Copyright 2012 Epistemy Press LLC. All rights reserved.

. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher. For reproduction or quotation permission, please send a written request to epistemypress@gmail.com. Epistemy Press LLC makes no warranties or representations with respect to the content and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or guarantees of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Epistemy Press LLC assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions that may appear in the publication. The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge SAPs kind permission to use its trademarks in this publication. This publication contains references to the products of SAP AG. SAP, the SAP Logo, R/3, SAP NetWeaver, SAP HANA and other SAP products and services mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal Decisions, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius and other Business Objects products and services mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects in the United States and/or other countries. All other products mentioned in this book are registered or unregistered trademarks of their respective companies. SAP AG is neither the author nor the publisher of this publication and is not responsible for its content, and SAP Group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. This material outlines SAPs general product direction and should not be relied on in making a purchase decision. This material is not subject to your license agreement or any other agreement with SAP. SAP has no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this material or to develop or release any functionality mentioned in this document. This material and SAPs strategy and possible future developments are subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. This document is provided without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. SAP assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document. ISBN: 978-0-9856008-0-8

About the Cover Image

cover image a youve ever driven on T heGermany, thisissignEuropean No Speed Limit sign.toIfyour face because youthe Autobahn in will immediately bring a smile 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

book is about to real-time business, this S ince thisreal-time and the shiftdelivering it in real-time.its fitting that weve been writingcant book in will be Basically, that means that we 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 scale out and release date details 2 SAP HANA Architecture 3 SAP HANA Business Cases New Chapter 4 SAP HANA Applications 5 SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse on SAP 6 Data Provisioning with SAP HANA 7 Data Modeling with SAP HANA 8 Application Development with SAP HANA 9 SAP HANA Administration & Operations 10 SAP HANA Hardware Updated PAM, Dell, Hitachi, HP sections 11 SAP HANA Projects & Implementation Updated RDS section and new advice section 12 SAP HANA Resources

Acknowledgments
were this journey, many people A lthough in the at the beginning ofpreparation and reviewing have already been phenomenally helpful scoping, content 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 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) Production Robert Weiss (Development Editor)

Roland Schild, Holger Fischelmanns, Daniela Geyer, Markus May (Libreka/MVB) Michelle DeFilippo (1106 Design)

How to use this book

May you live in interesting times provide an introduction to HANA T his book is designed todown to entry-level coders. SAPsuch, its to a wide range of readers, from C-level executives As 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 subtopics 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 realtime 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 Experience SAP HANA 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 Sikka, Ph.D. Executive Board Member, SAP AG The Protester as the year for T ime magazine picked up around the world its person ofArab countries 2011, recognition of individuals who spoke from the 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 twothirds 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 member of the Executive Board of SAP AG and heads the technology and innovation areas.

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 Markides 1

set of rules that govern E very industry has a certainbe adjusted from time to the way the companies in that industry operate. The rules might 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 NetWeaver 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: In-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 NetWeaver 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 In-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 threetier 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 inmemory 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 highspeed 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.

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 NetWeaver Business Warehouse customer could immediately 3 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 eyecatching 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 enabled 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. Slow-performing 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 hundreds to thousands 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 gigabyte 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 solidstate 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 early 2012, 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 once the SAP Business Suite is supported 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.

In-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 or analytic database 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 In-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 Row-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: row-based 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. Column-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). Row-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, pre-installed appliance on certified hardware. 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 re-learning any proprietary APIs.

SAP HANA in-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 columnstore 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 Business 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. 2. Analytical views are multidimensional views or OLAP cubes, which enable 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 requires modifications to the existing data model, which required 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. These raw data are constantly available in memory for analytical purposes, and they are 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 realtime 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.
Real-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.
Real-Time Replication with Direct Write/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 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 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.

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, SAP Business Suite accelerator, a primary database for SAP NetWeaver 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 stand-alone 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 self-service 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 Accelerator The second major scenario where SAP HANA is being used is to accelerate transactions and reports inside the SAP Business Suite. Again, SAP HANA is being set up as a stand-alone system in the landscape, side-by-side with the database under the SAP Business Suite applications. 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.
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. 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 disk-based 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 real-time 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 NetWeaver 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 in-memory computing technology to boost performance by accelerating planning and consolidation processing.
SAP CO-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 Rapid Deployment Solutions are available through SAP as well as SAP partners by traditional licensing or subscription pricing, transparency of price and scope eliminate project risks for companies. A good example is the SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for operational reporting with SAP HANA that can help you quickly generate insightful reports from sales to financials to shipping on high volumes of ERP data. A second example is SAP rapid-deployment solution for sales pipeline analysis with SAP HANA that helps you to analyze massive amounts of pipeline data in CRM. You can view a demonstration of the solution here. Here are a few of the SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions that are available to enable the accelerated SAP applications: SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for accelerated finance and controlling with SAP HANA

