SAP HANA

What is?SAP HANA?

SAP HANA? (High-performance ANalytic Appliance) is?a multi-model database that stores data in its memory instead of keeping it on a disk. The column-oriented in-memory database design allows you to run advanced analytics alongside high-speed transactions – in a single system.?Why is this so important??Because it lets companies process massive amounts of data with near-zero latency, query data in an instant, and become truly data-driven. By storing data in column-based tables in main memory and bringing online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transactional processing (OLTP) together,?SAP HANA is unique?– and significantly faster than other database management systems (DBMS) on the market today.

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Launched in 2010, SAP HANA?is a modern and mature solution used by tens of thousands of customers around the world. But?SAP HANA is much more than a database.?In addition to acting as a database server, storing and retrieving data requested by applications, SAP HANA offers advanced search, analytics, and data integration capabilities for all types of data – structured and unstructured. It also functions as an application server and helps companies build smart, insight-driven applications based on real-time data, in-memory computing, and machine learning technology.?These capabilities are available both in the cloud, and on-premise.

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By combining multiple data management capabilities – and making all types of data instantly available from a single system –?SAP HANA simplifies IT, helps businesses innovate, and knocks down barriers to digital transformation.

What is an in-memory database?

An in-memory database (IMDB) is?a type of database that stores data in a computer’s main memory (RAM) instead of on traditional disks or solid-state drives (SSD). While most databases today have added more in-memory capabilities, they are still a disk-based storage database first. SAP HANA was built from the ground up to work with data in-memory first and leverage other storage mechanisms as necessary to balance performance and cost. Retrieval from memory is much faster than from a disk or SSD, resulting in split-second response times.

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In-memory databases are often used for applications that require top speed and the ability to handle large spikes in traffic – such as telecommunications networks and banking systems. In the last 10 years or so, mainly due to advancements in multi-core processors and less expensive RAM, companies have started to use in-memory databases for a wider range of applications, including real-time analytics and predictive modelling, customer experience management, logistics, and much more.?

Just how fast is SAP HANA?

3600

xs

faster than traditional databases

< 1

second

answers queries in less than 1 second

3.5

billion

scans per second per core

15

million?

aggregations per second per core

Top 10 benefits of SAP HANA

The SAP HANA database offers many more benefits than just storing data, serving it, and providing a single source of truth. The top 10 benefits of SAP HANA, both on-premises and with SAP HANA Cloud, are:

1. Complete:? Includes database services, advanced analytical processing, application development, and data integration?
2. Fast: Response to queries in less than a second in large production applications
3. Versatile:??Supports hybrid transactional and analytical processing and many data types
4. Efficient:? Provides a smaller data footprint with no data duplication, advanced compression, and reducing data silos?
5. Powerful:? Rapidly queries large datasets with a massively parallel processing (MPP) database
6. Scalable:??Easily scales for data volume and concurrent users across a distributed environment
7. Flexible:??Deploys in a public or private cloud, in multiple clouds, on-premise, or a hybrid scenario
8. Simple:??Provides a single gateway to all your data with advanced data virtualisation
9. Intelligent:??Augments applications and analytics with built-in machine learning (ML)
10. Secure:??Offers comprehensive data and application security, secure setup, and more

SAP HANA architecture

Built for fast queries and high-speed transactions –?SAP HANA’s in-memory, column-oriented architecture also includes, database management, application development, advanced analytical processing, and flexible data virtualisation.

SAP HANA?architecture diagram

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• Database design
• Database management
• Application development
• Advanced analytics
• Data virtualisation

Database design

• In-memory, columnar, massively parallel processing database:? SAP HANA runs transactional and analytical workloads using a single instance of the data on a single platform. It stores data in high-speed memory, organises it in columns, and partitions and distributes it among multiple servers. This delivers faster queries more efficiently than aggregate data and avoids costly full-table scans.??
• ACID compliance:? Helps ensure compliance with all requirements for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) standards.?
• Multi-tenancy:? Allows multiple tenant databases to run in one system, sharing the same memory and processors. Each tenant database is fully isolated with its own database users, catalog, repository, data files, and log files for maximum security and control.??
• Multi-tier storage and persistent memory support:??Various software solutions manage multi-temperature data (hot, warm, and cold) to optimise performance and cost of storage. SAP HANA’s native storage extension is a built-in capability to intelligently manage data between memory and persistent storage such as the SAP HANA Cloud Data Lake. Learn more about SAP HANA persistent memory.?
• Scaling:? Supports terabytes of data in a single server and scales further by implementing a shared-nothing architecture across multiple servers in a cluster. Distributes large tables across these servers automatically based on rules.

The history of SAP HANA

In the mid-2000s, the co-founder of SAP, Hasso Plattner,?was on a mission. He wanted to develop a database that could process?transactional and analytical data – and answer any business question – in real-time. 2010, SAP HANA was born and now?31,000+ direct?customers run on SAP HANA today.

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2010 -?SAP HANA was announced and a pre-release version?was shipped to select customers in November of that year. The first official?version, SAP HANA 1.0,?attained?the first ten go-live customers.

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2012 - SAP started announcing products for cloud?computing with the SAP HANA Cloud PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service).?SAP HANA became the?fastest-growing product in SAP history with 345 customers.

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2013 -?The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) service was announced, an Infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) tool, that provided customers with a managed private cloud offering for SAP HANA. Now 3,000?customers and 520K+ end-users strong.

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2014 - SAP sets the?Guinness World’s record?for largest data warehouse at 12.1 petabytes (PB). That amount could store the entire printed content of all academic research libraries (2 Petabytes) 6 times over.

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2015 - Recognised?as a leader by Forrester in The Forrester Wave?: In-Memory Database Platforms,?Q3 2015. SAP HANA 2.0 and SAP S/4HANA ERP system written specifically for the SAP HANA are released, and introduce a whole new set of?users to the database.?

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