, SAP will deliver HANA-fied versions of multiple transactions in the SAP
Business Suite through regular Enhancement Packs. Not every transaction will receive this
treatment because not every transaction will be able to take advantage of these new
database capabilities or the value of renovating the transaction wont be justified by the
performance improvements. Significantly, SAP has made the migration to SAP HANA as
painless as possible. All HANA-fied reports and transactions can be activated via the
switch framework, so they will not modify the existing business logic when a company
adopts the new system. Going further, all of these switches are reversible and can be
activated independently. These features ensure maximum flexibility in the consumption of
these optimizations while minimizing business disruptions for the companies that implement
them.
Here are a few of the benefits this new architecture provides to existing SAP
Business Suite customers:

Applications

You no longer have to run dialog processes in batch (i.e., Batch is dead).

Remaining batch processes run faster, essentially turning them into on

demand jobs.

For details on SAP HANA optimized ABAP programs, please see the latest

release notes for SAP SAP HANA Live Operational Reports

Operational reports now run in real time inside the SAP Business Suite.

The new architecture removes the need for Operational Data Stores.

It eliminates the necessity to transfer (ETL) for performance reasons.

It eliminates the need to reconcile source data with copies.

Interactive reports allow users to trigger OLTP transactions from the report.

NextNext-generation Applications

Embedded Analytics can now be performed on a single system.

Custom ABAP code

Existing core code modification limitations apply (i.e., bad code is still bad
code, it just runs faster).

Regression tests for custom code are recommended after SAP HANA
migration.

A lot more information on this topic is available in the Application

Development with SAP HANA chapter.

Operational Topics with SAP Business Suite powered by

SAP HANA
By now it should be obvious that adding SAP HANA to an SAP Business Suite landscape
provides several major benefits, ranging from increased performance to reductions in cost
and complexity. You might be asking yourself, however, OK, but whats the downside?
More specifically, what do I have to change in my current SAP Business Suite system to get
all this goodness? You might be surprised that the answer to that question is very little. In
simplistic terms, there really isnt much more involved in migrating to this landscape than
copying the data from your old database into SAP HANA and then turning on the new
system. SAP has invested a huge amount of effort and resources to ensure that the
migration process is as painless and risk-free as possible. The company has even provided
a one-step migration wizard and an RDS package to manage the entire process (check the
RDS site for more details).
The new deployment approach, provided within the Rapid Database Migration of SAP
Business Suite to SAP HANA package, leverages out-of-the-box accelerators and
predefined scope that will help accelerate your adoption of SAP HANA to supercharge the
SAP Business Suite.
The simplified process eliminates any migration guesswork and uncertainties regarding
realization timeline, due to automation of steps as well as planning security due to
standardization of the approach.

OneOne-StepStep-Migretion via SAP HANA Migretion Wizard (HMW)

Several of the features of your existing system remain the same:

Configuration IMG stays the same.
Customization Stays the same.
ABAP Workbench Stays the same.
Modification Same upgrade requirements as with any new release. BADIs still supported.
Connectivity Stays the same.
Security Stays the same, with enhancements.
SAP HANA Enhancements
Dynamic analytical privileges
Reuse of same analytic privilege for several users with different restrictions
Support for complex logic and situational security derived at runtime
Roles as design time objects
Offering full lifecycle management capabilities
New Support Role
Secure and enhance compliance process for productive systems.
Audit logging improvements
New audit events (e.g., ALTER USER)
Data access logging
Audit configuration in SAP HANA Studio
Transports CTS stays the same

 Delivery via standard transport tools, SAP HANA specifics as TLOGO objects
(ABAP based)
CTS+ transport integration ready for custom SAP HANA code
Monitoring DBACockpit and Solution Manager stay the same

SAP Solution Manager offers complete solution for operations

SAP HANA monitoring and alerting integrated into SAP Solution Manager 7.1,
Support Package 4, see note 1747682
End-to-end workload analysis for SAP HANA planned for Support Package 8
in Solution Manager 7.1

High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) scenarios

 HA and DR scenarios are supported

Introduction to High Availability for SAP HANA: http://www.saphana.com/docs/DOC2775
SP7 includes new features supporting high availability/disaster recovery (HA/DR)
deployment, such as replaying logs on snapshots as well as cascading system replication
for up to three locations. New unified install/patching tools and enhanced monitoring of
operations continue to simplify the administrative experience.

Flexible appliance platform

Third-party tools (e.g., agents for monitoring and scheduling, antivirus)
allowed to run on appliance
Third-party backup tools supported with SAP HANA (ongoing)

Migrating to SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA

Another question you might be asking yourself is, How do I get to SoH from where Im at

today? SAP will continue to provide customers with choice of database platforms, as it
always has. Customers who choose to migrate to SAP HANA must take three steps to
incorporate their existing SAP Business Suite on top of SAP HANA:
1.
Update to the latest non-SAP HANA enhancement package and the latest
version of the SAP NetWeaver technology platform
2.
Update to the latest enhancement package version for SAP HANA
3.
Migrate from any database to SAP HANA

These requirements notwithstanding, however, SAP remains committed to supporting

its customers choice of database technologies and vendors. The company will continue to
offer the SAP Business Suite on all currently certified databases and to collaborate with its
database partners to support continuous innovation of its applications on a variety of
databases. The major downside to staying on an old database on your new SAP
Business Suite besides the costs and complexity inherent in disk-based databases is
that the HANA-fied transactions that SAP delivers with each enhancement package wont
work with your old database. Youll continue to receive new transactions and industry
functionality, but they will run much more slowly than they would on the new system. In
addition, you wont be able to use any of the HANA-fied transactions that SAP delivers.

That said, migrating to SoH isnt an all or nothing proposition. Companies can add SAP
HANA to their SAP Business Suite systems in several ways. However, a few caveats apply,
because not all of the enhanced functions that were designed for SoH are compatible with
non-HANA databases due to their disk-based architecture and lack of in-memory
capabilities.

Current restrictions:

SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA SAP Note 1774566

General Requirements

Optimizations for SAP HANA require all relevant systems to run on SAP
HANA (i.e., Development, Quality Assurance, and Production).

Implementing an SAP HANA-based ABAP correction requires an SAP

HANA-based correction system.

Testing an SAP HANA-based ABAP correction requires an SAP HANAbased test system.

SAP HANA-based systems interact with non-SAP HANA-based systems.

In mixed ERP landscapes (several ERPs) transports from non-HANA

systems into HANA-based systems are supported.

NonNon-SAP HANAHANA-based development can be transported to SAP HANAHANAbased systems

SAP HANA-based development can be transported into non-SAP HANA-based systems, if
the development is activated only after the system is manually activated.

All optimizations specific to SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA

require a dedicated Business Function activation to be enabled.


During upgrade, all code pertaining to SAP Business Suite, powered by SAP
HANA is deactivated and is running smoothly on non SAP HANA-databases.

DualDual-Stack Systems

SAP Business Suite, powered by SAP HANA is based on SAP NetWeaver

7.40, and it does not currently support dual-stack (ABAP/JAVA) installations.

Dual-stack systems have to be split prior to an SAP HANA migration.

Java stack stays on the current database, because Java is not yet supported
to run on SAP HANA (in a Business Suite app server).

Minimizing Downtime

Near-zero downtime approach: Use additional shadow database to keep DB

downtime to a minimum (available on request; see SAP Note 1680769)

Several parallel processes for data export and data import, table split for
parallelized export of large tables

Combined Unicode conversion and database migration

Reduced downtime for system copy (e.g., relevant for Unicode conversion):
Find more details on system copy and migration: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-14257.

Unicode

SAP HANA runs natively on Unicode only.

Unicode conversion can technically be performed during the database

migration, but certain preparatory steps are required.

SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA: Resources

http://help.sap.com/soh

Enhancement Pack Info (SAP Note 1774566)

1774566)
SAP enhancement package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0, version for SAP HANA
SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP CRM 7.0, version for SAP HANA
SAP enhancement package 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA
SAP ERP powered by SAP HANA
Release Notes for SAP EHP 6 version for HANA, please subscribe for the latest
updates:
https://websmp202.sapag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000755177
SP0: Release Notes SAP EHP6, version for SAP HANA
SP1: Release notes SAP EHP6, version for SAP HANA, SP01

EHP 6 for HANA Optimizations by transactions and ABAP programs please

see attachment in this SAP Note: 1761546
Current Restrictions SAP EHP 6 for SAP ERP 6.0,version for SAP HANA
1768031
Release Restrictions for SAP Netweaver AS ABAP 7.40 1789659
Overview Suite on HANA Restrictions: 1774566

SAP CRM Customer Relationship powered by SAP HANA

http://help.sap.com/crmhana

Release Notes for SAP EhP 2 for SAP CRM 7.0, version for SAP HANA
Optimizations and current restrictions, please see SAP Note: 1768032
SAP SCM Supply Chain Management
http://help.sap.com/scm_hana
Current restrictions:
SAP EhP 2 for SAP SCM 7.0, version for SAP HANA 1768043

Scenarios for Adding SAP HANA to SAP Business Suite

Landscapes
Companies can utilize several methods to integrate the power of SAP HANA into their
existing SAP Business Suite environments. These methods can range from simply adding a
SAP HANA Live deployment in side-car mode to fully migrating their entire landscape to
SAP HANA as the primary data store.

New SAP HANA Live for SAP Business Suite

The new SAP HANA Live for SAP Business Suite provides an open environment that
enables business users to perform operational analytics and reporting on real-time SAP
Business Suite transactional data. Based on analytical views in a virtual data model (VDM),
SAP HANA Live provides users with new strategies to analyze operational data to build their
own reports and documents. The current offering contains predefined analytical content for
SAP Business Suite applications (e.g., SAP ERP, SAP CRM). SAP HANA Live also serves
as the foundation for a new class of analytic applications including SAP Working Capital
Analytics, DSO scope; SAP Invoice and Goods Receipt Reconciliation; SAP Supply Chain
Info Center; and SAP Access Control Role Analytics. Please note: SAP HANA Live is
available as a separate package for SAP Business Suite.
SAP HANA Live provides the following benefits:

Views for easy analysis of SAP Business Suite data with SAP HANA

Open for a wide variety of reporting frontends

Maintained by SAP

Operational reporting based on real-time Business Suite data

Foundation for a new class of analytics applications

The SAP Live enables you to very efficiently build operational reporting on SAP
Business Suite data. Going further, in spite of all these great capabilities, it does not make
SAP BW obsolete, which remains SAPs core enterprise datawarehouse for consolidating
data from SAP and Non-SAP sources. Think of this new capability more as an upgrade or a
real-time evolution of standard ABAP and ALV reports. It is basically a pipeline directly into
the transactional tables under an SAP Business Suite system that allows you to display
real-time operational data in a very flexible and user-friendly format.
The SAP Business Suite application data models enhanced for real-time data
throughput and top performance in transactional scenarios are optimized for analytic
purposes using views in the SAP HANA database. These views form a virtual data model
that customers and partners can reuse. Not only does this model benefit current users, but
it serves as a foundation for future SAP analytic development.
Data provided by the virtual data model can be presented through multipurpose
analytical UIs such as SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite UIs and domain-specific Web

applications.
SAP HANA Live for SAP Business Suite provides the following advantages compared to
regular reporting solutions:

Open
Any access to the reporting framework is based on standard mechanisms such
as SQL or MDX. No BW modeling or ABAP programming is required.

Uniform
A single approach is chosen for all Suite applications, enabling a common
reporting across application boundaries.

Intuitive
The virtual data model will hide the complexity and customizing dependencies of
our Suite data model to make data available without requiring users to possess
a deep understanding of the various SAP models.

Fast
The suite features SAP HANA as the underlying computing engine, enabling fast
analytics on high data volumes and high levels of data.

RealReal-time
Because all reporting is based on primary data (or a real-time replication of it),
there is no need to wait for data warehousing loading jobs to finish. Thus, the
cycle time from recording to reporting is dramatically reduced.
The SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment solution enables real-time reporting on
operational data from SAP Business Suite software.
The rapid-deployment solution provides prebuilt BI reports in the areas of finance,
controlling, sales and distribution, governance, risk, and compliance, global trade services,
customer relationship management, insurance, and more on SAP HANA.
SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment solution can be deployed on SAP Business Suite
running directly on SAP HANA, but it is also possible to deploy it on a Business Suite
system running on your existing database with data being replicated into a side by side
HANA Appliance.
Additionally, customers and SAP partners can extend the solution through flexible HANA
models and business intelligence reports

More Details:
http://www.sap.com/solution/rapid-deployment/software/hana-live-businesssuitereporting/index.html
SAP HANA Live for SAP Business Suite
English SAP HANA Live Browser Last Update: February 2013
SAP HANA Live for SAP CRM
English SAP HANA Live for SAP CRM Last Update: February 2013
SAP HANA Live for SAP ERP
English SAP HANA Live for SAP ERP Last Update: February 2013
English SAP Invoice and Goods Receipt Reconciliation Last Update: February 2013
SAP HANA Live for SAP solutions for GRC
English SAP HANA Live for SAP solutions for GRC Last Update: February 2013
English SAP Access Control Role Analytics Last Update: February 2013

SAP HANA Live for SAP GTS

English SAP HANA Live for SAP GTS Last Update: February 2013
SAP HANA Live for SAP SCM
English SAP HANA Live for SAP SCM Last Update: February 2013
English SAP Supply Chain Info Center Last Update: February 2013

RealReal-Time Solutions powered by SAP HANA

SAP and its partners are delivering a new class of solutions on top of the SAP HANA
platform that provide real-time insights on Big Data as well as state-of-the-art analysis
such as machine learning, pattern recognition, and predictive capabilities. These solutions
can help transform the way you run your business, from enabling rapid, sense-and-respond
processes and targeted actions, to even rethinking business models in your industry.
Furthermore, you can continue to utilize the SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW)
component also powered by SAP HANA as your enterprise data warehouse.
SAP HANA apps can also help customers extend their SAP Business Suite powered by
SAP HANA investments by providing them with a wide array of complementary use cases
beyond their traditional business processes. They also provide a low risk low cost
opportunity for customers to test the SAP HANA Platform with tried and tested applications
that solve specific industry business problems.
From a business value perspective there are 3 broad categories of In memory based
application that are available today from SAP.

1. Customer Engagement Applications

First and foremost there are the Customer Engagement Applications categories. These
are applications that help our customers build personalized 1-on-1 sales and marketing
engagements with their customers and do things like run targeted and personalized
marketing campaigns and deliver automated selling recommendations to their Sales Force.
These Customer Engagement applications can also help you understand the present
and future value of your customers and be able to segment and stratify them into core,
opportunistic, marginal and service drain customers and develop distinct and targeted sales
and marketing strategies for each of them. This was not possible in the past because
customers could only rely on Revenue and Margin numbers to analyze their customers. But
with SAP HANA you can now look into the full picture and bring in other factors like cost to
serve, order frequency, loyalty, and buying power into the equation all based on real time
information.

SAP Customer Value Intelligence

SAP Account Intelligence

2. Sense and Response Applications

The second category is Sense and Response Applications. These are apps that are built
around helping customers capture and analyze large amounts of both external and internal
data to help them detect hidden trends and capture deviations and respond to market
changes in real time.
One example in this category of applications is SAP Demand Signal Management which

helps Manufacturing companies in Consumer Products, High Tech, and Automotive

industries enterprise their downstream market and demand data-like Point of Sale data,
syndicated data and social media data to develop a consolidated view of market demand
information that they can then leverage across their organization whether that is in Sales,
Marketing or Supply Chain to optimize trade promotions, and inventory planning and launch
new products.
So if you are a Consumer Product company for example running a trade promotion
instead of waiting for weeks after the trade promotion is over to understand how it
performed in the market you can do that today in near real time by accessing and analyzing
Point of Sale data directly from your retailers and understanding how your products are
performing on the retail shelves, which retailers are complying with your promotions and
detecting critical issues like out of stock to reduce lost sales.

SAP Demand Signal Management powered by SAP HANA

3. Planning and Business Optimization Apps

Finally there are Planning and Business Optimization Apps,
Apps which are applications that
leverage the Planning and Calculation Engine and Simulation capabilities in the SAP HANA
platform to help companies leverage their big data to do things like better forecast their cash
flows, manage their liquidity risk and optimize their working capital.
One example of application in this category is SAP Liquidity Risk Management which
helps banks manage their liquidity risk in real time. One of the problems that large banks
face today is that they execute millions of cash transactions each day in different countries,
with different currencies and across different and complex financial products. Building a
solid real time understanding of their liquidity becomes a huge challenge when operating in
such an environment. Adding to that challenge there are new and stricter regulatory
requirements that are being put into place after the recent financial meltdown that require
banks not just to report on specific liquidity metrics but also to simulate these results based
on different future economic stress scenarios. SAP HANA allows banks to consolidate large
numbers of cash flows and run stress simulations so they can get a better understating of
their liquidity risk profile.

SAP Liquidity Risk Management

Another example in this category is SAP Fraud Management. Its estimated that trillions
of dollars are lost every year by governments and corporations in fraud abuses. SAP Fraud
Management uses the power of the SAP HANA platform to detect, investigate and prevent
fraud. The application helps minimize false positive signals through real-time calibration and
simulation capabilities on very large volumes of data. With that, the workload (and cost) of
the investigation team can be significantly reduced. For instance, the user can run
simulations by testing fraud detection criteria, to determine the right level of severity and
avoid excessive load of false positives to be sent to the fraud investigation team. In addition
by combining rules and predictive methods SAP Fraud Management users can optimize
fraud scenario analysis, and adapt measures to changing fraud patterns to better prevent
fraud situations from happening.

SAP Fraud Management powered by SAP HANA

Below are a few more examples of new and existing SAP applications that are now powered

by SAP HANA.

SAP BW powered by SAP HANA

Want a super-charged data warehouse?

SAP Predictive Analysis powered by SAP HANA

Real-time, in-memory predictive and next-generation visualization and modeling

SAP Visual Intelligence with SAP HANA

Gather, analyze, and present the facts to solve your most pressing business questions.

SAP Sales and Operations Planning

Integrated business planning to align your business to profitably meet future demand

SAP Collections Insight

Turn revenue into cash faster with real-time mobile collaboration tools and collections
information.

SAP Accelerated Trade Promotion Planning

Maximize trade with deeper and faster trade promotion planning

SAP Invoice Receipts and Goods Receipts

Accelerate your financial close while ensuring compliance with your corporate rules

SAP Working Capital Analytics

Monitor and analyze your Days Sales Outstanding in real time

SAP Supply Chain Info Centre

Fully exploit your Demand and Supply Planning data for better decision making,

SAP Access Control Role Analytics

Quickly
Want a super-charged data warehouse?

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer with SAP HANA

Analytics and business intelligence at blazing speed

My GreenSpot

SAP is teaming up with the World Wildlife Fund (the worlds leading conservation
organization) to preserve and protect endangered forests and their ecologies with SAP

HANA One.

Preserve Your GreenSpot

SAP HANA for Humanity

We provide the necessary technology and the associated technical resources to help
nonprofits and governmental agencies analyze and visualize their large data sets to solve
pressing global problems.

Learn More
Care Circles

Find and deliver the best care. Care Circles is a free service that helps patients and their
families find best practices in caregiving from experts and caregivers around the world.

Learn More

Recalls Plus

We track product and food safety so you dont have to. Make a list. Receive alerts. Keep
your kids safe.

Learn More
SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA Business Scenarios
SAP has set up an automated tool call Business Scenario Recommendations for SAP
Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA to help you find and assess the areas where SAP
HANA will bring the most value to your companys SAP Business Suite implementation.
This tool provides a report that includes tailored recommendations for optimizations and

scenarios based on your actual current production system usage data.

To obtain your personalized assessment, you need to fill out the form at
suiteonhana.com and then upload a screenshot of your ST03N-Workload Monitor screen in
your production system. The entire process takes about 510 minutes. SAP will then input
your actual workload data into the tool and prepare a customized report that highlights the
various scenarios that will benefit from adding SAP HANA to your SAP Business Suite
landscape.

You can view an example of a typical business scenario recommendation report at this
site:
http://suiteonhana.com/assets/business_scenario_recommendations/en/crossindustry.pdf

SAP Business Suite applications using SAP HANA as (the only)

database
In this scenario, applications including SAP ERP, SAP CRM, and SAP Supply Chain
Management (SAP SCM) can fully run on top of SAP HANA in an integrated manner*. As
part of this first wave of innovations, SAP delivers optimizations for 23 business value
scenarios across key lines of business (e.g., finance, sales, marketing, service,
procurement, and HR) and more than 400 industry-specific reports to achieve
unprecedented performance. See the details below for examples of scenarios in the SAP
Business Suite that leverage SAP HANA.
The available SAP Rapid-deployment solutions in these areas are:

CRM rapid-deployment solution with SAP HANA, is bringing together

software and services to give you essential marketing, sales and service
functionality.
With SAP ERP powered by SAP HANA Rapid-Deployment Solutions, SAP is simply
combining together the best suite of applications and the next generation best performing
platform for doing real-time business:

SAP ERP for Finance & Controlling Rapid Deployment Solution powered by
SAP HANA
With this rapid-deployment solution, you can implement a financial and management

accounting solution quickly and affordably.

SAP ERP for Trading Rapid Deployment Solution powered by SAP HANA
With this rapid-deployment solution, you can quickly and affordably implement
functionality to enable predefined business scenarios that are crucial for companies active
in trading industries.

SAP ERP for Manufacturing Rapid Deployment Solution powered by SAP

HANA
With this rapid-deployment solution, you can quickly and affordably implement
functionality to enable predefined business scenarios that are crucial for companies active
in the process, discrete, and repetitive manufacturing industries.

Business Scenarios that directly benefit from running on

SAP HANA
In this section, we will review the current SAP HANAenabled business scenarios included
in the SAP Business Suite. A business scenario, in this context, consists of a
comprehensive set of business processes that are enabled by one or more applications
within the SAP Business Suite. For example, Strategic Purchase Optimization utilizes data
from multiple areas including Supply Chain Management and Procurement, and
Accelerated Organizational Changes Publishing draws primarily from HCM data.
Irrespective of the data source, the critical point conveyed in the following scenarios is
that many of these business functions can be performed much faster and, consequently,
much more frequently by utilizing SAP HANA. For many business, this capability
represents a wish that was difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill in the pre-HANA days. In some
cases, the ability to perform certain scenarios more frequently enables businesses to
perform more what-if type analyses, which in turn help key personnel make better
decisions in a more timely manner. This ability to perform complex transactions and reports
in real time is a significant boost to driving value within the enterprise.
Fast Financial Close
Real-Time Financial Performance
Efficient Receivables Management
Efficient Payables Management
Central Treasury Exposure management
Access Control Role Analytics
Automated Cross-System Process Control
Optimized Quote Management
Real-Time Inventory management
Efficient Procurement
Strategic Purchase Optimization
Maximized Asset utilization and Uptime
Accelerated Organizational Changes Publishing
Insight-Driven Workforce Cost Management
Real-Time material Planning
Instant Material Flow Control
Comprehensive Engineer-to-Order Project Management
Maximized Productivity and Profitability of Complex Projects

Fast Financial Close

A financial close defines the financial results of a group as required for presentation to
external and internal stakeholders by valuating business activities from an accounting
perspective. It closes the books for all individual companies. A corporate close for the group
and subgroups and financial disclosures combine quantitative data with comprehensive
qualitative information. A fast financial close is a core element of financial excellence.
Support for real-time, fast financial close offers a single multi-dimensional database and
shared functionality for accounting and consolidation, providing governance, compliance,
and transparency throughout financial close management. With deeper and faster insight
down to the lowest level of detail, it delivers quality at the source, process efficiencies, a
common view across financials (invoices) and logistics (goods receipts), and faster
reconciliation. Drill-through for simulation of organizational changes is available.

RealReal-Time Financial Performance

Managing performance from a financial perspective is becoming more crucial every day.
On-time results for all audit- and analysis-related inquiries and an ability to react to risks and
opportunities exemplify the need for a transparent and efficient process to deliver financial
information on time and accurately. You need to manage operations and related
performance successfully in todays volatile business conditions:

Integrated planning uses a case-driven environment that allows new

planning scenarios and user-interaction scenarios.

Real-time close helps ensure accelerated closing activities through faster

processes, reporting without data latency, and heterogeneous consolidation
landscapes.

Product costing enables the modeling and simulation of design-to-cost

product cost in real time, management of the impact of product and production
cost across an organization for volatile resource and commodity prices, and
comprehensive product-cost management analytics.

Efficient Receivables Management

Receivables management is a core finance function to manage the payment of customer
invoices. By reducing the number of days sales outstanding (DSO) and bad-debt write-offs
and by managing billing disputes and collections activities, you can constantly monitor the
credit risk of your customer base. The goal of receivables management is to optimize the
working capital to enable investment and growth.
Support for increased effectiveness of receivables management offers algorithms to
match incoming payments and invoices, freeing headcount to focus on value-added
activities and processes such as collections, dispute, and credit management. All
information is in real time, not batch, to increase the transparency of the working capital
provided in the payment and working capital dashboard. Exceptions in the process can be
pushed to a mobile device to offer immediate action from everywhere.

Efficient Payables Management

Payables management focuses on evaluating, validating, posting, and managing payments,
and archiving of an invoice. Key elements of the accounts payable process include
integration, automation, standardization, and workflows. Close collaboration with the
treasury team optimizes DSO. In addition, e-invoicing becomes more prominent, but paper-

based invoices remain.

Support for this business scenario combines reports in payables and cash position to
help payables clerks make the right financial decisions. Real-time and accurate insight into
vendor-opened receipts leads to better scheduling of payment runs and provides flexible
and automated payments in real time through parallelization of different payment runs.

Central Treasury Exposure management

Treasury and financial risk management involves a variety of processes, from cash and
liquidity management to the management of financial transactions like money market,
foreign exchange, derivatives, debt instruments, securities, and commodity paper deals.
You need a holistic view of these processes to be able to respond to changes in a quick,
efficient, and compliant manner, taking into account data from past, present, and future
planning.
The treasury exposure hub powered by SAP HANA is part of support for the
comprehensive process of treasury and financial risk management. It enables global
financial risk management on the ERP software system at headquarters as the central
integration platform. The platform offers a lower total cost of ownership, central monitoring,
data consistency, and traceability of business events for financial and external auditing. The
treasury exposure hub is the starting point for analytical applications that provide key
performance indicators.

Access Control Role Analytics

As a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States and similar legislation in other
countries, nearly all publicly listed companies now have a dedicated compliance function.
Elimination of segregation of duties was initially a main reason to implement a solution to
identify access risks. But companies are now striving to evolve many risk and compliance
tools, from bottom-line savings and risk avoidance to top-line strategic advantage.
Using SAP HANA, role administrators can perform real-time analysis on the roles, their
usage, similarity with other roles, and options for reuse to advise business owners about the
most efficient usage to avoid creating new roles. Business executives can analyze roles to
uncover hidden downsides and reduce the uncertainty of many financial and operational
planning decisions, such as reorganization.

Automated CrossCross-System Process Control

You need process control to perform automated testing (focused on compliance) and
continuous control monitoring (focused on compliance and on process efficiency and
effectiveness). Because of increasing regulations and policies, you must deliver traceable
monitoring and remedial activities to demonstrate compliance. Using queries, reports,
events, and analytics, you keep business processes and systems under control.
Using SAP HANA, you can centralize all data from multiple systems into a single
repository with excellent performance and gain the ability to use complex business rules for
detailed analysis. SAP HANA increases the usability and power of automated testing and
monitoring.

Optimized Quote Management

Informed customers expect a superior sales experience, and internal stakeholders want to
use the almost unlimited amount of Big Data on sales. It is essential to embrace these
trends early in the order-to-cash business. Quote management thus gains importance as a

step in this business process. A huge amount of customer data from diverse categories
must be captured in one quote.
SAP HANA enables smart and context-based recommendations based on historical
customer and sales information. Individually tailored offers can be made to fulfill customer
needs in a fast and user-friendly way. The recommendations also embrace predictive
information, such as the conversion rate and time from quote to order and the likelihood of
paying on time based on sales volume. Recommendations can also take into consideration
orders and materials for sales representatives to offer the best quote in real time to
customers when serving them.

RealReal-Time Inventory management

Inventory management handles the recording and tracking of stocks of materials on a
quantity and value basis. It covers the planning, entry, and documentation of stock
movements like goods receipts and issues, internal physical stock transfers, and transfer
postings. These movements lead to a large volume of business documents. Inventory
management is also responsible for the performance of physical inventory control.
Real-time inventory management provides stock insight and monitoring with high
performance to support demand-driven procurement. It increases process efficiency in
adjacent procurement processes such as purchase order or invoice processing. An
analytical monitor for inventory management, including various dashboards and
performance improvements, is available to enhance the user experience and improve the
efficiency of the process.

Efficient Procurement
Because of intense competitive pressure, you often absorb increased costs for
commodities, goods, or services to avoid passing them on to your customers. You aim to
boost productivity and drive innovation to lower additional costs. To drive cost-effective,
competitive global supply chains, you leverage procurement software to relieve slow and
costly paper-based processes, disproportionately high transaction costs, frequent errors,
and maverick spending.
Because SAP HANA lets you analyze massive quantities of data in local memory, the
results of complex inquiries and transactions are available at your fingertips. You can
update plans, run simulations, and execute decisions based on real-time data.
Accelerate lengthy processing of purchasing documents that arises from a multitude of
line items and a long purchase order history. Provide top business intelligence reports in
procurement side by side to help ensure that you get real-time data with high performance
and a modern user interface. Support fast business decisions and user adoption with
flexible configuration options for procurement analysis, and provide complete visibility into
end-to-end procurement activities.

Strategic Purchase Optimization

Pressured to reduce supply costs while maintaining high-quality output, you seek greater
efficiencies and savings from your procurement operations. You know that highperformance organizations employ spend-analysis tools, sourcing and process automation,
and standardized procurement operations. A centralized model facilitates negotiations and
better supplier relationships.
Provide the purchaser with a comprehensive, complete, and real-time working
environment and view of business transactions and business data related to the strategic

suppliers. Offer company-wide search for purchasing business documents to influence

actual payment conditions and rebates. Influence contract negotiations proactively by
getting insight into sales planning and sales orders.

Maximized Asset utilization and Uptime

In asset-intensive industries, you need to handle multiple maintenance plans that must be
scheduled frequently. SAP software streamlines planning such activities with maintenance
work orders. In traditional systems, this transaction is triggered at regular intervals using a
batch program. To remain competitive, you look for new ways to get the most out of your
assets by ensuring that they stay up and running.
With scheduling transaction IP30H, based on SAP HANA, you can schedule all existing
maintenance plans within a specific time frame. The software now uses the power of SAP
HANA to automatically preselect maintenance plans that are due. The feature avoids the
need for any parameter restrictions. This approach helps ensure that the software
processes only maintenance plans that are due and that no call objects are missed. It
delivers the results much faster and in a user-friendly transaction.

Accelerated Organizational Changes Publishing

The performance of HR applications and related reporting, analytics, and planning depend
to a large extent on how quickly the software can work through hierarchies in any given
context. More important, the resulting wait times have a direct bearing on the overall user
experience and satisfaction.
Push HR structural evaluations and authorizations to SAP HANA to accelerate the
definition of structural authorizations (who gets access to what), organization and cost
center hierarchy, and reporting hierarchy. Determine which manager is responsible for the
organization hierarchy and define logical views in the learning catalog to provide reporting
and analysis without degrading performance.

InsightInsight-Driven Workforce Cost Management

Time and payroll processes create immense amounts of valuable operational data that can
bring positive and negative trends to light. The data can provide insight into the fully loaded
cost of employees and real-time costs associated with operations, projects, campaigns, and
so on. An inability to tap this information source quickly and easily counteracts your efforts
to drive HR efficiencies and introduce agile business processes.
Effective and efficient payroll exception handling is based on real-time data through
provision of rapid insight into payroll-related workforce costs and trends in core HR
functions. The functions include drill-down to employee and earning details for the fully
loaded cost of employees, remuneration and overtime based on master data, and time
management data stored in payroll results. Hierarchical structures are based on
organizational management or cost center in reporting and analysis.

RealReal-Time material Planning

Material requirements planning (MRP) determines material shortages by comparing sales
orders, forecast demand, and stock-transfer demand with inventory and expected material
receipts. It creates planned orders or purchase requisitions for the missing material. MRP is
typically performed in time-consuming batch mode, so that decisions can be based only on
the data derived from periodic runs; production and sales suffer as a result.
Faster re-planning allows more frequent MRP runs in shorter cycles by providing global,

cross-plant planning where demand information is propagated faster through the supply
chain. Faster reactions to demand changes reduce the risk of stock-outs and allow reduced
safety stocks. This lets users run what-if scenarios in real time to make decisions faster
regarding reallocation and outsourcing. This functionality instantly updates supply network
collaboration with the latest demand information to help suppliers react much faster.

Instant Material Flow Control

The results of MRP are stored in MRP lists. Material receipts and requirements for selected
materials can be checked in the stock and requirement list. Production planners can select
MRP lists with problems and stock and requirement lists with a short range of coverage
(when critical to performance). Production planning and purchasing departments often
make decisions based on outdated information from batch runs.
Early identification of critical materials (such as range of coverage below threshold,
unconsumed forecast, overconsumed forecast, inventory without demand, and so on) and a
feasibility check of production orders can be done on the fly. This functionality enables
better production-order sequences to help determine the fraction of demand needed for
sales orders, leading to lower work in progress, shorter lead times, and better due-date
performance when only the required quantity is produced.

Comprehensive EngineerEngineer-toto-Order Project Management

Project-driven procurement and progress monitoring are vital to executing complex projects
successfully. The huge volume of real-time data and time-consuming transactions for
maintaining or analyzing project data constrain project and program engineers in making
decisions when needed. Waiting for the relevant data to be provided slows engineers down
significantly.
Support for this business scenario combines the speed and acceleration of SAP HANA
and the integrated processes in the SAP ERP application for complex projects. Real-time
progress monitoring along the project lifecycle, including version comparison and combined
analysis of financials and logistics data, enables faster decision making so you can act and
react to real project execution work. New project line-item reporting with acceleration and
improved user experience is available to support in-depth analysis of complex projects.

Maximized Productivity and Profitability of Complex Projects

Monitoring of progress is a key to successful execution of complex projects. The main
challenge is the volume of data. Project analysis and progress monitoring are timeconsuming due to high volumes of data for complex, lengthy projects. Project or program
engineers cannot provide the information needed to decide on natural deviations (time,
quality, and costs) in project execution. Cross-project or program monitoring is even more
challenging.
Support for monitoring and analysis of large projects and programs in real time lets you
decide faster, mitigate risks, and deliver the best resource productivity and project
profitability. Progress monitoring along the project lifecycle can include version comparison,
and a combined analysis of financials and logistics data enables decisions to be made for
acting and reacting within a window of opportunity. Indirect improvements through SAP
HANA arise in production planning, materials management, controlling, and financials
because of tight integration.

Chapter 5

SAP Business Warehouse Powered by SAP

HANA
This chapter was contributed by Storm Archer III (@stormarcher3). Product Expert, SAP
Business Warehouse Product Management

Introduction
SAP Business Warehouse (BW) is the first SAP application to be HANA-fied to take
advantage of the power of SAP HANA. With more than 14,000 SAP BW implementations
globally, SAP BW has become a critical piece of the IT landscape, and it is particularly well
suited to benefit from the speed and simplicity that SAP HANA can provide to applications.
To discuss the benefits of SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA, a brief introduction to SAP
BW and some recent history of its evolution is in order. Given the scope of this book, well
have to assume that readers are already familiar with SAP BW concepts. Also, well refer to
many online resources for deeper technical details. With this background, well then
illustrate the additional power and functionality that SAP HANA adds to SAP BW.