Gain access to large volumes of secure and detailed data from cost and material ledgers quickly and easily. By running SAP HANA, you can improve decision making through accelerated reporting, analyses, and period-end closings. SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for operational reporting with SAP HANA Quickly and affordably generate insightful reports from sales to shipping in real time using our operational reporting solution with SAP HANA. Rely on in-memory technology to process high volumes of data quickly, and get ready to transform decision-making business-wide. SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for profitability analysis with SAP HANA Analyze massive amounts of profitability data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) (CO-PA) faster than ever before. Our ERP profitability analysis solution with SAP HANA can help you perform real-time reporting and conduct instant, on-the-fly analysis for more profitable decision making across your enterprise. SAP rapid-deployment solution for customer segmentation with SAP HANA SAP HANA combined with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can help you analyze and segment massive amounts of customer data in real time. You can target the precise audience with the right offers across customer segments, tactics, and channels. SAP rapid-deployment solution for sales pipeline analysis with SAP HANA Gain instant insight into massive volumes of sales pipeline data while performing on-the-fly calculations and in-depth analysis on any business dimension. You can also try out a few of the current accelerated applications running LIVE: http://hanauseast.testdrivesap.com/copa. Well go into much more detail on the applications and RDS packages in the Accelerated SAP Business Suite chapter. SAP offers a specific licensing bundle to utilize SAP HANA for this use case that includes additional replication tools needed for the connections to the SAP source system. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Powered by SAP HANA Possibly the killer use case for SAP HANA in 2012 is SAP BW 7.3 on 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.7 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 has also released a new benchmark for SAP NW BW on SAP HANA 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 http://www.experiencesaphana.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/1769-102-62737/EMA_SAP-BW-Benchmark_0512_WP.PDF 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. 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. SAP-built Applications for SAP HANA SAP is delivering a new class of solutions on top of the SAP HANA platform that provide realtime 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 native-SAP 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 decisionmaking 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

Partner-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 realtime 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 May of 2012, SAP showed the extreme scalability of SAP HANA by showcasing a 100TB RAM SAP HANA system with 100 nodes. Click here to watch Hasso Plattner show off the largest SAP HANA system in the world.

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/on-demand 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 will be for SAP to complete the renovation and porting of its flagship application, SAP ERP, to run natively on SAP HANA. The remaining applications in the SAP Business Suite SAP CRM, SAP SCM, SAP PLM, and SAP SRM should follow shortly after that. 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 disk-based 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,8 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.
1 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. (2011), Integrated Business Processes with ERP Systems, John Wiley & Sons. Hoboken, NJ 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 The SAP HANA RDS for database migration takes ~7 weeks for most customers who are already running SAP BW 7.3. 8 Meaning Powered by SAP HANA and renovated to natively take advantage of SAP HANA.

Chapter 2

SAP HANA Architecture COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 3

Developing A Business Case for SAP HANA

I. 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.

II. 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 high-performance 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.
Industry-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)
Cross-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. Self-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

III. 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 independant 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 year-over-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.

IV. 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-inclass 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 we describe in greater detail later 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?

V. 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 HANA Applications COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 5

SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse on SAP COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 6

Data Provisioning with SAP HANA COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 7

Data Modeling with SAP HANA COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 8

Application Development with SAP HANA COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 9

SAP HANA Administration & Operations COMING MAY 2013

Chapter 10

SAP HANA Hardware Overview

SAP solution that has been built to be specifically run as an S AP HANA is the firstvery specific combination of processor, memory, and operatingappliance and optimized for a 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 RISC-based 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 opensource 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 in-memory 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 inmemory 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-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 co-innovation 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. 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.

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 is the only supported operating system, and Intel E7 processors are the only supported chips. Samsung RAM is currently the primary memory used by all 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) The latest and most accurate PAM can always be downloaded from the SAP Service Marketplace. Here is the August 2012 SAP HANA PAM.
Single-Node Configuration

Multi-Node Scale Out Configuration

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. Multi-Node and Scale-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 a 16-node scale-out for production environments and is currently testing a 60 node scale-out landscape. 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 scale-out offerings from the individual partners. SAP recently (April 2012) completed its first internal 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 are 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. 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 value-added 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 IBM NEC

Intel & SAP: Co-innovation for Real-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 decisionmakers 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 Real-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 Intel Xeon processor E7 family 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 family such as 30MB of L3 cache, Intel QuickPath Interconnects, and quad-channel integrated memory controllers deliver extraordinary capabilities for businesses of all sizes that implement SAP HANA for functionality such as business intelligence and data analytics.

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. 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 Mission-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 2012 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. T he 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.

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. 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. This configuration is ideal for use in mid-sized 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 Scale-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 to 3 extension bundles each providing an additional blade enclosure for up to 4 more Cisco B440 M2 blade servers each and the correspondent storage from EMC or NetApp. 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. Disaster recovery (DR) scenarios 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. 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, inter-chassis 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. 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 addition information on SAP on Cisco UCS please email saponcisco@cisco.com

