Welcome to the technical overview for SAP HANA. In this training, we will provide an introduction to the technical landscape of SAP HANA, as well as discuss the key considerations when implementing the solution.

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After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Describe the high-level architecture of SAP HANA

Explain how the components of SAP HANA’s system landscape work together to enable data modeling, reporting, administration and other tasks

SAP HANA is a flexible, multipurpose, data source agnostic, in-memory appliance that combines SAP software components on hardware provided and delivered by leading SAP technology partners such as Cisco, Dell, IBM, HP, and Fujitsu. SAP HANA provides a powerful platform for real-time analytics and applications. It enables organizations to analyze business operations based on a large volume and variety of data in real time.

The appliance includes a number of integrated SAP software components, including the SAP HANA database, data and lifecycle management applications, support for multiple interfaces based on industry standards, and the SAP HANA studio, an easy-to-use data modeling and administration tool.

The SAP HANA database is the core technology underlying the SAP HANA platform. SAP HANA optimizes memory access between the CPU cache and main memory. The database provides a massively parallel data management system that runs fully in main memory, allowing for row- and column based storage options, and supporting built-in latency. The in-memory engine is centered on the ability to access data from the hard disk by pre-storing frequently accessed data in main memory. All in all, the SAP HANA In-Memory Computing Engine features a large memory footprint, row and column storage options, compression and partitioning options for data, as well as no need for aggregate tables and non-materialized views.

The HANA studio serves as an administration front-end for the in-memory computing engine and a tool for architects to model data. We will discuss the HANA Studio in more detail in the following pages.

SAP HANA supports real-time replication with direct write using a database shared library (DBSL) connection. With DBSL, the SAP HANA database can be connected as a secondary database to a system running the Replication Agent in SAP ERP, and provide accelerated data processing for existing SAP applications. Applications can use DBSL on the application server layer to simultaneously write to traditional databases and the SAP HANA database.

SAP HANA supports open interfaces, such as for Microsoft Excel, as well as various SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions.

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Let‘s take a closer look at the SAP HANA database components.

Starting from the top, the session management feature creates and manages sessions and connections for the database clients. For each session a set of parameters is maintained such as auto commit settings or the current transaction isolation level.

Moving toward the center of the engine, client requests are analyzed and executed by the set of components summarized within the Request Processing and Execution Control. Once a session is established, database clients typically use SQL statements to communicate with the in-memory computing engine. For analytical applications the multidimensional query language MDX is supported in addition.

Features such as SQL Script, MDX and planning operations are implemented using a common infrastructure called the Calc Engine.

At the heart of the in-memory computing engine are two Relational Engines – the row and the column store. These relational engines are in-memory databases, meaning that their primary data persistence is based in RAM. The row store engine stores data in rows, and in this respect behaves like traditional relational databases. A major difference to traditional databases is that all data is always kept in RAM. The column store engine is a relational column-based in-memory data engine. Column based data storage provides massive acceleration on data queries, even against very large data sets.

Even though the relational engines are memory based, a Persistence Layer on less volatile media is required for reasons of data safety. The Persistence Layer handles page management and logging (redo and Undo logs) and permanently stores data in a disk storage. This storage has separate volumes for data and log.

The Transaction Manager is required to provide consistent views of the data at any given point in time.

Finally, the Replication Server and Load Controller are required for real-time data replication.

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Data modeling in SAP HANA will be discussed in more detail in another lesson in this curriculum. But at a high level we can summarize the process here.

Once HANA is connected to the source system, the semantic relationships between data tables in the source and in HANA need to be modeled. These data models are created with the HANA Studio, and stored in the form of views and associated metadata in the HANA database.

Depending on the front-end tool used to report on HANA data models, further modeling decisions can be made by designing semantic layers using tools such as the SAP BusinessObjects Information Design Tool.

SAP HANA is designed to support reporting with extreme performance. Reporting in SAP HANA is executed by creating queries against the database, but where the actual query is generated depends on the tool used. The highlighted areas on this slide identify possible reporting options when using SAP HANA. This topic will be discussed in more detail in another lesson in this curriculum.

The administration console of the SAP HANA studio provides an all-in-one support environment for system monitoring, backup and recovery, and user provisioning. Many of these features will be discussed in more detail later in this curriculum.

Correct!

The SAP HANA appliance includes a number of integrated SAP software components, including the SAP HANA database, data replication functionality and lifecycle management applications, support for multiple interfaces based on industry standards, and the SAP HANA studio, an easy-to-use data modeling and administration tool.

Sorry, that is incorrect. The correct answers are:

SAP HANA Studio

SAP HANA Database

The SAP HANA appliance includes a number of integrated SAP software components, including the SAP HANA database, data replication functionality and lifecycle management applications, support for multiple interfaces based on industry standards, and the SAP HANA studio, an easy-to-use data modeling and administration tool.

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Correct!

Client requests are analyzed and executed by the set of components summarized within the Request Processing and Execution Control

Sorry, that is incorrect. The correct answer is:

Request Processing and Execution Control

Client requests are analyzed and executed by the set of components summarized within the Request Processing and Execution Control

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You are now able to:

Describe the high-level architecture of SAP HANA

Explain how the components of SAP HANA’s system landscape work together to enable data modeling, reporting, administration and other tasks

For more information on topics discussed in this course, see the references listed here.

Thank you for completing this training.

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