SAP Business Warehouse (BW)

SAP BW is an application that SAP developed in the 1990s. It is essentially an enterprise
data warehouse (EDW) application that includes many built-in functions to create an end-toend EDW solution. In addition, SAP BW includes a substantial amount of content based on
best business practices. Many SAP customers work with SAP directly through influence
councils and the global SAP User groups to define new features and validate content
additions
Customers frequently inquire about the differences between SAP BW and their existing
EDW solution. To answer this question, we need to be familiar with the fundamental
features common to all EDWs. All EDW systems include a database and a data modeling
tool. Many companies that implement an EDW will choose an alternate modeling tool based
on features and functionality. In addition, there are a number of other tools that companies
need to add to complete their enterprise-ready data warehouse. Specifically, they will need
a content-management tool, a metadata-management tool, security software, a master

data manager, workflow capabilities, and many more. The challenge most companies face
is integrating all of these software tools into one seamless operation. As you might suspect,
this is often easier said than done.
SAP BW provides many of the functions needed to install an enterprise-ready EDW. The
major difference between SAP BW and these other EDWs is that the additional software
elements that are add-ons in a traditional EDW are included in SAP BW, and they work
together right out of the box. In addition, SAP BW offers solutions to customers who need to
expand the included functionality. An example is a scenario in which the included security is
adequate, but the customer needs to participate in a greater identity management solution
(e.g., SAP Identity Management Services.)

SAP BW and InIn-Memory Computing

One of the fundamental aspects of EDW systems is their ability to manage multidimensional
data (cubes) and to conduct analytical operations on those data. As previously mentioned,
one key element of an EDW is a database. A major limitation of most databases is that they
were designed and optimized to manipulate transactional data stored in a relational
database management system (RDBMS). More specifically, they were configured to
provide the best performance for row-based inserts imported from OLTP applications.
EDWs are a different breed of application entirely. As OLAP rather than OLTP applications,
their primary role is to read data from the database and display them in reports or analytical
views. EDWs almost never insert data into rows as an OLTP application does. Therefore,
many of the performance issues (and related technical solutions) in the EDW are a direct
result of this mismatch between the needs of the application for OLAP workloads and the
OLTP design of the underlying databases.
For an EDW to operate with the complex data needed for advanced analytics, the data
warehouse application has developed functionality that circumvents the basic limitation of
the database and provides better performance. This structure is referred to as the Layered
Scalable Architecture (LSA) model.
Although the LSA model provides a foundation for developing data models, the
additional layers of functionality that are designed to work around the limitations of relational
databases cause performance issues as the amount of data increases. Specifically, these
additional layers limit the flexibility of the system and place heavy workloads on the
hardware. To combat this problem, SAP introduced the SAP BW Accelerator (BWA) in
2005. BWA is an in-memory appliance that can be added to the SAP BW system landscape
to provide query acceleration and to offload some SAP BW functions to the appliance.
Basically, an index of a slice of data from the BW system, such as a cube, is copied to BWA
and stored in RAM. This function is very similar to the way that Google indexes websites.
Next, user queries are directed to the in-memory columnar index of the data, rather than to
the physical data arranged in rows on physical disks in the BW system. SAP designed this
shift to in-memory indexing for queries as a workaround to avoid the performance penalties
that must be paid when users attempt to read large datasets off a disk-based database.
SAP BWA provided an in-memory, columnar system that allowed queries to operate up to
100 times faster than a disk-based system. This development was an important leap for
many SAP BW customers who were experiencing difficulties due to the limiting nature of the
RDBMS. In many ways, the introduction of BWA was the first real proof point for SAP that
in-memory databases could provide the magic bullet to eliminate the horrible performance
issues inherent in disk-based databases while simultaneously reducing the costs and

complexity of the application that had to be built around these performance bottlenecks.

Evolving InIn-Memory Footprint in SAP NetWeaver BW

Figure 1: SAP BW and InIn-Memory Technology

This description of SAP BWA sounds very similar to SAP HANA. There is, however, one
fundamental difference between the two systems; namely, BWA is a caching engine rather
than a database. SAP HANA can now take the place of a traditional RDBMS and an SAP
BWA appliance. This chapter will examine the benefits of replacing an existing database
with or without SAP BWA with SAP HANA as the database.

SAP HANA Specific Enhancements for SAP BW

Companies typically implement SAP HANA to enhance their systems performance and to
process voluminous amounts of data. When companies evaluate their performance, they
generally identify specific areas that need improvement; most commonly, query
performance, data loading, and software add-on/application performance. Below we
provide examples of how in-memory computing both enhances performance and
accelerates applications.
SAP BW 7.3x offers a substantial number of improvements over traditional RDBMS
configurations. Some of these improvements also reduce both administration costs and
total cost of ownership (TCO). With each release, SAP BW introduces new innovations to
better support customers business operations.

Query Performance
Over the past decade, the amount of data that businesses need to query and analyze has
grown exponentially. Unfortunately, as weve already discussed, relational databases were
not designed around multidimensional data models in the EDW. To overcome the
limitations of the transactional-based databases, EDW systems incorporated functionality
aggregates, fact tables, and other features into the LSA model. Today, however, the
availability of columnar databases and in-memory technologies has made these additional
elements obsolete. In 2005, SAP introduced the SAP BW Accelerator as a query
accelerator. As SAP BWA matured, SAP provided additional engines and features.

Specifically, SAP BW on SAP HANA has incorporated the query acceleration and engines
from BWA, along with other valuable columnar database features.
As with the SAP BW Accelerator, performance is one of the key drivers for in-memory
computing. In-memory computing improves performance in a number of areas. From the
end user perspective, query response time is often one of the primary elements in system
performance. SAP BW Accelerator delivered approximately 100 times the query
performance compared to a relational database alone. SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA
provides similar results for end user query response times. Of course, customer results
have varied and will vary based on configuration and content. Some customers have
reported query performance greater than SAP BWA. The general rule, however, is to
expect similar query performance.
In an SAP BW with SAP BWA implementation, customers have to maintain two systems.
This is one area where this architecture can reduce both TCO and administration costs.
Further, when companies utilize an SAP BWA appliance, they must obtain separate
licenses for the relational database and for SAP BWA. They also need to maintain two sets
of hardware and data. In contrast, implementing SAP HANA as the database for SAP BW
involves only a single hardware appliance and license model. From an administration point
of view, then, the customer no longer needs to manage multiple data sets. By reducing
redundancy, improving data lifecycle management, and eliminating hardware and license
duplication, SAP HANA dramatically reduces a companys TCO.

Figure 2: Migration from SAP BW & BWA to SAP BW on SAP HANA

Figure 3: SAP BW on SAP HANA Architecture

DataData-Loading Performance
In contrast to SAP BWA, SAP HANA provides much more functionality to the SAP BW than
simply query acceleration. In the business environment for many SAP customers, the need
for real-time or near real-time data reporting has dramatically increased. With their existing
systems, the time required to extract data from a source system is fairly static and
predictable; it generally comprises about 20% of the data load process. The remaining 80%
is spent on data activation and updates. This is where the intelligence and deep integration
of the SAP HANA appliance and the hardware are able to reduce this time considerably.

Figure 4: InIn-Memory Execution in SAP BW

The process of data activation requires business logic from the application to perform
activation actions on the data updates. When this business logic exists entirely in the
application, potentially millions or billions of round trips occur between the database server
and the application server. With SAP HANA, the business logic for the activation is passed
to the SAP HANA appliance along with the data. This arrangement reduces the number of
round trips between SAP BW and the SAP HANA appliance to only a few. When SAP was
tested, the data-loading improvement was 10 times that of an RDBMS alone. Customers
have reported improvement rates ranging from 6 times to more than 20 times. Of course,
the actual customer performance is dependent on a number of factors. Overall, then, we
can safely use an average of 6 to 10 times as a guideline.

Data Loading

Figure 5: SAP BW on SAP HANA DSO Acceleration

By utilizing the enhanced data-loading and analytic capabilities of SAP HANA,

customers have been able to provide their businesses with more rapid results to data and
analytics use cases. In addition, the reduced load times enable them to run updates and
analysis operations more often without severely affecting SAP BW operations. Many IT
departments currently have severely limited windows for regular updates due to the global
nature of business operations. By reducing data-loading times, SAP BW and SAP HANA
enable IT operations to provide greater support to the business.

Data Model Efficiency

As mentioned earlier, EDW systems added specific functionality to enable the RDBMS to
process analytic operations on vast amounts of data. SAP HANA makes it possible for
users to eliminate many of these artifacts, thereby making the data model more efficient.
This process is known as flattening the LSA model. SAP BW 7.3x delivered programs to
convert existing data store objects (DSOs) and info cubes into SAP HANA-optimized DSOs
and info cubes. While the old structures continue to operate with SAP HANA as the
database, the performance is improved by converting to the SAP HANA-optimized
structures.

Figure 6: Conversion of SAP BW Data Structures

In this new structure, the most common question is whether info cubes are still needed.
The answer is that SAP HANA still utilizes info cubes, but their role and use are more
defined. Customers have been able to reduce the need for info cubes dramatically and
report directly against a DSO. In general, info cubes are utilized only in certain specific
scenarios: (1) when multiple DSOs are consolidated, (2) when additional transformations
are needed, or (3) when an add-in application requires an info cube for specific operations.
The lighter LSA model structure that allows for more flexibility makes data modeling easier
and more efficient. This efficiency generally leads to a further reduction in TCO, although
quantifying these savings is problematic.

Application Improvement
There are a number of add-in applications for SAP BW, including Strategic Enterprise
Management (SEM), Integrated Planning (BI-IP), and Corporate Performance Management
(CPM). As with data-activation processes, these applications utilize complete business logic
as an integral part of the solution. When the application server has to host the business
logic, the number of round trips to the database server can be extremely large. These addin applications are now being HANA-fied to fully utilize SAP HANA to process the business
logic inside the database rather than up in the application layer. The result is much
improved performance from multiple areas within the application.

SAP InIn-Memory Planning

Figure 7: Planning in SAP BW on SAP HANA

SAP BW Operational Efficiency and SAP HANA Model

Interoperability
SAP BW 7.30 SP8 and SAP HANA SP5 have delivered new efficiency and flexibility
capabilities. As database sizes in SAP BW landscapes have increased, SAP has been reevaluating which data need to be in memory that is, active data and which data can be
loaded as needed that is, non-active data. Significantly, SAP has configured SAP BW
7.30 SP8 and SAP HANA SP5 to flag all PSA tables and write-optimized DSOs as nonactive. Consequently, the non-active data will remain on disk persistence until they are
needed. In addition, they will be the first data to be flushed from memory when they are no
longer needed. Customers who have implemented these new systems have reported that
SAP HANA memory utilization has been reduced by roughly 20%.
In addition to the features discussed above, SAP has incorporated greater flexibility in
utilizing SAP HANA data models with native SAP BW models. Some of these innovations
provide a database connect (DB connection), virtual provider, transient provider, and open
hub services to consume SAP BW and SAP HANA data. This flexibility allows for maximum
options in data consolidation and reporting.

Figure 8: Open Hub Services

SAP BW on SAP HANA Performance & TCO Benchmarks

SAP HANA Performance Benchmarks:
Customers frequently ask SAP about benchmarks to verify performance claims for both
SAP BW on SAP HANA and SAP HANA standalone. Below you will find several links to the
various performance benchmarks relevant to SAP BW and SAP HANA.
Recently, SAP has released a formal benchmark test called BW EML (Enhanced Mix
Load) benchmark, which considers:
Near real-time reporting
Ad-hoc reporting capabilities
Reduction of TCO.
Please see these links for more details and results:
http://www.sap.com/campaigns/benchmark/appbm_bweml.epx
http://www.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/bweml-results.htm
In addition you can access the SAP HANA One Petabyte Test with a similar data model to
what many SAP BW customers are using:
http://www.saphana.com/community/blogs/blog/2012/11/12/the-sap-hana-one-petabytetest
Whitepaper SAP HANA Performance
https://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-1647
Whitepaper SAP and HP Breaking Analytic Performance Barriers with SAP HANA and HP
AppSystems

https://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-1769
Performance Test Report SAP HANA
https://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-1755
SAP HANA Performance: 100TB Performance Test Results
http://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-2381
TCO for SAP BW on SAP HANA
https://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-1769
https://www.experiencesaphana.com/docs/DOC-1755
SAP has also conducted individual benchmarks with SAP customers who migrated their
BW systems on RDBMS to BW on SAP HANA. Please contact your account team for results
from SAP reference customers.

Implementation and Migration

SAP customers who are looking to implement SAP HANA in the SAP BW environment have
several choices to make as to the most effective way to carry out that deployment.
Customers with a mature SAP BW environment typically consider an OS/DB Migration.
Other customers perceive an SAP HANA deployment as an opportunity to cleanse an
existing environment by setting up a new landscape and manually transferring the
configurations from an existing implementation to a new installation. Both options have their
benefits and their challenges.
MUST READ: Upgrade/Migration/Implementation SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
7.3 and higher
The purely technical aspect of the implementation or migration is generally only a
portion of the overall project plan. Customers who choose to manually move configurations
from an existing installation to a new implementation will need to address a number of
challenges. These customers often have to reach the minimum requirements (listed below),
object optimization, and implementation of new features. In contrast, customers who
implement new installations will not experience many problems in these areas. As a general
rule, before selecting a project course of action, all customers should perform an in-depth
project scoping and system analysis to determine whether migration or re-implementation is
the better option.
Once the project direction has been fixed, the next step is to determine what additional
functional changes can be implemented as part of the initial project scope. Customers often
choose to break up the technical and functional phases of the implementation into different
projects. Project scoping generally defines the initial technical phases where customers can
determine what functional elements need to be included in the migration. Often, the various
business units will request and require specific functionality as part of funding the overall
project. In general, the greater the functional scope, the greater the required project
resources, time, and costs. Customers who have migrated have determined that
functionality can be implemented in a number of areas without significantly impacting their
existing system.

Figure 9: SAP BW Migration Process

For customers who decide to perform an OS/DB migration, SAP has provided some
additional tools they can utilize to expedite some of the technical steps. When a customer
performs a migration, SAP requires that a Certified Migration Consultant execute the
production system activities. This person does not have to be an external, SAP, or
consultant. Companies often employ staff who are certified in migrations. Even in these
cases, however, it is often still advisable to work with a specialist who has been specially
trained and is proficient with the following SAP BW-specific tools:

Dual-Stack Split Tool

Combined Unicode conversion and Database Migration

Post-Copy Automation (PCA) tool

Software Update Manager http://service.sap.com/sltoolset

In addition, all migrations should include an Archiving/Near Line Storage review, sizing,
and post-migration review. The PCA tool provides a wizard-style interface that details the
post-copy and post-migration steps to deliver an optimized system. Every installation is
unique and has specific areas that require attention. When these items are documented
and addressed, the overall project will run more smoothly and with a greater certainty of
achieving the expected results.
Customers who are looking for a predefined service offering either delivered by SAP
Consulting or their preferred implementation partner can leverage SAP Rapid Deployment
solutions for a smooth migration based on best practices. The database migration of SAP
BW to HANA is subject of the rapid database migration of SAP BW to SAP HANA.
SAP BW Near-Line Storage rapid-deployment solution helps to reduce your amount of
data stored in underlying database of BW by archiving them into SAP Sybase IQ as nearline storage solution.

Software Prerequisites for SAP BW on SAP HANA

Now that we have defined the basics of SAP BW and the associated architecture, it is time
to consider what it takes to run SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA. Below we list the minimum
software requirements:

SAP BW 7.30 Service Pack 5 (Ramp-Up Release)

SAP HANA 1.0 Service Pack 3 (Ramp-Up Release)

SAP BW 7.3x Central Instance installed on separate hardware.

No sharing with SAP HANA Appliance.

Additional System Requirements:

SAP BW => 7.3x Unicode Only

SAP BW =>7.3x Analytic Authorizations (Upgrade Requirement)

SAP
BW
Add-on
software
packages
support
confirmed.
Not all add-on software had initial support for SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA.
At the time of this writing, most add-ons are supported with release-level
requirements. Always check the SAP notes.

SAP BW and BW JAVA must be a split-stack implementation.

SAP HANA does not currently support SAP JAVA Usage Type.

Check SAP Business Objects 4.0 support.

SAP BW provides installation options for both clean installations and upgrades.
Upgrades can require additional steps. Going further, these steps frequently involve
additional time, planning, and system downtime.

Check your SAP BW system for SAP HANA Readiness free Checklist
tool!
Use the Checklist Tool developed by SAP Customer Solution Adoption (CSA) and SAP
Development to automate the check of best practice guidelines for operations and
prerequisites for migrating an existing SAP BW deployment to the SAP HANA platform.
Please see SAP Note 1729988 for detailed how-to documentation, and review the
corresponding ABAP code to run the check on your own system.

Scoping/Sizing Topics for SAP BW on SAP HANA

In any implementation, there are several inputs that affect the project timeline and budget
cycle. Project planning should lay out the scope, resources, and TCO benefits. Although
some of these TCO improvements will be soft in terms of business efficiency, they can be
categorized as elements of the overall expected results. These areas will be identified
throughout the rest of this chapter.
Sizing Any project, whether a new installation or an upgrade, should include a sizing
exercise to determine what resources will be required for a successful productive go-live.
These resources are CPU, memory (SAP BW and SAP HANA), and disk storage.
Customers who are performing new installations need to determine how much volume and
what scenarios they will implement. Their SAP account executive can assist them in
determining what initial sizing is required. The SAP Service Market Place also has a
quicksizer available that will help customers approximate their system requirements. That
link is http://service.sap.com/quicksizer. In addition, SAP has provided an ABAP-based
sizing tool. Please see SAP Note 1736976 for the program and more details.

Figure 10: SAP BW on SAP HANA Landscape Options

Upgrade project sizing can be a bit more challenging. Customers need to take into
consideration the scope of the upgrade to determine the resource requirements. One
example is whether the upgrade scope includes a phase to perform a Unicode conversion.
Typically, the SAP BW system will require more CPU and memory when running Unicode.
Disk storage requirements for Unicode conversions can vary. When a Unicode conversion
is performed, the database is re-organized, and all empty space between data blocks is
eliminated. In some cases, this process reduces the database size.
When a company upgrades to SAP HANA, the size of the data on their existing system
is a direct input as to what sizing they require for the appliance and the disk storage. SAP
HANA uses sophisticated compression algorithms to compress the data. This compression
affects how much RAM is required for the data. Because SAP HANA is an in-memory
database, additional RAM is required for work processing space. The current rule for
working space is twice the amount of data RAM.
The amount of RAM required for a system depends on the amount of source data and
the brand of database in the current system. Some RDBMS already have some amount of
compression. This will reduce the effective overall compression that SAP HANA will achieve
after migration. Through the course of many implementations, SAP has observed varying
levels of compression. In general, the basic rule is to expect a 6:1 compression rate. When
applying the working RAM space required, the expected compression is 3:1. Some
customers have reported much higher compression rates, but the makeup of the data and
the source RDBMS plays a significant role in determining the effective compression rate.
One additional consideration for SAP HANA appliance size is based on two additional
factors:
1.
Data-archiving strategy (Archive and Near Line Storage)
2.
SAP BW and SAP HANA releases.
SAP recommends that customers create a data-archiving strategy. Archiving and near
line storage (NLS) follow a fairly similar process. Archiving is the process of exporting older

data into offline storage. Near line storage solutions also export older data, but to a
compressed online storage facility. NLS solutions have the benefit of reducing the size of
the online database while still allowing queries to access the archived data if needed. The
archive solution requires that the data are restored to the system before queries will show
the archive data. The sooner a company develops an archiving strategy, the more
manageable their system will become.
With SAP BW 7.30 Service Pack 8 and SAP HANA 1.0 Service Pack 5, SAP introduced
new functionality. This functionality is referred to as Active/Not-Active data. With the release
of the updated SAP BW and SAP HANA, certain data are not loaded into memory by
default. In addition, customers can elect to flag certain content as not-active. The not-active
data are loaded into memory only when they are needed. They are also the first to be
flushed when they are no longer being used. By default, BW now automatically marks all
PSA tables and all write-optimized DSOs as not-active. According to initial customer
reviews, the not-active data concept reduced the SAP HANA system size by approximately
20%.
The size of some SAP BW systems will require a scale-out implementation of the SAP
HANA appliance. As with all SAP HANA implementations, the configuration has to be
certified by the hardware partner. In addition, SAP provides extended monitoring for all
scale-out projects. Some elements of the system require specific tuning and configurations
to provide optimal functionality. SAP recommends that all customers implementing SAP BW
Powered by SAP HANA in a scale-out scenario register for extended monitoring with SAP
Active Global Support.
For more technical details on scale-out for BW/HANA:

SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA ScaleScale-out Best Practices

Customers who create an effective archiving strategy and implement the latest SAP BW
release will be better able to estimate the required initial system size. Note that SAP HANA
Appliances must be certified by both SAP and the hardware vendor prior to implementation.

Landscape Options
When implementing SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA, customers need to consider some
specific configurations. For example, they need to understand what software elements need
to be run on dedicated hardware and when they can combine scenarios. SAP recommends
that each system utilize dedicated hardware. This is specifically important in Productive
environments.
In an SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA landscape, the applications servers and central
instance systems are separate from the SAP HANA Appliance system. Below we discuss a
number of configurations that SAP often observes at customer sites. From the SAP HANA
appliance view, there are a number of possible configurations. SAP has defined some
limitations on these configurations, as we explain below.

DEV/SANDBOX/TRAIN
Systems that fall into the DEV/SANDBOX/TRAIN groups are those that tend to have lighter
workloads. The most common question that SAP receives is whether multiple existing
systems can be consolidated into a single physical system to minimize hardware/system
costs. As stated above, SAP still recommends that customers utilize separate hardware for
each system. Nevertheless, customers frequently combine SAP SIDs on one server.

Customers are technically able to put multiple SIDs on a single SAP HANA appliance. The
challenge in this scenario revolves around the software lifecycle and system management.
If the SAP HANA system has to be restarted, then all systems that utilize that appliance will
be affected. Further, if a process runs away for one SID, then the other connected systems
will slow down dramatically or even stop. To avoid this problem, SAP support generally
recommends separating the systems.

QA/TEST
The Quality Assurance and test systems usually perform multiple functions in a project.
Besides the QA/consolidation functions that are the purpose of the system, customers often
will utilize this hardware as a load-testing environment. The configuration will be similar to a
production system so that load testing will produce representative results for the live
production hardware. In some cases, this hardware is specified as fail-over equipment for
production. In this configuration, both the SAP BW system and the SAP HANA system have
to be considered. SAP recommends that ONLY ONE system be running actively on both the
SAP Application and the SAP HANA system.

PRODUCTION
Customers often will configure servers in non-productive systems to make maximum use of
the hardware. In production, the focus should not be on maximum use of resources, but,
rather, on system performance for the business. Based on this foundation, production
application servers should be dedicated, and they should have more-than-sufficient
resources to support business operations. Customers utilize their hardware vendors SAP
competency center to determine the appropriate configuration. The SAP HANA appliance
can be more complex.
SAP HANA was originally released as a data mart platform. When SAP made SAP
HANA support available for SAP BW, it released an SAP HANA Database Only Edition
specifically for the BW system. From a licensing perspective, this system supports SAP BW
only as a use type. From a technical perspective, it is possible to run other scenarios on the
same SAP HANA appliance that is the database instance for SAP BW. However, SAP has
limited this combination use (license permitting) to a single application and a single data
mart. The application can be SAP BW, SAP ERP, or SAP Business Suite applications.
Production is limited in two specific areas: performance and lifecycle management.

Performance When customers utilize SAP HANA, they select the amounts
of CPU and memory that provide the maximum system performance for their
business. When operations are run against the SAP HANA appliance, the system
uses as many resources as possible to return the best performance. This scenario
could cause other processes to become very slow or to stop completely and wait
for resources to become available before they continue. This delay could cause
unpredictable performance behavior within the system.

Lifecycle Management The other major production issue is software

lifecycle management. Applications as well as the SAP HANA system have to be
updated, patched, or restarted at various points in the process. If one application
needs to be patched that requires a SAP HANA system restart, then all of the
connected systems will be affected, even those that are operating effectively. At
the time of this writing, backup and restore of an SAP HANA system were

restricted to ALL schemas. If a system restore was required, then all schemas in
the databases would be restored, even if only one schema restore was necessary.
This limitation could result in unplanned data loss.

Figure 11: SAP BW on SAP HANA Landscape Options

Implementation teams from SAP and partners will help design and guide the optimal
landscape design based on customer input. Their recommendations will provide a system
layout that will generate the performance the business requires.

SAP BW on SAP HANA Administration

As with all software systems, SAP HANA implementations require administration. Every
software system has tools and functionality for operating, maintaining, and protecting those
systems. SAP has made available a number of tools to make administering the system
easier and more consistent, regardless of the database platform. The following list identifies
the primary focus areas of most IT organizations:

Database Administration

High Availability

Disaster Recovery

Backup/Restore

Security
To assist organizations in readying the operations for SAP HANA, SAP has provided a
Technical Operations Manual (TOM) that contains a variety of topics for managing SAP
HANA as an appliance (http://help.sap.com/hana_appliance). As a general rule, SAP HANA
needs less administration than other databases. Regular administration duties include:

Regular backups (Database, Bare-Metal software, and configuration backup)

Patches; usually on demand in case of problems or known issues (DB, OS)


Monitoring (automated or manual)
The appliance model breaks up the traditional roles that are housed primarily as part of
the internal IT Operations. Many of the hardware tasks are provided, managed, and
maintained by the hardware provider. Other areas are the customers responsibility. On the
whole, SAP will assist customers in monitoring all areas to best support the solutions. The
table below should provide an overview of where the various administration duties are
defined.

SAP has updated and enhanced its database management tools to provide a consistent
and proactive interface for managing SAP HANA systems. For example, SAP has updated
its SAP DBA Cockpit and SAP Solution Manager to support SAP HANA and provide alerting
and monitoring (Solution Manager 7.1 SP4). Solution Manager SP8 will further extend SAP
HANA Support with End-to-End Workload Analysis. Additional administration for SAP HANA
is performed via the SAP HANA Administration/Modeling Studio. Database administrators
have a selection of tools to choose from to manage the SAP HANA system. Within SAP BW,
all support tools continue to operate normally independent of the underlying database.
High availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) scenarios are generally considered to
be critical to production implementation. The SAP system includes functionality that
provides these services. The implementation and details of these services are the
responsibility of the hardware partner. When sizing the system for implementation, the
vendor should be taking advantage of the most up-to-date SAP-delivered enhancements
(e.g., New with SAP HANA SPS5: SAP HANA synchronous system replication formerly
known as warm standby solution). Below is an overview of the current HA/DR solution.

Figure 12: SAP BW on SAP HANA Data Center Architecture

SP7 offers new features supporting high availability/disaster recovery (HA/DR)

deployment, such as replaying logs on snapshots as well as cascading system replication
for up to three locations.
Backup and recovery is an area that customers will routinely test to ensure that all
systems are protected. As with HA and DR, SAP provides the necessary system features
and functionality within the software delivery. Partners work with SAP to develop and deliver
solutions that integrate with the SAP HANA system. Today, partners deliver agents and
tools that provide for backup, recovery, monitoring, scheduling, antivirus, and more.
Meanwhile, SAP are developing and delivering additional solutions as an ongoing initiative
to meet the needs of the SAP customer base.
Security is also a critical element in any system implementation. Many customers have
to comply with both reporting and regulatory requirements. SAP has delivered additional
security functionality in SAP HANA SP5. This latest support release contains the following
additions:

Dynamic Analytical Privileges

Reuse of Analytic Privileges for several users with customizable restrictions
Support for Complex Logic and Situational Security

Roles as Design Time objects

New Support Role
Used to secure and enhance compliance processes
Audit logging enhancements
New Audit Events
Data Access
Audit Configuration via SAP HANA Studio

Summary
SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA offers a number of advantages over traditional Relational
Database Management Systems. SAP HANA provides a similar query performance as the
SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator, and it extends that performance to data-loading and
software add-on performance. It also reduces TCO by combining the RDBMS and the SAP
BWA Appliance into a single platform. This architecture reduces redundancy and
complexity in the system landscape.
As SAP BW is enhanced and extended to utilize the power and functionality of SAP
HANA, SAP will continue to provide regular updates to its customers at regular intervals.
The most common channels for obtaining enhancement updates are through ASUG
Webinars, SAP TechEd, SapphireNOW and ASUG Annual conference, saphana.com, and
the SAP Developer Network (SDN). The content delivered through each of these channels
is updated regularly to be as current as possible.

FAQ area for SAP BW Powered by HANA

Figure 13: SAP BW on SAP HANA Roadmap

Chapter 6

Introduction to SAP Big Data Technologies

Hiding within those mounds of data is knowledge that could change the life of a patient, or
change the world.
Atul Butte, Stanford

his chapter was written with the expert assistance of John Schitka and David Jonker,

SAP Big Data Marketing.

What is big data?

Big data is more than just data volume or size. It is about generating valuable real-time
insights from raw data, no matter the size, the type, or the rate at which it is generated.
Leveraging big data, organizations are successfully uncovering new insights from all of
their data, creating opportunities to transform businesses, industries, and even the quality
of our lives.
Big data is not an intrinsic good in and of itself. It is useful as a stepping-stone to
business value. Many organizations see the opportunities for big data and understand
some of the use cases. The problem is that there are challenges in getting to that business
value. In attempting to integrate big data with their existing data sources, organizations face
questions and concerns such as:

Lack of skillsWhere can I find the resources to make this project a reality?

Slow deploymentHow do I speed up the implementation time, reducing the

effort to implement a solution or application?

Complex IT environmentsHow do I rationalize new big data technologies in

an already complex IT environment?

Integrating many data sourcesWhat is the relationship between all of my

data sources and how do I normalize that relationship?
To work with big data you need to be able to acquire it, analyze it, and act on insights
derived from it.

The SAP HANA platform provides these capabilities. It delivers in-memory processing of
data with tiered, petabyte scale storage and integration with SAP IQ and Hadoop, both of
which will be touched on in this chapter.
This chapter explains what big data is and how you can leverage it as part of your
system landscape. It describes how three groups can benefit from the big data capabilities
inherent in SAP HANA:

BI analysts. These analysts have been used to working with traditional data
sources such as data warehouses and systems of record and helping
organizations support a single version of the truth using SAP BusinessObjects and
other BI tools.

Analysts and data scientists using advanced analytics. Analysts and data
scientists are trained to work with the variety, volume, and velocity of big data.

Everyone through operationalized insights. Everyone in an organization

benefits when insights are automatically delivered in context. Through embedded
analytics, insights from big data and traditional data sources are integrated into the
context of business processes and applications. In this way, the entire organization
becomes more data-driven as a matter of course, capable of repeatable victories
based on the latest information.
This chapter provides an introduction to SAPs big data technologies, with, as you would
expect in this book, a focus on SAP HANA. Links to further resources will be provided for
those interested in learning more.

Big Data Characteristics

The journey to big data has taken us into a world where data sets are growing in size and
complexity and where there are ever-increasing demands for query execution speed.
These three driving factors of volume, variety, and velocity were first enumerated by
Gartners Doug Laney in 2001, and the ensuing decade has only brought them into sharper
focus.
The volume of data generated by modern computing systems, sensor networks, and
social media streams is ever growing. What was once considered digital exhaust, only to be
collected for audit or regulatory reasons, has now become a treasure trove of information.
Data storage costs have been reduced to the point where it is more cost effective to save
anything that youd ever expect to need and sort through it later rather than spend scarce
resources up front assessing its ultimate worth.
Data is being collected in a wide variety of formats, ranging from simple relationships
collected by tiny machines up to complex multimedia. The modern data center houses an
ever-growing range of data formats as more and more systems come online, producing
transactional and analytical data in a plethora of data structures including bulky and
complex voice and video formats.
The most important aspect of big data has been the need for velocity in all aspects of
data management. It has long been possible to store immense volumes of data in relational
systems, but query times were so slow as to be unusable for real time operations. Thus, in
practice many relational databases never stored more than several terabytes of data
because response times would degrade too much. Inserting even more varieties of data
into that database would further degrade response times, causing IT staff to keep the

database clean of all but the most important transactional information. In other words, big
data is a velocity problem that is exacerbated by greater volumes and varieties of
information. Immense data stores with widely varying data need to have fast performance
so that complex analytical tools can turn around insights and help inform decisions quickly.
http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/big-data/big-data-is-not-about-big-data-028590

The Ultimate Goal: Faster, DataData-Driven Decisionmaking

Big data is important because ultimately it can improve decisionmaking. However, time is of
the essence. Figure 1 shows how decision making works and the delays inherent in it. It
comes from a 2003 paper by Dr. Richard Hackathorn called Minimizing Action Distance.

Figure 1. Minimizing Action Distance

Hackathorn shows that there are three types of latency in the decision making process:

Immediately after the triggered event, there is data latency, where data is
integrated and made ready for analysis. Sometimes this also involves several
steps of preprocessing.

After the data is prepared for analysis, there is analysis latency,

latency the time
involved in initiating the analysis, packaging its results, and delivering it to the
appropriate person.

After the information is delivered, theres a certain amount of time that

organizations and people take to actually take action and execute a decision. That
introduces decision latency.
latency
These latencies mean that we are losing time, getting farther and farther away from the
point at which the event occurred. The farther away an action is from the point of the
triggered event, the more the value of that action diminishes. We must respond and
respond fast to the events happening around us.
In todays high speed, highly connected world, the window of opportunity to respond to

events is shrinking, so we need to make sure that we are able to react quickly and reduce
the amount of value erosion.
We can reduce action time by reducing each phase of latency, by making the data
available and ready for analysis as close to the event as possible, by making sure that
information is delivered fast, and therefore, enabling a faster decision through human
collaborative systems.

Meeting the Challenges of Big Data

The enterprise data warehouse is dead! That was the title of a 2011 article that ran in
Business Computing World in the UK. But that vision is short-sighted. Successful
companies will wed old and new together, creating a synergistic, greater whole.
The enterprise data warehouse is not dead, but traditional approaches to managing data
are dead. We live in a different world from the one that existed when the traditional
relational database was first architected. Back then the database dealt with recording and
storing transactional data only and reporting happened for decision support. It was high
value, highly structured datanot the mounds of data that may or may not have value that
we face today. It was an era when time was measured by the calendar, not the stopwatch.
Today we face a completely different world. We generate vast amounts of nontransactional datawhether documents, Facebook posts, tweets, or log information coming
off of our phones, web servers, and other connected devices.
We no longer want to report just against operational activities, but we also want to
analyze, explore, predict, visualize and inspect in ways never imagined by those early
database engineers.
Back when databases were designed, memory was extremely expensive. Just one
terabyte of RAM cost over $100 million dollars. Today, we can get it for less than $5,000.
Because memory was expensive, database engineers built a database architecture
centered on disk.
The problem is, disk is just too slow. Reading 1 petabyte of data off a disk sequentially
would take 58 days using the fastest hard disk available today (according to Toms
Hardware website http://www.tomshardware.com/). SSD speeds that up to 2 days using the
fastest SSD RAID, but the price is hefty: 1 petabyte of SSD RAID disk costs $12.5 million
dollars.
Thats why innovators have been finding new ways to store and process data, all in an
effort to get around the disk bottleneck and improve response time.

Distributed Databases
Distributed computing moved around the disk bottleneck by spreading the data across
many disks that can be read simultaneously. In a perfectly balanced environment, a
distributed database would have an equal amount of data across each machine. As a result,
the maximum time to read the data would be a fraction of the time of a database stored on a
single disk. For instance, if we split 1 Petabyte of data evenly across 10 disks that are read
simultaneously, then the response time would be theoretically one tenth of the time of a
single disk. Of course, in practice there is a cost to moving the data between the machines
and coordinating a single result back to the user, but overall a database distributed across
multiple disks can reduce response time.