Dell SAP HANA Solutions

For more than a decade, Dell has collaborated with SAP to deliver hundreds of solutions to customers across many industries. Dell helps organizations achieve rapid and sustainable business results with standards-based solutions that are high-performing and end-to-end. In addition to innovative, leading-edge hardware platforms, Dell offers access to thousands of enterprise computing solutions consultants. Our knowledge experts incorporate their vast experience and the knowledge they have acquired over the course of many years 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 helps to reduce IT costs while helping organizations transform their business. Dells innovative platforms can dramatically increase the availability and speed of business to insightful decision making using SAP HANA. Dells Unique SAP HANA Value Proposition Dell and SAP have teamed up to offer an optimally configured SAP HANA solution that includes a hardware appliance, preloaded software, and a full range of services. This solution is both reliable and scalable, and it is offered in multiple configurations to address your specific business needs. Dells end-to-end solutions give your organization full access to the power of SAP HANA. Dells SAP HANA appliance solution includes: Powerful technology Dells PowerEdge R910 incorporates Intel E7 technology, is certified for SAP HANA, and includes everything needed to support your SAP HANA solution. This all-in-one solution includes powerful system-management features that provide for seamless implementation and management. Energy-efficient system design Built with Energy Smart technologies, Dell PowerEdge servers include power management features that enable power capping, power inventory, and power budgeting within your SAP HANA environment. The carefully engineered layout of the internal components aids with airflow direction. This design feature helps to keep the server cool, thus offering potential savings in cooling costs in your companys data center. Large-scale enterprise-consulting expertise Dell leverages its experience in delivering enterprise IT and solving big data issues for global companies to provide actionable and real-world technology, strategies, and solutions. Dells Center of Excellence (CoE) is well-established for SAP HANA, SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA), and mobile solution complements. Established methodology Dells In-Memory Computing and Analytic Methodology (DIMCAM) incorporates best practices and guides customers through a streamlined and

successful implementation process. Comprehensive services Dells portfolio of SAP full lifecycle services leverage industry best practices to provide better business outcomes for SAP clients. World-class support Dells ProSupport and Mission Critical Services help keep your SAP HANA solution running smoothly. The combination of Dells PowerEdge R910 platform and SAP HANA software enables users to conduct analytics, performance management, and operations in a single system. Together, these solutions enable a business to respond more rapidly to events that are impacting their operations. By implementing Dells SAP HANA solution, an organization can position itself to identify and analyze trends and patterns in order to improve planning, forecasting, and price optimization. Enterprise customers taking advantage of Dells SAP HANA platform get a cost-effective, optimized in-memory computing solution that can increase availability and reduce risk. Dells SAP HANA Product The Dell PowerEdge Server R910 platform has been certified by SAP to run SAP HANA software, thus offering customers a powerful and flexible way to query and analyze large volumes of data with great speed. Dell customers running SAP HANA on PowerEdge R910 servers can gain real-time access to information and analytics, enabling them to best address rapidly evolving market environments. Dells SAP HANA appliance 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 with Intel Advanced RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability) Technology. Robust infrastructure, including performance resources, power efficiency, I/O, and memory scalability. Processing power using high-performing Intel E7 Series processors, up to 512GB of DDR3 memory, and 2 x 10Gb Optional LOM with 10 PCIe slots. Energy-efficient system design built with Energy Smart technologies that enable power capping, power inventory, and power budgeting within your environment. The logical component layout of the internal components aids with airflow direction, helping to keep the server cooler. The SAP HANA appliance from Dell is fully contained in the PowerEdge R910 server, making use of fast internal disks for storage and solid state cards. Solid state technology from Dell offers high IOPs and low latency performance for the in-memory SAP HANA database. While solid state drives are used to maintain the systems logs, a RAID group made up of internally held 15K RPM disks is used to maintain a copy of the data image.

T-Shirt sizes offered Dell offers several different sizes of HANA appliances to meet your needs, all of which are based on the Dell PowerEdge R910 server platform.

Larger Scale-Out Configurations The linear scalability of the SAP HANA software platform makes scaling to meet larger workload demands a very straightforward process. Dell has tested and certified larger-capacity solutions that support 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB of compressed data processing, with expandability to support up to 8TB of memory capacity, SAP HANAs rated maximum. Using the same PowerEdge R910 servers, Dell combines the superior scalability and RAS features of this platform into a multi-node configuration, utilizing 10GbE networking, and sharing data across Dell Compellent SAN Storage. To supplement the power, performance, and manageability of the Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell Compellent SAN Storage 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 that are most necessary for analysis. In addition, it offers high-availability features that simplify backups, expansion, and data migration provide tangible enhancements to the SAP HANA analytics engine infrastructure. As always, Dell engineers its components to provide a completely integrated and fully supported ecosystem for high-performance data analytics. High Availability The Dell PowerEdge R910 is a high-performance 4-socket 4U rack server designed for reliability and scalability for mission-critical applications. Its high-availability features include: Built-in reliability features at the CPU, memory, hardware, and hypervisor levels 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 Internal Dual SD Module providing hypervisor redundancy 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 designed to be an all-inclusive solution that comes as a preintegrated unit with all of the 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. Support Services Dell is an expert in SAP HANA system support. Dell has a strong systems management and support practice as well as an in-depth understanding of SAP hardware and software solutions. Dells SAP HANA appliance comes with 3 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 of your technical problems by ensuring that parts and/or technicians will arrive promptly and by providing access to Dells Critical Situation Process. Key support features:

Onsite Response 4 hour onsite 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 as quickly as possible. Emergency dispatch Onsite service technicians are 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 you develop the Use Case and Business justification for a SAP HANA solution. In addition, it assists organizations in determining whether SAP HANA is a fit for their situation. SAP HANA Proof of Concept Using the Dell DIMCAM methodology and IMPROVE jump start process, customers can quickly appreciate the value that SAP HANA can bring to the decision-making process. SAP Modernization Services Dell has developed a portfolio of Modernization Services for SAP applications that features cloud computing, real-time analytics, and mobile applications. Implementation SAP HANA Implementation workshops facilitate the 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 Atos, a Belgium-based international information technology services company with 74,000 employees, turned to Dell to install a SAP HANA platform for its Atos SAP Competence Center in Belgium. The Competence Center supports roughly 10,000 Atos consultants for the training and demonstration environments required for customer engagements. Dell Deployment Services delivered the SAP HANA appliance on Dell PowerEdge R910 servers. Thu far, the new system is successfully meeting the needs of Atos consultants. I dont imagine there were many people who knew more about SAP HANA than the Dell consultant we worked with.
Michael Mertens, Head of the Atos SAP Competence Center

Gesellschaft fr Information und Bildung (G.I.B), based in Siegen, Germany, is an expert in SAP software. The company builds add-ons for SAP environments, and is experiencing growing success with its G.I.B Dispo-Cockpit solution, which improves supply chain management. G.I.B customers want faster access to supply chain data to help them increase efficiency and make better decisions. To achieve these objectives, G.I.B welcomed the

development of SAP HANA, which enables businesses to analyze SAP data faster and in real time. The company was looking for a partner with significant SAP expertise, data center credibility, robust support and consulting services, and an accredited SAP HANA appliance. So, it turned to its long-standing IT partner: Dell. They specifically needed to meet a very tight deadline to develop a SAP HANA platform for their new Dispo-Cockpit application for an upcoming customer demonstration event. Together with Dell, G.I.B installed an SAP HANA appliance based on Dell PowerEdge servers, and they collaborated with Dell ProSupport to help the project stay on schedule. The benefits the new system provided to G.I.B. include: G.I.B clients can now analyze critical data in seconds, and not minutes, as was previously the case Business ensures SAP HANA demonstration is ready for key event Flexible support helps G.I.B meet its business needs G.I.B drives SAP HANA success globally with customer support Dells technical expertise ensures that work stays on schedule As a result of its collaboration with Dell, G.I.B successfully completed its demonstration environment to show customers how much faster its Dispo-Cockpit software operates with SAN HANA. Our Dispo-Cockpit solution running on a Dell SAP HANA appliance offers customers even more value. The response of customers has been positive and we are looking for pilot customers to jointly install the solution. Dell supported us well, highlighting the close relationship we have with our technology partners.
Nikolaj Schmitz, IT Manager, G.I.B

Contact information for inquiries Dell offers customers a complete portfolio of end-to-end solutions in support of SAP HANA applications that reduce IT costs while helping organizations transform their business. Contact your Dell Sales or Services Account Executive to learn more.

Fujitsu SAP HANA Solutions

Fujitsu, the recipient of the 2012 SAP Pinnacle award in the Technology Innovator of the Year category, has been recognized for its engagement and excellence in developing ingenious SAP HANA infrastructure solutions. The Fujitsu portfolio for SAP HANA addresses the requirements of various customer segments from specific turnkey appliances for small and midsize companies to customized solutions for large enterprises. The end-to-end offering including consultancy services, solution appliance, integration and migration services as well as the services for the operation and support makes the Fujitsu offering unique. The following aspects underline the strong position of Fujitsu in combination with SAP: Mission-critical readiness is a top priority reached by the comprehensive scale-out offering and extensive high-availability features. Fujitsu is the first SAP partner worldwide to offer a certified platform for SAP Business One Analytics powered by SAP HANA. Fujitsu, a global player managed services, has capabilities to offer managed SAP HANA to multinationals as well as local small and medium enterprises. The Fujitsu SAP HANA Global Demo Center can be used remotely by customers who wish to test and experience the business impact of SAP HANA. A hosted proof of concept service for tests with original customer data is also in place. In terms of TCO reduction the Fujitsu offering scores with: Quick return on investment supported by jump-start services for fast implementation and an option for rapid deployment of SAP HANA with pre-defined use cases Reduced downtime via professional solution maintenance Low operation efforts thanks to an easy administration concept for upgrade and maintenance Fujitsu SAP HANA Product Family Fujitsu SAP HANA infrastructure solutions are based on industry-standard PRIMERGY servers, which represent a unique combination of Japanese-style innovation and German quality standards. With rock-solid reliability and independently proven leading price performance, one benefits from favorable lifecycle costs. Operational costs are reduced through server management, benchmark proven energy efficiency, and innovative market-leading technology. Further major building blocks of the Fujitsu SAP HANA infrastructure solution are NetApp FAS3200 Series storage systems (scale-out offering) and Fujitsu network infrastructure. T-Shirt Sizes offered The Fujitsu T-shirt size options are based on PRIMERGY RX600 servers. They represent a TCO-optimized entry-level offering, which provides ample performance and capacity without investment in an external storage system. The XS configuration can be upgraded seamlessly to the M size model.

* All configurations are constantly reviewed and the latest technology is validated and made available whenever applicable.