Enter Hadoop

Hadoop builds on the concept of distributed computing but opens up the platform to handle
arbitrary data sets that do not necessarily follow a predefined schema and to analyze that
data with any arbitrarily designed algorithm. This flexibility comes at a cost of course, such
as the need for specialized programming skills. However, the Hadoop project has been
evolving over the years to include subprojects that move beyond Hadoop Distributed File
System (HDFS) and MapReduce.
Hadoop was originally developed at big Internet companies as a flexible tool to process
Web logs. Based on its heritage, the original Hadoop HDFS and MapReduce projects made
different assumptions than relational databases about how data is processed. In particular,
the early Hadoop projects assume you want to read all (or at least most of) the data stored
on your disks, which is why the MapReduce framework is designed to look for a predefined
pattern within all of the data stored in HDFS. Furthermore, MapReduce algorithms are
coded in Java or C/C++ in order to give the programmer the flexibility to define the search
pattern as well as the schema of the result set. This combined capability ensured that the
original Web companies could store any or all of the Web logs without having to do a lot of
costly preprocessing of the data typically done with enterprise data. Furthermore, as
business analysts at the firms had a new idea for the fast evolving business, they could
easily run a program to search for a new pattern. This flexibility meant that MapReduce
queries usually took time to execute, forcing many companies to run them as a batch
process.

Columnar Databases
Moving database architectures from row-oriented storage models to columnar storage
models helped to reduce the amount of data accessed on a single disk. This is
fundamentally different than the original Hadoop project, which assumed the user wanted to
read all of the data on a disk. The columnar database architecture assumes that any given
query will need to read only a subset of the data on a disk.
The columnar database architecture assumes that the user typically will only want to
access a small number of the attributes or columns within a database table. Imagine you
have a table storing historical sales transactions with 8 columns: Year, Quarter, Country,
State, Sales Representative, Customer, Product, Revenue. At the end of the year each
department may ask different questions. For example:

Finance: What was total revenue by year and quarter for last 3 years?

Marketing: What was total revenue by product and by country?

Sales: What was total revenue by sales representative?

In each case, the user is only accessing a subset of the columns. While this is a
simplistic example, in practice many of the questions that people ask use only a small
subset of the sometimes hundreds of columns in a table.
A columnar database stores all of the data associated with a particular attribute or
column in the same physical space on the disk. In this way, when only 3 of the 8 columns of
data are needed to answer a question, the database only needs to read 3 segments of the
database from the disk instead of the entire thing.
Furthermore, by storing all of the data for a given column together, columnar databases
can exploit the repeating patterns within a columns data in order to highly compress it,
further reducing the number of bits read off disk. Consider the Country column from our
example above. Storing the name United States as text would take at least 1326 bytes of

data depending on the encoding used. There are less than 256 countries in the world, which
means that each country can be uniquely identified by using only 1 byte (8 bits) of
information. So United States could be replaced with, say, the number 1 compressing the
column entry from 1326 Bytes into 1 Byte. This form of compression is called tokenization.
It is very common for the rows to have a lot of repeated information. Building on our
example, imagine that the country column contains United States for first 15 rows of the
table, which has been replaced with the number 1 stored in a single byte in each row. This
essentially means we have 15 entries in a row, each containing the number 1. On disk then
it looks like this 111111111111111. This duplication can be replaced with the value, 1,
and a count of the number of duplicate entries something conceptually like this: 1D15,
which says number 1 duplicated 15 times. This form of compression is called run-length
encoding.
In summary, then, our first 15 rows of the country column gets compressed from 195
390 bytes down to potentially 3 or 4 Bytes. Compression is important because it reduces the
amount of data that gets read from disk. In our example above, reading 4 bytes from disk
represents 200 bytes stored in other databases, which dramatically accelerates response
time.
In summary, the data storage architecture organized around columns, which reduces
the amount of data that needs to be scanned and also makes it easy to compress the data,
makes columnar databases ideally suited for BI and analytic workloads.

InIn-Memory Databases
In-memory databases take response times to a whole new level. They remove the disk from
the equation for data access altogether, and only use it for logging and backup. In-memory
databases leverage the power of todays processors to read and analyze data 1,000 times
faster than reading data off disk.
Combine columnar data stores with in memory to highly compress the data, and soon
you can see performance gains of 1,000, 10,000 and in some cases customers have
experienced results 100,000 times faster.
In-memory is the future of data management, and so the real-time SAP HANA platform
for big data platform has SAP HANA at its core. Nonetheless, technology like Hadoop has a
critical, complementary role to play. A complete big data solution is end-to-end in nature. It
handles everything from low-level data ingestion, storage, processing, visualization, and
engagement to analytic solutions and applications.
A complete big data solution has another characteristic as well: it handles all kinds of
data. Location aware applications and applications that support mapping have made spatial
data more important than ever, both operationally and in targeting customers. SAP HANA
Spatial Processing helps process this important type of big data.
So much of big data is text, and text analytics, whether sentiment analysis of social
media data or analysis of doctors notes to help drive better healthcare, is another key to big
data. Text analysis is another key capability of SAP HANA (see the text analytics webinar to
learn more).
Predictive analytics, largely the province of the data scientist, is another feature
supported in SAP HANA through the Predictive Analytic Libraries or PAL.
Streaming analytics is another key area supported by SAP HANA and Sybase Event
Stream Processor (ESP). Analytics where the velocity of the data is especially critical, such

as in financial services, as well as in contexts like manufacturing where machine or sensor

data is used and analyzed, an area referred to as the Internet of Things.

Making Big Data Real

Since talking about big data in the abstract cant provide a clear vision of its benefits, this
section offers concrete examples related to BI, data science, and real-time insights.

Business Intelligence
Big data technology is needed not only for the many new types of data, but for large scale
data warehouses. Case in point: the largest data warehouse in the world, as attested by the
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/5000/largest-data-warehouse,
holding 12.1 petabytes of data.
To explore another example, consider ARI, the largest fleet management services
company in the world. In conjunction with its partners, ARI accounts for more than 2 million
vehicles worldwide.
Maintenance management for the entire lifecycle of a single vehicle can involve more
than 14,000 data points, including everything from information on minor repairs to regular
preventive maintenance information and manufacturer updates and recalls.
ARIs data warehouse was straining under the load of the data. Its in-house ETL solution
could not keep up with the growth in data, and analysis was taking far too long. After a
proof-of-concept, ARI migrated its data warehouse to SAP HANA.
ARI is able to perform deeper data analysis in less than four seconds (previously a
manual process that took over 24 hours). The company also increased efficiency in call
centers and improved first-time call resolution, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.
We have a 360-degree view of the data with our SAP solution, says Steve Haindl, EVP
Technology and Innovation at ARI. We can see whats working, where the opportunities
are, and what customers no longer need. We can also tailor conversations about
requirements to the interested party: CEO, fleet manager, or mechanic. All of this helps us
to drive revenue, but most important, it helps us to keep our customers happy.
As ARIs Director of Information Management, Bill Powell explained, There was a sea of
information coming in and it could take up to two days to pull together, which affected our
service levels. In-memory HANA means we can answer questions in seconds. ARIs Keith
Allen added, Our goal has been to drive greater efficiencies. The business can ask
questions [of the data] and get responses directly. Customers can also build their own
dashboards. It is self-service BI.
Many companies are considering moving their data warehouses and BI initiatives to
SAP HANA and SAP IQ to speed up their analytic capabilities and drive faster value from
their data.

Data Science and Advanced Analytics

Healthcare is one of the most exciting big data stories there is, as seemingly intractable
problems are beginning to find solutions through genomic analysis.
Invasive cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US. In 2008, approximately
7.6 million people died of cancer worldwide. The path to more successful cancer treatment
lies in human DNA. More and more physicians are not only searching for changes in human
tissue that signal cancer but are increasingly interested in the alterations of the human
genome itself.

Mitsui Knowledge Industries (MKI) is working on http://www.saphana.com/docs/DOC1799. They begin by pre-processing DNA sequences from normal cells and comparing
them with cancer cells. Processing is done against large volumes of data. This preprocessing is run against data in Hadoop clusters and can take anywhere from several days
to a week.
Next, they move relevant data into SAP HANA, where they perform complex analytical
processes to identify variants from the pre-processed sequences. They also analyze what
medicines might work against the mutated genes.
With SAP HANA, they take advantage of built-in predictive algorithm libraries (PAL) and
integration with the open source R statistical tool to create predictive models to assess best
treatment options for the patient.
Initially, MKI was using only Hadoop and R for analysis, but decided to add SAP HANA
to reduce processing time so that they could deliver personalized results more quickly.
Imagine being a patient in a doctors office being told that you have cancer and that you
have to wait for days before a treatment plan can be set. Now, imagine how you would feel if
a customized treatment plan were provided to you the same day. This is MKIs goal to
provide personalized treatments to patients as quickly as possible.
MKI still uses Hadoop to pre-process large volumes of DNA (normal and cancerous) so
that they have a strong foundation of existing sequences. But they now use SAP HANA to
analyze a particular patients DNA against related sequences from Hadoop to better predict
the best medicines and treatment for the patient.
Hadoop is used to align the patients DNA sequence with the normal sequence, because
the data is in a semi-structured format, can be parallelized across multiple machines. Also,
the MKI team is able to use an open source package for aligning genomes.
Identifying the mutations and predicting the best treatment requires a lot of highly
iterative analysis. This is ideally done in SAP HANA. As a result MKI has been able to
accelerate the overall time from 2 to 3 days to 20 minutes. Furthermore, MKI believes they
can get it under 10 minutes when they deploy a 64 node Hadoop cluster and a 40-core
HANA machine.

RealReal-time Insights
Arguably, big data can be most important where you need to analyze real-time data as it
streams. Lets look at one such use of big data. McLaren Formula One cars run up to 350
km per hour on powerful V8 engines. These cars are loaded with sensors. About 120
sensors transmit data every second and some transmit even more frequently.
Organizations like McLaren collect all this data to analyze it, and the pit crew uses it to make
real-time decisions. Sensors provide information about wheel alignment, tire pressure,
suspension, and so on and all of these parameters play a critical role in winning or losing a
race. McLaren Applied Technologies leverages what it learns from this technology to drive
other innovations, such as improvements in air traffic control and monitoring the vital signs
of professional athletes.
These are just a few examples. Businesses can use big data to gain a 360-degree view
of the customer by combining enterprise data with customer sentiment gleaned from social
networks, customer service interactions, and web click-stream data. Service providers can
proactively reach out to customers and keep them satisfied, loyal, and coming back for
more.

Who Uses Big Data?

A big data platform should meet the needs of all your stakeholders, from BI and analytic
professionals to data scientists, to IT staff who help bring actionable insights to executive
leadership, middle managers, and frontline workers, sometimes by even embedding those
insights directly into business processes.
It is helpful to classify the different users into essentially three categories shown in
Figure 2.

Figure 2. An IT landscape for big data, broken down by role

Business Analyst
The business analyst provides the organization with precise, repeatable, accurate reporting
on the data stored within the organization. They are supporting business operational
decisions; its all about the statements of fact, answered instantly. The business analyst is
focused on reporting on the one and only truth. Normally, the information analyzed comes
from data generated in transactional systems, data that is highly structured. There is an
emphasis on data quality so that standardized reports can be executed with confidence that
all of the numbers will line up. The information views of the data have well understood
meanings and there is a focus on unambiguous determinations.
The Business Analyst is in essence looking for an enterprise data warehouse and the
rigor that entails. However, current data warehouses dont handle large datasets extremely
well. As a result, many data warehouses contain summary data with much of the detailed
information thrown away or stored in a highly complex BI landscape with many data marts,
data caches, and generally many layers of technology. With SAP HANA, users can store all
of the data without causing query response times to grind to a halt. This also makes it
possible to remove the many data marts and data caches originally put in place to
compensate for poor performance, greatly simplifying the data warehouse.

In some cases Business Analysts may benefit from access to Hadoop environments. If
the data in Hadoop needs to be reported on, you may want to bring it into your enterprise
data warehouse. Otherwise, it should be carefully structured and stored in Hadoop. Heres
the key. The BI analyst uses GUI-based tools to access information and to generate
reports. This requires data to be organized and structured in order to make it easily
accessible and generated using forms. Projects like Hive and Pig help to do that for your
Hadoop environment.
SAP BusinessObjects BI can now access Hadoop environments through Hive. With
Hive, you define table structures to data stored in Hadoop. BI analysts can use the SAP
BusinessObjects BI tools to create reports, dashboards, and explore data all inside Hadoop.
BusinessObjects translates the users actions into HiveQL commands, a language modeled
after SQL. What is particularly powerful with BusinessObjects is that if the BI administrator
has created the right universes, or access layers, the BI analyst can query data across
various systems. In other words, you can take data from Hadoop and combine it with data
from other data sources.
SAP IQ is an important platform to support the BI analyst. IQ is a disk-based bulk data
store optimized for analytics. It can be used along with or even in place of Hadoop.
Of course, a critical step to providing the BI analyst access to Hadoop is to define what
tables, columns, and so on are accessible and the relationships between them. SAP
BusinessObjects BI gives the administrator the tools needed to do just that, including for a
Hive implementation.
Heres the key: BI analysts need carefully controlled, structured access to Hadoop
environments from their GUI tools.

Data Scientists
In contrast, data scientists work at the other end of the information certainty spectrum. They
deal with the uncertainty inherent in any large, complex organization and seek to draw
conclusions that are statistically relevant but not completely certain. One example is
predictive analytics, where large amounts of data are fed into models in order to predict
what the future may hold. The data scientist may create custom systems to explore and
probe the corporate data store and must be equipped with tools that interpret unstructured
data and make sense of it for the organization and the problem domain.
The data scientist therefore requires as much flexibility as possible. The business
analyst is skilled at using BI tools and understanding how the data applies to the business
while the data scientist usually has very technical skills. Data scientists typically decide
which tool to use based on the data that offers the most promise. They may choose a data
mining technique, or techniques, and then select the tools that support the technique, such
as the R statistical language, which is supported in SAP HANA.
While the BI analyst needs structure in a controlled environment, the data scientist
wants a lot of freedom and flexibility. Depending on the analysis performed, they want to be
able to run their algorithms in Hadoop using MapReduce algorithms, in-memory, or in the
database using in-database analytic algorithms.

Operational Users
Operational users are involved in the day-to-day operation of core business processes.
They are the frontline workers such as call center operators, marketing campaign
managers, warehouse personnel, and sales representatives. Operational users can benefit

from information that helps them make decisions in the moment, often based on insights
uncovered by business analysts and data scientists. This information is often delivered in
the form of dashboards, daily reports, or even predictive models embedded in enterprise
applications. The challenge of real-time analysis is to feed automated insights back into the
decision loop fast enough to guide the action of the human or the machine making crucial
decisions.
Operational users typically are not technical nor do they have experience in using
analytic and reporting tools. In essence, the solution requires development of user
interfaces suited to how operational users need to consume the information.

SAP HANA: The Heart of SAPs Big Data Ecosystem

Like most things in the real world, the big data landscape is complex. Competitive
advantage doesnt come from having one tool, but from having the right toolset to support
business needs.
SAP provides an integrated set of data management solutions for big data: HANA for
real-time analytics on operational and transactional data, SAP IQ for petabyte scale storage
and analytics of less time critical data, and Hadoop as a massive data lake where data can
be stored and explored. SAP does not market its own Hadoop distribution, but provides an
open platform to work with a variety of Hadoop distributions. Lastly, SAP provides a suite of
Information Management solutions to integrate systems, ensure data quality, and manage
the overall data landscape.
The heart of SAPs big data platform is SAP HANA. At its core SAP HANA provides an
in-memory, columnar, distributed database architecture designed to handle massive
datasets. Since the SAP HANA database resides entirely in-memory all the time, additional
complex calculations, functions, and data-intensive operations can happen on the data
directly in the database, without requiring time-consuming and costly aggregations.
SAP IQ was the first commercial column store, which is designed to scale to petabyte
scale database size. While it is not in-memory like SAP HANA, it has excellent performance
characteristics with a rich SQL layer, patented indexing, and a disk-backed store. SAP IQ
and SAP HANA are integrated to work well together through smart data access, which
allows remote tables to be queried as though they were local tables. This provides real-time
analytics along with data scalability. Smart data access in effect creates a logical data
warehouse.
In essence, SAP HANA smart data access enables the creation of a logical data
warehouse, where data in HANA, IQ, and Hadoop can be mapped at a higher level, freeing
the analyst from understanding exactly where in the landscape data resides. This solution
amplifies the value of big data across your data fabric by enabling working with data sets
stored in a variety of places including Hadoop. For more information, see the Data
Virtualization webinar.
SAP HANA can access data in other data sources such as Hadoop to extend the reach
of its processing power. Hadoop provides vast and flexible storage for data objects,
independent of their structure and size. Hadoop is perfectly positioned to store the very
large data sets that are too big to fit into memory and that require a preprocessing step
before they can be easily analyzed. By connecting SAP HANA to Hadoop, you can run jobs
in Hadoop that load information into HANA and then provide super-fast final analysis, as
described in the section on personalized cancer treatment earlier in this chapter.

When you put SAP HANA, SAP IQ, and Hadoop together, you have three data
processing domains with different strengths that combine to form a big data processing
backbone. Together, these three components provide real-time capabilities along with
extreme scale. Data can be processed with the appropriate technology depending on its
characteristics hot data in HANA, warm data in IQ, and a vast data lake in Hadoop
where data can be stored, processed, and aggregated without constraints on size, format,
or cleanliness.
SAP Data Services is a sophisticated ETL and text processing tool, and ESP can
capture streaming sources of machine generated data. SAP BW is a rich data warehouse
layer on top of SAP HANA. SAP BusinessObjects BI universes can pull Hadoop and
database sources together to serve up information to business applications. All of this
technology works together to bring big data into the enterprise (see Figure 3).
SAP Event Stream Processor (SAP ESP) is a mature and high throughput complex
event processing engine that allows for integration of real-time data streams into the big
data environment. It is a key tool for building real-time applications that help to formulate a
response to real-time data.
Figure 3 shows the SAP HANA architecture in the context of big data.

Figure 3. The SAP HANA Platform

The Worlds Biggest, Big Data Database

In early 2014, SAP generated a new world record for the worlds largest data warehouse
using the SAP HANA platform and SAP IQ software. This independently audited 12.1PB
data warehouse has been recognized by Guinness World Records, and is four times larger
than the prior record.

This new world record demonstrates the ability of SAP HANA and SAP IQ to efficiently
handle extreme-scale enterprise data warehouse and Big Data analytics. SAP and its
partners had previously set a world record for loading and indexing Big Data at 34.3
Terabytes per hour.

Conclusion
SAPs big data technology simplifies the IT landscape. SAP HANA provides speed for
dealing with big data in real-time. It can also speed up traditional enterprise data warehouse
applications, putting them on steroids. This chapter has touched on many points that are
deserving of their own chapters, and we hope you will explore the links to learn more as well
as checking out SAPHANA.com. The complementary nature of SAP HANA, SAP IQ, and
Hadoop supports every big data use case, whether its driven by BI analysts, data scientists,
or IT seeking to help big data inform the real-time enterprise.

Chapter 7

Data Modeling with SAP HANA

Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
Albert Einstein

ince SAP HANA is a radically new database underneath the hood, SAP had to provide

DBAs, data architects and others a familiar way to interact with the tables while maintaining
a level of abstraction to ensure that people wouldnt disrupt the tables. Thats how you get
the virtual data modeling capabilities of SAP HANA. Although people can log in and see
the tables, they arent really there, like they are in a traditional disk-based database. What
youre seeing is a virtual representation of the tables since the actual tables arent physically
persisted on the storage medium as they would be in a disk-based database. This virtual
data model allows people incredible flexibility when manipulating the data and protects
them from some of the more nasty effects of playing around with physical tables in the
database.
In the context of SAP HANA, data modeling can be viewed as the construction of
different types of views of the data tables maintained in the SAP HANA database. Modeling
defines how you are going to access the data thats physically stored in HANA tables. Views
can be thought of as virtual tables that are built up from underlying data structures in
memory or from other views.
From an SAP HANA perspective, data modeling defines how youre going to store and
access your data. By creating views, you build new layers of access to your data that are
derived from whats in physical RAM storage, but that is calculated or adapted based on
your application needs. Views are built on demand and are always up to date, and they can
contain complex calculations that are computed within the database.
Because SAP HANA is a fast, in-memory database, you can build virtual models that are
more flexible and powerful than those found in typical disk-based database designs. HANA
is optimized for aggregating mass data on the fly, and thus it allows you to build models on
top of raw transaction data without first doing pre-aggregation or creating materialized
views.

The concept of a logical view in a database is pretty universal. The logical structure
points to where the physical data is stored. Whats different in HANA is that operations on
large quantities of data are so fast that its not necessary to build a persistent additional
physical view or an additional index on the data to make it go fast. Rather than building
redundant tables for speed, you aggregate data on the fly. The key in there is that HANA is
not re-persisting the data multiple times for every different view of data that we want to do. It
is stored once and then we can create a lot of different logical views that point to the data
that is physically in the database for different use cases and different application uses
without having to make copies of the data to support additional views.
Another upside to logical views: Extending data modeling to more stakeholders.
Data modeling is typically reserved for data modelers, data wranglers, and application developers.
But what about business analysts and others who want to create views of the data for their own
use cases?
The great thing about creating logical views of the data is that you can allow more people to create
those views because their views dont change anything about the underlying data store. You might
never allow less technical people to access a traditional database, but with the ability to create
logical views of the data that dont change the underlying data store (let alone corrupt it), you can
allow as many people as are interested to get involved with modeling in SAP HANA.

With HANA, youre not modeling to get around disk space constraints, and you arent
needing to model and keep in mind where your datas partitioned and where its coming
from and how to best access it from different storage pieces to reduce the lag time of disks.
With HANA you can create queries that are more complex and still achieve high
performance using straightforward SQL statements. If youre coming from a legacy system
with maybe a hundred different types of models that draw on different master data, you may
find that you need only a tenth that many in HANA because you are no longer having to
design models with regard to disk or data volume constraints. You can blend models
together and get a broader view of whats going on with the data, with more granularity than
you could before.
Becoming proficient at data modeling for HANA is one of the key elements of extracting
all of the performance out of the system. Understanding how the system works, where its
speed advantages are, and how to get the best performance from the system are all best
done with hands-on experience. If youre ready to get started at the detail level, see the SAP
HANA Modeling Guide, which talks in depth about data modeling in HANA. And if youre
eager to get your hands dirty, see the SAP HANA Developer Center where you can set up
your HANA environment and download SAP HANA Studio!

Tools for Data Modeling

SAP HANA Studio is used for creating data models within SAP HANA. It can be used to
explore and analyze existing data models, make modifications, and build new data models
from scratch. The modeler generally uses the Administration Console and Modeler
perspectives and tools of SAP HANA Studio.

Figure 6-1. SAP HANA Studio: Modeler Perspective

Packaged applications for SAP HANA come with their own data models. You can
inspect them with SAP HANA Studio and tailor them to your needs.
BI clients use data models directly for reports. Views that are created inside SAP HANA
can be treated by BI tools as any other table, allowing for direct access for reporting. If you
calculate net sales in your data model and have the HANA engine execute the calculation of
net sales in memory and then just send the result set up to your query tool, its much more
efficient than having the query tool pull up all the raw data and then having the BI query
execute what the net sales difference is. Think of HANA like a Formula 1 race car and let it
do the calculations for you. Thats why modeling in HANA takes a bit of an adjustment in
mindset in order to maximize all the speed that HANA can give you.
Application developers use the output of data models as inputs into their applications
(for more information on this topic for application developers, see Chapter 8). For best
performance, application developers will want to maximize the number of calculations that
are done in the database and to reduce the amount of data thats transferred back up to the
application. That can allow the application developer to offload the bulk of the calculation
logic into the database, making it possible for application logic to be greatly simplified and
for views to be useful across a range of tools.

Views in Data Modeling in SAP HANA

There are three types of views in data modeling in SAP HANA: attribute views, analytic
views, and calculation views. Understanding how each of these different views provides
additional value on the raw data in the database will help you figure out how to model your
data for maximum flexibility and performance.
Attribute views provide descriptive data about the characteristics of data in your

database. This is master data that defines things like hierarchies that describe
relationships between data elements. By constructing attribute views, you create
dimensions from which subsequent views can be constructed.
Analytic views in SAP HANA are optimized for aggregating mass data. Because the
database is so fast, its not necessary to store aggregates in the database; rather, you
aggregate on the fly in memory. Analytic views construct a central master fact table with
key figures. You can use expressions, operators, and functions to analyze this data.
Calculation views provide a way to do flexible, complex logic in the database. They are
built on top of one or more analytic or attribute views and allow you do to calculations after
aggregation and grouping. Calculations are generally done after grouping at the attribute
level and after aggregation at the analytic level.
Figure 6-2 shows a summary of the three types of views in SAP HANA.

Figure 6-2. SAP HANA Modeling Views

Views and ELT versus ETL

In order to work with data more effectively, Accounting may need a different transformation on its
data than Sales does. Traditionally transformation comes before loading data into the database
(ETL). With HANA, it makes sense to load data, and then do transformation (ELT). Because of the
power of HANA, you can store (load) one version of the truth in the database and then use views
to support transformations for different lines of business. This eliminates redundancy as well as the
potential for data getting out of sync.

Attribute Views
Suppose your transaction database has a customer ID that links to all the information about
a customer who purchased a given product. By itself, the customer record allows you to
compute simple measures, like total sales by customer. But what if you want to group

related customers together to measure sales by some other metric, like sales by customer
region?
Attribute views allow you to join relationships together that further describe the data that
youre working with. By joining your customer ID to data in your customer database, you
can further subdivide and analyze sales data according to conditions and relationships not
present in the original transaction. Because these joins run in memory and are not limited by
disk speeds, you can explore even more complex relationships than you could in traditional
database models and still maintain performance.

Figure 6-3. SAP HANA Attribute View

Using attribute views allows you to bring data analysis down to size before running
complex calculations. In HANA, it makes sense to apply attribute views as filters, which pull
out just the data you need before handing it off to a complex calculation.
The SAP HANA Modeling Guide provides details of how to define joins between tables
and to select a subset or all of the tables columns and rows. Use it as your guide to the
details of how to implement attribute views in your model. HANA Academy also offers
courses on creating attribute views and creating hierarchies within attribute views.

Analytic Views
Analytic views operate on key figures in your database. They are used to model data that
includes measures and to compute operations based on those measures.
An SAP HANA database may have a very large number of records in it, corresponding to
individual transactions. In a typical disk-based database, youd compute and store a
separate table for aggregated data, so that something like total sales by day would be
updated periodically and stored separately on disk. In HANA, this is not necessary since the

database is very fast and aggregates are best computed on the fly. Because these
aggregates are computed very rapidly, you can explore a much broader set of queries than
if you had to decide up front which aggregation approach you would be using and commit
those records to disk.
The end result of this for modeling is that the analytic views that you build on top of these
measures are also key for reducing the amount of data passed along to subsequent views.
Do the aggregation in your database before you pass that data up to the next level so that
the computations happen at the right level. Youll gain a lot of performance when the BI tool
or the application can deal with data thats already been aggregated rather than giving it a
firehose dump of data to aggregate.

Figure 6-4. SAP HANA Analytic View

The SAP HANA Modeling Guide provides details about how to set up analytic views, and
a course from SAP HANA Academy provides a video on the same topic.

Calculation Views
One of the exceptional features of SAP HANA is the ability to do calculation views in the
database. These views offer a level of programming flexibility that goes beyond the
aggregations found in the analytic views, and they can bring in data from multiple analytic
and attribute views to express complex logic. Calculation views can have layers of
calculation logic, can include measures sourced from multiple source tables, and can
include advanced SQL logic, R code, and more.
Whats the difference between the analytic view and the calculation view? Think of it like Excel.
Many of us use functions in Excel (thats the analytic view). But only Excel ninjas write Visual Basic
scripts and embed them in Excel. Thats the level of user who will be interested in the calculation
view.

Calculation views are visible within HANA as virtual tables, and applications and BI tools
can access them in the same way that they consume other views. Like other views in HANA
they are computed as needed, and intermediate values and aggregates are built on the fly
rather than being stored on disk and updated periodically.
To obtain best results, the modeler should use the full power of the attribute and analytic
views before passing data into the calculation view. Calculations will work best with data
that has already been reduced in size. If your database has a billion records in it, but you
only need the calculations to run on a few thousand of them, you should build your models
so that the aggregation and grouping has already occurred before your calculations run.

Figure 6-5. SAP HANA Calculation View

The SAP HANA Modeling Guide has detailed information on how to create and work
with calculation views; SAP HANA Academy also covers creating a calculation view.

Principles of Data Modeling

Data modeling in SAP HANA should be very familiar to those who are used to data
modeling in other database environments. The biggest difference is the exceptional
performance of HANAs in-memory database, which makes a number of traditional
database performance tuning techniques unnecessary and introduces its own set of
performance considerations.
Figure 6-5 summarizes some of the principles of data modeling with SAP HANA.

Figure 6-6. SAP HANA General Modeling Principles

People doing database work normally bring all of the data they are working with up to the
application layer for analysis. When the database cant handle that, they have been trained
to work around the problems. With HANA, you rethink your approach to data modeling. The
more work that gets done in the database, and the less data that makes its way to the
application, the more power you have in the system and the bigger the performance gains
over traditional disk-bound database applications. We call that HANAfying your
application.
Use views to filter out the data at the lowest level. If you dont need a field for a
subsequent computation, dont build it out in a view. Similarly, if there are records that can
be aggregated before they are provided to a calculation view, do the aggregation first.
Compact views will always perform better than views with lots of unneeded data in them.
Finally, look at ways of moving application logic into the database. Whenever possible,
move calculations that would have been once part of the design of the application into a
database calculation view. Youll find that they will run faster inside the database, and that
by providing these results in views you can reuse them in other contexts. (Application
developers can see Chapter 8 for more details.)

Getting Your Feet Wet

The best way to understand how to adapt your data to use within HANA is to experience it
first hand. This chapter is just a level one explanation of modeling. Youll want to read the
SAP HANA Modeling Guide and the SAP HANA Studio Overview, and watch the
presentations on the SAP HANA Academy to step through the fine points.
Here are just some of the HANA Academy resources you may want to access:

Creating an attribute view

Creating an analytic view

Creating a calculation view

Creating hierarchies in an attribute view

Using the Create View GUI in SAP HANA Studio

Using calculated columns in an analytic view

Using calculated columns in an attribute view

Using variables in an analytic view

Using decision tables with update values

Using decision tables with return values only

Creating row store or column store tables

Example of using calculated columns and calculation views

Chapter 8

Application Development with SAP HANA

This chapter was contributed by Thomas Jung (@thomas_jung). Director, Product
Management, SAP HANA-Data and Analytics Engine Product Management

iven the high-level focus of this book and the growing inventory of technical knowledge

that we will link to, well avoid getting into too many code samples or deep technical
discussions in this chapter. Instead, well focus on some of the most salient features of
programming applications for SAP HANA that can maximize its speed and computational
power. In addition, well present examples of some of the new capabilities that SAP HANA
provides to developers. Before we proceed, we need to make two important points. First,
this chapter discusses how to use ABAP and SQL programming concepts in the new SAP
HANA programming paradigm. Therefore, we composed this chapter with the assumption
that youre familiar with these concepts. Second, the chapter focuses specifically on
development in SAP landscapes. Nevertheless, most developers should obtain value from
the chapter content regardless of their programming language experience. We plan to
incorporate additional languages and programming approaches in subsequent revisions.

Basic Concepts
SAP HANA is an ACID-compliant database, conceptually similar in most ways to every
other database youve ever worked with. It speaks SQL and MDX, it has JDBC and ODBC
libraries, it stores data in tables, with rows and columns, and it requires administration and
backup. However, there are quite a few key philosophical differences and cutting-edge
development concepts that you need to consider when youre writing apps that leverage
SAP HANA as a database. Most importantly, youll have to let go of some of the rules of
gravity that existed in the old world order to take advantage of all of the new capabilities
that SAP HANA provides.
SAP HANA is compliant with the standard interfaces of all databases. Therefore, to
implement this system, you could simply keep your existing applications, redirect the ODBC
or JDBC configuration, and then run them as-is with SAP HANA as their new database
layer. The problem with this scenario is that SAP HANA offers capabilities that other

databases simply dont. Some of these advantages involve the core technical capabilities of
the database, which are superior to those of other databases. In addition, SAP HANA goes
well beyond the traditional database to offer a full application and development platform as
well as to extend capabilities in areas such as search, predictive analysis, and so on.
Therefore, building an application with these SAP HANA-specific advantages in mind will
provide you with the maximum opportunities for innovative and responsive applications.

No Constraints
The primary philosophical difference between developing apps in the old world and
developing apps for SAP HANA is probably the mindshift that is needed to program in a
world without constraints. Several of the early developers who worked with SAP HANA
referred to this psychological shift as taking the red pill.
Developers are taught from
their very first hello world application that they have to achieve a compromise between
maximum utility of the application and maximum usage of the base infrastructure supporting
the app. There are numerous books that teach these best practices (including quite a few
from SAP) to help developers achieve this shaky balance.
In a traditional disk-based architecture, writing a complex algorithm that calls raw data
from 200 large (100 million rows), unique tables simultaneously and performs an on-the-fly
join would be considered foolish and impossible just a couple of years ago. But, what if it
wasnt foolish or impossible? What if that algorithm in the app would provide a huge amount
of business value to the users? What if there were no penalties for writing that algorithm?
What if you could get an answer to that calculation in a few milliseconds instead of several
hours? What if you had a supercomputer dedicated to calculating that algorithm whenever
you needed it? What if, in addition to performing these operations in the database, you
could collapse all of the other application and presentation layers down into the database to
provide a simple, low-complexity platform to run the entire application?
This is the type of philosophical shift required to make the leap from programing in a
world of constraints into the new world of SAP HANA. In the SAP HANA world, the old
constraints of database I/O and computational power become largely irrelevant . The
boundaries as to where the database ends and the application server begins are also
strongly challenged.

Abstraction
In the SAP world (ABAP especially), developers are taught to abstract their applications
completely from the database and treat them as a black box. The ABAP engine is the
primary location for all application logic and SQL generation, so the database is used only
for data storage. ABAP developers literally have no idea what database their app is going to
be run on, so they have to assume the lowest common denominator and write to NO
specific database. JAVA, PHP, .NET, and various other development platforms often utilize
very similar abstraction approaches, thanks to ODBC/JDBC. Unfortunately, these platforms
often sacrifice capabilities for compatibility. This extreme separation of application logic and
data storage has been one of the cornerstones of ABAP application development for the
past 20 years, primarily because this was the most effective strategy for SAP to
compromise between broad support for many databases and performance of the
applications.
In contrast, in the SAP HANA world, the ABAP engine knows EXACTLY which database
it is going to interface with. It also knows that SAP HANA has been optimized to meet its

needs. Consequently, the ABAP engine not only can take advantage of the native speed of
memory-to-processor, it can also take advantage of all of the under-the-hood capabilities
that SAP HANA offers for calculations and business functions.
Abstraction is also present in the JDBC interface for Java apps and ODBC for various
other development platforms. This buffer between the app logic and the data it needs
works well to insulate the developers from the database engine. However, it also prevents
the developers from utilizing many of the database functions.
With SAP HANA, many of the performance-related processing tasks are actually carried
out deep inside the database (like stored procedures on steroids). Thus, SAP HANA
enables developers to get deep inside the data model. In addition, SAP HANA functions
inside the database to program data-intensive operations at the data level, not inside the
application as they do in disk-based databases.

Figure 1: New Programing Paradigm

In the old programming paradigm, developers would design the application and write the
app logic, data transformations, and algorithm/calculations while leaving the database
largely untouched. When the app ran, it would fetch whatever data it needed from the
database, bring it up to the app, transform the data, and then run them through the
algorithm or calculations to present the results to the user. In SAP HANA, that process is
flipped upside down. The app contains only the business logic. A function call is inserted to
fetch the ANSWER from the database. The data transformations, algorithm, and
calculations are all executed INSIDE the database, and only the result is passed up to the
application. Offloading all of the data-intensive operations to the database and calling those
operations as functions from the application makes the entire architecture significantly more
elegant and efficient. In fact, companies that employ SAP HANA have seen their application
performances improve by hundreds of thousands of times.

Figure 2: Paradigm Switch in Programming Models

This shift from data manipulation at the application level to data manipulation at the
database level is necessary to take advantage of all of the power contained in SAP HANA.
Of course, you can keep your old apps the way they are and obtain slightly faster response
times simply because the database sits in memory. If you delegate the data-intensive
operations down to SAP HANA, however, youll not only simplify the architecture and
streamline the application, youll also see SAP HANA really let loose its horsepower for
supercharged performance in the applications.

ABAP Programming for SAP HANA

Because ABAP is the primary application programming language and application server
foundation for the SAP Business Suite, it plays an important role in SAP HANAs adoption
into SAPs current customer base. Consequently, many people are interested in how they
can utilize SAP HANA within the SAP Business Suite and, by connection, how they can use
ABAP to access SAP HANA logic and constructs. In the next few sections we will look at
various architectures where ABAP and SAP HANA work together to create innovative
opportunities in the SAP Business Suite. See Chapter 4 for more details on the SAP
Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA.
In this section, we will discuss several scenarios for leveraging the power of SAP HANA
with both new and existing SAP Business Suite applications. These scenarios range from
very simple, non-disruptive applications to accelerate a handful of problematic transactions
or reports all the way to running the entire SAP Business Suite natively on SAP HANA as
the primary database.

SAP HANA as a Secondary Database

In this scenario, you install SAP HANA as a secondary database instead of as a
replacement for your current database. You then use replication to move a copy of the data
into the SAP HANA system. Your ABAP applications can then be accelerated because they
will read data from the SAP HANA copy instead of the local database.

Figure 3: SAP HANA as a Secondary Database

ABAP Secondary Database Connection

ABAP has long possessed the capability to make a secondary database connection. This
capability allows ABAP programs to access a database system other than the local
database, even a database from a completely different DBMS vendor.
This functionality is extended to support SAP HANA for all the NetWeaver release levels
from 7.00 and beyond. Service Note 1597627 lists the preconditions and technical steps
required to connect to HANA systems, and it should always be the master guide for these
preconditions. Below we summarize the current state of SAP HANA Development tools at
the time of publication of this book.

Preconditions

The SAP HANA Client is installed on each ABAP Application Server. The
ABAP Application Server Operating System must support the HANA Client. (Check
the Platform Availability Matrix for supported operating systems.)

SAP HANA DBSL is installed. (This is the Database-specific library that is

part of the ABAP Kernel.)

The SAP HANA DBSL is available only for the ABAP Kernel 7.20 and higher.
Kernel 7.20 is already the default kernel for NetWeaver 7.02, 7.03, 7.20, 7.30,
and 7.31.
Kernel 7.20 is backward compatible, so it can also be applied to NetWeaver
7.00, 7.01, 7.10, and 7.11.

Your ABAP system must be Unicode or Single Code Page 1100 (Latin 1/ISO8850-1) See Service note 1700052 for Single Code Page Support instructions.
Next, you must configure your ABAP system to connect to this alternative database. You
have one central location where you maintain the database connection string, username,

and password. Your applications then need only to specify the configuration key for the
database, thereby making the connection information application independent.

Secondary Database Connection Via Open SQL

The easiest solution for performing SQL operations from ABAP to your secondary database
connection is to use the Open SQL statements that ABAP developers are already familiar
with. If you supply the additional syntax of CONNECTION (dbcon), you can force the Open
SQL statement to be performed against the alternative database connection.
For instance, lets take a simple Select, and perform it against our HANA database:

The advantage of this approach is its simplicity. By making one minor addition to existing
SQL Statements, you can redirect your operation to SAP HANA. The downside is that the
table or view you are accessing must exist in the ABAP Data Dictionary.
That isnt a huge problem for this Accelerator scenario, however, because all of the data
reside in the local ABAP DBMS and are replicated to SAP HANA. In this situation we will
always have local copies of the tables in the ABAP Data Dictionary. Note, however, that you
cant access SAP HANA-specific artifacts like Analytic Views and Database Procedures.
You also cant access any tables that use SAP HANA as their own/primary persistence.

Secondary Database Connection Via Native SQL

ABAP also has the ability to utilize Native SQL. In this situation you write database-specific
SQL statements. This process allows you to access tables and other artifacts that exist only
in the underlying database. In addition, Native SQL contains syntax that allows you to call
Database Procedures. If we take the example from above, we can rewrite it using Native
SQL:

One disadvantage of using Native SQL via EXEC SQL in this example is that the

statement contains significantly more code than the Open SQL option. It is also a little less
elegant because it utilizes database cursors to bring back an array of data. The upside is
that it provides access to features you wouldnt otherwise have. For example, you can insert
data into a SAP HANA table and use the SAP HANA database sequence for the number
range or for built-in database functions like now().
now

The other disadvantage of using Native SQL via EXEC SQL is that there are few, if any,
syntax checks on the SQL statements you create. Errors arent caught until runtime, which
can lead to short dumps if the exceptions arent properly handled. This limitation makes
testing absolutely essential when youre using Native SQL.

Secondary Database Connection via Native SQL ADBC

There is a third option that provides the benefits of the Native SQL connection via EXEC
SQL but also eliminates some of the limitations. This is the concept of ADBC ABAP
Database Connectivity. This approach is essentially a series of classes (CL_SQL*) that
simplify and abstract the EXEC SQL blocks. For example, we could once again rewrite our
SELECT *FROM
FROM SFLIGHT example:

In this iteration we remove the step-wise processing of the Database Cursor and instead
read an entire package of data back into our internal table all at once. The initial package
size will return all of the resulting records by default. However, you can specify any package
size you wish, thereby tuning processing for large return result sets. Most importantly for
SAP HANA situations, however, is the fact that ADBC also lets you access non-Data

Dictionary artifacts including SAP HANA Stored Procedures. Given the advantages of
ADBC over EXEC SQL, SAP recommends that you always try to use the ADBC class-based
interfaces.
This is really just the beginning of what you could accomplish with this secondary
database approach to ABAP integration into SAP HANA. Weve deliberately used very
simplistic SQL statements in these examples so that we could focus on the details of how
the technical integration works. However, the real power comes when you execute more
powerful statements (SELECT
SELECT SUM GROUP BY),
BY access SAP HANA-specific artifacts
(like OLAP Views upon OLTP tables), or database procedures.

SAP HANA as a Primary ABAP Database

Of course, SAP HANA can also be used as the primary DBMS under any ABAP-based
system. With the SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA offering, ABAP-based Suite
applications like ERP can be run with SAP HANA as the primary DBMS no replication or
other databases is needed. Likewise, ABAP has evolved to provide new tools and
techniques that enable developers to directly access certain distinguishing features of SAP
HANA. These features come with ABAP 7.40-based systems.
Weve already examined how secondary database connections can be accessed via
both Open SQL and Native SQL in ABAP. We also learned that ABAP Open SQL is limited
to objects that exist in the ABAP Data Dictionary. To address these limitations, ABAP 7.40
has introduced a new concept known as Data Dictionary Proxy Views. Proxy Views allow a
developer to create an ABAP Data Dictionary entry for SAP HANA-specific view types
Analytic, Attribute, and Calculation views. Developers can utilize Proxy Views to leverage
the power and ease of use of ABAP Open SQL against these SAP HANA-specific view
types. This capability is particularly useful when it is combined with ABAP range types that
is, Select-Options and Parameters.
Going further, ABAP 7.40 has introduced a parallel concept for Stored Procedures
called Procedure Proxies. Procedure Proxies generate both an ABAP interface and
parameter data types for a SAP HANA Stored Procedure. A new ABAP syntax (CALL
PROCEDURE) was also introduced, which makes calling Stored Procedures very similar to
calling ABAP Function Modules.
Both Proxy Views and Procedure Proxies make it unnecessary to drop into Native SQL
within ABAP to leverage database-specific features. They streamline the amount of work
the developer must perform to design applications for code push down into SAP HANA.
They also improve the data transfer efficiency between the ABAP Application Server and
SAP HANA.

Transition Closer to the Database

Regardless of whether you are utilizing SAP HANA as your primary or secondary database
connection, ABAP developers have to adopt different design strategies if they wish to take
advantage of its full power. ABAP developers tend to shy away from deeper aspects of SQL
in favor of processing the data on the application server in ABAP. For ABAP developers
who are reading this, when was the last time you used a sub-query or a join in ABAP? Or
even a select sum?
ABAP developers have been taught from early on to abstract the database as much as
possible. Therefore, they tend to trust the processing on the application server where they
have total control instead of the black box of the DBMS. This situation has been

exacerbated in recent years because ABAP contains a greater array of tools that will
generate the SQL for us.
This approach has served ABAP developers well for many years. Lets take the typical
situation of loading supporting details from a foreign key table. In this case we want to load
all of the flight details from SFLIGHT and also load the carrier details from SCARR. In ABAP
we could write an inner join:

Figure 4 ABAP Open SQL with Inner Join

Many ABAP developers, however, would adopt an alternative approach where they
perform the join in memory on the application server via internal tables:

Figure 5 Typical ABAP Coding of Joining at the App Server

This approach can be beneficial when it is combined with ABAP table buffering. Keep in
mind that we are comparing developer design patterns here, not the actual technical merits
of these specific examples.

If we now added SAP HANA to the mixture, how would the developer approach change?
In HANA the developer should strive to push more of the processing into the database. The
question might be, why?
To answer this question, we need to keep in mind that SAP HANA is an in-memory
database. Almost any developer can appreciate the advantages of consolidating all of your
data in fast memory as opposed to relatively slow disk-based storage. If this were the only
advantage that SAP HANA offers, however, we wouldnt notice a huge difference compared
to processing in ABAP. After all, ABAP has full table buffering. Ignoring the cost of updates,
if we were to buffer both SFLIGHT and SCARR, our ABAP table loop join in the previous
example would be pretty fast, although it still wouldnt be as fast as SAP HANA.
The other key points of SAP HANAs architecture are that in addition to being inmemory, it is designed for columnar storage and parallel processing. In the ABAP table
loop, each record in the table has to be processed sequentially, one record at a time. The
current version of ABAP statements, however, just isnt designed for parallel processing.
Instead, ABAP leverages multiple cores/CPUs by running different user sessions in
separate work processes. SAP HANA, in contrast, can parallelize blocks of data within a
single request. The fact that the data are consolidated in memory only further supports this
parallelization by making access from multiple CPUs more useful, because data can be
fed to the CPUs that much faster. After all, parallization isnt useful if the CPUs spend most
of their cycles waiting for data to process.
The other technical aspect at play here is the columnar architecture of SAP HANA.
When tabular data are stored in columns, all of the data for a single column are stored
together in memory. In contrast, row storage as even ABAP internal tables are processed
places data in memory one row at a time.
Thus, for the join condition mentioned above, the CARRID column in each table can be
scanned faster because of the arrangement of data. Scans of unneeded data in memory
arent nearly as expensive as performing the same operation on disk (because of the need
to wait for platter rotation), but there is a cost all the same. Storing the data columnar
reduces that cost when performing operations that scan one or more columns as well as
when optimizing compression routines.
For these reasons, developers (and especially ABAP developers) must re-think their
applications designs. To extract the maximum benefit of SAP HANA, they will also need to
push more of the processing from ABAP down into the database. To accomplish this task,
developers need to write more SQL and to interact more frequently with the underlying
database. The database will no longer be a bit bucket to be minimized and abstracted.
Rather, it will become another tool in the developers toolset to be fully leveraged.

SAP HANA Extended Application Services (XS)

With SAP HANA SP5*, SAP has introduced an exciting new capability called SAP HANA
Extended Application Services (sometimes referred to unofficially as XS or XS Engine). The
core concept of XS Engine is to embed a full-featured application server, Web server, and
development environment within the SAP HANA appliance itself. However, this technology
isnt just another piece of software installed on the same hardware as SAP HANA. Instead,
SAP has decided to truly integrate this new application services functionality directly into the
deepest parts of the SAP HANA database. This architecture will enhance the performance
of the app and enable it to access SAP HANA differentiating features that no other
application server has.

Before SAP HANA SP5 was introduced, if you wanted to build a lightweight Web page or
REST Service that consumes SAP HANA data or logic, you would need another application
server in your system landscape. For example, you might use SAP NetWeaver ABAP or
SAP NetWeaver Java to connect to your SAP HANA system via a network connection and
use ADBC (ABAP Database Connectivity) or JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) to pass
SQL statements to SAP HANA. Because of SAP HANAs openness, you might also use
NET or any number of other environments or languages that support Open Database
Connectivity (ODBC) as well. These scenarios are all still perfectly valid. In particular, when
you are extending an existing application with new SAP HANA functionality, these
approaches are very appealing because you can integrate this SAP HANA functionality into
your current architecture easily and with minimal disruption.
When you are building a new SAP HANA-specific application from scratch, however, it
makes sense to consider the option of the SAP HANA Extended Application Services. This
architecture enables you to build and deploy your application completely self-contained
within SAP HANA. This approach can lower your costs of development and ownership while
providing performance advantages because the application and control flow logic are
located so close to the database.
Applications designed specifically to leverage the power of SAP HANA are frequently
designed to push as much of the logic down into the database as possible. It makes sense
to place all of your data-intensive logic into SQL, SQLScript Procedures, and SAP HANA
Views, because these techniques will leverage SAP HANAs in-memory, columnar table
optimizations as well as massively parallel processing (MPP). For the end-user experience,
we are increasingly targeting HTML5 and mobile-based applications where the complete UI
logic is executed on the client side. Therefore, we need an application server in the middle
that is significantly smaller than the traditional application server. This server needs to
provide only some basic validation logic and service enablement. The reduced scope of the
application server lends further credit to the approach of a lightweight embedded approach
like that of the SAP HANA Extended Application Services.

Figure 6 Paradigm Shift in Runtime Layers

SAP HANA Studio Becomes a Development Workbench

To support developers in creating applications and services directly within SAP HANA
Extended Application Services, SAP has enhanced the SAP HANA Studio to include all of
the necessary tools. SAP HANA Studio was already based upon Eclipse; therefore, SAP
was able to extend the Studio via an Eclipse Team Provider plug-in that sees the SAP
HANA Repository as a remote source code repository similar to Git or Perforce. This
arrangement empowers the SAP HANA Database to manage the entire lifecycle of all of the
development resources (everything from SAP HANA Views, SQLScript Procedures, Roles,
Server Side Logic, HTML and JavaScript content, etc.). These management capabilities
include versioning, language translation export/import, and software delivery/transport.
The SAP HANA Studio is extended with a new perspective called SAP HANA
Development. As Figure 7 illustrates, this new perspective combines existing tools (e.g., the
Navigator view from the Modeler perspective) with standard Eclipse tools (e.g., the Project
Explorer) and new tools specifically created for SAP HANA Extended Application Services
development (e.g., the Server Side JavaScript editor shown in the figure or the SAP HANA
Repository browser).
Because SAP HANA Studio is based on Eclipse, SAP can also integrate other Eclipsebased tools into it. For example, the SAP UI Development Toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5) is a
standard feature in SAP HANA Extended Application Services. SAP HANA 1.0 SP5 comes
preloaded with the 1.8 version of the SAPUI5 runtime, and the SAPUI5 development tools
are integrated into SAP HANA Studio and managed by the SAP HANA Repository, like all
other XS-based artifacts.

Figure 7 SAP HANA Development Perspective

These extensions to the SAP HANA Studio include features that enhance developer
productivity; for example, project wizards (Figure 8), resource wizards, code completion and
syntax highlighting for SAP HANA Extended Application Services server side APIs,
integrated debuggers, and so much more.

Figure 8 SAP HANA Specific Project Wizards

These features also include team management functionality. All development work is
performed based on standard Eclipse projects. The project files are then stored within the
SAP HANA Repository along with all the other resources. Team members can utilize the
SAP HANA Repository browser view to examine existing projects and import them directly
into their local Eclipse workspace. Developers can then work on these projects offline. In
addition, multiple developers can work on the same resources at the same time. Upon
commit back to the SAP HANA Repository, the tool will detect any conflicts, and developers
can access a merge tool to integrate the conflicts back into the Repository.
The SAP HANA Repository also supports the concept of active/inactive workspace
objects. This feature allows developers to safely commit their work back to the server and
store it there without immediately overwriting the current runtime version. The new runtime
version isnt created until the developer chooses to activate the Repository object.

SQLScript
As we have described, the cornerstone of the architectural optimization for applications
designed for SAP HANA is the concept of code push down. Execution of data-intensive
logic within the database begins with the usage of standard SQL and views. Developers,
however, also need semantics that exceed the capabilities of SQL if they wish to create

business logic within the database.

To this end, SAP delivers just such an extension to SQL, called SQLScript. SQLScript is
the primary language for creating stored procedures and functions in SAP HANA. The
extensions that form SQLScript allow the developer to push down more of the dataintensive logic into the database.
Typical SQL statements are often well suited to parallel processing because of their
declarative nature. The primary weakness of SQL becomes apparent when you need to
pass the result set of one SQL operation into the input of a second operation. In this
scenario, developers traditionally had only two options: copy the result set to the application
server, or write complex, nested SQL statements utilizing sub-queries or multiple join
conditions.
SQLScript solves this problem by providing a feature that describes the data flow from
one SQL operation to another. This feature enables developers to continue to write logic as
they would with an application server and also to declare and use intermediate result sets
and variables. Yet it SQLScript often can be compiled down to database joins and subqueries. This feature offers developers a syntax that is easier for a person to read and write
while still providing a logic flow that is well suited to database execution. At the same time,
SQLScript avoids [sending] massive data copies to an application server, [thereby]
leveraging sophisticated parallel execution strategies within the database.
In addition to all of these benefits, SQLScript provides enhanced control flow capabilities
as well as some limited procedural logic constructs. These features make it possible to
rewrite some of the more complex parts of the application logic and push them down into
the database layer as well.
Overall, SQLScript will improve the readability and structure of your data-intensive logic
(compared to complex SQL alone) by passing the results of one SQL statement to another
and by breaking complex SQL into smaller chunks. It also brings the data-intensive
application logic close to the database by combining the existing Declarative logic of SQL
with its own built-in functions as well as with orchestration logic such as Data Definition
Language (DDL), Data Manipulation Language (DML), and imperative logic constructs.
When compared to standard SQL, SQLScript has several advantages. Procedures can
return multiple results, whereas an SQL query can return only a single result set. Going
further, SQLScript can decompose complex functions into smaller chunks. This capability
enables modular programming, reuse, and a better understandability by functional
abstraction. For structuring complex queries, standard SQL allows only the definition of
SQL views. These views have neither parameters nor a fixed interface. Another advantage
of SQLScript over SQL is that it supports local variables for intermediate results with
implicitly defined types. With standard SQL, globally visible views have to be defined even
for intermediate steps. Going further, SQLScript has control logic such as if/else that is not
available in the SQL standard. Finally, SQLScript can increase overall performance by
utilizing parallel processing within most of its executions.

R
Stored Procedures serve a second purpose within SAP HANA: They are the mechanism
that integrates other programming languages and interfaces directly into the database
execution layer. The best example of this integration of third-party languages is the
introduction of R Language within Stored Procedures.
R is an open-source software language and environment for statistical computing and

graphics that includes more than 3000 add-on packages. R covers a wide range of topics
from Cluster Analysis to Probability Distributions to Graphic Displays to Machine Learning
to name just a few.
With the R integration into SAP HANA, developers can write their R Scripts directly
within a stored procedure. During execution, the R script, along with any input data, are sent
to the remote, open-source R server. The execution takes place on the R server, and the
results are sent back to SAP HANA. SAP provides the interfaces in both SAP HANA and the
R server to make this integration completely transparent to the application developer.

Figure 9 R Language Integration

L
In addition to SQLScript language for the implementation of Stored Procedures, SAP also
has the language L. L is a robust, low-level, high-performance programming language
located inside SAP HANA that allows code to be created at runtime. The L language is
based on concepts from the C/C++ world; it can be roughly characterized as a safe subset
of C/C++ that is enriched by SAP HANA data types and concepts to simplify the
manipulation of and interaction with database objects. L provides direct access to the table
and column objects that are utilized in the Calculation Engine.
However, the direct access that makes L very powerful also makes it rather dangerous.
Therefore, L is currently restricted to SAP internal usage. Customers and partners should
use L only in close cooperation with SAP development resources. SAPs long-term goal is
to safely wrap the most useful abilities of L and integrate them into the SQLScript language.
At this point, direct access to L will become unnecessary.

AFL
AFL stands for Application Function Library. It represents multiple function libraries like
Business Function Library (BFL) and Predictive Analysis Library (PAL). BFL is a prebuilt,
parameter-driven, basic building block library of calculations delivered at high performance,

including depreciation, capacity optimization, and time-based functions such as year over
year (YoY) and delay.
The AFLs are written in C/C++, and they become closely linked with the database kernel
itself. Significantly, only SAP can write these libraries. Because the AFLs interact so closely
with the database kernel, they operate without a virtual machine abstraction. Nevertheless,
customers and partners can easily access and reuse these libraries because, with the
introduction of SAP HANA 1.0 SP5, SAP can now generate a Stored Procedure interface for
them. Therefore, consuming one of the powerful functions of the Application Function
Library is now as easy as working with any other SQLScript procedure. In time, SAP plans
to release additional tools that make the consumption of these AFL-based procedures even
easier. SAP may even open up development of new AFL functions to select partners.

Working with Large Teams

The SAP HANA Change Manager, new in SP7 and a part of SAP HANA XS, includes
enhancements aimed at facilitating multi-developer/multi-project environments.
Enhancements include changes to the repository interface, enabling interactive artifact
testing, and a new change manager interface that helps pinpoint code changes between
versions.

Next Steps
By this point, youre probably sick of reading, and want to get your hands dirty playing with
SAP HANA. Luckily for you, SAP offers FREE developer instances of SAP HANA as well as
all of the development tools you need to experiment with everything discussed in this
chapter (and more). Simply head over to the SAP HANA One Developer Edition site to get
started. It takes about 15 minutes to sign up, provision your instance on the cloud, and start
writing code. When you download the SAP HANA Client, it includes SDKs for JDBC, ODBC,
ODBO and Python DB API. While the Client is downloading, you can pop over to the SAP
HANA Academy to watch hundreds of tutorials on how to build your first hello world
application or to do any number of other things with SAP HANA for free. And, if youre not
sick of reading, check out the SAP HANA Developer Guide for a lot more information.

Additional Resources
Application development with SAP HANA is such a huge topic that it could fill up several
books. In this chapter weve tried to cover some of the most critical aspects of working with
SAP HANA as an application developer. We highly recommend that you continue learning
about development topics at the following sites:
SAP HANA Developer Center
SAP HANA Documentation (help portal)
ABAP for SAP HANA
SAP HANA Academy (educational videos)
The Road to HANA (the ultimate link collection for beginners and experts)
Development Resources on SAPHANA.com
SAP Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA

Chapter 9

SAP HANA Administration & Operations

COMING FALL 2014

Chapter 10

SAP HANA Hardware Overview

AP HANA is the first SAP solution that has been built to be specifically run as an

appliance and optimized for a very specific combination of processor, memory, and
operating system. This approach represents a departure from SAPs long history of broad
platform support. SAP implemented this new policy to still provide customers with multiple
choices in hardware platforms while avoiding the TCO implications of multiple OS and
processor support combinations. In order to understand why, we need to look back
historically at some of the hardware platform changes that led SAP to adopt this policy this
strategy and explore why this path offers SAP customers the best balance of broad
hardware partner options and focused innovation around a stable set of key components.
When SAP shifted from mainframe to client-server architecture with SAP R/3, two of the
critical benefits were the lower costs and the more standardized options associated with the
UNIX-based servers that had just become available. When the mass-adoption of SAP R/3
took off, customers began asking SAP to certify more and more new combinations of
operating system and database on various hardware platforms. This made sense because
many companies were employing existing landscapes from a preferred hardware vendor
and had developed expertise in certain versions of operating system and database that they
wanted to leverage for their SAP environment.
SAP happily obliged, building out a robust certification laboratory in its headquarters to
constantly test and validate new hardware and software combinations that were being
released by its partners for customer use. At the time, SAP believed that providing
customers with such a broad choice would help them achieve lower TCO of their SAP
solutions by reusing technology and resources that were already in place. SAP also felt that
being hardware and OS/DB agnostic would be the best strategy to set itself apart from the
other enterprise app vendors. This technology-neutral strategy worked very well for SAP
for more than 30 years. At a certain point in the mid-2000s, however, the small number of
combinations that SAP began with had exploded into a truly dizzying collection. Customers
no longer benefited significantly from such a broad list of hardware and technology choices,

and the costs for SAP and its customers of this broad coverage were becoming
unsustainable.
After SAP R/3 was released, the UNIX platform began to splinter into multiple dialects,
with each hardware vendor putting its efforts behind its preferred variant (HPUX, AIX,
Solaris, etc). In addition, x86 platforms from Intel and AMD began to displace the RISCbased platforms of the early UNIX hardware vendors due to their lower costs and their
support for industry standards. Later, Linux began to displace the original UNIX operating
systems due to its lower costs and the advantages of open-source code. Soon, the Product
Availability Matrix (PAM) for SAP ERP exceeded 200 combinations of OS and database,
with a vast number of hardware platforms for those combinations. At a certain point, choice
became a liability for SAP and its customers rather than the benefit that it was originally
intended to be.
So, when SAP began development on the precursors of SAP HANA, the company made
a strategic decision to avoid all of the costs and complexity of supporting so many variations
of hardware and technology platforms. SAP was primarily concerned with the three pieces
of technology that had the greatest impact on performance and would be the largest drivers
of TCO reduction: operating system (OS), RAM, and processors. SAP decided to bet on
open-source and industry standards as the core platform for SAP HANA. By supporting only
ONE combination of OS and processors, SAP could invest all its development and testing
resources into a single platform while still allowing customers to choose which hardware
vendor would deliver and support the appliance.
SAP had been working with Novell/SUSE for many years to support Novell SLES Linux
as a certified operating system for SAP applications. Because Linux is so technically similar
to UNIX, almost any UNIX engineer could transition his or her skills easily. Moreover,
because Linux was open-source and easily supported by third parties, it was clearly the
lowest TCO option for running an SAP system.
In addition to selecting a single OS, SAP had to settle on a single processor family for
the new solution. Although there were many chips on the market that could handle SAPs
traditional application-processing requirements, there werent any processors that had been
designed to handle in-memory processing tasks (because enterprise-scale in-memory
computing didnt exist yet). The initial SAP HANA conversations that SAPs executives held
with anyone outside the company were with Intel because SAP realized that shifting to inmemory computing would require a new breed of processors that were optimized for the
new architecture, and Intel has a long history of innovating for the future needs of the
enterprise.
SAP laid out its strategy for the shift to in-memory computing to Intels executives, and
the two parties discussed the level of co-innovation that would be needed to jointly engineer
both an in-memory database and optimized processors that could handle the unique needs
of this new architecture. The top executives from each company agreed that the they would
have to establish a new level of co-innovation partnership and starting in 2005, Intel sent a
team of their best software and chip engineers to SAP HQ to begin the work of jointly
optimizing each successive version of the industry-standard Intel Xeon chips for the needs
of SAPs evolving in-memory database. Since that time, SAP has benefitted from early
access to each new generation of Xeon processor from Intel, and Intel has incorporated
SAPs unique in-memory processing requirements into its chip capabilities.

Intel and SAP: A History of Co

Co--Innovation

For more than 10 years, Intel and SAP have worked together to deliver industry-leading
performance of SAP solutions on Intel architecture, and a large proportion of new SAP
implementations are now deployed on Intel platforms. The latest success from that tradition of coinnovation is available to customers of all sizes in SAP HANA, which is delivered on the Intel
Xeon processor.
The relationship between Intel and SAP has become even stronger over the years, growing to
include a broad set of collaborations and initiatives. Some of the most visible:

Joint roadmap enablement. Early in the design process, Intel and

SAP decision makers identify complementary features and capabilities in
their upcoming products, and those insights help to direct the development
cycle for maximum value.

Collaborative product optimization. Intel engineers located on-site

at SAP work with their SAP counterparts to provide tuning expertise that
enables SAP HANA and other software solutions to take advantage of the
latest hardware features.

Combined research efforts. Together, researchers from Intel and

SAP continually explore and drive the future of business computing
As a result of these efforts, customer solutions achieve performance, scalability, reliability, and
energy efficiency that translate into favorable ROI and TCO, for increased business value.

Having created an optimized core (operating system, RAM, and processors) for SAP
HANA, SAP needed to reach out to the server manufacturers to package the software and
hardware into industry-standard appliances in a way that would remove as much
configuration and integration work from the customers as possible (again, lowering TCO).
SAP realized that even though the core components of the SAP HANA servers would be
nearly identical (OS, RAM, and processors), the hardware vendors provide a great deal of
additional value in the implementation, management and operations of the hardware. Plus,
customers typically have a preferred hardware vendor for their enterprise landscapes. This
is really where SAP felt that customer choice would have the most value. So, they engaged
seven of their primary hardware vendors (see the next paragraph) to build certified SAP
HANA appliances and create packaged services to implement SAP HANA quickly and
easily at customer sites.
In early 2011, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, IBM, and HP all jumped on the SAP HANA
bandwagon and had their flagship Intel-based servers certified and in production. Hitachi
joined the list later that year, and NEC was certified in early 2012. Huawei, VMC and
Lenovo joined in 2013. This broad support from industry-leading hardware vendors
provides customers with a choice of seven hardware partners to deploy their SAP HANA
solution, each with unique service and support offerings to fit their customers needs. SAPs
strategy of solid core, multivendor hardware support for SAP HANA has been received
extremely well by customers because it eliminates the confusing number of hardware
combinations and focuses on the value-added solutions that each vendor can offer on top of
the solid core.
In May of 2013, SAP made a major step forward in providing an even lower cost, highervalue deployment option for customers by announcing the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud.
The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud offering is a comprehensive RAM-optimized cloud
infrastructure combined with managed services. Customers can now run their SAP HANA
applications, including SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA and SAP Business

Warehouse powered by SAP HANA, in a managed cloud environment. It delivers the power
of real-time in-memory technology with cloud simplicity and elastic economics.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud is a fully scalable, enterprise-ready, mission critical,
secure, and high availability cloud offering with a full-managed services approach.
For more information on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and other cloud deployment
options, please see the comparision at http://www.saphana.com/community/abouthana/deployment-options.

General SAP HANA Hardware Specifications

SAP HANA is sold as a pre-configured, pre-installed appliance that is delivered directly from
the hardware partner. SUSE Linux SLES 11 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA
are the only supported operating systems, and Intel E7 processors are the primary
supported chips. Samsung RAM is currently the primary memory used by most of the
hardware partners.
Most partner systems use on-board 15k RPM hard disks (4x ratio for main memory) for
data-volume backup and Fusion I/O SSD cards (1:1 ratio for main memory) for log-volume
backup.
SAP ensures the quality, availability, and performance of the certified systems through a
rigorous process of end-to-end quality testing, performance testing, and continuous early
access to next-generation technologies from all of its partners.

SAP HANA Product Availability Matrix (PAM)

SAP has recently made the SAP HANA supported hardware matrix available on an open
website. Since the supported configurations are changing so rapidly, well simply insert the
link to the site here so you can always get the most up-to-date listing.

SAP Certified Appliance Hardware for SAP HANA

Additional Infrastructure
SAP recommends that customers deploy 10 gb network data connections. SAP has no
preference on external storage/SAN; rather, it is determined by the server vendor.

MultiMulti-Node and ScaleScale-Out Options

SAP HANA is a linearly scalable database, meaning, you can string together multiple
physical servers into a single logical database instance and achieve linear performance
results for every additional server added to the landscape.
Currently, SAP HANA has certified several vendors for multi-node scale out. Literally,
you just add another node/server to the landscape, and you immediately enjoy an
exponential increase in performance, in addition to the additional memory. Refer to the SAP
HANA hardware partner section of this chapter for more information on the various scaleout offerings from the individual partners.
In 2012, SAP recently completed the first 100TB benchmark for the 16 node scale out
solution. The data set consisted of five years of Sales and Distribution Records (100 Billion
records) and was run on a single logical server consisting of 16 nodes. Each node was a
certified IBM X5 machine with eight Intel E7-8870 processors with 10 cores, running at 2.40
GHz. The total cost of the 16 node system was roughly USD$640K.
SAP HANA was able to scan 100 Billion rows/Sec on the 100 TB dataset and was able
to load 16 million records/min. SAP HANAs compression algorithms were able to achieve

20x compression on the raw data when loading into memory, going from 100TB on disk to
3.8TB in memory.
Typical query results were:
BW Workload: 300ms 500ms
Ad-Hoc Analytics: 800ms 2s
No database tuning, indexing or caching were needed to achieve these results. To put
that in context, the closest competitive database is roughly 1000x slower in the same
benchmark and several times more expensive.

High Availability
SAP HANA supports cold standby hosts, meaning a standby host is kept ready in the event
that a failover situation occurs during production operation. In a distributed system, some of
the servers are designated as worker hosts, and others as standby hosts. Significantly, you
can assign multiple standby hosts to each group. Alternatively, you can group together
multiple servers to create a dedicated standby host for each group.
A standby host is not used for database processing. All of the database processes run
on the standby host, but they are idle and do not enable SQL connections.

Disaster Recovery
The SAP HANA database holds the bulk of its data in memory to ensure optimal
performance, but it still uses persistent storage to provide a fallback in case of failure.
During normal database operations, data is automatically saved from memory to disk at
regular save-points. Additionally, all data changes are recorded in the log. The log is saved
from memory to SSD after each committed database transaction. After a power failure, the
database can be restarted in the same way as a disk-based database, and it returns to its
last consistent state by replaying the log since the last save-point.
Although save-points and log writing protect your data against power failures, they do
not help if the persistent storage itself is damaged. Protecting against data loss due to disk
failures requires backups. Backups save the contents of the data and log areas to different
locations. These backups are performed while the database is running, so users can
continue to work normally. The impact of the backups on system performance is negligible.

If the SAP HANA system detects a failover situation, the work of the services on the
failed server is reassigned to the services running on the standby host. The failed volume
and all the included tables are reassigned and loaded into memory in accordance with the
failover strategy defined for the system. This reassignment can be performed without
moving any data, because all the persistency of the servers is stored on a shared disk. Data
and logs are stored on shared storage, where every server has access to the same disks.
Before a failover is performed, the system waits for a few seconds to determine whether
the service can be restarted. During this time, the status is displayed as Waiting. This
procedure can take up to a minute. The entire process of failover detection and loading may
take several minutes to complete.
For more information on HA and DR with SAP HANA, refer to the documentation on
SAPHANA.com.
Also see the great overview documentation about SAP HANA in data centers.

Tailored Data Center Concept for SAP HANA deployments

In addition to SAP HANA as standardized and highly optimized appliance, SAP now offers
the opportunity to run the SAP HANA server with a customers preferred storage solution.
This option enables a reduction in hardware and operational costs at installed base
customers through the reuse of existing hardware components and operational processes.
This approach not only helps to mitigate risk and optimize time-to-value by enabling existing
IT Management processes for SAP HANA implementations, it also affords additional
flexibility in hardware vendor selection by leveraging the existing ecosystem. IT
departments will benefit from staying within IT budgets, shorter implementation cycles, and
better consumption of hardware innovations to drive the SAP HANA adoption.
Many SAP HANA customers have existing investments in shared storage architecture,
and since the in-memory architecture of SAP HANA does not require Tier 1 storage, SAP
would like to allow customers to take advantage of their existing investments in skills and
technology to make the transition to in-memory computing with SAP HANA easier and more
cost-effective.