The single node configurations are ideal for proof of concept/proof of value projects, development, tests, quality assurance, training and initial SAP HANA implementations with a defined scope. However, these systems can also be included as building blocks in a multi-node environment. Scale-out offering The Fujitsu multi-node offering for SAP HANA is based on industry-standard PRIMERGY building blocks combined with a shared NetApp storage system and high performance Brocade Ethernet Fabric switches as the standard option. Customers can start small and easily add and integrate PRIMERGY servers and storage capacity as requirements grow. Today the solution is certified for massive scalability of up to 16 nodes and 8 TB of main memory, however the concept is already disposed to further growth.

High Availability Special attention was paid to high availability as a major component for mission-critical readiness of the overall SAP HANA solution. Thus high availability is already an integral part of the building block concept. One server can be assigned as a fail-over server and quickly take over in case a productive server breaks down. The second pillar of the high availability concept is the utilization of NFS (Network File

System) and the shared NetApp FAS 3240 series. The pivotal idea of in-memory computing is to store data in the main memory of a computer to allow fast access. The risk of this concept is that data stored in the main memory is volatile. Once the computer is down, data kept in the main memory is irretrievably lost. The usage of NFS ensures that all data is constantly mirrored on the NetApp FAS system. In case of a data loss in main memory, data can be copied back from the storage system. Besides, the inclusion of an external FAS storage system provides the classical back-up and restore functionalities. Highest demand concerning system availability can be met by expanding the infrastructure to a two-site concept, which means that all infrastructure components and data are reflected in a second data center. This guarantees disaster resilience with continuous operation even in case of a total data center breakdown. Support infrastructure As an additional, certified component the Fujitsu SAP HANA infrastructure solution always includes a PRIMERGY RX 100 Infrastructure Management Server (IMS). This mono socket rack server is used for: Efficient SAP HANA software maintenance: initial installation and upgrade Seamless integration into the customers systems management landscape Easy remote support access as a key part of the solution maintenance offering (SolutionContract) System administrators especially benefit from the IMS component when software updates are required in multi-node environments, as the update only needs to be started once from the IMS and is then automatically distributed within the entire server environment. Additional software needed AISConnect software (enables remote access to the SAP HANA landscape) Support Services The Fujitsu end-to-end offering comprises a complete set of services for non-disruptive implementation, integration and operation of the SAP HANA solution.
Services for HANA Implementation and Integration

Fujitsu SAP HANA SolutionContract (Services for SAP HANA Operation) SolutionContract is the maintenance and support service for defined Fujitsu solutions. It represents a mix of proactive and reactive services, which ensure that malfunctions are detected and corrected before they can have any impact on operations. The concept takes into account that Fujitsu solutions consist of hardware, software and network products from different vendors. Fujitsu is the single point of contact for all infrastructure components of a Fujitsu solution as well as their interoperability. SolutionContract offers several service-level options depending on individual requirements. Note: SAP Software support is not part of this solution contract! Additional SAP HANA Services
Fujitsu SmartStart Short Time to Value Offering (Rapid Deployment)

SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions support a fast implementation and utilization by providing business users with modular, pre-packed and ready-to-use business content. The Fujitsu SmartStart option expands this approach. SAP HANA, the Rapid Deployment Solution and

customer-specific settings are implemented and pre-tested on certified Fujitsu infrastructure in the Fujitsu staging center. The end-to-end offering also comprises the onsite implementation plus infrastructure and application integration. Thus SmartStart combines SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions benefits with Fujitsu expertise and services to quickly go live with SAP HANA business scenarios fully integrated with the SAP Business Suite.
Fujitsu Global SAP HANA Demo Center

Fujitsu has set up the first Global SAP HANA Demo and Proof of Value Center to provide customers with a practical insight into the scope of SAP HANA capabilities and services. Customer Success Stories
SAP Business Warehouse Migration to SAP HANA

A leading international manufacturer of automotive components has to date used an SAP Business Warehouse (BW), but it took several hours to generate reports meaning that important information was often only available the next day. To accelerate this process management opted for the innovative SAP HANA appliance software. The complementary portfolio of SAP HANA infrastructure and services, jointly offered by Fujitsu and TDS*, convinced the management to entrust this vital project to the two companies in combination. SAP experts at TDSs IT Consulting business unit were tasked with design and implementation, and with operation and support of the production system and Fujitsu contributed the certified SAP HANA infrastructure solution based on powerful PRIMERGY RX600 rack servers.
*(TDS a Fujitsu company) Mitsui

To promote the growth of Mitsuis businesses, it is essential to have an IT platform that flexibly adapts to change and supports rapid decision making. The objectives of SAP HANA align with these needs. We greatly value Fujitsus early leadership in support of SAP HANA, as well as Fujitsus capabilities in providing global support for our IT platforms, and we intend to continue to work with Fujitsu in this area in the future. With the global cooperation from the team at Fujitsu, we have already begun implementing this technology, and look forward to continuing to work with Fujitsu to achieve our mutual objectives.
Mr. Toru Nakajima

Associate Officer and General Manager of Information Technology Promotion Division Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Contact information for inquiries Global Fujitsu SAP Competence Center 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, prepackaged 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 time-to-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 Hitachi-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 lower-cost, lowerrisk, 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 SAP HANA Solutions