To help customers that want to manage their own storage, as of SP7, SAP HANA
tailored data center integration is now provided as a flexible configuration option for
enterprise customers. SAP HANA customers can plan and validate customized storage
configurations for SAP HANA with SAP partners for enterprise storage and the SAP HANA
appliance. Essentially, this gives large customers the freedom (and responsibility) of
deploying HANA with their own storage rather than deploying it as an appliance. To
understand the implications of this, see Whats New? SAP HANA SPS 07 SAP HANA
tailored data center integration.

SAP Hardware Partner Details

In the remaining section of this chapter, each Certified SAP HANA hardware partner was
given the opportunity to briefly describe their SAP HANA offering and discuss their valueadded services for SAP HANA implementation, support, and operations.
We encourage you to speak directly to the hardware partners for more details about
their products and services for SAP HANA.
Links:
Intel
Cisco
Dell
Fujitsu
Hitachi
HP
Huawei
IBM
NEC
VCE

Intel & SAP: CoCo-innovation for RealReal-Time Computing

For more than 10 years, Intel and SAP have worked together to deliver industry-leading
performance of SAP solutions on Intel architecture, and a large proportion of new SAP
implementations are now deployed on Intel platforms. The latest success from that tradition
of co-innovation is available to customers of all sizes in the SAP HANA, which is fully
supported only on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family.
The relationship between Intel and SAP has become even stronger over the years,
growing to include a broad set of collaborations and initiatives. Some of the most visible
include the following:

Joint roadmap enablement. Early in the design process, Intel and SAP
decision-makers identify complementary features and capabilities in their
upcoming products, and those insights help to direct the development cycle for
maximum value.


Collaborative product optimization. Intel engineers located on-site at SAP
work with their SAP counterparts to provide tuning expertise that enables SAP
HANA and other software solutions to take advantage of the latest hardware
features.

Combined research efforts. Together, researchers from Intel and SAP

continually explore and drive the future of business computing. As a result of these
efforts, customer solutions achieve performance, scalability, reliability, and energy
efficiency that translate into favorable ROI and TCO, for increased business value.

Operational Success and Management of RealReal-Time Events

In-memory computing based on SAP solutions on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family
enables greater business agility and innovative usage models that let companies respond to
changing conditions in real time.
Scenarios such as monitoring customer and supplier activity can generate petabytes of
data, the value of which depends on the ability to distill it into actionable intelligence.
SAP HANA and the latest Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family with up to 15 cores per
socket deliver rapid data analysis that discerns patterns and trends so you can adjust your
just-in-time supply chain rapidly. You can also model what if scenarios to structure sales
and promotions for optimal outcomes based on the latest sales and pipeline information.
Features of the Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family such as 37.5MB of L3 cache, Intel
QuickPath Interconnects, and quad-channel integrated memory controllers with max
memory speed of up to up to 1600MHz deliver extraordinary capabilities for businesses of
all sizes that implement SAP HANA for functionality such as business intelligence and data
analytics.
Especially the up to 24 DIMMs per socket with 64GB max DIMM density which allow up
to 6 TB in 4-socket, up to 12 TB in 8-socket or 24 TB in 16-socket servers provide SAP
customers significant improvements for large transactional workloads e.g. BusinessSuite on
HANA.

Performance Optimizations of SAP HANA with the Intel Xeon

Processor E7 Family
SAP HANA benefits dramatically from high-speed Intel QuickPath processor- to-memory
interconnects and the latest processor instructions, Streaming SIMD Extensions e.g. Intel
AVX. Those features eliminate many I/O bottlenecks, so processor headroom is available to
generate excellent throughput and responsiveness. SAP HANA is also engineered to take
particular advantage of RAS (reliability, availability, and serviceability) features of the Intel
Xeon processor E7family, especially error correction through Machine Check Architecture
Recovery, for mission-critical implementations.
As a result of the high level of performance optimization for servers based on the Intel
Xeon processor E7 family, SAP HANA can provide businesses of all sizes superior results
for data warehousing implementations such as business intelligence and data analytics.

Assured Performance with MissionMission-Critical Advanced Reliability of

the Intel Xeon Processor E7 Family
Machine Check Architecture Recovery, a reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS)
feature built into the Intel Xeon processor E7 family, enables the hardware platform to

generate Machine Check Exceptions. In many cases, these notifications enable the system
to take corrective action that allows SAP HANA to keep running where an outage would
otherwise occur.
Hardware based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family enables SAP HANA to fail over
from one processor socket to another in the event of a processor failure and to handle
memory errors with as little impact to workloads as possible.
Copyright 2014 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Cisco Systems SAP HANA Solutions

As part of the Unified Appliance Environment, Cisco has developed a full portfolio of SAP
HANA appliances based on Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) spanning
from the smallest T-shirt sizing, supporting as low as 64 GB memory, up to large scale-out
solutions which can support up to 8 TB of usable memory. Depending on the compression
factors, the Cisco appliances can support databases up to 56 TB, the largest currently
supported by SAP. However the Cisco technology can support up to 20 TB of usable
memory, which corresponds to uncompressed databases up to 100 TB or more.

Cisco UCS: A Unique SAP HANA Solution

Cisco UCS is a single unified system entirely programmable through unified, model-based
management to simplify and speed deployment of enterprise-class applications and
services. All Cisco UCS SAP HANA appliances are intelligent infrastructure that can be
managed through the embedded, single management plane across multiple Cisco UCS
rack and blade servers (Figure 1). This radically simplifies operations and lowers costs. The
model-based management applies personality and configures server, network, and storage
connectivity resources. Using Cisco service profiles, which define the model, it is simple to
provision servers by applying a desired configuration to physical infrastructure. The
configuration is applied quickly, accurately, and automatically, improving business agility,
staff productivity, and eliminating a major source of errors that can cause downtime.
The Cisco Fabric Extender Architecture reduces the number of system components to
purchase, configure, manage, and maintain by condensing three network layers into one. It
eliminates both blade server and hypervisor-based switches by connecting fabric
interconnect ports directly to individual blade servers and virtual machines. Virtual networks
are now managed exactly as physical networks are, but with massive scalability. This
represents a radical simplification over traditional systems, reducing capital and operating
costs while increasing business agility, simplifying and speeding deployment, and improving
performance.
Cisco UCS helps organizations go beyond efficiency: it helps them become more
effective through technologies that breed simplicity rather than complexity. The result is
flexible, agile, high-performance, self-integrating information technology that reduces staff
costs and increases uptime through automation, providing a more rapid return on
investment.
The excellent performance combined with the broad range of usable memory make the
Cisco UCS SAP Appliances an excellent, easy-to-manage choice for analyzing massive
amounts of business data.

Figure 1. Cisco UCS SAP HANA Architecture

SAP HANA T-Shirt Sizes Offered

The Extra Small (XS) and Small (S)-size appliances are based on the Cisco C260 M2 rack
mount server with 2 Intel Xeon Processor E7-4870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 256 GB of usable
memory for BW and 512 GB for SAP business suite on HANA. This configuration is
primarily used for development, test, and small production SAP HANA systems with
uncompressed datasets up to 1.75 TB. The Cisco UCS appliance incorporates a
persistency layer, based on internal SSD drives that require no additional drivers tainting
the Linux kernel.
The Medium (M)-size appliance is based on the Cisco C460 M2 rack mount server with
4 Intel Xeon Processor E7-4870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 512 GB of usable memory for BW
and 1024 GB for SAP business suite on HANA. This configuration is ideal for use in midsized and larger production environments such as the one used by Medtronic, a large,
worldwide manufacturer of medical devices (see customer example). The persistency layer
is provided by two Fusion IO cards to avoid possible bottlenecks in duo card configurations
sharing the same PCI slot.

SAP HANA ScaleScale-out offering

The Cisco UCS solution that has been certified for large SAP HANA implementations is a
uniquely scalable appliance. It allows customers to easily adapt to the growing demands of
their individual environment by incrementally adding Cisco B440 M2 blade servers with 4
Intel Xeon Processors E7-4870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 512 GB usable memory each, as
needed. For every four Cisco UCS blade servers, the persistency layer is provided by an
EMC VNX 5300 or a NetApp FAS 3240, depending on customer preference.
The basic configuration of the Cisco scale-out offering is made up of redundant fabric

interconnects with embedded infrastructure management, a Cisco UCS C200 server for
SAP HANA studio, a Cisco 2911 for secure remote management, and one enclosure with
support for up to 4 Cisco B440 blades. The basic configuration can easily scale by adding
up by a literally infinite number of Cisco B440 M2 blades servers each and the
correspondent storage from EMC or NetApp. The beauty of Ciscos scale out architecture
that it can be extended by additional blades and storage units without shutting down the
HANA system as we have proven at eBay where an existing HANA system with 4 TB was
extended to 12 TB on the fly without any downtime.

High Availability SAP HANA Solution

Cisco UCS SAP HANA appliances have redundancy designed-in providing no single point
of failure. However, in the event of a hardware failure on a blade or rack server, any spare
Cisco UCS server can take over the role of the failed server in minutes by simply applying
the service profile to the spare server. Synchronous Disaster recovery (DR) scenarios up to
50km and asynchronous over infinite distances can be easily implemented by using service
profiles to quickly provision servers at the DR site in conjunction with the classical
replication technologies of EMC and NetApp or the SAP HANA system replication feature.

SAP HANA Support infrastructure

All Cisco UCS servers are interconnected with a low-latency, high-bandwidth 10-Gbps
unified Ethernet fabric. The unified fabric supports both IP and Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE) connections through redundant, high performance, low-latency Cisco Fabric
Interconnects. The Cisco Fabric Interconnect, with embedded management, is the core of
the Cisco UCS and reduces both the number of network hops and network latency, critical
to SAP HANA performance. The unified fabric radically reduces the number of cables,
interchassis switches, and network adapters required by legacy platforms. This reduces
energy consumption and operational costs resulting in much lower total cost of ownership.

Additional software
The operating system, Cisco UCS drivers, and Cisco UCS management software are all
part of the appliance; therefore no additional software is necessary to manage the entire
system. However Cisco Intelligent Automation for SAP HANA is highly recommended. The
Cisco Intelligent Automation software solution supports the daily operation of a SAP HANA
appliance by:

Monitoring the CPU and memory workload, and the average index read time
at blade level

Automating quarterly maintenance, including firmware updates and file

system validation

Ensuring configuration management assurance for all appliance components

Monitoring data services availability

Proactively monitoring SAP HANA subsystem components status

Monitoring query execution response times using the SAP HANA index for
the query execution SAP HANA Query Response Time

Executing sample queries and recording total execution time and query
component performance breakdown

Proactively monitoring the SAP TREX services statistics based on thresholds

Alerting CPU, memory, or throughput thresholds for SAP TREX services


Automating Cisco UCS blade and rack server provisioning for use in the
appliance in minutes, instead of days

SAP HANA Installation and Support Services

Cisco SAP HANA installation services includes the assembly of all necessary hardware and
software required for a SAP HANA appliance. Ciscos SAP HANA engineers will install the
appliance into the customers network and connect it to source system(s).
Also included are the necessary SuSe Linux Licenses, Smartnet 24x7x4 day 2 support
for the Cisco hardware, as well as licenses, and first-year maintenance for EMC or NetApp
storage as required.
Implementation of solutions based on Cisco SAP HANA appliances are provided
through Cisco Advanced Services and Ciscos ecosystem of systems integrators and
partners. These solutions include data modeling, data load, replication, and SAP HANA
application configuration.
Customers who dont want to run into the hassle of reading a high number of interlinked
SAP notes before any HANA patch can use the Cisco HANA remote operation service
which will that on systems which keep sensitive data on premise will be managed in a cloud
like style without compromising security.

Customer Success Story

Medtronic dramatically improved reporting performance, increasing the value of its
customer information, with the SAP HANA platform and Cisco Unified Computing
System (Cisco UCS) server platform.

Challenge:
Medtronic needed to increase its ability to analyze large amounts of data, such as customer
feedback. BI reporting on its fast-growing data warehouse was straining the capabilities of
the companys computer infrastructure. Because employees couldnt generate some types
of reports (particularly using unstructured data), their ability to draw conclusions from
existing data was limited.

Solution:
The company deployed the SAP HANA platform on the Cisco UCS server platform based
on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. In preliminary testing, users of an un-tuned
system observed query times just one-third as long as those with existing production
systems. With the fully scaled and optimized implementation now in place, Medtronic hopes
to cut response times even further.

Customer Benefit:
BI operations at Medtronic will use the SAP HANA platform to report on structured and
unstructured data, wherever it resides, whether on SAP or non-SAP systems. The added
performance, scalability, and flexibility of this new architecture will increase the value of
company data as it continues to proliferate, increasing employee efficiency and enabling
smarter decision making.

For More Information

For more information on Cisco UCS, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ucs
For more information on Cisco UCS SAP HANA Appliances, please visit

http://www.cisco.com/go/sap
To learn more about Cisco Solutions, please visit
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns224/solutions.html
To contact Cisco for additional information on SAP on Cisco UCS please email
saponcisco@cisco.com

Dell SAP HANA Solutions

Dell has collaborated with SAP for more than two decades to deliver hundreds of solutions
to customers across many industries. Dell helps organizations achieve rapid and
sustainable business results with end-to-end solutions that are high-performing and
standards-based.
In addition to innovative, leading edge hardware platforms, Dell offers access to
thousands of enterprise computing solutions consultants. Our knowledge experts
incorporate lessons learned and best practices into an enterprise solution delivery model
that spans hardware, consulting, implementation, hosting and application management
services designed to enhance value for customer investments in SAP solutions.
Dell offers customers a portfolio of end-to-end solutions and services in support of SAP
HANA applications. Our complement of assessment, implementation, management, data
modeling and use case assistance services help reduce IT costs while helping
organizations transform their business. Dells innovative platforms can dramatically
increase the availability and speed of business information which in turn drives insightful
decision-making using SAP HANA.

The Dell Advantage

Dell and SAP have teamed up to offer an optimally configured SAP HANA solution that
includes a hardware appliance, pre-loaded software and a full range of services. This
solution is reliable, scalable and offered in multiple configurations to address your specific
business needs and gives your organization full access to the power of SAP HANA.
Dells SAP HANA appliance solution includes:

Powerful technology: Single server configurations, ranging in size from

128GB to 2TB, are based on the Dell PowerEdge R920 server platform and
provide a consistent experience and a solid base for future expansion. Dells
PowerEdge R920 incorporates Intel E7 v2 technology, is certified for SAP HANA
single server solutions, and includes everything needed to support your SAP
HANA solution. The forerunner of the R920, the PowerEdge R910, will continue to
be offered in scale out configurations until the PowerEdge R920 is certified by SAP
for scale out solutions later this year.

Virtualization for development:

development Dell single server solutions are also certified
by SAP to run SAP HANA virtualized using VMware VMs. A virtualized HANA
implementation allows for a more economical application development
environment and is ready for deployment in production environments when SAP
and VMware enable it.

Enterprise class availability:

availability The Dell scale out solutions for SAP HANA are
engineered to provide resiliency and easy expandability from 1TB up to 16TB and
beyond using both fibre channel SAN technology and a highly available multi-node

design.

High performance:
performance Automated tiering of data with Dell Compellent storage
software provides the quickest access to the data sets most needed for analysis.

Disaster recovery:
recovery Dell solutions for SAP HANA leverage unique features
found in Dell Compellent SAN storage to provide remote disaster recovery through
SAP HANA system replication and/or storage replication.

Modular growth:
growth The Dell scale out solution is designed to grow from 1TB up
to 16TB (available later this year with the certification of the PowerEdge R920) in
modular increments and to grow without disruption to the existing system.

SAP applications inin-memory:

memory Application deployment is now supported on
Dell solutions for SAP HANA, enabling production business applications to enjoy
the speed and performance of in-memory computing, without the need for multiple
compute environments.
The combination of Dells PowerEdge server platforms and SAP HANA software allows
users to conduct analytics and operations in a single system. Together, the solutions help
enable a business to react faster to events impacting operations.
Dell is your one source for all solution components, including SAP HANA software
licenses, engineering, and Dell Services that provide end-to-end solution support and
consulting expertise. Dells portfolio of SAP full lifecycle services leverage industry best
practices to offer better business outcomes for SAP clients, and Dells ProSupport and
Mission Critical Services help keep your SAP HANA solution running smoothly. Dell also
offers SAP HANA Managed Services that provide comprehensive management and
support for your SAP HANA landscape.
Dells SAP HANA solution positions an organization to identify and analyze data trends
and patterns that can improve planning, forecasting and price optimization. Enterprise
customers taking advantage of Dells SAP HANA platform get a cost-effective, optimized inmemory computing solution that can increase availability and reduce risk.

Dell SAP HANA configurations a complete portfolio

The Dell Solution for SAP HANA is offered in a wide variety of pre-configured and optimized
sizes to meet virtually any customer need. Dell and SAP have worked together to provide
solutions that are right sized for each data analysis environment.
The Dell PowerEdge R920 server platform is the new flagship, foundational platform for
the Dell solution for SAP HANA. The R920 immediately replaces its generational
predecessor, the PowerEdge R910, for all single server configurations and will be certified
for scale out configurations later this year. Dells commitment to a consistent platform
across all configuration sizes delivers a stable environment for SAP HANA that can evolve
and adapt as customer needs grow.
The Dell PowerEdge R920 provides:

Performance and reliability in a scalable 4U, four-socket server allowing

large workload consolidation and scale for the SAP HANA in-memory database.

Integrated diagnostics and system management with the Dell LifeCycle

Controller and iDRAC integrated management adapter.

Processing power using high performing Intel E7v2 Series processors, with
up to 60 cores of processing power with Intel Advanced RAS (Reliability,

Availability, Serviceability) Technology.

96 DIMMs of memory (max.) that support up to 6 terabytes of DDR3 RAM

and providing a massive memory footprint with room to expand as SAP HANA
capabilities expand.

SAS drives for internal storage with high capacity and performance to
permit higher speed (multi spindle) data access and support all SAP HANA single
server performance requirements.

Hot swappable, front load NVMe Express Flash drives for faster
transaction rates for even better SAP HANA performance and reliability than
earlier generations.

ScaleScale-out HANA appliance configurations

The linear scalability of our SAP HANA software platform makes growing to meet larger
workload demands a very straightforward and non-disruptive process.
Dell combines the superior scalability and RAS features of the PowerEdge R910
platform into a multi-node configuration, utilizing 10GbE networking, and sharing data
across Dell Compellent SAN Storage. Designing for modular scalability creates a system
that grows seamlessly, without requiring a hardware change when expansion is needed,
without disrupting the existing functionality. The coming certification of the PowerEdge
R920 platform for scale out systems will allow for even larger and higher performing
configurations.
Dell Compellent SAN Storage complements the power, performance, and manageability
of the Dell PowerEdge servers and offers the additional benefit of the Fluid Data storage
system a virtualized environment that provides tremendous flexibility in storage
management. Automated tiering of data standard with Dell Compellent storage software
manages persistent storage to provide the quickest access to the data sets most needed for
analysis, and high availability features that simplify backups, expansion, and data migration
provide tangible enhancements to the SAP HANA analytics engine infrastructure.
Dell engineered its scale out solutions for SAP HANA to provide resiliency and easy
expandability. This modular scalability is an important feature for IT departments deploying
a mission critical solution for their business. The Dell Active Infrastructure solution lets you
start with high availability at 1TB, and grow your system as your data processing needs
grow, 512GB at a time, without disruption to the operation of the system. Above all, there is
no requirement to change architectures or remove existing system components to facilitate
expansion.
Dell engineers each of these components, end-to-end, to provide a completely
integrated and fully supported ecosystem for high performance data analytics, and the
architecture design supports additional applications as they are released by SAP. This
model provides even more investment protection over the life of the SAP HANA
implementation.

Dell PowerEdge R920 (with Intel E7 v2 processors) based scale-out certification is

underway, and will enable configurations from 1-16TB RAM. The scale-out information
provided is based on current Dell PowerEdge R910 server building block.

Dells SAP SingleSingle-Node HANA Appliance

The SAP Single-Node HANA appliance from Dell is fully contained in the PowerEdge R920
server, making use of fast internal disk and Dell PowerEdge ExpressFlash NVME PCIe
SSDs for data and logs. Solid state PCIe storage technology offers high IOPs and low
latency performance for maintaining the SAP HANA system logs, while an array of internal
10Krpm SAS disks is used to maintain a copy of the data image.
Dell offers several different sizes of HANA appliances that are all based on the Dell
PowerEdge R920 server. These single server configurations also support SAP HANA
Virtualized on VMware vSphere 5.5 to support the virtualization of multiple pre-production
environments on a single server.
Dell offers a 2TB 4 processor server configuration that supports SAP Business Suite
applications running on SAP HANA and supports the transactional capabilities in SAP
HANA. This configuration allows SAP Business Suite environments as large as 4TB can
take advantage of the acceleration offered by the SAP HANA in-memory database
environment. Dell was one of the first SAP partners to certify a 4 processor configuration.

BuiltBuilt-in High Availability

The Dell PowerEdge R920 is designed for reliability and scalability for mission-critical
applications.
High availability features include:

Built-in reliability features at the CPU, memory and hardware

Intel advanced reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities

Redundant power supplies

Remote iDRAC6 connectivity

Integrated systems management, Lifecycle Controller and embedded

diagnostics to help maximize uptime
Dells focus on reliability starts with product design, and ends only when it has delivered
a solution that meets strict testing and quality control standards.

Support infrastructure
Dells SAP HANA appliance is delivered as an all-inclusive solution that comes as a preintegrated unit with all necessary hardware, storage and networking capabilities.

Additional software needed

Dells SAP HANA appliance is an end-to-end and all-in-one solution that comes pre-loaded
with all of the software and management tools necessary. SAP HANA Virtualized
configurations also include pre-installed VMware vSphere 5.5 software.

Services and Support

SAP HANA services are also available to assist you with implementing the solution. Dell
offers a complete solution to support your SAP HANA environment.
The Dell SAP HANA appliance is delivered fully installed and configured with all the
required software for Dell SAP Service engineers to connect it to customer source
system(s).
Dell provides the following HANA services:

HANA QuickQuick-Start Service that enables installation, configuration and

validation of the hardware, software and post-install documentation.

HANA Managed Service providing ongoing management and support for

SAP HANA landscape. This service includes 24x7 monitoring, ongoing remote
health-checks, firmware and software upgrades, including application patching, as

well as assistance with problem tracking and resolution.

Rapid Deployment Solutions for BW to HANA Migration that provide rapid

database migration of SAP BW 7.3 to SAP HANA using SAP tools & best
practices, as well as RDS services for profitability analysis and operational
reporting on HANA.
Dell HANA Services coupled with Dell HANA Scale-Out Solutions provides the optimum
in HANA capabilities, delivery and support.

Support Services the Dell Assurance

Dells SAP HANA appliance comes with three years of Dells award winning ProSupport
Mission Critical services and a 3-year extended hardware warranty. Customers receive
24x7x365 phone support, escalation management and collaborative support leveraging
Dells global ProSupport infrastructure of more than 30,000 technicians supporting more
than 100 countries in 55 languages.
Dells ProSupport Mission Critical services are designed to accelerate rapid resolution
by offering quick delivery of on-site parts and or labor and providing access to Dells Critical
Situation Process.
Key support features:

OnOn-site Response 4 hour on-site service with 6 hour hardware repair

available 24x7, including holidays.

CritSit Procedures Severity level 1 issues will be reviewed by Dell and

may be nominated for CritSit incident coverage through Dell Global Command
Centers. During a CritSit incident, expert resource teams are mobilized to get you
back up and running fast.

Emergency dispatch On-site service technician dispatched in parallel with

phone-based troubleshooting when you declare a Severity level 1 incident.

Optional SAP HANA services

Dell offers optional SAP HANA services to assist with your implementation.

SAP HANA Executive Workshop This workshop helps to develop the Use
Case and Business justification for a SAP HANA solution and helps organizations
determine whether SAP HANA is a fit for their situation.

SAP HANA Proof of Concept Using Dell DIMCAM methodology and

IMPROVE jump-start process, customers can see quickly the value that SAP
HANA can bring to the decision making process.

SAP Modernization Services Dell has developed a portfolio of

Modernization Service for SAP applications that features cloud computing, realtime analytics and mobile applications.

Implementation SAP HANA Implementation workshops facilitate planning

and creation of the Business Justification for the rest of the deployment.

Analytics Factory Dell offers global business intelligence consulting and

support.

Customer success stories

Aareon AG is a leading consultancy and provider of IT systems for the property sector,

offering software and services to its customers, and managing their outsourced business
processes. It also provides datacentre services. The company, which has more than 50
years experience in the market, offers expertise as well as software and services.
Aareon invests as many resources in its internal systems as it does developing IT
systems for clients. It knows that customers employees rely on rapid access to operational
data to make the smartest business decisions. With this in mind, a customer wanted to
speed up its data warehouse for its line-of business applications.
Aareon found the right IT partner in Dell. The company had worked with Dell in the past,
deploying a number of its server solutions to support a wide range of applications. When
we looked for an IT provider to deliver a SAP HANA appliance, Dell came closest to our
demands, says Snger.
The benefits the new system provided to Aeroen include:

Aereon predicts data access speeds to quadruple for its customers staff
driving strong productivity gains

Aareon ensures smooth implementation with expert SAP support

Easy-to-use tools make environment design simple

Company ensures great performance with responsive support

The IT team works with Dell ProSupport to optimize the performance of its Dell
appliance. It chose the Mission Critical option with four-hour on-site support to ensure it
receives a high level of responsiveness 24/7.
As a result of the SAP HANA workshop from Dell, personnel gained a deep level of insight into the
software and knowledge to begin working with the technology when it goes live.
Stefan Claus, System Administrator, Aareon AG

Koehler Paper Group is a manufacturing company based in Germany. World leaders in

specialist paper manufacturing, Koehler Paper Group sells 500,000 tons of paper each
year. It employs around 1,800 staff and reports an annual turnover of more than ?700
million.
Koehler wanted to replace its conventional database environment with a more efficient
infrastructure. The company worked with Dell and SAP to introduce a new database
solution based on SAP HANA and Dell PowerEdge servers in three days.
Dells SAP HANA solution delivered many benefits to Koehler Paper Group, including:

New system cuts data loading times from five minutes to five seconds

Firm reduces cost of business warehouse by one-third

Ease of use simplifies reporting process

Efficient reporting helps employees make smarter decisions faster

Strong partnership provides expert consultancy

I was very pleased with the technical know-how of the Dell and SAP teams. Not only was the level
of expertise impressive, but on a personal level, everyone collaborated well to make the project a
success.
Karl Schindler, Head of IT, Koehler Paper Group, Germany

Contact information for inquiries

Dell offers you the complete portfolio of end-to-end solutions in support of your SAP HANA
applications that can drive down your IT costs and help transform your business
performance. Contact your Dell Sales or Services Account Executive to learn more.

Fujitsu SAP HANA Solutions

The global partnership between Fujitsu and SAP has been an innovation engine for
customers for decades. In its role as a pioneering SAP HANA partner, Fujitsu offers
solutions and services that simplify the introduction and operation of the SAP HANA
platform, enabling its full potential to be exploited thus providing customers with optimal
support on their way towards real-time business.
The features of our broad approach to support SAPs in-memory technology include:

A smart infrastructure architecture based on the latest Intel Xeon processor

technology (Ivy Bridge) for highest flexibility, scalability and availability

Tailored solutions for different use cases and requirements,

requirements ready for onpremise and off-premise implementations

Rapid time to value and a quick return on investment thanks to a unique,

high-quality pre-installation and staging process.

Dedicated services that go far beyond traditional infrastructure services to

support better decisiondecision-making, project preparation, financing and migration.
migration

The Fujitsu SAP HANA Global Demo Center which can be used remotely by
customers to test and tangibly experience the business benefits of SAP HANA.
HANA

The innovative FlexFrame Orchestrator solution, which enables operating

SAP applications, SAP databases and the SAP HANA platform faster and more
easily and effectively. It thus simplifies the management of complex SAP
environments and reduces costs by up to 90%.
90%
Fujitsus expertise in infrastructure solutions and BI knowledge enables us to provide
superior service and best-in-class support for SAP HANA projects. Furthermore Fujitsu is
certified in SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and thus well positioned to help customers
transform CAPEX into OPEX by leveraging hosted SAP HANA deployments.

Fujitsu SAP HANA Infrastructure Offering

The Fujitsu portfolio for SAP HANA addresses the requirements of various customer
segments from specific turnkey appliances for small and medium-sized companies to
customized solutions for large enterprises:

The Fujitsu Compact Appliance is optimized for HANA implementations in

combination with SAP Business One and SAP Business All-in-One.

The Fujitsu Power Appliance for SAP HANA is designed as an optimal

foundation for the SAP HANA database and comprises single-node and multinode offerings that are suitable for all the existing usage scenarios including SAP
BW on HANA, Business Suite on HANA and the entire set of accelerator options.
Fujitsu infrastructure solutions for SAP HANA are based on industry-standard
PRIMEQUEST servers, which represent a unique combination of Japanese-style innovation
and German quality standards. Solid reliability and excellent price performance contribute
to the favorable lifecycle costs. Operational costs are reduced thanks to server
management, energy efficiency, and innovative, market-leading technology.

Fujitsu Compact Appliance for SAP HANA (designed for SAP

Business One customers)

Fujitsu PRIMERGY TX300 and PRIMERGY RX350 servers are SAP-validated platforms for
SAP Business One, analytics powered by SAP HANA and SAP Business One on HANA.
The tower and rack systems are available with four different main memory options ranging
from 64 GB to 256 GB and allow tailored configurations for different environments and use
cases.
Fujitsus high-quality pre-installation services for SUSE Linux and the SAP HANA
software ensure a ready-to-connect delivery for fast and non-disruptive SAP HANA
implementation. Pre-installation is optional, and software components can also be installed
onsite by the partner.
The Fujitsu Compact Appliance for SAP HANA is rounded off by a set of optional
services including SAP Business One migration, partner coaching, extended maintenance
for hardware or the SUSE Linux operating system, etc.

Fujitsu Power Appliance: SingleSingle-Node (scale(scale-up)

The single-node configurations range from TCO-optimized entry options based on
PRIMEQUEST RX4770 up to PRIMEQUEST 2800B systems, and all set new levels of
performance and system resilience. Data persistency is ensured by the easy-to-use storage
subsystem Fujitsu ETERNUS JX40. The offerings are ideal for:

SAP HANA proof-of-concept and proof-of-value projects, plus initial SAP

HANA projects with a limited scope

SAP HANA environments for development, tests, quality assurance and

training

Productive use of SAP HANA, even in business critical use cases thanks to
advanced RAS features

SAP Business Suite powered by HANA, even for projects with highest
performance and capacity requirements (thanks to scalability up to 6TB main
memory and 8 CPUs)

All single node options can be delivered pre-installed with the complete software stack

including SUSE Linux and the SAP HANA software. The industrialized, high quality
installation and pre-tested delivery ensures fast time-to-value. VMware virtualized
appliances enable significant cost savings, increase agility and enable the simultaneously
drive of several development, test and production projects.

Fujitsu Power Appliance: MultiMulti-Node (scale(scale-out)

The Fujitsu multi-node offering concept for SAP HANA is designed for productive
environments and mission-critical use. The building block concept allows customers to start
small and easily add and integrate additional servers (up to 16) and storage capacity as
requirements grow.
Our offering is based on industry-standard PRIMEQUEST RX4770 or PRIMEQUEST
2800B/E servers with up to 6 TB main memory and most recent NetApp storage systems
due to comprehensive long-term experience with NetApp technology. Nevertheless, to
comply with individual storage requirements and strategies of our customers, Fujitsu fully
supports the SAP Tailored Datacenter Approach (TDI) and thus integrates any SAP
validated storage system into our Fujitsu Power Appliance. Utilization of the existing
enterprise storage is possible in order to significantly reduce TCO.
Based on mutual development with Symantec and CommVault Fujitsu has presented
the first certified third-party backup solutions for SAP HANA. ComVault Simpana and
Symantec NetBackup are optional components of the Fujitsu Power Appliance for SAP
HANA. To meet individual requirements Fujitsu also offers the option of tailoring customized
backup solutions as well as integrating existing solutions.
High availability is crucial for the mission-critical readiness of the overall SAP HANA
solution and this is already built into the smart concept, thanks to the differentiation between
worker nodes and standby nodes, which take over should a productive server fail. The
second pillar ensuring high availability is NFS (Network File System) and the shared
NetApp FAS storage system, which ensures that all data is constantly mirrored. If there is a
data loss in the main memory, data can be copied back from the storage system. The
highest system availability demands can be met by the implementation of the SAP-certified
disaster-tolerant Fujitsu Power Appliance for SAP HANA solution (see SAP Note
#1755396). The implementation requires identical appliance configurations on two sites.
The SAP HANA production instance at the primary site runs all the transactions, and all the
data is stored consistently on a shared NetApp FAS3000, 6000 or FAS8000 Series storage
system and replicated to the NetApp storage system at the secondary site. Zero data loss
can be ensured with NetApp MetroCluster mirroring for implementations at up to 200
kilometers in distance. Asynchronous SnapMirror can be used for long range disaster
resilience (> 200 kilometers). During normal operations, the infrastructure on the secondary
site can be used for test and development projects with an additional storage system. In a
possible disaster situation, an IT expert evaluates the dangers involved and initiates the
recovery, if and where applicable. A guided recovery process reduces the risk of human
error and administration overheads, ensuring a rapid return to normal SAP HANA
operations.

Support infrastructure
As an additional, certified component, the Fujitsu SAP HANA infrastructure solution may
include a PRIMERGY RX 100 Infrastructure Management Server (IMS) used for:

Efficient SAP HANA software maintenance (initial installation and upgrade)


Seamless integration into the customers systems management landscape

Integrated monitoring of SAP HANA environment or connection of

customers monitoring tools

Easy remote support access as a key part of the solution maintenance

offering (SolutionContract)
System administrators especially benefit from the IMS when systems need to be
recovered or software updates are distributed automatically within multi-node
environments.

Additional software needed

The AISConnect software enables remote access to the SAP HANA landscape and is thus
a prerequisite component for the solution maintenance offering (SolutionContract).

Support Services
A complete set of infrastructure-related services covers all project phases from a
customer-specific solution concept to continuous solution support ensured by the Fujitsu
SolutionContract. All services are based on proven methods and follow strict guidelines to
ensure high quality projects.

Additional information on the Fujitsu prepre-installation (Solution

Implementation)
Pre-installation allows fast time-to-value and a rapid return on investment. Consequently,
Fujitsu offers a highly professional and industrialized pre-installation service which exceeds
the mere assembly of hardware components, the pre-installation of the SAP HANA software
stack, and the SUSE Linux operating system. Customer-specific settings (e.g., IP
addresses and switch configurations) are also prepared in the dedicated Fujitsu staging
center. The installation is steered by dedicated scripts, which help to avoid human failure
and ensure the highest quality. Having delivered a completely installed, individually staged
and comprehensively tested system on the customers premises, the Fujitsu Power
Appliance for SAP HANA can then be implemented and integrated rapidly using proven

Fujitsu deployment and integration services. Single-node implementations are generally

completed within 48 hours, whereas multi-nodes require a few days depending on the
project size and complexity.