Through a close, collaborative partnership that spans more than 20 years, HP and SAP have worked together to offer an innovative and comprehensive portfolio of products and services that help more than 25,000 joint customers around the world of all sizes, in all industries, solve their business problems. This strategic partnership has ultimately resulted in product offerings like HP AppSystems for SAP HANA as well as value-added services to implement rapiddeployment solutions for SAP HANA. During this partnership, HP received numerous SAP Innovation and Impact awards across all three geographic regions, with the most recent ones being: Technology Partner of the Year/SAP HANA Impact Award (APJ) Innovation Partner of the Year Award (EMEA/DACH) North American SAP Services Partner of the Year for SAP HANA SAP Services Partner of the Year, SAP HANA HP has also recently received the following Pinnacle awards: Run SAP Partner of the Year winner Global Software Solution Partner of the Year finalist Global Technology Partner of the Year finalist HP AppSystems for SAP HANA are built on an HP converged infrastructure for purpose-built, integrated solutions that address the growing and complex needs of our customers. This solution portfolio incorporates hardware, software, and services into predefined configurations for a powerful and comprehensive set of solutions that are designed to work together. The portfolio includes: Multiple single-node configurations (XS, S, M, M+, L) based on industry-leading HP ProLiant DL580 and DL980 G7 Servers An XL scale-out configuration, based on industry-leading HP BladeSystem Servers, with fully automated failover for high availability HPs Unique Value Proposition 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 has developed the core competencies to deliver successful implementations of HP AppSystems for SAP HANA. The company offers a portfolio of six configurations (XS, S, M, M+, L, XL) to meet the needs of any-sized business. HP has implemented more than 77,000 SAP installations worldwide, and HP infrastructure runs nearly half of all SAP installations in the world. In fact, HP is a global leader in SAP operations, supporting 1.7 million users in more than 50 countries. in addition, it has developed a core competency for designing and building SAP appliance-based solutions, successfully

implementing them on customer sites, and offering industry-leading support services to ensure optimal performance throughout their lifecycle. Industry-Leading TechnologyOptimized for SAP HANA HP designed the HP AppSystems for SAP HANA on industry-leading x86 HP ProLiant DL580 and DL980 G7 Servers for single-node SAP HANA implementations, and on HP ProLiant BL680 G7 Server Blades for larger scale-out requirements, providing a large contiguous memory footprint for faster in-memory applications. The scale-out solution in the portfolio of HP AppSystems for SAP HANA is based on HP ProLiant BL680c G7 Server Blades, the industryleading blade solution that is ideal for SAP HANA scale-out implementations. For the SAP HANA scale-out technology, HP delivers a unique storage platform based on the HP X9300 Network Storage System that offers unlimited scale-out capability and disastertolerant features. Designed to be extremely scalable, flexible, and cost-efficient, HP X9300 Network Storage Systems deliver excellent performance and a modular storage infrastructure to accommodate unprecedented storage growth and performance. HP AppSystems for SAP HANA Based on HP Converged Infrastructure products Multiple configuration choices, sized for your companys needs (XS, S, M, M+, L, XL) HP ProLiant DL580 G7 Servers or HP ProLiant DL980 G7 Servers for XS to L single-node configurations HP ProLiant BL680 G7 Server Blades for XL highly scalable configurations [for?] up to 8 TB of compressed data HP Storage for log files and data files HP X9300 Network Storage Systems for scale-out cluster file systems HP Networking with HP Virtual Connect and ProCurve HP ProLiant Service packages and HP Insight Control management software HP Fast Start Service HP Technology Support Services SAP HANA T-Shirt Sizes Offered

Scale-out Offering HP offers a unique scale-out offering that provides the high availability your business demands today, as well as a future-ready solution that can grow as your needs grow. This design significantly reduces the costs, difficulties, and down-time associated with future field upgrades. HPs scale-out solution is based on proven, industry-leading technology including: HP BL680c G7 Server Blades are the blade solution that is ideal for SAP HANA scaleout implementations for balanced computing to handle the most demanding enterprise class applications. The HP X9300 IBRIX Network Storage System is a unique storage platform that offers unlimited scale-out capability and disaster-tolerant features. HP P6500 Enterprise Virtual Arrays (EVA) delivers high-throughput, mission-critical, redundant storage for data and log files, SYS files, config files, traces, and more. HP networking solutions like HP Virtual Connect for simplifying and virtualizing the connectivity between the HANA blade nodes, the network, and the shared storage.

HPs scale-out solution provides high availability through a stand-by blade with automatic failover, in addition to disaster-tolerant technology. HP offers both synchronous and asynchronous disaster-tolerance solutions, available either as standard integrated functionality of the scale-out solution or as an add-on. These solutions are designed to 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. High Availability and Disaster Recovery With HP AppSystems for SAP HANA, HP has delivered a fully automated failover mechanism for high availability, a stand-by blade that automatically is activated upon a failure of any node in the cluster. Only one node is needed, regardless of the number of nodes in the cluster. As mentioned earlier, disaster tolerance is designed into HPs SAP HANA technology today. Consequently, once SAP HANA software is released with disaster-tolerance capability, HPs scale-out solution is already equipped to enable this functionality. Storage Infrastructure HP PCIe IO Accelerator for HP ProLiant Servers is a direct-attach, solid-state PCIe cardbased solution for enhancing application performance. Based on Multi-Level Cell (MLC) and Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash technology, these devices are ideal for accelerating I/O performance and maintaining SAP HANA log file data. For mission-critical deployments and shared-storage infrastructures, the HP X9300 IBRIX Network Storage System features an NFS cluster file system and support for single-node high availability. This system is designed for high availability and extreme scalability while delivering excellent performance and a modular storage infrastructure to accommodate unprecedented storage growth. Additional Software 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 AppSystems 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 HP to further enhance your solution. HP AppSystems for SAP HANA can be easily monitored utilizing HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM), available both with HP ProLiant servers and as a free download from HP. This powerful yet intuitive solution provides hardware-level management for system administrators to improve system uptime and health. SIM is also available as a component of the Insight Control suite of management software, which is available for purchase from HP. HP Insight Control server management software unleashes the management capabilities built into every HP ProLiant server. The result is superior management of physical and virtual servers, from any location. Insight Control integrates specific management functionality into HP Systems Insight Manager to manage server health, deploy and migrate servers quickly, optimize power consumption and performance, and control servers from anywhere.

Support Services HP delivers a comprehensive solution that encompasses hardware, software, and services from a single resource. HP delivers the full lifecyle of services required to progress from the assessment and design of an SAP HANA solution to the build, implementation, and support of the solution. 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 we 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 we ship the order to your location. Implementation Delivery of the SAP HANA appliance 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 we deliver. The basic foundational service includes the following: Incorporation of SAP HANA in the local network Connection of SAP HANA to source systems Implementation of basic security and authorizations Configuration of SAP BusinessObjects front end or Microsoft Excel to communicate with SAP HANA Validation of the integrated environment and the end-to-end functionality of the SAP HANA system Review of the access to, and use of, the SAP in-memory computing studio Installation and configuration troubleshooting Support After a successful implementation, HP turns over support of your SAP HANA solution to HPs support services team, which delivers HP Proactive Care Service. 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 well-established process, HP is able to deliver industry-leading support and help improve performance of SAP HANA solutions. Additional SAP HANA services from HP HP provides services to help you identify your strategy, quantify your business opportunity, computing your ROI, and implementing an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA into your SAP landscape. These services were designed exclusively for SAP HANA. They include the following services. The HP Business Intelligence Master Plan Service is an overarching BI strategydevelopment 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 ServicesSAP HANA Appliance Software Service Pack 3 supports the deployment of an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA as the database for SAP NetWeaver

Business Warehouse. HP is offering a migration package for current SAP NetWeaver BW customers to assist them in migrating from their existing database to an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA. In addition to migration services, this package includes complimentary phone assessment services, asset recovery services, and financial services, as listed below. On-site migration assessment workshops SAP NetWeaver BW upgrade service SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3 migration to a database built on SAP HANA SAP NetWeaver BW optimization for the SAP HANA database
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 migrating your environment to SAP HANA will involve extra effort and incremental costs. To help ease the transition, HP and SAP offer a migration-assistance 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 First-ever 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 real-time reporting, ad-hoc reporting capabilities, and reduction of TCO. The results achieved by HP on the standard performance benchmark demonstrate the ability of an HP AppSystem for the SAP HANA database to deliver on todays new customer requirements. These systems have revolutionized user access to data, and they deliver outstanding, scalable analytic performance in seconds versus hours on massive, multidimensional databases. Posting the FIRST RESULT on the SAP EML standard application benchmark, a single-node, medium-sized HP AppSystem for SAP HANA configuration achieved an amazing 65,990 ad-hoc

query navigation steps per hour with 1 billion records (certification number 2012023) on the SAP HANA platform. (These are the results as of May 16, 2012.) Additional details can be found at http://www.sap.com/benchmark Customer Success Stories For 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 smartphone 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 solutionbuilt on HP Converged Infrastructure in collaboration with SAP AG and deployed in just two weeksenhances 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. 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 smoothlyand with more accurate data. For example, the increased computing speeds enable the company to analyze data 200-300 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 columnstorage 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.

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 long-term business innovation With a unique combination of expertise, experience and proven methodologies 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 40 years to deliver innovation to their shared customers. Since 2006, IBM has been the market leader for implementing SAPs original inmemory 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 Systems with GPFS Power SAP HANA SAP HANA, delivered on IBM eX5 enterprise servers with fifth-generation IBM Enterprise XArchitecture technology (eX5), helps 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 enterprise servers with the Intel Xeon processor E7 family combines the speed and efficiency of in-memory 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 is the first to decouple memory and input/output (I/O) from the processor moving processing power from whats theoretically possible to whats actually possible. IBM System x servers with fifth-generation IBM eX5 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 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 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 previousgeneration processors. With up to ten cores in each processor, the four-socket x3850 X5 can

be scaled to 40 cores and 80 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 features such as Predictive Failure Alerts warn ahead of potential hardware failures, trigger preemptive action, and help maintain application availability. In addition, eX5 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. Standard features in the solution such as the High IOPS MLC Duo Adapter for IBM System x can also provide fast access to storage. 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, 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 the choice of only solid-state disk or a combination of spinning disk 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 8processor, 1 TB configuration. The IBM System x3950 X5 is the workload-optimized version of the 4U x3850 X5 server, the new flagship server of the IBM x86 server family. These systems are designed for maximum utilization, reliability, and performance for compute-intensive and memory-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA. This server is ideal for the medium- and large-scale SAP HANA implementations. The x3950 X5based configurations integrate either the 320 GB High IOPS SD Class SSD PCIe adapter or the 640 GB High IOPS MLC Duo Adapter. Note: An 8-socket configuration uses a scalability kit that combines the 7143-H2x* with the 7143-H3x* to create a single 8-socket, 1 TB system. IBM and SAP have worked closely together to validate each of the workload-optimized configurations and have also collaborated on performance testing. Performance testing of SAP HANA running on IBM eX5 enterprise servers and have demonstrated the ability to handle 10,000 queries per hour against 1.3 TB of data, returning results within seconds. Outstanding results like this are founded on years of joint product development which allows IBM and SAP offerings to be integrated for simplified implementation. This is true of IBMs DB2 database which is tightly aligned with SAP HANA for seamless replication of data when using the Sybase replication server. 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 4-node x3690 X5 and x3950 X5 and 16 node x3950 X5 solutions validated. You can start with one 256GB node, upgrade to a 512GB node, and grow your environment to 16 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 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 and availability 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. IBM Intelligent Cluster integrated packaging and assembly can help speed installation and deployment of multi-node scale-out HA configurations as well as reduce implementation risk if you require all of your HANA server nodes preassembled and packaged in a rack. By implementing SAP HANA on eX5 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 workload-optimized 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 Systems Services to speed deployment

To help speed deployment and simplify maintenance of your x3690 X5 and x3950 X5: 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 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. IBM also offers skills enablement services to provide technical training to your teams that need to manage the HANA appliance. 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. 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 eX5 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 massive amount of data produced daily. The NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA incorporates the truly innovative inmemory 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 16 years. Currently, NEC offers three certified SAP HANA models (XS, S and L size), with future plan towards offering an M-size model also. All the NEC SAP HANA appliances are constructed on the Express5800 Scalable Enterprise Server that offers upward scalability to 8 sockets and 2TB memory, fault-management functionalities through EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP2, and ViridentTM FlashMax device for high-workload environments. Why Express5800 is ideal platform for SAP HANA High-performance Express5800 Scalable Enterprise Servers, which leverage NECs long heritage in the development of supercomputer and mainframe technologies to achieve highly fault tolerant and flexible system expandability, are leveraged as the platform for SAP HANA. The flagship NEC Express5800/A1080a model has capabilities to mount up to 8CPUs and 2TB RAM within a single 7U chassis, and NEC Express5800/A1040a also has capabilities to mount up to 4CPU and 1TB RAM. One noteworthy hardware feature is its EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP2, a uniquely developed device by NEC based on our experience in UNIX servers, enables to monitor and control Express5800/A1080a and A1040a with remote and centralized interface regardless of the power status of servers. It significantly increases maintainability and reduces downtime of SAP HANA.

SAP HANA T-Shirt sizes offered

Support Infrastructure Virident FlashMax is a Storage Class Memory (SCM) solution that offers enterprises unconditional performance combined with the industrys highest storage capacity in the smallest footprint. FlashMAX has been designed from the ground up to fully exploit modern computer architectures, such as SAP HANA, which leverage many fast CPU cores and the PCI Express interconnect bus to deliver maximum application performance. It also offers supreme performance without compromise over the entire lifetime of the device, across all application workloads, even when the device is full or nearly full. The scale-up configurations of NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA leverage Virident FlashMax to implement Log volume backup which is a key component to achieving smooth collaboration with existing database tools. 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 package-updates; 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 EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP2 of Express5800 servers and ESMPRO/ServerAgent installed 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 NEC sales representative in your region.

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 in-memory technologies.9 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/B3TRsEpwI0

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 Low-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 endto-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/hana-g-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 data-intensive, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 packaged solutions such as SAP Rapid Deployment solutions or accelerators. These solutions contain preconfigured software, technical content, and implementation services, and they are priced and scoped for rapid implementation. 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. Examples are:

SAP ERP Rapid Deployment solution for accelerated finance and controlling with SAP HANA SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for profitability analysis with SAP HANA SAP Rapid Deployment solution for customer segmentation with SAP HANA SAP is continuously adding more Rapid Deployment solutions. To see whats available today, visit: www.sap.com/solutions/rds. Now that weve reviewed typical implementation scenarios, lets review what a successful implementation requires.

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, deliverableoriented 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. 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 in-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. 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-orbreak 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 time-consuming 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/thevalue-in-value-management

Cutting-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.
9 Gard Little and Elaina Stergiades, IDC, Help Rethinking the Art of the Possible with SAP HANA Services, March 2012.

Chapter 12

SAP HANA Resources COMING MAY 2013

The rest of the story.

SAP HANA Essentials book is being written in real time, it will S ince the as new chapters are completed and content revisions are added. be continuously updated 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.

About the Author

Jeffrey Word, Ph.D. Follow Jeff on : @jeff_word

for creating and communicating J effrey is responsibleglobally. His next book, Businessthought leadership on SAPs In-Memory database strategy Process Integration with SAP ERP, will be released in Fall 2012. 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 13 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 next-generation 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.