Additional information on the Fujitsu SolutionContract (Solution

Support)
The Fujitsu SolutionContract is the maintenance and support service for specific Fujitsu
solutions. It represents a mix of proactive and reactive services, ensuring that issues are
resolved before they affect business operations. This concept takes into account that
Fujitsu solutions consist of hardware, software and network products from a range of
different vendors. Fujitsu is the single point of contact for all the infrastructure components
involved in a Fujitsu solution as well as their interactions with each other. The Fujitsu
SolutionContract offers several service level options depending on the individual
requirements. SAP software support is not part of this contract.

Additional SAP HANA Services

The comprehensive Fujitsu service portfolio for SAP HANA exceeds the traditional
infrastructure service offering and helps customers answer typical questions, such as: How
can SAP HANA help to solve specific problems in my organization? How can we migrate
existing data securely? How much will the SAP HANA implementation actually cost?
The portfolio includes developing business cases, demonstrations and test offerings,
professional database optimization and migration, as well as decision-making support
based on cost estimates and financing options. The services are partly provided by the
Fujitsu SAP HANA Global Demo Center, which is operated by our subsidiary TDS. The
Demo Center hosts a remote accessible environment comprised of a system landscape for
SAP HANA applications that is maintained by a competent team of developers and
consultants for solution, database, BI and business process matters.
Services overview:

Smart discovery (e.g., Bi consulting, demos, Proof of Concept projects)

Solid preparation (e.g., DB assessment and optimization, SAP

BW 7.3 upgrade)

Smooth implementation (e.g., database migration, SAP HANA Deployment))

Secure operations (e.g., Fujitsu SolutionContract, Application Management

Services)
This offering is under constant refinement, development and extension.

Innovation: Uniform management for all SAP environments

including SAP HANA with FlexFrame Orchestrator
Fujitsus innovative FlexFrame Orchestrator solution enables operating SAP applications,
SAP databases and the SAP HANA platform easier, faster and more effectively. It simplifies
the management of complex SAP environments, optimizes planning, operation and change
management and reduces costs by up to 90% whilst increasing agility by up to 50%.
Comprising most advanced orchestration and administration capabilities, FlexFrame
Orchestrator is an optimized operational concept for the entire SAP landscape. Centralized
SAP software components can be dynamically deployed across physical and virtual
resources based on business demand. The result is faster provisioning of innovations

resulting in an empowered, agile business. Working with our specialist partners such as,
NetApp and VMWare, this can be applied for all IT provisioning models, on premise, as a
managed or hosting service or deployed in the cloud.
FlexFrame Orchestrator can be delivered as a pre-installed and pre-tested ready-to-run
installation out of the Fujitsu factory, which ensures highest quality and fast time to value.

Customer Success Stories

Modern Bakery, Dubai
Modern Bakery has selected Fujitsu for a highly strategic project to update the bakerys IT
infrastructure. Using the SAP HANA platform running on Fujitsu Power Appliance, the
project is designed to provide real-time insight into the business data and financials that can
be critical for a business in perishable products.
Modern Bakery turned to Fujitsu, which has 40 years of experience working with SAP
solutions. Fujitsu Power Appliance for SAP HANA is expected to provide Modern Bakery
with the speed and transparency it needs to improve its business. As a future step, Modern
Bakery plans to expand the system to a disaster-resilient configuration.
With the aid of Fujitsus end-to-end consulting, and using remote access to the Fujitsu
Global Demo Center to view an initial demo of SAP HANA, Modern Bakery was able to gain
a clear picture of how the solution is expected to accelerate its reporting and business
processes.

Dr. Fawaz Al Bahri, CEO & Managing Partner, Modern Bakery:

We chose Fujitsu based on its comprehensive portfolio of infrastructure solutions and long
experience working with SAP solutions. Fujitsus end-to-end consulting and our ability to
remotely use the Fujitsu Global Demo Center demonstrated how the implementation of SAP
HANA could be used to help us achieve our business goals. Most of all, we value the fact
that Fujitsu intends to tailor its offering for us based on our individual needs.

SAP internal project: SAP BW powered by SAP HANA

The new SAP internal SAP BW powered by SAP HANA has a central role to play in the
corporate analytics architecture for combined and integrated planning with BW IP and SAP
BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation.
For SAPs system, the decision was made to go with a Fujitsu Scale-Out HANA solution
based on PRIMERGY servers. The key features are:

The SAP HANA scale-out infrastructure is designed to have no single point

of failure. This means that any failure in the infrastructure server, storage,
network would be corrected automatically with minimal to no downtime.

If a server fails, the work of the server is taken over by a standby node. More
than one standby node may be configured as an option.

The storage is designed for highest availability many disks or even a

storage controller can fail without stopping operations.

Last, but not least, the complete network infrastructure NICs, cables,
switches is designed to cope with component failures without the user even
noticing that something has broken.
For further information see SAP Blog (http://scn.sap.com/community/hana-inmemory/blog/2012/05/04/get-high-availability-with-bw-on-hana-scale-out-solution)

Further information
For more information please visit:
www.fujitsu.com/fts/hana
www.fujitsu.com/fts/flexframe
www.fujitsu.com/fts/sap
Feel free to get in touch with your local Fujitsu sales representative or contact us at:
expert.sap@ts.fujitsu.com.

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for SAP HANA

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for SAP HANA is an SAP-certified, optimized, and
converged infrastructure platform for SAP HANA that enhances an organizations decisionmaking capabilities while providing advanced business insights based on instant, intuitive
access to data. This platform is comprised of Hitachi Compute Blade 2000 and Hitachi
Unified Storage (HUS) 130, an enterprise-class storage system rated at 99.999% uptime
with SAP in-memory computing technology for a broad range of high-speed analytic
capabilities.
The HDS SAP HANA Solution is pre-integrated in Hitachi Data Systems distribution
centers and is architected to meet SAPs high standards, including SUSE Linux 11 (for SAP)
and SAP HANA.
Customers can derive the following benefits from Hitachi Unified Compute Platform
Select for SAP HANA:

Predictable, repeatable, reliable results: Pre-validated reference

architectures, pre-packaged solutions with enterprise-class components across
the entire stack, and targeted provisioning to help ensure consistent, predictable
results as organizations look to manage and store massive volumes of rapidly
changing data.

Exceptional performance: High-density computing and throughput with

wide-striping technology for enhanced utilization. Customers benefit from flexible
server management capabilities and scalable architectures.

Faster timetime-toto-value: Quicker, simpler deployment offered from a single

source for ordering and for providing services for planning and implementation.
Pre-configuration and SAP validation of key components drastically reduce onsite
deployment time. Intelligent automation of complex tasks enables rapid
provisioning of resources with the assurance that the appropriate underlying
infrastructure components are in place.
As additional applications and business units use SAP HANA or the organizations data
volumes increase, all three Hitachi SAP HANA appliances sizes Small, Medium, and
Large enable users to easily scale system processing capability without forklift
upgrades or complete system overhauls. Customers may elect to start with a Small
configuration and easily scale to Medium or Large by inserting additional blades into the
server chassis. There is no need to change server models because scaling requires a
Medium or Large appliance size.

Hitachi SAP HANA Appliances Sizes

Each Hitachi Data Systems Converged Platform for SAP HANA Small, Medium, and

Large is delivered as a single unit that is ready to plug into the customer network. In
addition, each platform offers a scalable patch to easily increase the systems processing
capability.

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for SAP HANA includes:

Operating System: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 for SAP
Storage: Hitachi Unified Storage 130, with a 99.999% uptime rating, is designed for high
availability, down to the dual battery backup that protects the cache during power outages.
It contains symmetric active-active controllers that self-balance workloads.
SAN: Fibre Channel host bus adaptors
Blade servers: Hitachi Compute Blade 2000 offers the considerable I/O capacity and
onboard memory that are required for effective implementation of SAP HANA. Systems
include 4-way x86 blade servers with Intel 10-core processors.

SAP HANA:

SAP HANA Load Controller 1.0

SAP IMCE Server 1.0, Client, Studio
SAP Host Agent
Sybase Replication Server 15.5 +ECDA

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for SAP HANA Small, Medium, Large
meets varying performance requirements. All three options come with Hitachi Unified
Storage 130 storage subsystems and with SAP HANA pre-loaded.

Hitachi supports SAP HANA from the smallest configuration with a single Compute
Blade and 256 GB of RAM to the largest configuration of 4 Compute Blade 2000s and 1.0
terabytes of RAM.


Operating System: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for SAP

Storage: Hitachi HUS 130, which is designed for high availability, down to
the dual battery backup that protects the cache during power outage. It contains
symmetric active-active controllers that self-balance workloads.

Network: Fibre Channel host bus adaptors

Compute: Hitachi Compute Blade 2000 offers the large I/O capacity and
onboard memory required for effective implementation of SAP HANA

Figure 1 Hitachi SAP HANA Appliance Architecture

HitachiHitachi-SAP Alliance
Since 1994, Hitachi, Ltd., and its subsidiaries, including Hitachi Data Systems, have had a
strategic relationship with SAP that includes the sale, integration, and implementation of
SAP solutions. During this time, Hitachi has won numerous SAP awards for exceptional
customer satisfaction.

In 2011, Hitachi became an SAP Global Technology Partner, the highest level of
partnership SAP offers. Many large global enterprises run their business on SAP and
Hitachi.
Hitachi also ensures the necessary storage performance and high throughput to meet
the stringent demands of in-memory computing. By dramatically reducing the traditional
delay between operations and analytics, this platform helps business leaders gain near
real-time insights and information to make smarter business decisions, faster.

Services
Hitachi Data Systems Global Solution Services (GSS) offers experienced infrastructure
consultants, proven methodologies, and comprehensive services for converged platforms
to help customers further streamline their SAP environments. The HANA Implementation
Service ensures a smooth integration with lower risk and accelerated deployment of the
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for SAP HANA tailored to our customers specific
needs. Along with our consulting partners such as Hitachi Consulting, we can integrate and
customize the solution into the customers SAP environment.

Support Infrastructure
Hitachi Data Systems Global Services and Hitachi Consulting are equipped to support every
aspect of an SAP HANA solution. In addition, they provide strategy; infrastructure; and
HANA Appliance, Integration, Development, and Support Services for a HANA initiative.
Modern information technologies have blurred the lines between infrastructure,
software, and applications. Given this reality, having one partner who provides a single, fully
integrated solution is a tremendous benefit. Hitachis full breadth of capabilities delivers one
fully integrated, highly-optimized environment that ensures the desired results in a lowercost, lower-risk, high-business-value HANA initiative.

Contact Hitachi
If you would like to get in touch with the SAP team at Hitachi, please email sap@hds.com.
You can find additional information at www.hds.com/go/sap or Hitachi Consulting:
http://www.hitachiconsulting.com/hana.

HP Solutions for SAP HANA

HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA
Through a close, collaborative partnership that spans more than 25 years, HP and SAP
have worked together to offer an innovative and comprehensive portfolio of products and
services that help more than 40,000 joint customers around the world, of all sizes and in all
industries, solve their business problems. This strategic partnership has ultimately resulted
in system offerings like HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA as well as value-added
services to implement rapid-deployment solutions for SAP HANA.
HP has collaborated with SAP on in-memory technologies from the beginning. In 2006 it
became the first SAP partner to design and deliver SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
Accelerator. Based on that experience, HP developed highly engineered and optimized
systems plus core competencies to deliver successful implementations of HP AppSystems
for SAP HANA which has since evolved into HPs latest offering HP ConvergedSystem for
SAP HANA.

HPs point of view

Customers are making long-term, strategic, architectural bets for their data centers and
data management platforms. Solutions like SAP HANA act as a catalyst for business
transformation and HP is the only player who has the architecture, expertise and vision to
meet its infrastructure needs by offering HP ConvergedSystem a portfolio of workloadoptimized systems that are easy to buy, manage, and support.
HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA is a portfolio of engineered, pre-built, optimizedfor-SAP HANA systems that provide the fastest path-to-value on the SAP HANA journey.
These systems are optimized with proven performance and built-in high availability, as well
as unmatched scalability to grow as data and business needs grow. In addition, only HP has
the committed long-term roadmap and investments to offer customers a number of system
configurations and deployment options, including on-premise, hosted, and Cloud (HANA
Enterprise Cloud, HEC). These systems, in combination with leading data management
solutions and consulting services (from planning to migration to deployment), provide the
most complete offering in the market.
HP recognizes that SAP HANA adoption is a journey. There are SAP customers who are
primarily interested in accelerating analytics/reporting with SAP HANA, while others want to
run multiple SAP business applications on HANA as a database. Because of our experience
working with customers, we understand the importance of laying out an adoption strategy
that best aligns with their HANA journey.
Whether you are looking to accelerate business analytics for one of your lines-ofbusiness, are ready to build your next generation Business Warehouse on SAP HANA, or
want to transform your entire global SAP landscape with HANA, HP has a solution
configuration thats sized just right for you and is ready to scale as your needs change.
The HP ConvergedSystem for HANA portfolio includes the HP ConvergedSystem 500
which is optimized for Analytics, Data Warehousing and basic business application
deployments as well as HP ConvergedSystem 900 which leverages technologies that were
developed as part of HP/SAPs co-innovation prototype, Project Kraken. It is this technology
that enables the largest, most mission-critical business application deployments.

HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA

HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA is built on HP Converged Infrastructure and
includes all of the implementation and support services that you need to ensure quick time
to value and minimal planned or unplanned downtime. It is a complete system not just a
collection of components. That means your staff has more time for innovation.
With HP ConvergedSystem 500, you can simplify the way you deploy SAP HANA with a
pre-engineered HANA optimized system that can be configured, quoted and installed in as
few as 15 days. And the system can grow as you grow scaling to meet your changing SAP
requirements from Analytics and Data Warehousing, to business applications on SAP
HANA.
Built on the HP Proliant DL580 Gen8 server powered by the Intel Xeon E7-4880 v2
processor and HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage, HP offers a range of scale up and scale
out configurations.
Scale
up:
2s/256GB
RAM,
2s/512GB
RAM,
4s/1TB
RAM
and
4s/2TB RAM
Scale out: 4s/8TB++

HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA


The HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA is based on next generation
Superdome technology offering unparalleled flexibility and high availability.
Superdome has been a long time, leading server platform for enterprise class SAP
systems. Now, SAP HANA users can take advantage of hardware partitioning and
fault tolerant features developed for the most challenging and business critical
environments.

ConvergedSystem 900 offers the worlds largest single memory image for
SAP Business Suite on HANA implementations up to 16 processors and 12 TB
RAM on a single server.

Later this year, ConvergedSystem 900 will also offer a powerful, general
purpose, scale out configuration that can run OLAP, OLTP, or even mixed
workloads on the same system, enabling IT to focus on strategy and innovation
instead of management of sprawl.
Built on the HP Superdome BL920s Gen 9 server blade powered by the Intel Xeon 15
core E7-2890 V2 processor and HP 3PAR StoreServ storage, HP offers a range of scale up
and scale out configurations.
Scale up: 8s/6TB or 16s/12TB in memory computing power, with up to 24TB on the
roadmap
Scale out: dual nPar 8s/2TB configurations that can scaleout to the largest mission critical
needs

Why HP for SAP HANA?

Only HP provides a portfolio from start to finish with a strong history of innovation and
partnership with SAP and a committed, long-term roadmap. When it comes to SAP HANA,
you can spend less time on IT and more time driving your margins, growing your profit and
being the innovator your business needs.
HP has implemented more than 800 SAP HANA installations and runs nearly half of all
SAP installations in the world (77,000), and is a global leader in SAP operations, supporting
1.7 million users in more than 50 countries. In addition, HP has developed core
competencies for designing and building SAP appliance-based solutions, successful on-site
customer implementations, and industry-leading support services to ensure optimal
performance throughout the lifecycle. And, HP offers multiple deployment choices on
premise, hosted or Cloud. HPs As-a-Service Solutions for SAP HANA, is a first to market
offering, combining the strength of HPs industry leading ConvergedSystem, the complete
portfolio of business solutions, and optional cloud deployment models all bundled into a
monthly subscription payment. This offering helps companies to move to an OPex financial
model and freeing up capital investment for strategic programs.
As testimony to HPs close alignment and support of SAP, HP has received numerous
SAP Innovation and Impact awards across all three geographic regions, with the most
recent ones being:
SAP Pinnacle Awards:

Platform Co-Innovation Partner of the Year 2014 Winner

Rapid Deployment Partner of the Year 2014 Winner

HANA Adoption Partner of the Year 2014 Finalist

Technology Partner Innovator of the Year 2013 Winner

Run SAP Partner of the Year 2013 Finalist

SAP HANA Co-innovator Partner of the Year 2013 Finalist

Technical specifications for HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP

HANA

Based on HP Converged Infrastructure products HP offers multiple server

choices, sized for your companys needs.

Scale up to 512 GB RAM with a single server

Optimized for cost conscious customers
Ideal for standalone analytics, reporting or application acceleration scenarios
May also be used for small SAP Business Warehouse or SAP Business Suite
scenarios
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8 server
2 Intel Xeon E7-4880 v2 processors
256 GB or 512 GB RAM
Database data and log files:
8 SAS disk drives (600 GB HDD), server internal storage
OS and HANA application files:
2 SAS disk drives (600 GB HDD), server internal storage
Scale up to 2 TB RAM with a single server
Optimized for customers needing larger memory capacities and higher
performance
1 TB RAM configuration is ideal for larger analytics, reporting or application
acceleration scenarios
1 TB RAM configuration may also be used for small SAP Business Warehouse
or SAP Business Suite scenarios
2 TB RAM configuration is restricted by SAP to SAP Business Suite and specific
use cases outlined in SAP note 1826100
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8 server
4 Intel Xeon E7-4880 v2 processors
1 TB or 2 TB RAM
Database data files:
External D2700 disk enclosure configured with
25 SAS disk drives (600 GB HDD)
OS, HANA application files and database log files:
2 SAS disk drives (800 GB SSD, solid state storage)
Scale out to 16 TB+ RAM with multiple servers
Ideal for SAP Business Warehouse
May also be used for analytics, reporting or application acceleration scenarios
needing more than 1 TB RAM
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8 server
4 Intel Xeon E7-4880 v2 processors

1 TB RAM
Up to 16 servers per system certified by SAP
Larger, customer-specific systems may be offered with approval by SAP
Database data and log files:
Stored on centralized, shared storage
Direct connect via SAP Storage Connector
Shared HANA application files:
Clustered NFS servers (one pair per system)
Files stored on centralized, shared storage
Shared storage
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 (4-node)
96 SAS disk drives (900 GB HDD)
Supports up to 4 HANA servers
Storage arrays added as needed to support additional servers
Dedicated management server
HP 10 GbE top of rack (TOR) switches used for HANA internal networks and
connection to customers network
HP 16 Gbps FC switches used for internal SAN (connections from HANA nodes,
NFS servers and dedicated management server to centralized, shared storage)
Enhanced high availability and disaster tolerance with HP Serviceguard
Automated failover for clustered NFS servers (scale out systems)
Automated failover from primary HANA system to secondary HANA system
(usually located in a different data center) for disaster tolerant architectures

Technical specifications for HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP

HANA

Based on HP Converged Infrastructure products HP offers multiple server

choices, sized for your companys needs:

Scale up to 6 TB RAM with a single server

Ideal for SAP Business Suite scenarios combined with select analytics and
reporting
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant Superdome BL920s Gen 9 server blade
8 Intel Xeon E7-2890 v2 processors
6 TB RAM
OS, HANA application files, database data and log files:
3PAR StoreServe 7400 storage (4-node)
48 SAS disk drives (600 GB HDD)
2 arrays (96 disk drives total)
Scale up to 12 TB RAM with a single server
The largest single memory pool available
Ideal for SAP Business Suite scenarios combind with select analytics and
reporting
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant Superdome BL920s Gen 9 server blade

16 Intel Xeon E7-2890 v2 processors

12 TB RAM
OS, HANA application files, database data and log files:
3PAR StoreServe 7400 storage (4-node)
48 SAS disk drives (600 GB HDD)
4 arrays (192 disk drives total)
Scale out to 80 TB RAM with multiple servers
Ideal for SAP Business Warehouse
May also be used for analytics, reporting or application acceleration scenarios
needing more than 16 TB RAM
Compute and memory:
HP ProLiant Superdome BL920s Gen 9 server blade
2 Intel Xeon E7-2890 v2 processors
512 GB RAM
4 blades combined into 1 partition (8s/2 TB)
Up to 2 partitions per server
Up to 16 partitions per system certified by SAP
Larger, customer-specific systems may be offered with approval by SAP
Database data and log files:
Stored on centralized, shared storage
Direct connect via SAP Storage Connector
Shared HANA application files:
Clustered NFS servers (one pair per system)
Files stored on centralized, shared storage
Shared storage
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 (4-node)
96 SAS disk drives (900 GB HDD)
Supports up to 4 HANA nodes (server partitions)
Storage arrays added as needed to support additional servers
Dedicated management server
HP 10 GbE top of rack (TOR) switches used for HANA internal networks and
connection to customers network
HP 16 Gbps FC switches used for internal SAN (connections from HANA nodes,
NFS servers and dedicated management server to centralized, shared storage)
Enhanced high availability and disaster tolerance with HP Serviceguard
Automated failover for clustered NFS servers (scale out systems)
Automated failover from primary HANA system to secondary HANA system
(usually located in a different data center) for disaster tolerant architectures

HP Converged Infrastructure products include all necessary

installation, deployment and support services

Factory Express Level 4 including custom implementation services includes

complete installation and configuration is performed at the HP Integration Center
before shipping the appliance to the customer. This includes customization of
network parameters and customization of the SAP HANA database based on a

questionnaire completed by the customer

HP Fast Start Service (delivered by HP Enterprise Services) or HP

Deployment Accelerator (delivered by HP Technology Services Consulting)
includes onsite integration services including connecting to the customers network
and confirming communication between SAP HANA and other systems (e.g. SAP
Business Warehouse application servers), demonstrating correct operation of
appliance using sample data and providing knowledge transfer
Proactive Care (delivered by HP Technology Center of Expertise): Solutionlevel, one-stop, support service including HANA-specific call management,
remote monitoring, proactive service delivery (e.g. regularly scheduled firmware
updates), and support from HP Center of Expertise for SAP HANA

ScaleScale-out configurations
HP offers two scale-out, future-ready systems that can grow as your needs grow. This
design significantly reduces the costs, difficulties, and down-time associated with field
upgrades.
The HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA (CS 500) scale-out system uses the HP
ProLiant DL580 Gen8 server powered by the Intel Xeon E7-4880 v2 processor. The HP
ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA (CS 900) scale-out system uses the HP ProLiant
Superdome BL920s server blade powered by the Intel Xeon E7-2890 v2 processor. Both
systems use the 3PAR StoreServ 7400 for shared, centralized storage for the SAP HANA
shared application files and database data and log files. 3PAR is the worlds most advanced
storage platform preferred by eight out of the ten largest service providers. The CS 500 is
ideal for SAP Business Warehouse or standalone analytics/reporting/application
acceleration scenarios needing a system that is certified up to 16 TB RAM. The CS 900 is
ideal for scenarios needing a system that is certified up to 32 TB RAM. Both systems may
be used for larger, customer-specific implementations with approval by SAP and HP.

High Availability and Disaster Tolerance

The CS 500 and CS 900 support all of SAPs high availability and disaster tolerance
features including automated failover from an active node to a standby node inside of an
SAP HANA cluster and failover of an entire SAP HANA system to a standby system (usually
located in a different data center) using SAP System Replication. However, HP offers
enhanced disaster tolerance by incorporating HP Serviceguard software plus a quorum
server. This enhancement makes it possible to automate failover to a standby system in
disaster tolerant environments, and it is something that only HP is able to offer. These
solutions protect your information systems in the event of a catastrophic event. In doing so
they help to mitigate risk, improve IT availability, and reduce the costs of downtime.

Storage Infrastructure
HP provides three different storage infrastructures depending upon the customers sizing
and budget requirements.

Entry level or budgedbudged-sensitive implementations

ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA provides 256 GB and 512 GB scale up systems that
use the internal storage of the HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8 server to offer a very economical
storage infrastructure. These systems use a pair of 600 GB HDD disk drives in a RAID-1

configuration for the operating system and HANA application files. They use another eight
600 GB HDD disk drives in a RAID-5 configuration for the database data and log files.

Medium sized, performanceperformance-sensitive implementation

ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA provides 1 TB and 2 TB scale up systems that use a
combination of internal storage and low-cost, direct attached storage to provide a larger,
higher performance storage infrastructure.
These systems use a pair of 800 GB SSD (solid state) disk drives in a RAID-1
configuration for the operating system, HANA application files and database log files. Using
solid state storage and separating the log file storage from the data file storage provides a
higher performance configuration, which is particularly important to customers
implementing SAP Business Suite on HANA (SoH) using the 2 TB scale up configuration.
The D2700 storage enclosure provides a low cost, direct attached storage solution for
the database data files. It is configured with 25 disk drives in a RAID-50 configuration,
managed by an HP Smart Array controller installed in one of the servers PCI slots.

EnterpriseEnterprise-class shared storage

ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA scale out and ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA
scale up and scale out use 3PAR StoreServ 7400 as centralized, shared storage for HANA
application files (which must be stored on shared storage for scale out systems) as well as
HANA database data and log files.
The HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage array is part of the industry-leading family of HP
3PAR storage arrays chosen by three out of four of the worlds largest managed service
providers (MSPs). It features high performance, high availability and simplified
management through a combination of system-wide striping (all storage is striped across all
system components, including controllers, cache and disk drives), Mesh-Active design and
autonomic (self-managing) capabilities. HP 3PAR Thin Technology is another significant
differentiator, implementing thin provisioning at the hardware level instead of requiring
customers to purchase additional software, which is typical for other storage platforms. In
addition to reducing costs, this results in a more efficient design and enables certain
capabilities that are not possible otherwise (e.g. non-disruptively converting thin volumes to
thick volumes and vice versa). For more information, visit http://www.hp.com/go/3par for
more information.

Additional Software
HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA includes all of the software needed to deliver a
complete solution including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP applications and
Integrated Lights Out (iLO) Advanced. VMware vSphere and vCenter software is also
included if customers select the virtualization option. HP ensures global quality standards
by preloading and configuring SAP HANA software at the factory before delivery. No
additional software is necessary for the HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA. All solutions
are built to your specifications, and they include all required components, services and
support.
HP also provides monitoring and backup software solutions to further enhance your
solution. HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA can be easily monitored utilizing HP
Systems Insight Manager (SIM), available as part of HP Insight Control or as a free
download. This powerful yet intuitive solution provides hardware-level management for
system administrators to improve system uptime and health. For more information, visit

http://www.hp.com/go/sim. Finally, HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA includes Insight

Remote Support Advanced (IRSA) to provide remote monitoring by the HP Center of
Expertise (CoE) for SAP HANA. This is a free add-on to SIM, and free installation and
configuration services are included as part of all recommended support Care Packs. For
more information, visit the HP Insight Online page at http://www.hp.com/go/insight.
HP Data Protector software is certified for Backint for SAP HANA, improving
performance when backing up or restoring the SAP HANA database and improving
management and scheduling of backup jobs. One major benefit to customers is the ability to
use one backup solution for all of their computing environments, including SAP HANA
there is no longer a need to do things one way for SAP HANA and a different way for
everything else. Another major benefit is the ability to develop a comprehensive, singlevendor backup and recovery solution, simplifying implementation and ongoing
administration and support, by combining HP Data Protector with HP StoreOnce and/or HP
StoreEver backup solutions.

One HP service solution for SAP HANA

HP provides end-to-end services across the lifecycle of HP ConvergedSystem for SAP
HANA, including strategy and design, factory integration, on-site installation, and one-stop
solution level support for HP hardware, SLES, and SAP HANA. HP and SAP collaborate to
provide you with seamless support experience.

Design and Build

With every SAP HANA system, HP includes the resources to assist with the sizing and
configuration of an SAP HANA environment. This includes the sizing of the appropriate
system, in addition to recommendations concerning the configurations to address your
requirements for multiple SAP landscapes, high availability, and disaster tolerance. Then,
with every SAP HANA order, HP includes its core competency process for factory
integration, where they integrate the hardware, load all of the software components, and
apply your unique environmental settings for network and source systems. Finally, the
system completes a burn-in test before they ship the order to your location.

Implementation
Delivery of the SAP HANA system is not the final step. Beyond the design and build of a
SAP HANA solution, integration of the solution into your environment is equally, if not more,
critical to successfully getting SAP HANA up and running. HP understands this, so they
include installation, implementation, and training with every SAP HANA solution they
deliver. The basic foundational service includes the following:
All HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA come standard with Factory Express Level 4
services that leverage HP factory integration skills on SAP HANA. This way, HP helps
reduce deployment time with hardware built to customers exact specifications, then
shipped as a turn-key solution from the HP factory. Additional, on-site installation services
help with harware installation in the Datacenter, powering up server(s) and storage, and
connectivity and Hardware checks.
HP Deployment Accelerator Service is a service that accompanies HP
ConvergedSystem to ensure the appliance is properly installed and that the database
connections are made. HP Fast Start Services are available to ensure that the replication
and/or Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) of data from the source systems have been tested

and confirmed as fully functional. Customers can choose either the Deployment Accelerator
Service or the Fast Start service for their onsite implementation.

Support
Customers may choose from a selection of HP Support Services to meet business needs.
The minimum required support level for HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA is HP
Proactive Care HP recommends HP Proactive Care with HP Personalized Support option
and HP Proactive Select to develop an ongoing support plan, build an advocate into the
reactive support delivery team, and plan for unique or changing needs.

HP Proactive Care Advanced

HP Proactive Care Advanced is the recommended support level for our HP
ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA. Proactive Care Advanced builds on the HP
Proactive Care Services providing customers with dedicated and technical resources to
extend their IT team to proactively prevent issues, maximize performance, and accelerate
problem resolution. HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA customers will benefit by:
personalized advice, planning, and deliverables from dedicated, local resources and singlestop support from HP Center of Expertise for SAP HANA for the entire system. The
customers can prevent problems and reduce risk with personalized, proactive reports and
best practice advice, optimize the usage and functionality of their IT system, and accelerate
problem resolution with dedicated critical case management, thus enjoying high availability
and performance from their HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA.

HP Migration Services for SAP HANA Migrate smoothly to CS900 for

SAP HANA
Thanks to HP Migration Services for SAP HANA, you can move to SAP HANA without
worrying about disrupting business. Ease the implementation through step-by-step
migration assessment, preparation, execution, and transition to operations. The services
facilitate a ready-to-use HP ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA. You can:

Assess through a comprehensive review of key SAP HANA migrations steps,

plans, and roadmaps

Prepare with OS, database management system (DBMS), and hypervisor

upgrades, system preparation, and migration tests

Migrate using complete deployment, production migration, SAP certification,

and acceptance

Manage via training, knowledge transfer, transition to operations, and

decommissioning of legacy systems

HP High Availability Service for SAP HANA Keep business running

With HP High Availability Service for SAP HANA, you can automate and simplify SAP HANA
System Replication through the implementation of HP Serviceguard solution for SAP HANA.
Achieve high availability (HA), faster time to disaster recovery, and efficiencies in
configuration administration, as well as:

Achieve up-to-date backup, connection, SAP HANA System Replication, and

system readiness

Integrate HP Serviceguard with SAP HANA System Replication

Deploy the SAP HANA cluster packages


Transfer knowledge covering the use and
ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA in an HA environment.

operation

of

HP

HP Disaster Tolerance Service for SAP HANA

Simplify the process of implementing and configuring system replication for HP
ConvergedSystem with HP Disaster Tolerance Service for SAP HANA, accelerating time to
disaster recovery. In addition, you can:

Gather and validate SAP HANA System Replication requirements

Enable up-to-date backup, connection, and system readiness

Configure and test SAP HANA System Replication in a DT (disaster-tolerant)

environment.

Knowledge transfer for HP ConvergedSystem for HANA configuration,

networking and system replication for SAP HANA.
Note that while support for the SAP HANA software requires a separate support agreement
with SAP, HP and SAP collaborate to resolve your issues around SAP HANA. You get a
dedicated, single point of contact for the whole solution
Proactive Care Service includes proactive support as well as hardware and software
support to provide an additional level of support for organizations that are managing
complex IT environments. Geared for converged, virtualized, and cloud-based
environments, Proactive Care Service features remote and onsite support, proactive scans
and reports, and regular consultations with HP technology experts. You can purchase an
option that includes an assigned local HP specialist who delivers an Account Support Plan
customized to fit your needs. Each customized plan includes delivering updates to your
hardware firmware and operating system, regular system health checks, and setup of
remote monitoring. For hardware and software support, HP delivers enhanced support from
trained specialists in its Advanced Solution Center. With a connection to SAPs support
operation, HP can take the first call on any SAP HANA support issue. Based on this wellestablished process, HP is able to deliver industry-leading support and help improve
performance of SAP HANA solutions.
For SAP HANA deployed in large complex, datacenter environments that need a
customized approach to support, HP recommends Datacenter Care that increases
datacenter efficiency and resolve interoperability issues faster by providing environmental,
customized support.

Business Solutions for SAP HANA based on business outcomes

HP provides end to end services to help you identify your strategy, quantify your business
opportunity, computing your ROI, and implementing SAP HANA into your SAP landscape.
They include the following services.

The HP Business Intelligence Master Plan Service is an overarching BI

strategy-development service designed to help you define a BI strategy and a
landscape to enable your organization to realize that strategy. This service
includes a roadmap for implementation.

The HP Impact Analysis for SAP HANA helps you understand the technical
feasibility of introducing SAP HANA to meet your real-time and high-volume data
analysis requirements. It is highly recommended for each SAP HANA
implementation.


The HP Financial Assessment for SAP HANA provides granular information
to support your decision-making process. It is formatted to be suitable for use in
supporting budgeting processes.

The HP Solution Assessment for SAP HANA is an engagement during which

HP consultants will assess your existing information landscape in detail, identify
data sets for use with SAP HANA, detect any gaps in the current environment, and
create a solution blueprint based on the findings.

The HP Landscape Preparation Service for SAP HANA is designed to ensure

that the surrounding solution landscape is in place and is optimized to allow for the
inclusion of the SAP HANA appliance and to speed time-to-value of the SAP HANA
solution. This service includes upgrading or installing SAP and non-SAP
components in the landscape.

HP Fast Start Service includes required services that accompany the

appliance to ensure that the appliance is properly installed; database connections
are made; and the replication and extract, transform, load (ETL) of data from the
source systems have been tested and confirmed as fully functional.

The HP Implementation Service for SAP HANA is a complete end-to-end

SAP HANA implementation based on a solution blueprint designed by a team of
HP consultants. These consultants follow the HP Global Implementation
Methodology for Business Intelligence for all SAP HANA implementation projects

Implementation services for rapid-deployment solutions covering a wide

range of business reporting and analytics.

HP Migration Services HP is offering a number of migration services to

SAP HANA. These include
Business Warehouse (BW) migration services to SAP HANA
Business Suite migration services to SAP HANA
Enterprise Edition migration services to SAP HANA
Business analytic solutions for SAP HANA
Use case development for industry and horizontal business processes
supporting improved business reporting, business processes and analytics

HP AsAs-a-Service Solution for SAP HANA

This offering provides clients with a complete solution that includes the SAP HANA product,
management of your SAP HANA environment, initial and ongoing costs, and the SAP HANA
license. This means you can be connected to SAP HANAs revolutionary in-memory
database platform in weeks instead of months. This offering also supports the as-a-service
payment model and the client pays for the service via a monthly subscription rate
eliminating the need for the client to make capital investments for their HANA solutions.
These offerings include

Business Warehouse on SAP HANA Provide single source of truth for all
your SAP data and provide real time business analytics with your enterprise data
warehouse based on SAP Netweaver Business Warehouse (BW)

Business Suite on SAP HANA Provide real time access to your transaction
data enabling faster business processes and innovative solutions not possible until

now.

Enterprise Edition on SAP HANA Provide single source of truth for all your
enterprise data and provide real time business analytics with your enterprise data
warehouse based on Enterprise Edition for SAP HANA

HP Financial Services
HP Financial Services can make your transition to SAP HANA easy and cost effective, and it
can help you get started even sooner. You can expand your organizations SAP HANA
initiatives by taking advantage of an efficient, effective way to maximum return from IT and
BI solutions, while minimizing risk and aggressively managing costs. HP Financial Services
offers new HP hardware leasing and SAP software license loans plus a complete, global
solution that recovers value from older assets. This solution also helps safeguard privacy,
and it complies with applicable environmental regulations for disposing of SAP
infrastructure assets that are displaced by your new HP AppSystems for SAP HANA. For
further information please go to: www.hp.com/go/asset_recovery.

Migration Assistance
For existing SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator software customers,
HP and SAP recognize that to migrate your environment to SAP HANA will involve extra
effort and incremental costs. To help ease the transition, HP and SAP offer a migrationassistance package that features a combination of HP financing options and a portfolio of
migration services you can use to clear the path to faster data analysis.

HP Leads the Way with another #1 Benchmark Results for SAP HANA
SAP partnered with HP to co-develop the new SAP standard application benchmark for the
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse application, called the enhanced mixed load (EML)
benchmark. SAP standard application benchmarks are designed to represent customerrelevant scenarios in many different business contexts. This new SAP EML standard
application benchmark simulates the current demands of typical SAP NetWeaver BW
customers. These demands are shaped primarily by three major requirements: near realtime reporting, ad-hoc reporting capabilities, and reduction of TCO.
Continuing with HPs commitment to deliver innovation, in March 2014, HP once more
achieved an excellent outcome on the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse-Enhanced
Mixed Load (BW-EML) standard application benchmark. Utilizing the new HP
ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA, which includes the ProLiant DL580 Gen8 Server
and the latest Intel Xeon processor technology, the system achieved a remarkable result of
126,980 ad-hoc query navigation steps with 2 billion initial records on the SAP HANA
platform (certification 2014009). The system accessed twice as many initial records as its
previous generation system, the ProLiant DL580 G7.
The result demonstrates the ability of HP ConvergedSystem 500 for SAP HANA to meet
evolving market and customer needs, highlighting HPs understanding of market
conditionsfrom managing analytics and data warehousing workloads to running missioncritical business applications. Simply put, HP gets similar performance with double the data
footprint. In addition, the system is optimized to deliver the highest levels of performance
and availability for in-memory computing, which significantly improves analytics processing
speeds by delivering outstanding, scalable analytic performance in seconds versus hours
on massive, multi-dimensional databases.

Customer Success Stories

Velux Group
The VELUX Group is a Danish manufacturer of windows and skylights that runs 15
production and 39 sales companies, and employs 10,000 workers worldwide. The VELUX
Group aimed to render its data capabilities more agile and accessible. Since 2005, the
VELUX Group has worked with HP partner Accenture as its IT outsourcing provider. The
company also was a HP customer, running its SAP infrastructure on HP Superdome
servers. When SAP began replacing its Integrated Planning (IP) application with Business
Planning & Consolidation, the VELUX Group saw this as an opportunity to move to a more
dynamic forecasting model.

We had three main drivers: Bring more data to more users, faster; move from a static to a
rolling forecasting model; and leverage advanced tools such as predictive analytics.
Anders Reinhardt, head of global business intelligence, VELUX Global Financial
Management
To get the most out of Business Planning & Consolidation, the company decided to
implement SAP HANA, running on HP AppSystems for SAP HANA scale-out configuration,
as the underlying database.

HP didnt just deliver hardware and leave; its been an integral part of the project
throughout and still brings value in relation to HANA operations.
Anders Reinhardt, head of global business intelligence, VELUX Global Financial
Management

T-mobile
An example of the outstanding results that can flow from an HPSAP collaboration, consider
the case of T-Mobile. The U.S. wireless operation of Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile
provides more than 33 million customers with customized wireless plans that reflect their
smart phone and data needs. A key component of the companys marketing strategy is to
conduct highly targeted customer communications concerning mobile phone services and
offers. Unfortunately, its previous analytics solution was too complex and could not track
customer offers in a timely way.
The solution built on HP Converged Infrastructure in collaboration with SAP AG and
deployed in just two weeks enhances T-Mobiles ability to deliver targeted marketing
campaigns to customers by transforming the way it delivers, manages, and measures its
wireless plan offers.
T-Mobile needed faster and better customer insight from its varied data systems,
explained Paul Miller, vice president of Converged Systems at HP. HP and SAP quickly
delivered a turnkey solution that provides simplicity, performance, and faster time-to-value.
SAP, in cooperation with HP, worked to support the creation and delivery of a unique and
differentiated customer-tracking solution for T-Mobile, revealed Steve Lucas, executive
vice president and general manager of Global Database and Technology, SAP. With SAP
HANA, T-Mobile can more effectively track its marketing campaigns success.

Nongfu Spring
Another illuminating example is Nongfu Spring, an established and expanding national
consumer brand in China with a vast scope of operations encompassing production, sales,
planning, dispatching, logistics, and marketing. As the company expanded and constantly

added new branches in different cities, it needed to implement a database solution that
could keep pace with its impressive growth while providing the real-time, accurate data its
executives needed to make informed business decisions. To accomplish this task, Nongfu
Spring chose HP AppSystems for SAP HANA due to the stable, powerful performance of its
HP ProLiant DL980 server and the professional services provided by the HP team.
With the new system in place, Nongfu Springs manufacturing environment now runs
more smoothly and with more accurate data. For example, the increased computing
speeds enable the company to analyze data 200300 times faster than with their previous
database platform. Another benefit: Financial reporting times have reduced from seven to
three days.
The market today is changing constantly, and companies and the market environment
have more new IT requirements, asserts Nongfu Spring CIO Patrick Hoo. By cooperating
with HP on SAP HANA 1.0, we have proven that HANA is a high-speed in-memory
computing column-storage database product that is mature and practical. It fundamentally
solved the problem of slow computing and presentation of data caused by having too much
data, which had affected our business. It also built a solid foundation for our IT department
to provide strong support for the companys rapid future business development.

Contact information for inquiries

For more information, visit http://www.hp.com/go/sap/hana or contact your HP sales
representative.

Huawei SAP HANA Solutions

The SAP HANA is a data platform that can be deployed either as an appliance or in the
cloud. It is a revolutionary platform that is ideally suited to run real-time analytics and to
develop and deploy real-time applications. It enables real-time processing of massive
amounts of data in the main memory of a server.
Huawei has partnered with SAP to create an appliance based on Huaweis high-end
Tecal RH5885 V2 rack server. This appliance provides outstanding performance when it is
used in combination with SAP HANA. It offers solutions ranging from entry-level supporting
128 GB of memory to large-scale supporting up to 100 TB of usable memory with 100
nodes.
The RH5885 V2-based appliance for SAP HANA is able to deliver the fastest write
performance in the industry for SAP HANA write patterns. It has less than 15% latency as
well as 20% more bandwidth.
RH5885 V2 is a high-end 4-socket rack server that is expandable to 8 sockets. It
supports Intel Xeon E7-8800/4800 series CPUs, and it can accommodate up to 80 cores
with 4 TB of memory. RH5885 V2 offers enhanced system reliability thanks to its 35 RAS
features. These features combine with scalable I/O to make RH5885 V2 an ideal choice to
deploy mission-critical applications such as large-scale databases, business intelligence,
and ERP.

Highlights

100100,000x faster than disk-based DB; No.1 writing performance with 15%
less latency and 20% more bandwidth

Pre-optimized and one-stop maintenance

Powered by RH5885 with 35 RAS features; No. 1 in 12 SPEC tests

Infrastructure
The RH5885 V2 for SAP HANA offers a preinstalled, preconfigured, optimized appliance
ranging from XS to L Size that supports the SAP HANA application stack in a single host.

Figure 1: Tecal RH5885 V2 Front View

Figure 2: Tecal RH5885 V2 Rear View

Model Specifications
Table 1: Tecal RH5885 V2 for SAP HANA

Included Software and Driver

SLES for SAP Applications 11.2

SAP HANA Appliance software (license is sold separately by SAP)
Huawei Tecal ES3000 driver

More information
http://enterprise.huawei.com/en/products/itapp/server/rh-series-rack-servers/hw145982.htm
http://enterprise.huawei.com/en/products/itapp/server/high-performance-pcIe-card/hw194918.htm

IBM Systems and Services Solutions for SAP HANA

IBM Systems and Services Solutions for SAP HANA
SAP HANA deployed on IBM System x Workload Optimized Solutions with the IBM General
Parallel File System (GPFS) offer simple, seamless scalability for your SAP HANA
environment. In addition, IBM offers installation and managed services to help you manage
your SAP HANA infrastructure cost-effectively. IBM Global Business Services (GBS) can
help you extract the business value out of your SAP HANA implementation.

IBM and SAP team for longlong-term business innovation

With a unique combination of expertise, experience and proven methodolo- gies and a

history of shared innovation IBM can help strengthen and optimize your information
infrastructure to support your SAP applications.
IBM and SAP have worked together for over 40 years to deliver innovation to their
shared customers. Since 2006, IBM has been the market leader for implementing SAPs
original in-memory appliance, the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator
(BWA). Hundreds of BWA deployments have been successfully completed in multiple
industries and countries. These BWA appliances have been successfully deployed in many
of SAPs largest business warehouse implementations, which are based on IBM hardware
and DB2 optimized for SAP.
IBM and SAP offer solutions that move business forward and anticipate organizational
change by strengthening your business analytics information infrastructure for greater
operational efficiency and offering a way to make smarter decisions faster.

IBM eX5 and X6 Systems with GPFS Power SAP HANA

SAP HANA, delivered on IBM eX5 and X6 enterprise servers with fifth and sixth-generation
IBM Enterprise X-Architecture technology (eX5, X6), help transform the enterprise by
addressing current needs while delivering the robust scalability and performance needed to
accommodate growth. SAP HANA running on powerful IBM eX5 and X6 enterprise servers
with the Intel Xeon processor E7 and E7v2 family combines the speed and efficiency of inmemory processing with the ability to analyze massive amounts of business data enabling
companies to eliminate barriers between real-time events and real-time business decisions.
IBM System x servers with Enterprise X Architecture technology enable SAP HANA
customers to benefit from a shared vision that delivers simplicity and automation designed
to help organizations accelerate business outcomes while lowering TCO.
IBM eX5 and X6 enterprise servers with Intel Xeon processors offer extreme memory
and performance scalability. With improved hardware economics and new technology
offerings, IBM is helping SAP realize a real-time enterprise with in-memory business
applications. IBM eX5 and X6 enterprise servers deliver a long history of leading SAP
benchmark performance.
These System x servers are equipped with processors from the Intel Xeon processor E7
family, which combine exceptional raw compute power with increased memory bandwidth
and support for significantly greater memory capacity to deliver superior performance to
previous-generation processors. With up to fifteen cores in each processor, the four-socket
x3850 X6 can be scaled to 60 cores and 120 threads with the use of Intel Hyper-Threading
Technology. Organizations can achieve extreme scaling within each node for running
demanding workloads on a compact system.
SAP HANA is a business-critical technology and requires a robust and reliable
enterprise computing platform. Sophisticated eX5 and X6 features such as Predictive
Failure Alerts warn ahead of potential hardware failures, trigger preemptive action, and help
maintain application availability. In addition, features such as eXFlash solid-state disk
technology can yield significant performance improvements in storage access, helping
deliver an optimized system solution for SAP HANA.

Workload Optimized Solutions

IBM offers several Workload Optimized Solution models for SAP HANA. These models,
based on the 2-socket x3690 X5 and 4-socket x3950 X5, 4 socket x3850 X6 and 8 socket
x3950 X6 are optimally designed and certified by SAP and can be ordered as a single

appliance part number. They are delivered preconfigured with key software components
preinstalled to help speed delivery and deployment of the solution.
The IBM System x3690 X5 is a 2U rack-optimized server. This machine brings the eX5
features and performance to the mid tier. It is an ideal match for the smaller, two-CPU
configurations for SAP HANA. The x3690 X5based configurations offer 128 to 256 GB of
memory and solid-state disk. The x3950 X5based configurations leverage the scalability of
eX5 and offer the capability to pay as you grow starting with a 2-processor, 256 GB
configuration and growing to a 8-processor, 4 TB configuration. The X6 models include the
2 or 4 socket x3850 X6 and the 8 socket x3950 X6 provide a modular design which nearly
two times the performace over the eX5 system, simplifies maintenance, and provides ongoing investment protection.

These systems are designed for maximum utilization, reliability, and performance for
compute-intensive and memory-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA.
IBM also offers a virtualized implementation using VMware. This implementation,
intended for non-production environments, enables you to optimize your hardware
investment. Now, you can install multiple HANA virtual machines (VMs) on a single system
and quickly deploy those VMs for non-production workoads.
IBM and SAP have worked closely together to validate each of the work-load-optimized
configurations and have also collaborated on performance testing.
Outstanding results like this are founded on years of joint product development which

allows IBM and SAP offerings to be integrated for simplified implementation.

Simple and Seamless Scalability

Using the workload-optimized solution models you can combine multiple models together to
create multi-node scale-out configurations. These multi-node scale-out configurations
enable you to achieve larger SAP HANA memory sizes simply by adding compute nodes.
IBM was the first vendor to have multi-node scale-out configurations and currently has 56node x3950 X5, x3850 X6 and x3950 X6 solutions validated. You can start with one 256GB
node, upgrade to a 512GB or 1TB node, and grow your environment to 56 x 2TB nodes.
This modular approach enables you to invest in a Workload-Optimized solution for SAP
HANA and grow your infrastructure as your SAP HANA environment grows. In addition, you
can handle unplanned outages by including an additional seamless High-Availability (HA)
node in your configuration.
These multi-node scale-out configurations do not require an external Storage Area
Network (SAN) or multiple SANs. The IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS)
software in these configurations has the unique capability to use the storage contained
within each node helping to simplify the infrastructure required for SAP HANA. Only IBM
has a High-Availability concept which allows customers to seamlessly extend their
installation to enable High Availability using GPFS replication and an additional stand-by
node.
GPFS, with its high-performance enterprise file management, can help move beyond
simply adding storage to optimizing data management for SAP HANA. High-performance
enterprise file management using GPFS gives SAP HANA applications:

Performance to satisfy the most demanding SAP HANA applications

Seamless capacity expansion to handle the explosive growth of data SAP

HANA environments

High reliability, availability and disaster recovery to help eliminate production

outages and provide disruption-free maintenance and capacity upgrades

Seamless capacity and performance scaling along with the proven

reliability features and flexible architecture of GPFS help your company foster
innovation by simplifying your environment and streamlining data workflows for
increased efficiency for SAP HANA applications.
By implementing SAP HANA on eX5 and X6 enterprise servers with GPFS, you can
realize faster performance, less complexity and greater efficiency from a powerful and
proven converged infrastructure environment of integrated technologies. These workloadoptimized solutions for SAP HANA can help simplify operations, consolidate resources and
dynamically migrate functionality as business changes, while delivering the ability to quickly
change the way users look at mass amounts of data without compromising data integrity or
security.
For more information about the IBM Systems solution for SAP HANA and the IBM
System x Workload Optimized Solutions for SAP HANA, please read the IBM Redpaper:
SAP In-Memory Computing on IBM eX5 and X6 Systems.

Services to speed deployment

To help speed deployment and simplify maintenance of your Workload Optimized Solution
for SAP HANA, IBM Lab Services and IBM Global Technology Services offer quick-start

services to help set up and configure the appliance and health-check services to ensure it
continues to run optimally. In addition, IBM also offers skills and enablement services for
administration and management of IBM eX5 and X6 enterprise servers. IBM offers Quick
Start implementation services to help you install and configure your SAP HANA appliance
and HealthCheck services to help you manage and maintain your SAP HANA appliance. In
addition, IBM also offers skills enablement services to provide technical training to your
teams that need to manage the HANA appliance. IBM Total Solution Support and Remote
Managed Services for SAP HANA provide a single point of contact and focal point for all
SAP HANA issues. If you determine that you do not want to manage the SAP HANA
appliance, then IBM offers a Managed Service that can provide 24x7 monitoring and
management of the SAP HANA appliance enabling you to off-load the maintenance and
management of the appliance.

A trusted service partner

Many clients require more than software and hardware products. They need a partner to
help them assess their current capabilities, identify areas for improvement and develop a
strategy for moving forward. This is where IBM Global Business Services (GBS) provides
immeasurable value with thousands of SAP consultants in 80 countries. GBS combines its
SAP implementation experience and skills with the broader IBM business intelligence
competencies to create an unparalleled opportunity for our clients to not only implement
SAP HANA solutions, but to then take that implementation to new heights and identify
transformational opportunities.
The GBS HANA team within IBM has leveraged the experiences gained to date on SAP
HANA offerings and grouped efforts into two main opportunities for clients who wish to
deploy SAP HANA Do New Things and Run Existing Things Faster.
The GBS Consulting Practice offers a broad range of services for SAP HANA such as:

Discovery and assessment services to maximize business impact

Architecture assessment and benchmark services

Proof of concept services

Express deployment offerings, including industry best practices

These services have been grouped into four key offerings as shown in the table below:

Combining the strengths of GBS with IBM System x Workload Optimized Solutions for
SAP HANA allows our customers to gain the maximum benefits of their investment in SAP
HANA and to bring those solutions to life to address immediate information needs and
identify the transformational opportunities that can bring the organization to the highest
levels of insight and action.
IBM can also offer financing options helping clients to acquire IT solutions that are
tailored to their individual goals and budget.

For more information

To learn more about the IBM Systems and Services solutions for SAP HANA and IBM
System x eX5 and X6 Workload Optimized Systems, please contact your IBM marketing
representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit: www.ibm-sap.com/hana.

NEC SAP HANA Solutions

NEC delivers SAP HANA as a key platform to realize a world where people can reach all the
information they need or want and to discover something new and worthwhile from the
massive amount of data produced daily.
The NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA incorporates the truly innovative
in-memory computing technology of SAP and the truly dependable hardware platform of
NEC, which has kept the No.1 market share in PC-servers in the Japan market for 18 years.
In the beginning of 2014 NEC launched the 6th generation of Intel architecture based

scalable enterprise server, Express5800/A2040b, which succeeds the previously very

successful lineup of NEC HANA appliances. It is designed to optimize performance,
scalability and reliability for mission critical workloads. This enterprise server uses the Intel
Xeon processor E7 v2 product family and will be available starting from the middle of 2014
as appliance certified for SAP HANA in different sizes. The HANA appliance entry model
starts with 128GB of RAM and 2 CPU sockets, scaling up through different sizes to a 4-way
2TB RAM top of the line model. Scale out configurations up to 16 nodes with multiple
aggregated 10 GB internode links will be available later.
All the NEC SAP HANA appliances include the EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP3
integrated into the server, which provides superior remote control and system management
capabilities.

Why Express5800 is ideal platform for SAP HANA

High-performance Express5800/A2040b Scalable Enterprise Servers, which leverage
NECs long heritage in the development of supercomputer and mainframe technologies to
achieve highly reliable and flexible system expandability, are leveraged as the platform for
SAP HANA. The flagship NEC Express5800/A2040b model has capabilities to mount up to
4CPUs and 4TB RAM within a single 4U chassis.

One noteworthy hardware feature is its EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP3, a uniquely

developed device by NEC based on our experience in UNIX servers, enables to monitor
and control Express5800/A2040b with a remote and centralized interface regardless of the
power status of servers. It significantly increases maintainability and reduces downtime of
SAP HANA.

Support Infrastructure

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is a fine-tuned and supported
operating system based on fully open source technology towards the nature of SAP
applications workload and its system lifecycle. Its priority support provides unlimited
24hx7d technical support from SUSE, and its extended support offers additional 18 months
for package maintenance. It also maximizes system uptime with highly-selected packageupdates; only packages that affect SAP system shall be upgraded.
NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA uses SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
for SAP Applications, including its priority support. NEC has a lot of experience providing
mission-critical grade support on Linux systems, and has contributed various kind of open
source community including Linux kernel development. Through the long-standing
partnership with SUSE, NEC provides mission-critical class support for SAP HANA.

Additional software supported

NEC ESMPRO ServerManager is server management software that provides
administrators a centralized view to manage or monitor distributed multiple nodes.
It leverages the EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP3 of Express5800/A2040b servers and an
installed ESMPRO Agent on the system to collect the run-time information of both hardware
and software; which enables administrators to identify issues quickly if and when something
should happen.

Support and Additional Services

Through the longstanding partnership with SAP and SUSE, NEC will offer mission-critical
grade support service from hardware to applications, for the global market.
NEC was one of the first distributors of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
(BI) solutions in Japan market, which is the front-end tool for visualization and analytics for
SAP HANA, and NEC has experience supporting more than 500 installations with help of
our sales, support and consulting organizations.
In addition, NEC has established an evaluation team of SAP HANA to make the latest
technology commercially available as soon as possible.

Support Service
For more information, please contact a NEC sales representative in your region or email
nssc-cs@sap.jp.nec.com.

VCE Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA Software

VCE Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA software delivers faster timeto-value and
the highest levels of availability and application performance. Incorporating best-of-breed
compute, network, and storage components from Cisco and EMC, this Vblock Specialized
System is optimized for SAP HANA software and certified by SAP.
The optimization of the VCE Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA software
brings together all of the necessary components for SAP HANA into a single, standardized,
converged infrastructure system. This ensures maximum performance at scale, even with
high data volumes. This allows you to deploy SAP HANA into production with trusted and
predictable performance, one-stop customer support, security and pain-free deployment.

VCE
VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the
adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically

reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers.
VCE, through Vblock Systems, delivers the industrys only fully integrated and fully
virtualized cloud infrastructure system. VCE solutions are available through an extensive
partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and
application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation
instead of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure.

Vblock Systems
VCE Vblock Systems have revolutionized the IT infrastructure by providing a datacenter in a
rack.
By consolidating all the components into a single system, Vblock Systems improve
efficiency, speed, and reliability all while driving down costs. Sprawling, complex
hardware is replaced by a smaller footprint x86-based Vblock System.

Figure 1: A Vblock System with three cabinets

With Vblock Systems, IT staff no longer needs to spend an average of 70% of their time
maintaining infrastructure, they can focus on activities that add real value to the business.
Business continuity is a key requirement for companies whose success relies on robust
operations. VCE solutions enable high availability and rapid recovery, ensuring missioncritical applications are there when you need them.
All Vblock Systems are built the same based on validated best practices. This is why
they have a shorter time to deployment and deployment provides less room for human
errors. All are built to lower facilities costs. Vblock Systems provide reduced complexity with
standardized infrastructure, are pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated. As a result
you do not have to worry about firmware releases, management tools, configuration
settings and if they will integrate with each other VCEs engineering team will.

Building a Vblock System

Each Vblock System is designed, engineered, built, and installed by a global team. This
team, brought together by VCE, brings their specialist expertize to ensure a robust and
optimally engineered solution. When the system arrives for installation at your facility it has

been configured for your environment including configuration for your network.
Figure 2 illustrates the process for building a Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA
Software. Each Vblock System is sized, built (both physically and logically), installed, and
validated to ensure optimal performance.

Figure 2: Creating a Vblock System from request to final installation and testing

The first step in the process is sizing. At this stage, the amount of memory required is
determined. For a SAP HANA appliance, the number of servers and amount of storage
required is determined based on the memory requirements.
Once a Project Manager has been assigned, the Logical configuration survey is
completed. Examples of the extensive logical configuration requirements are IP addresses
and VLANs.
The Site survey addresses issues related to the physical space into which the Vblock
System will be installed. This survey includes items such as door heights and available
power supply.
The survey process allows you to benefit from VCEs extensive experience.
Once onsite, VCE specialists will complete any physical installation tasks, connect it into
your network and execute an onsite test plan to ensure that your Vblock System is
operating optimally.

Architecture
VCE has developed the Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA, a scale-out appliance
that has undergone SAPs rigorous performance and stability tests and is an SAP-certified

solution.
The VCE datacenter in a rack brings together servers, network, storage and
virtualization into a well-defined package.
The architecture of the Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA is shown in the
diagram below:

Figure 3: Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA architecture

The Vblock System provides a highly scalable and available infrastructure leveraging
the EMC VNX Storage and Cisco UCS to help organizations best utilize the big data

analytics capabilities in SAP HANA and make better real-time business decisions. The builtin fault tolerance of Cisco UCS blade servers and EMC VNX ensures the infrastructure will
be available through hardware failures.
Each Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA has one hot-standby node for High
Availability. The SAP HANA scale-out design incorporates high availability that is managed
and operated at the application level. Each system includes a standby node that provides
failover capability.
Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA delivers the server and storage infrastructure
needed across block or file data access and allows seamless growth to enable real time
data analytics. The data storage requirement determines which Vblock Specialized System
for SAP HANA configuration is applicable in a given situation.
Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA leverages advantages in server technology,
in-memory databases, and cloud computing. In the scale-out scenario, the SAP HANA
database instance is distributed over multiple servers allowing you to incrementally add
Cisco B440 M2 blade servers, each with 512 GB memory with four Intel Xeon Processors.

Figure 4: Connectivity for Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA with four nodes

Thoroughly tested and certified by SAP and VCE, key components and features of the
Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA include:

Pre-integrated and pre-validated Vblock System infrastructure that simplifies

and optimizes deployment and management


Pre-installed and configured SAP HANA appliance hardware, operating
system (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), and SAP HANA Platform Edition
software.

Pre-configured storage platform, EMC VNX, with centralized management

for file and block data services.

High availability is provided to ensure that a node failure does not cause the
system to fail

Scales up to sixteen blades across one to four EMC VNX platforms

Common power solution across cabinets with domestic and international

options

Single-purpose environment with all server resources dedicated to the SAP

HANA appliance

Easy maintenance
Choosing the Vblock Specialized System for SAP HANA significantly reduces your
maintenance overhead. Supporting a SAP HANA environment requires management of
these components:

Firmware patches

Operating system patches

Patches for the SAP HANA platform components

Patches for peripheral components

By choosing VCE, you gain access to a solution that assists you with this management
through support or extended support offerings. This aligned with VCEs proven
methodology of delivering and supporting converged Infrastructure throughout its lifecycle
makes VCE a safe choice for your SAP HANA project.

Seamless Support
It can be difficult to determine if your issue is caused by your hardware platform or SAP
HANA. VCE provides a single point of contact support to take responsibility for all issues.
With VCE, if you are an existing SAP customer, you can submit issues using the SAP
Service Marketplace exactly as you do now. The ticket is reviewed by SAP who conducts
initial analysis on the issue. If at any point during their analysis the issue appears to relate to
the Vblock System, SAP contacts VCE. The VCE Support team will convert to a standard
service request and follow standard support processes and B2B processes to engage
partner support, for example from SUSE, EMC or Cisco, as needed.

Services
VCE offers a comprehensive suite of professional services to accelerate your IT
transformation. Select from a full spectrum of service options, available through both VCE
and our extensive ecosystem of worldwide partners. Get the expertize you need, at any
phase of your journey, to transform your infrastructure, lower their costs, and achieve
greater flexibility and agility.

All VCE Professional Services leverage the combined expertise of ecosystem

technology experts in networking, compute, information management, virtualization, and

cloud computing.

Further reading
www.vce.com/sap Additional information about how VCE can address the requirements
of SAP environments
www.vce.com/products/specialized/sap-hana Detailed information and documentation
about the Vblock Specialized Systems for SAP HANA
http://www.vce.com/asset/documents/sap-hana-use-case.pdf Additional
about the benefits of the Vblock Specialized Systems for SAP HANA

information

Chapter 11

SAP HANA Projects and Implementation

He who fails to plan is planning to fail.
Winston Churchill

Introduction
So, youve decided to move forward with SAP HANA. Great! But how do you get started?
SAP HANA is a new technology, so your organization may lack the in-house expertise to
implement it on their own. Fortunately, whatever your situation, expert project planning,
implementation, and development services are available that can help ensure that you get
the maximum business value from SAP HANA, as quickly as possible.

Selecting the Right SAP HANA Service Partner

Its important to choose a partner who can help you be successful with SAP HANA. A recent
IDC report found that four of the top six impediments to implementing in-memory
technologies lack of skills, risk, organizational barriers, and return-on-investment
concerns highlight the need for a service provider who is highly experienced with inmemory technologies.10 Such a partner should be able to help your company plan, deploy,
and use SAP HANA to create value across the organization harnessing the power of big
data, delivering real-time analytics and business processes, and managing a robust
architecture complete with system landscapes and solutions. The right partner should also
provide you with access to experienced, certified experts in areas such as architecture,
deployment, and development. Throughout the implementation process, youll need to think
about how SAP HANA fits into your overall IT strategy now, and how it can serve as a basis
for growth and innovation in the future.
Listen to how USHA International, a leading Indian consumer products company, with the help of
SAP Services, utilized SAP Netweaver Business Warehouse, powered by SAP HANA, to improve
supply chain productivity and provide real-time insight to respond quickly to consumer demands.
Usha International: http://youtu.be/B3TRsEpw-I0

It All Starts with Good Planning

The more attention you devote to planning your implementation, the more you will benefit
from your SAP HANA investment. First and foremost, a good implementation partner should

help you develop a comprehensive roadmap detailing how in-memory computing can help
your company run at maximum speed and solve specific business problems. To accomplish
these goals, that partner must ask the critical questions that mean the difference between
success and failure and be able to answer these questions correctly.
Although the specific questions will vary by engagement, you should start by identifying
the right business use case for SAP HANA in your company. At SAP, we often distinguish
between business intelligence and technology intelligence. The best technology in the world
will not necessarily create value if it isnt aligned with the proper business scenario. Thus,
the first question to consider is: Where can an in-memory solution create the most value for
the least investment in the shortest timeframe, with the least disruption for business users?
The answer to that question will help you align desires (what you want) and needs (what
you actually need). At that point you can begin mapping the solution back to a technical
landscape.
Proper risk assessment is also crucial. Ask yourself:

How can we realize the solution in the shortest time with the least risk?

Does either SAP or its implementation partners offer any predefined services
or application solutions that can help?

What does the high-level project plan look like, and how well does it align
with our business requirements and expectations?

What personnel do we need to ensure successful planning and delivery?

Everyone Wants a LowLow-Cost, Rapid Implementation But How?

Once youve documented and received signoff on the planning phase, its time to identify
the expertise and skill sets you need, whether internal or external (or both). The goal: an
efficient, low-cost implementation that mitigates risk to both business and IT.
Your solution partner should be able to offer a wide range of solution scenarios including
end-to-end project implementation experience coupled with a holistic delivery methodology.
For many projects, prepackaged fixed-price offerings based on globally compiled best
practices, such as SAP Rapid Deployment solutions, can accelerate deployment while
limiting costs. Such solutions include preconfigured software, implementation services,
content, and end user enablement that together can radically accelerate time to value
delivering benefits in weeks rather than months.

What about Highly Complex Projects?

If your business problem is really complex for example, you need to manage large
amounts of data, work with highly-customized systems, extend existing solutions, or build
new solutions specific to your needs you may want to consider specialized services. If you
choose this option, its especially important that you select a partner with deep knowledge
and skilled resources, one who understands your unique issues and has a track record for
delivering custom solutions that successfully address their clients needs.

How Will We Ever Get up to Speed on This New Technology?

It is imperative for you to learn as much as possible about SAP HANA in order to fully reap
the benefits of this new technology. In addition to educating your technical and IT staff, you
need to make certain that your business users know the full extent of what is now possible
and how to best adapt for your environment. To accomplish these tasks, you should select a
service provider that offers skills-transfer opportunities.

Want to get the most from your SAP HANA platform? The SAP Education organization offers
courses and certifications to give technical consultants and internal IT staff the knowledge and
skills they need to fully leverage the power of SAP HANA. For more information visit the SAP
Learning and Software Services for HANA website: https://training.sap.com/us/en/curriculum/hanag-en

Service Provider Selection Checklist

The right service provider for your project should be able to:
____ Ensure appropriate due diligence during planning
____ Build a bridge between business and technology
____ Contribute the necessary resources and skill sets
____ Validate the value attained from your investment
____ Ensure that your SAP HANA installation fits well into your overall IT landscape
and architecture
____ Identify additional business benefits that might be gained with a SAP HANA
installation
____ Execute completely on the selected strategy, on time and within budget
____ Ensure skill transfer to in-house stakeholders
____ Execute installation so as to reduce risk
To learn more about ARIs SAP HANA implementation project, click here: ARI:
http://youtu.be/TE0ZDgckXYQ.
Weve just discussed the importance of selecting a qualified solution implementation
partner. The next step is to determine how best to use SAP HANA within your current
environment to deliver maximum value in your organization.

SAP HANA Use Cases

Weve reviewed many of the key factors that you need to consider when you select an SAP
HANA implementation partner. Now well turn our attention to how best to use this powerful
new technology to generate the most business value for this investment.
SAP HANA is incredibly versatile. It can add value to a wide range of business
scenarios, and it can be deployed in myriad ways to meet your project expectations and
technical requirements. SAP HANA can also complement existing landscapes and replace
outdated solutions.
With that versatility in mind, well review four typical use cases for SAP HANA
deployments today, as well as some of the potential scenarios for the future. These use
cases are:

Agile data marts

SAP Business Suite accelerator

Primary database for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

Custom application development

Learn how the experts from SAP can assist you with all aspects of your SAP HANA Project with
their end-to-end services. They can help you to:
Design and plan your roadmap or solution
Implement and migrate SAP HANA into your environment
Innovate and develop new and exciting solutions to your unique business
issues

 Support the technical and business environment and educate your technical

and end users

Link: http://www.sap.com/community/ebook/2012_05_HANA_Services/en/index.html#/page/1
For More information, please visit the SAP HANA Services website:

Agile Data Mart

One way to quickly get the most value from in-memory technology is to use SAP HANA as a
standalone data mart for a specific use case. In this scenario, SAP HANA acts as a central
hub, collecting source-system data from multiple sources via in-memory technology and
then displaying focused reports and analytics via a reporting front end. The data can then
be used in multiple ways, depending on the organizations reporting requirements and
formats.
This arrangement has the advantage of providing a focused solution to an immediate
business problem while minimizing disruption to the existing landscape. Such projects are
usually completed quickly: The business problem is understood, and the required data and
source systems are easily identified. Such installations offer instant value making
previously difficult and time-consuming tasks fast and easy.

SAP Business Suite Accelerator

SAP HANA is frequently used to accelerate transactions and reports inside the SAP
Business Suite. As with the agile data mart scenario, SAP HANA is set up as a standalone
system, side by side with the database under the SAP Business Suite applications. In this
scenario, however, SAP HANA is used to offload some transactions or reports that
typically take hours or days to run, though it is not used as the primary database under the
application.
As we explained previous chapters, certain transactions or reports inside the SAP
Business Suite can run slowly, primarily due to the slow I/O of the underlying disk-based
database and the huge data requests required by these transactions or reports. To run its
calculations and present a result, a typical budgeting or planning transaction in SAP must
collect data from many different tables in the system. Reports can also be very dataintensive, requiring extensive data from many tables dispersed throughout the database. In
both of these cases, the application must request the data from the database, load it into a
buffer table in the SAP application server, run the algorithm or calculation, and then display
the results to users.
To overcome system latency that slows down these common reports, SAP has
developed HANAfied versions of several existing reports. These reports consist of three
preconfigured reporting dashboards and 23 reports from the following business areas:

Financial reporting

Sales reporting

Purchasing reporting

Shipping reporting

Master data reporting

These dashboards and reports leverage existing reporting capabilities from SAP ERP.
However, they offload the physical processing of the reports to a dedicated SAP HANA
system that sits beside the live SAP ERP system. All relevant tables for each dashboard or
report are physically copied from the SAP ERP system onto the SAP HANA system, which

is then used to generate the reports and display them to users in a variety of user interfaces.
Lets review the key elements of each bundle.

Accelerated Sales & Distribution Reporting

The SAP HANA business content for Sales and Distribution (SD) enables sales managers
and sales representatives to check basic key figures for sales in real time. Whereas sales
managers use sales analytics to access instant overview information regarding the various
performance indicators for their sales teams, the sales representatives focus on detailed
information relating to the results of their sales activities.
Model Type
Details
Sales Dashboard
Sales Dashboard on Sales Volume with Top Customers, Top
Products and by distribution channel.
Sales Crystal Report
Sales Order Fulfillment Rates
Sales Explorer View

Sales Explorer View

Sales Crystal Report
Sales Crystal
Report/Explorer
View
Sales Explorer View
Sales Web Intelligence

Sales Organization Analysis display all sales order line item

status is a single view (Sales, Logistics, and Billing) with
related quantity and value.
Sales Order Item Analysis
Order Time Schedule Analysis
Credit Memo Analysis

Billing List Analysis

Sales Analysis by Top 5 Customers

Accelerated Financial Reporting

The SAP HANA Financials content package provides the prerequisites for building reports
that provide the following analysis data:

Real-time analysis of the subledger for Accounts Payable (FI-AP) and

Accounts Receivable (FI-AR)

Flexible analysis of customer and vendor items based on the single line
items from the back-end ERP system

Calculation and analysis of the days sales outstanding (DSO)

Note that currently only General Ledger Accounting (new) is supported.

Model Type
Details
Finance Dashboard Dashboard on Revenue Trend, EBIT Trend, Operational Expenses,
Overdue and DSO Analysis.
Finance Crystal
New GL Line Item Reporting (drill down from Revenue Trend)
Report
Finance Crystal
Due A/R items (drill down from Due Date)
Report
Finance Crystal
TOP X (for example 10) New GL Transactions
Report
Finance Crystal
Open Items Report
Report

Finance Crystal
Report

Overdue Items Report

Finance Explorer
View
Finance Crystal
Report

Flexible Customer Open Item Reporting

Flexible Vendor Open Item Reporting

Model
Type
Purchasing Dashboard

Details
Vendor Spend based on Financial Data

Purchasing
Purchasing
Purchasing
Purchasing

Finance Spend per Vendor (return rate for purchase orders)

Top Vendors by Invoice Spend (logistics invoice)
Purchase Orders
Goods Movement and Service Entries for Purchase Orders

Web Intelligence
Web Intelligence
Web Intelligence
Web Intelligence

Purchasing Web Intelligence Order History Overview

Accelerated Procurement Reporting

The purchasing content package for SAP HANA enables procurement managers to analyze
key procurement processes in real time. Procurement managers use spending key figures
along different dimensions including Material Groups, Vendors, Plants, and Purchasing
Organizations to gain instant insight into inefficiencies that may point to savings potentials
or internal and external process improvements.

Accelerated Master Data Reporting

Master data are essential for nearly all business transactions, irrespective of the business
area. The master data in this package concentrate on master data objects that are available
in SAP ERP, such as material, customer, and vendor.
Model
Type
Details
Master Data
Explorer View
Vendor List
Master Data
Explorer View
Customer List
Master Data
Explorer View
Material List

Accelerated Shipping Reporting

The SAP HANA content for Shipping enables shipping and warehouse managers to check
basic shipping and stock key figures in real time. Managers use shipping analytics to obtain
instant information for planning and monitoring outbound delivery-related activities. In
addition, the managers can get an up-to-date overview on materials stock at any time.
Model
Type
Details
Shipping
Explorer View
Stock Overview

SAP HANA Accelerates Reports

Imagine a long-running ABAP report within a particular business function, one thats been an
ongoing problem for users. As a result of system latency, many reports could not provide real-time
data analysis and therefore could not be used to make proactive business decisions. SAP HANA
can reduce a reports run time from several hours to minutes or even seconds, making the
information much more current and valuable.

Primary Database for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

In our third use case example, SAP BW is powered by SAP HANA. In this scenario a
company replaces the previously underlying database for their SAP BW system with SAP
HANA. The IT team can perform a standard DB migration over to SAP HANA and then
enable specific objects to be in-memory optimized as necessary depending on the
companys requirements.
SAP BW is the first SAP application that was optimized to run with SAP HANA as its
primary underlying database. With SAP HANA, SAP BW can leverage in-memory
capabilities for improved performance, without the need for any sidecar accelerators or
extensive modeling workarounds. The entire database physically sits under the SAP BW
system, eliminating the need for in-memory aggregation. This arrangement simplifies the
data modeling and query design, which in turn greatly enhances system performance while
lowering IT ownership costs.
Replacing an old database with SAP HANA generates speed and flexibility for two key
reasons. First, keeping the entire database in memory eliminates the need to send large
amounts of data between the application and DB servers, thereby reducing latency. In fact,
running SAP BW on SAP HANA eliminates most of the problematic issues that slow down
the system, from both a user and an administrator perspective.
To watch a video of Home Trusts BW migration project, click here: Home Trust:
http://youtu.be/Q6057Cpr8V4

Custom Applications for SAP HANA

As stated earlier, SAP HANA is a full-blown, do-just-about-anything-you-want application
platform. It speaks pure SQL, and it includes all of the most common APIs, so you can
literally write any type of application you want on top of it. There are a few rules and guide
rails that are designed to keep things from going wrong. Overall, however, the sky truly is
the limit when it comes to imagining what to build with SAP HANA.

Although SAP HANA is valuable for a broad range of applications, it shines particularly
well in a few unique situations. If youre building an enterprise-scale application for a
business scenario that has high data volumes, needs detailed/granular data analysis,
needs to search or aggregate huge data volumes, requires complex algorithmic or
statistical calculations, or suffers from latency between transactional recording and
reporting, SAP HANA is a great choice.

Future Use Case Scenarios

As SAP HANA matures and SAP updates its portfolio of solutions to take advantage of the
extensive horsepower of SAP HANA, you can expect to see nearly every SAP product
supported natively on SAP HANA as a primary database plus many more native SAP
HANA applications.
By now you should have a good understanding of how typical use cases take advantage
of SAP HANA. The next step is to ensure that you understand the best ways to deploy this
new technology in your environment to drive maximum value.

SAP HANA Implementation Scenarios

As weve discussed, there are many different ways to use SAP HANA, and it stands to
reason that there are also many different implementation scenarios. However, there isnt a
one-to-one correlation between a use case and an implementation scenario. Rather, for
each use case, you need to look at the business problem you are trying to solve, which will
typically dictate the most appropriate implementation scenario. If, for example, your use
case is for a specific need not addressed by an SAP application, youll likely need a custom
development project. In contrast, if your business issue is a more common or typical one,
then SAP may have already created a new SAP HANA application to meet your needs. For
many repeatable business issues, SAP has created SAP Rapid Deployment solutions.
These solutions contain preconfigured software, technical content, and implementation
services, and they are priced and scoped for rapid implementation.

RapidRapid-deployment solutions
Do you have to address an urgent business need? Do you want a fast start with a fixed
scope? SAP Rapid Deployment solutions can help you implement SAP HANA using a
package of preconfigured software, content, and end user enablement plus implementation
services. Clearly priced and scoped implementation services help you speed up time to
value and limit risk.
The available SAP Rapid Deployment solutions for SAP HANA can help you to find your
path to realize a full IT landscape running on SAP HANA quick, without risk and at
predictable costs. You can start into SAP HANA as you like e.g. with a quick win,
implementing an accelerator or with a holistic approach, migrating your SAP Business Suite
to SAP HANA. If you want to leverage your landscape with SAP HANA step by step, the
following approach could fit to your wishes:
Start smart with implementing some accelerators and gain immediate performance
improvements without disruption for the end users, e.g. by implementing the SAP HANA
Accelerated Finance and Controlling rapid-deployment solution.
Then, try out new analytics with the HANA content that is delivered. The SAP HANA
CRM analytics rapid-deployment solution could support your CRM users with new reports.
Besides this you might explore new reporting options with SAP NetWeaver BW powered

by SAP HANA by speeding up existing scenarios or by implementing new ones. Rapideployment solutions that are based on SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA support
many different scenarios e.g. in the area of ERP, CRM or EPM.
Also, if you are looking to adopt SAP HANA as database for your SAP Business Suite,
the Rapid Database Migration of SAP Business Suite to SAP HANA package supports the
migration of an existing SAP Business Suite installation to the SAP HANA database system
without disruption of the existing Business Suite scenarios. Reporting scenarios within the
SAP Business Suite can be enhanced as well with the SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment
solution. The SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment solution provides pre-built reporting
content for easier and faster analysis based on virtual data models with best practices
enablement content and fixed-scope and fixed-timeline service offering.
SAP is continuously adding more rapid-deployment solutions. To see whats available
today, visit SAP Store or www.sap.com/solutions/rds or the SAP Service Marketplace for
customers and partners.
In todays competitive global economy, businesses must adopt technology solutions that
provide an immediate advantage over their competitors, but time-to-value is key.
With the SAP HANA rapid-deployment solutions, customers can benefit from the power
of SAP HANA within a few weeks.

Custom Development
Although there are standard best practices that must be considered when developing
custom solutions, there are also many possibilities when it comes to imagining what to build
with SAP HANA.
SAP HANA aligns well with several specific requirements and situations. Are you
building an enterprise-scale application for a business scenario with high data volumes? Do
you need detailed or granular data analysis? Do you have to query large data volumes? Do
you require complex algorithmic or statistical calculations, or suffer from latency between
transactional recording and reporting? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then
SAP HANA is a great choice.

SAP Application Deployment

SAP is delivering a new class of solutions on top of the SAP HANA platform solutions that
combine real-time insights into big data with state-of-the-art analysis. These innovative realtime solutions can help organizations transform their business by making smarter and faster
decisions, reacting more quickly to events, and unlocking new opportunities. Companies
can utilize these solutions to take advantage of new, data-driven business models and
processes options that would be difficult or even impossible with disk-based databases.
These solutions include:

SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis, powered by SAP HANA

SAP BusinessObjects Sales Analysis for Retail, powered by SAP

HANA SAP Smart Meter Analytics, powered by SAP HANA

Packaged Solutions
Do you have to address an urgent business need? Do you prefer working with a fixed
scope? SAP Rapid Deployment solutions can help you implement SAP HANA using a
package of preconfigured software, content, and end user enablement plus implementation
services. Clearly priced and scoped implementation services help you speed up time to

value and limit risk.

The available SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions for SAP HANA can help you to find your
path to realize a full IT landscape running on SAP HANA quick, without risk and at
predictable costs. You can start into SAP HANA as you like e.g. with a quick win,
implementing an accelerator or with a holistic approach, migrating your SAP Business Suite
to SAP HANA. If you want to leverage your landscape with SAP HANA step by step, the
following approach could fit to your wishes:
Start smart with implementing some accelerators and gain immediate performance
improvements without disruption for the end users, e.g. by implementing the SAP HANA
Accelerated Finance and Controlling rapid-deployment solution.
Then, try out new analytics with the HANA content that is delivered. The SAP HANA
Operational Reporting rapid-deployment solution could support your ERP users with new
reports.
Besides this you might explore new reporting options with SAP NetWeaver BW powered
by SAP HANA by speeding up existing scenarios or by implementing new ones. Rapiddeployment solutions that are based on SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA
support many different scenarios e.g. in the area of EPM, CRM, or Demand Signal
Management.
Also, if you are looking to adopt SAP HANA as database for your SAP Business Suite,
the Rapid Database Migration of SAP Business Suite to SAP HANA package supports the
migration of an existing SAP Business Suite installation to the SAP HANA database system
without disruption of the existing Business Suite scenarios. Reporting scenarios within the
SAP Business Suite can be enhanced as well with the SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment
solution.
The SAP HANA Live rapid-deployment solution provides pre-built reporting content for
easier and faster analysis based on virtual data models with best practices enablement
content and fixed-scope and fixed-timeline service offering.
SAP is continuously adding more Rapid Deployment solutions. To see whats available
today, visit www.sap.com/solutions/rds or the SAP Service Marketplace for customers and
partners.

Taking a Systematic Approach for Your Implementation

You may be familiar with the traditional ASAP methodology used by SAP and the fact that
a complex ERP implementation can last for months, if not years. Because SAP HANA is a
new technology, to stay on top of its learning curve you need to work with a solution
implementation partner who has a deep understanding of the technology, the capabilities,
and best practices for implementation.
To successfully implement SAP HANA, you must follow a structured implementation
methodology. Your solution partner should approach the solution with a phased,
deliverable-oriented implementation plan based in project and organizational change
management. The goals here: to streamline implementation, minimize risk, and reduce the
total costs of implementation.
A robust methodology should include templates, tools, questionnaires, and checklists,
including guidebooks and accelerators to support team members and increase project
predictability.
There are six basic steps that need to be a part of any SAP HANA implementation. The

amount of emphasis you place on each step will be dictated by the type of SAP HANA
project you are implementing.

1.
Customer education. Education is especially important for an SAP HANA
project. The technology is new, so the relevant knowledge is not yet widespread.
The technology is also rapidly evolving, with new use cases being created almost
daily. Both the project team and the executive sponsors must be educated so they
understand what SAP HANA can do and how it works. (Hint: Give them a copy of
this book!)
2.
Use case identification. Workshops can help determine where to apply the
power of SAP HANA within the organization. Ask yourself: What are the possible
scenarios for SAP HANA, and where might the company make improvements?
Where could the technology have the biggest impact on corporate objectives or
unlock deeper insights into the reported data? Once you have defined a use case,
you should perform a comprehensive requirements gathering to ensure that the
end solution addresses all of your companys needs and maps back to your
original use case expectations.
3.
Solution approach. The SAP HANA solution must be designed and
documented so that if your personnel or solution partners change, the new
resources will understand how to support the solution. Most likely, this will be an
iterative process, looking closely at use cases and their supporting infrastructure.
As new information becomes available, the solution approach will evolve into a
comprehensive deliverable.
4.
Modeling / Development A key task to implement your SAP HANA solution
is creation of the data models and the different views to it. These models are
adapted, modified, and enhanced to improve performance. For packaged
applications this content is delivered by SAP, but can be adapted to your specific
needs. Custom development projects will include both traditional application
development and modeling aspects.

5.
QA/testing. This is the final test of all front-end reporting, data quality, data
integration, and performance. The production system is up and running, and
business processes begin to operate in the new SAP HANA environment. Quality
assurance continues, along with end-user training and support.
6.

Go live.
live SAP HANA is delivered as a production solution.

Common Scoping Pitfalls to Avoid

If changes are required for front-end reports or analytics, then expectations must be managed.
Often, as a result of dependencies, even small changes to a report can have a large impact on
underlying systems; for instance, a change to a field may require changing a data model.
Because of this factor, it is important to fully define requirements and to ask about any proposed
report modifications. Reviewing the original form of a current report can be very helpful because
you can see what the business user is accustomed to seeing, as well as how it might be improved.
You should also perform a proper data decomposition to document how the current report is built
and how it is working. In addition, identify any custom code within the business rules that may be
difficult to replicate inside the SAP HANA modeler. Finally, map the sources from which the data
are drawn, and how the data are imported into a formal deliverable for signoff.
The right services partner can provide the needed level of due diligence in this area during
planning.

After youve outlined a systematic approach to implementation, you need to identify the
key timelines and activities for your SAP HANA implementation.

Timelines and Key Activity Considerations

Just as there is no one size fits all, there is no single timeline for an SAP HANA project.
Each project is different; each has distinctive contributing factors and characteristics. It is
SAP best practice to use a standard project methodology, such as the SAP ASAP
implementation methodology, to ensure that a project addresses all of the critical activities,
phases, and deliverables that are necessary for success.
The SAP ASAP methodology has been updated to incorporate the SAP HANA activities
required for a standard in-memory project. Accelerators, best practices, and implementation
tools have also been updated or developed to shorten the project timeline and reduce risk.
Methodology, timelines, and key activities vary based on three considerations:

Current technical landscape. Depending on the current landscape, the

customer may have to consider prerequisites for delivering in-memory solutions.
For example, data quality may need to be addressed, or the organization may first
need to upgrade some applications that work in conjunction with SAP HANA.

Expectations for inin-memory functionality. As customers learn more about

the capabilities of in-memory solutions, they may want to introduce additional
functionality. It is important to manage this need and to consider it during the initial
requirements phase.

Original requirements per use case(s) identified during assessment. A

key component of the successful delivery of SAP HANA is ensuring that the final
solution meets the companys requirements and expectations, as identified in the
original use case scenario.

In addition to defining an implementation methodology, youll need to identify the key

skills required to ensure your implementation of SAP HANA is a success.

Critical SAP HANA Skills Needed for Successful Projects

Because SAP HANA is a new technology the success of any implementation will depend in
large part on your ability to locate experts who can fill any skill gaps on your team. Critical
resources for an SAP HANA project will also vary depending on how you choose to
leverage the SAP HANA in-memory solution, or which use case you select.
The following roles are specific to agile data mart use case implementations:
System architect/system administrator. This resource is responsible for the physical SAP
HANA landscape, including CPU, memory, and disk usage. He or she performs
maintenance and system monitoring, along with configuration and application of any
necessary patches. The system architect also performs SAP source system configuration
and replication, and manages the SAP Landscape Transformation (SLT) replication server.
Finally, he or she ensures that the SAP HANA database is backed up regularly, and also
monitors and processes backup log files.
Solution architect. As the name implies, the solution architect is responsible for solution
design. He or she gathers requirements for the use case(s) and creates the technical
design documentation.
SAP HANA data modeler. The SAP HANA data modeler is responsible primarily for
modeling solution design and development and unit testing of all SAP HANA models. He or
she also performs SAP HANA model lifecycle management, which includes the various
steps contained in the process of moving from development to production.
Data services/SLT developer. The data services developer is responsible primarily for
design and development of jobs to extract, transform, and load data into SAP HANA via
data services or SLT. The developer also performs lifecycle management, which includes
steps contained in moving from development to production.
Two other roles are specific to implementations of SAP BW powered by SAP HANA.
SAP technology consultant. This expert on SAP HANA technology collaborates with the
project manager to plan technical requirements for the project. He or she then implements
these required technical tasks within the system.
Certified OS/DB migration consultant.
consultant. This individual is responsible for technical planning
and design of the in-memory infrastructure, including database planning, project
organization, design, audit, and project review.
If you perform a custom development, you will need additional development skills:
SAP HANA developer. This expert builds your applications beyond pure data modeling
using the different development capabilities of SAP HANA (SQLScript, Business Function
Library, etc.).
Depending on the specific scope and architecture of your project, you may need
development experts in the specific application domain and advanced technologies, such
as predictive analytics, scripting languages, etc. Implementing SAP HANA is a major step in
dramatically improving your ability to obtain optimal value from your big data. With the right
service provider, use case, implementation methodology, and skilled resources, youll be
able to enjoy the power, speed, and performance of SAP HANA. Lets conclude this

discussion by examining some truly stellar examples of successful SAP HANA

implementations.

Putting it All Together Examples of Stellar Projects

Now that we have discussed the SAP HANA technology and how to obtain the best
business value from this technology, we will present some innovative ways that customers
have put it all together. The first example is a chemicals company that was able to improve
compliance reporting by accelerating its standard SAP system. The second example
involves a large university hospital that successfully implemented SAP HANA as the engine
of a new custom application, enabling it to dramatically increase the speed with which it
analyzed medical records. Finally, a financial services company used SAP HANA as a
primary database for SAP Business Warehouse, with impressive results.

SAP Business Suite Accelerator at a Chemicals Company

Our first example is a European consumer chemicals company that specializes in
developing new fragrances and flavors. Every one of its hundreds of new recipes each
with unique ingredients and compositions must be checked for compliance with legal
regulations. As the demand for these chemicals increased and their recipes became more
complex, the company simply became unable to scale its compliance checking. To resolve
this problem, the company collaborated with SAP to build an application that enables it to
quickly check new recipes while they are still in development to ensure that they comply
with a vast array of local legal regulations. Using SAP HANA to augment support of existing
processes, we have demonstrated how the new application can cut processing time from 20
minutes to less than 4 seconds. This vastly improved performance enhances their
scientists productivity while simultaneously driving down the costs of new product
development.

Custom SAP HANA Application in Use at a University Hospital

With a mature analytics program in place, the biggest university hospital in Europe provides
150,000 inpatient and 600,000 outpatient treatments every year. The hospital invested in
SAP HANA to harness the big data associated with its vast inventory of patient data,
medical records, and study results and make a positive impact on patient care and
healthcare research. For example, the hospital now uses SAP HANA Oncolyzer to search
for and examine information involving cancer patients, such as tumor types, gender, age,
risk factors, treatments, and diagnoses. This information enables the hospital to quickly
identify the best candidates for each clinical study. In the future, when DNA is added to the
data set, the Oncolyzer will analyze up to 500,000 data points per patient in real time. SAP
HANA analyzes both structured and unstructured data and greatly accelerates the
identification process.

Primary Database for SAP Business Warehouse in Use at a Financial

Institution
A leading North American mortgage lender has successfully completed proof of concept,
migrating a half-terabyte of data from a competitive database to the SAP HANA database
and upgrading to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, powered by SAP HANA. The
result has been a dramatic improvement in reporting runtimes in the data warehouse and
business intelligence environments. Data query speeds have increased on average 8-12
times, simple queries run up to 450 times faster, and data store object activation is 19 times

faster. Based on these impressive results, the customer is re-architecting its entire reporting
environment to leverage the power of SAP HANA.

Final Words of Wisdom on SAP HANA Implementation

Weve reviewed the importance of selecting the right SAP HANA services partner one
who can help you plan and implement your solution and provide the right set of skill
resources to ensure your implementation delivers on the value of SAP HANA. Weve also
reviewed common use cases, including the agile data mart, SAP Business Suite
accelerator, primary database for SAP Business Warehouse, and custom SAP HANA
applications. SAP HANA implementation scenarios can vary depending on your business
need from custom development to SAP application development to rapid deployment
solutions. Next we reviewed the importance of taking a systematic approach to your
implementation and the benefits of following a methodology built on education, use case
identification, solution approach, modeling, QA and testing, and go-live best practices. Prior
to implementation, youll also need to identify your timeline, key activities, and skilled
resources needed to implement SAP HANA. The key is planning and ensuring you
understand the entire scope of the implementation, while remaining flexible enough to
leverage the latest in SAP HANA use cases.
In conclusion, wed like to leave you with a short list of six key takeaways to ensure a
successful SAP HANA implementation:
1.
Make certain that business requirements are completely understood and that
the use case complements the technical requirements. Remember, technology
intelligence doesnt necessarily equal business intelligence!
2.
Establish ROI metrics early in the scoping process. Build them into the
project/solution to ensure that success can be properly measured and quantified.
3.
Ensure proper collaboration across application delivery teams (EPR, BW,
CRM, reporting, etc.), depending on project requirements.
4.
Start with a focused use case to demonstrate business value, and then
expand across other functional areas of the business. Establishing a quick win
helps with sponsorship and funding for additional in-memory projects.
5.
Make sure that data quality is considered as part of overall SAP HANA
solution planning. Acquiring data quickly cant help the business if the data are not
accurate.
6.
Define (or redefine) specific in-memory terminology with all users to make
certain that each term is understood by and means the same thing to IT,
developers, business users, and executive sponsors. Small clarifications on such
terms as real-time and self-serve can go a long way toward preventing
misunderstandings concerning both the functionality to be delivered and the value
it brings.
7.
Bonus Advice: Encourage everyone involved with the project (Technical &
Business) to download and read a copy of this book. It really helps get everyone
on the same page and ensures youre all speaking the same language.
For more information about SAP HANA services offerings, subscribe to SAPServices on
Twitter band review the details on the SAP HANA services website.

Top Advice from SAP Mentors for SAP HANA Projects

SAP Mentors are the most influential community participants in the SAP ecosystem. They
comprise a super-smart and engaged global cohort of nearly 110 bloggers, consultants,
and technical wizards nominated by SAP Community Network peers and selected by SAP.
All SAP Mentors are hands-on experts of an SAP product or service, as well as true project
champions. The majority of SAP Mentors work for customers or partners of SAP.
The following three SAP Mentors are experts in SAP HANA implementations. They
provide their best tips and tricks for a successful SAP HANA project. Pay attention, these
guys really know their stuff!

Vijay Vijayasankar
Associate Partner
IBM Global Business Services
Twitter: @vijayasankarv
1.
Find the best data modeler you can for your SAP HANA projects. That is the
make-or-break issue for most SAP HANA projects.
2.
Do not jump into a POC (Proof-of-Concept) just to prove loading/reporting
works faster in a data mart. SAP or IBM can easily show you how quickly their
systems can report and load data.
3.
Spend a lot of time refining your use case offline before you start the project.
An important part of this step is to accurately define success up front. This helps
reduce wasteful scoping efforts during the project, and it will help the project team
focus on specific targets.
4.
Size the hardware correctly. If you do not, then you will not see the expected
results. Even if you want to scale out and buy new boxes, you should be aware
that these boxes are not available off the shelf. Consequently, they will require
some lead time to acquire.
5.
Each HW vendor has some secret sauce on what makes them special for
SAP HANA. Make sure you understand that before investing in HW.
6.
Check SAP HANA performance under a variety of situations reporting
performance while heavy loads happen, while multiple people are working on
system, logging on from different parts of network, etc.
7.
Engage closely with your SI (system integrator) and SAP while the project is
going on. SAP HANA is fairly new, and it will probably need a few workarounds.
Your SI and SAP will probably have seen your issues before, and they can advise
you and help minimize time spent reinventing the wheel.
8.
If you are going to migrate to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse on SAP
HANA, test as you go when migrating objects to their in-memory versions so that
you can spot challenges sooner. Definitely consider re-engineering the design of
SAP BW to take advantage of SAP HANA and avoid doing only an en-masse
migration and leaving it at that.
9.
SAP HANA security/administration is a specialized skill, and a good design is
needed to make it work for all your use cases consistently. Plan to spend time
refining the model.

10. Last but not least poor data quality is even more damaging when the data
come at you in lightning speed. Garbage In/Garbage Out still applies. Profile the
data, and fix them at the source or as close to the source as possible before
sending them to SAP HANA.

Harald Reiter
Senior Manager SAP
Deloitte Consulting
Twitter: @hreiter
1. Rethink what is possible
a. Revisit analytics that previously were not possible or were too difficult to
perform.
b. Processes can now actually change, be simplified, or be minimized because
you dont need as big a staff to conduct the analysis.
c. Eliminate the data volume and speed barriers from the equation, and focus on
the real business needs.
2. Develop a roadmap
a. Move from theory to reality real-time BI delivers true value.
b. Make it dynamic to adapt quickly to new capabilities and integration options.
c. Align business and IT goals.
d. Be proactive to influence the product development, and make your voice heard
to ensure timely delivery of new capabilities.
3. Pilot early
a. Get used to rapid development cycles and capabilities.
b. Dont get caught up in all the hype and excitement be pragmatic, and dont
forget basic due diligence. Focus your efforts, define what is really important,
achieve success, and build on that success iteratively.
c. Dont try to throw all the data into the database just because you can.
4. Start with the hard stuff
a. Be realistic dont assume you go through fewer cycles of data analysis to find
the best answer (or question); you will be able to do the cycles faster, though.
This allows you to change your assumptions, quickly run scenarios, and ask
different questions to uncover anomalies in your data.
b. Embed statistical models and predictive analysis into your daily operations to
detect risk, negative trending, and anomalies.
c. Make sure there is a measureable ROI
5. Establish priorities
a. Define what you really want, and make certain your objectives have a positive
impact on your organization
b. Dont forget to look at unstructured data in your organization; these data can
provide a new perspective. Incorporating unstructured data and rapid
processing enables meaningful and timely analysis to minimize risk, losses, or
negative exposure.
c. Dont underestimate the importance of data quality. Revisit your data quality
initiatives using SAP HANA to quickly identify issues that result from processing

massive data sets in one pass. Correlation of results without complex

partitioning and staging areas can uncover skewed results.
6. Begin cultivating talent
a. Team composition is key for successful implementations.
b. Dont forget about change management. Focus on changes for end users
because they can be empowered to do agile reporting as well as on changes
for administrative staff due to technology and implementation tools.
c. Resources can now be assigned real value-added tasks instead of timeconsuming administrative tasks just to obtain basic information.
7. Incorporate mobility
a. Continuous monitoring of key metrics is a reality using mobility and SAP HANA
8. Revisit your technology architecture
a. Examine your overall landscape, and identify all areas that can benefit from
technology modernization.
b. Understand the database operations capabilities of SAP HANA.
c. Identify your must-have requirements, and address any shortcomings.
d. Identify the best tool for each job.
9. Size right
a. One size does not fit all
b. Data composition and data source impact the compression rate and thus the
sizing estimation.
c. When in doubt, move up one T-shirt size.
d. Scale-out capability mitigates the risk of not sizing correctly, but it should not be
relied on.
e. The quality of the data model impacts the available size for data versus
workspace.
10. Establish metrics and plan for tuning and performance testing
a. Dont forget about SLAs (service-level agreements).
b. Tuning and performance testing can make the fast even faster.
c. Reveal bad data model designs.

Vitaliy Rudnytskiy
Lead BI Architect
HP Enterprise Information Solutions
Twitter: @Sygyzmundovych
1. Accept nothing less than excellence from your project team and partners
a. Technology makes things faster, better, and cheaper; but technology itself is
still just a tool. Make sure you assemble an excellent team: business, project
team, partners, and SAP support.
2. Understand the technology
a. If you are reading this book, you are already on the right track.
3. Think about details, but always consider them in the context of the big picture
a. The devil is in the details, so think them through. At the same time, however,
never lose sight of the complete picture of where all the details fit into.
4. Open your mind to the New World

a. Question your old habits; forget about your 15 years of technical/project

experience under the belt. Old techniques do not necessarily work well or at all
with new paradigms.
5. Dont build the solutions for Go Live
a. Your solution will live a long time after the go-live date and will need to
accomodate new requirements, unexpected cases, and a surrounding
environment that is in constant transition. Build for the long run.

Ranjeet Panicker
Practice Manager
SAP Next Generation Services
HANA/In-Memory Center of Excellence

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) & Return on Investment (ROI)

Analysis
Do not limit analysis of TCO and ROI to technical, IT, or infrastructure savings. Too often,
when customers generate a business case to justify the acquisition of SAP HANA, they
apply only those savings related to infrastructure items such as storage and hardware.
Avoid this mistake! Be bold! Explore the holistic value of SAP HANA to your business
processes. For example, reducing the time it takes to run a BW analytic report from 4 hours
to 5 minutes means something to the business. Apply metrics to these savings. Engage
SAP Value Engineering teams who can help translate the speed of SAP HANA into true
business value.
The well-known adage You cant manage what you cant measure is especially relevant to value
management. If you dont identify, track, and ensure the ongoing value of a project, youre unlikely
to achieve its financial and operational objectives. Learn more about how strategy management
helps you track and realize the full value of your organizational objectives by reading this article:
http://scn.sap.com/community/services/blog/2012/08/23/the-value-in-value-management

CuttingCutting-edge Technology
SAP HANA represents a paradigm shift in how we know and use an RDBMS. It is also a
new database technology one that is evolving as SAP customers find new ways to
challenge the speed and performance of the database. The SAP HANA platform is evolving
very quickly, and SAP continuously adds new and innovative functionality. To enable
customers to take advantage of this new functionality quickly and efficiently, SAP has made
the process of upgrading very simple.

HANA Should Not Be Only an IT Project

Recognize the business drivers which catalyzed the decision to make SAP HANA the
platform for your business. Although switching the database underneath BW is part of the
formula for success with SAP HANA, the full value of a BW powered by SAP HANA solution
is realized through additional activities such as optimizing in-memory objects and examining
processes to re-architect the information layers. Such activities will help you save not only
on the maintenance of these objects, but also on storage, resources, and memory.
Ultimately they will enable your business to report more quickly and efficiently.

Executive Sponsorship
Buy-in at the highest level brings the authority and credibility that can mean the difference

between success and failure for your SAP HANA project. Executive sponsorship helps drive
the vision for SAP HANA in your organization, and it facilitates the change management that
is required when you adopt a new technology. To secure and maintain this sponsorship,
include the executives in project reviews at regular intervals to keep them up to date on
project status. Also, make certain they are involved in all follow-on endeavors.

Size Does Matter

Do not rely purely on the size of the data set on source systems to predict the size of the
SAP HANA appliance. Instead, analyze ways to reduce redundant data before
loading/migrating into SAP HANA. Examine solutions like near-line storage (NLS) that may
help mitigate rapid data growth in SAP HANA. Invest in hardware that can be scaled instead
of being replaced. Adopt realistic goals on sharing an SAP HANA appliance between
applications. Finally, look into items such as backup and restore, patching, and
performance when you are considering sharing a single appliance.

The rest of the story....

ince the SAP HANA Essentials book is being written in real time, it will be continuously

updated as new chapters are completed and content revisions are added.
Make sure to register for the mailing list on www.saphanabook.com to be informed when
new chapters are available and follow the book on twitter @EpistemyPress and @jeff_word.
Please share the website and voucher code with your colleagues so they can benefit
from the information in this book as well.

Notes
Markides, C. (2002). Strategic Innovation. In: E. B. Roberts (Ed.). Innovation. Driving
Product, Process, and Market Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
2 Woods, D. and Word, J. (2004), SAP NetWeaver for Dummies, Wiley Publishing Inc.,
Indianapolis, IA.
3 With the SAP HANA RDS migration package customers can migrate in ~7 weeks, if they
are already on BW 7.3 SP7, with Unicode, and 7.x data flows and authorizations.
4 Magal, S. and Word, J. (2013), Business Process Integration with SAP ERP. Epistemy
Press
5 People always ask if all the data is in volatile storage like RAM, what happens if the power
goes out? Well talk about that in more detail later, but basically, SAP HANA has some very
sophisticated backup tools to prevent data loss from disasters.
6 Plattner, H & Zeier, A. (2011). In-memory data management: an inflection point for
enterprise applications. Springer.
7 As of SP7, theres another deployment option for SAP HANA. Aimed at large customers
that have invested in and manage their own storage environment, the SAP HANA tailored
data center integration was added.
8 The SAP HANA RDS for database migration takes ~7 weeks for most customers who are
already running SAP BW 7.3.
9 Meaning Powered by SAP HANA and renovated to natively take advantage of SAP
HANA.
* As of January 2013, the SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) application
was not available with SAP HANA. However, SAP plans to integrate them at some point in
the future.
10 Gard Little and Elaina Stergiades, IDC, Help Rethinking the Art of the Possible with SAP
HANA Services, March 2012.
1

About the Author

Jeffrey Word, Ph.D.

Follow Jeff on
: @jeff_word

effrey is responsible for creating and communicating thought leadership on SAPs In-

Memory database strategy globally. His newest book book, Business Process Integration
with SAP ERP, was released in early 2013. He is also the co-author of the bestselling
books, Integrated Business Processes with ERP Systems (2011), Essentials of

Business Processes and Information Systems (2009), Business Network

Transformation: Strategies to Reconfigure Your Business Relationships for
Competitive Advantage (2009) and SAP NetWeaver for Dummies (2004).
Jeffrey has more than 18 years experience in IT strategy and business consulting
working with Fortune 1000 companies. Over the last 15 years at SAP, he has worked on
technology strategy with focus on corporate innovation initiatives and enterprise
architecture design. Prior to joining SAP, he worked in the high tech industry for several
hardware and software vendors throughout the Americas and Europe in a variety of
leadership roles.
Dr. Word earned his PhD in Information Systems at Manchester Business School in
England. His research focus was on event-driven business process design and nextgeneration enterprise architecture. He also earned an MBA in International Management
from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA in European
Studies/Spanish from the University of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma