SAP HANA for Beginners from a Beginner

9/17/2015 SAP HANA from Space Level | SAP Yard
http://www.sapyard.com/saphanafromspacelevel/ 1/14
SAP HANA from Space Level
TOPICS: Columnar Storage Eclipse
In Memory Database Persistent Storage
SAP HANA Studio
POSTED BY: SAP YARD SEPTEMBER 14, 2015
HANA the “Hot cake” of the market. I have been
hearing about HANA since the beginning of this
decade or even earlier. Initially I thought it was just a
new database, so why the fuss? My crooked mind used
to say: may be SAP does not want to share the market
revenue with any other database provider
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(competitors); therefore they came up with their own
database. Pat SAP for Smart Business Acumen.
Later I had a notion that HANA is only for BI/BW folks,
so being an ABAPer – why should I care? Everyone
used to talk about analysis and modelling. So, I used
to think, let the BI/BW modelers worry about HANA.
Then the rumour started in market; ABAP and ABAPer
are going to be extinct in near future. I used to wonder,
if ABAPer are going to die, then who in this whole
universe would support those tons and tons of ABAP
code written in the history of SAP Implementations?
What will happen to all those time, effort and money
spent in those large and small scales SAP
Implementations? What a waste of rumour!!
I have spent more time is researching what is HANA
than actually learning what HANA actually is. Internet
is full of information regarding HANA but finding the
right answers for your curiosity or doubt, is an uphill
task.
I had some silly questions for HANA but felt a little
embarrassed to ask the experts. I spent and wasted
lots of time trying to figure out what is HANA and
who needs it and why?
Some of the questions which I had and I am sure all
novice in HANA would have the same are below:
Q. Is SQL a pre-requisite to learn HANA?
Q. Without SAP BI/BW/BO knowledge, can I learn
HANA?
Q. Is SAP ABAP skilled required to learn HANA?
Q. Is HANA for functional folk or technical folks
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or modelers?
Please find answers to these SAP HANA doubts from a
beginner in HANA to another beginner in HANA.
They might not be very technical or in-depth, but it
would definitely be enough for a beginner and I am
sure the new comers would appreciate these selective
information.
Q. Is SQL a pre-requisite to learn HANA? (Being an
ABAPer, this was one of the most feared question for
me)
Ans: No.
SAP HANA is like any other relational database.
Having Database Concepts and basic knowledge of SQL
before starting SAP HANA is an advantage, but it is not
a pre-requisite. You can always catch up with these
concepts while learning SAP HANA.
Q. Without SAP BI/BW/BO knowledge, can I learn
HANA? (I am sure all ABAPers have this question)
Ans: Yes.
BI is the Data Warehousing package implementation
tool from SAP. Data Warehousing Concepts in SAP BI
will help understand the implementation aspects
from BW on HANA perspective. But unless you plan to
a BW on HANA consultant, you necessarily do not have
to learn BI.
Similarly BW and BO are Business Warehouse and
Business Object respectively. If you have prior BW
experience, understanding modeling concept and
transferring data SAP Business Suite System to HANA
would be child’s play for you. But, we can easily learn
HANA modeling concept even if we do not have
current exposure to BW. But it would be a must for
those consultants who are eyeing the role of BW on
HANA expert.
By now, I have understood that BO is a front end

reporting tool. Prior knowledge in reporting tools
would be an advantage but, we can always learn BO
concepts while learning HANA.
But, if you already have BI/BW/BO knowledge, then
BW on HANA work would be the role you would be
targeting to (if you are planning to shift to HANA).
Q. Is SAP ABAP skilled required to learn HANA?
Ans: No.
Whatever we said above for BI/BW/BO is applicable to
ABAP as well.
If you are an SAP ABAP programmer, then
implementing the business logic and model would be
fun for you. You must have already heard about SAP
ABAP on HANA. Let’s put a full stop to the rumour that
ABAPer are vanishing. With HANA, ABAPer would be
smarter and more in demand. Only ABAP on HANA
consultant would need ABAP knowledge as pre-
requisite.
Q. Is HANA for functional folk or technical folks
or modelers?
Ans: All.
Like any other technology, HANA also has segregation of
duty, therefore the answer to this question is
‘ALL’. Some of the HANA job roles are as below:
i) HANA Admin and Security
Our current SAP Basis/Security/GRC guys would be the
nearest cousins of HANA Admin and Security folks.
ii) HANA Data Replicator
Like in normal SAP Implementation project we have
Conversion and Interface team and experts, the HANA
Data Replication role would be similar to that. SAP
BI/BO guys are the closest. They will use jargons like
SLT, BODS, DXC etc.
SLT = SAP Landscape Transformation

BODS = Business Objects Data Services
DXC = Direct eXtractor Connection
iii) HANA Modeler
SAP BW gurus are already modeling, so will SAP HANA
Modelers.
iv) HANA Application Developer
HANA XS or ABAP on HANA Developers.
Also Read: ‘ABAP for SAP HANA’, points to
remember.
Further, I had some other curious questions, a little more
technical like:
Q. HANA means in-memory. In-memory means
RAM. We all know, RAM is volatile temporary
memory. Does it mean all data would be lost when
power goes down, or there is reboot etc i.e. if
there is a hard or soft failure?
Ans: No. SAP must have thought this even before
they started the development. (I cannot be smarter
than SAP)
Data is stored in RAM, that is right. But on power
failure for any reason, data is not lost. Here comes the
concept of Persistent Storage.

Transaction data is updated to Log Volume on every
commit. Data is saved to Data Volume every 300 sec
or as configured. These create savepoints.

In case of reboot or power start up, system can be
taken back to last consistent save point and then replay
the Log Volume committed data.
Q. SAP HANA claims to be so fast. Which
programming language is it written in?
Ans: World famous C++.
Q. What is the Operating System of SAP HANA?
Ans: Suse Linux Server SPX & Red Hat linux
Server 6.5
Q. Another question which I always had was, if
HANA is about RAM, so can we increase the
memory size of traditional database and get
similar performance like HANA?
Ans: No.
We would definitely get better performance if we
increase the memory size of traditional database, but
it would not be comparable to what we get in HANA.
But Why?
Because, HANA is not just about database. It is a
hybrid in-memory database which is combination of
niche Hardware and Software innovation as stated
below:

In-Memory storage (RAM): Processing data from
RAM itself is 1 million time faster than accessing data
from hard disk. In practical scenarios, it might is
around 10x to 3600x time faster. Also, in today’s
world RAM is cheap and affordable expense wise.
Trivia: Read time in RAM: 2 MB/ms/core (2 megabyte
per millisecond per core).
So to scan 1 GB of data, it would approximately take 0.5
s/core. For 100 GB it would take 50 s/core. If you have 50
cores in the hardware, scanning 100 GB data would take
just 1 second. Huh!! Quantitative numbers always
clarifies better than paragraphs of sentences. Isn’t it?
Multi core Architecture, Partitioning & Enormous
Parallel Processing: Servers are available with one
node up to 64 cores (and even more). So partitioning
the data foot prints in different node and running the
query parallel is the innovation which HANA uses so
effectively. This is perfect example of both hardware and
software innovation.
Columnar Storage: Contiguous memory allocation
Faster reading with sequential memory access.
Remember, column store not only makes reading
faster. HANA has built the column store is such a way

that it is efficient for both READ and WRITE.
Quick aggregation (normally aggregation are
expensive) and also supports parallel processing.
Searching in column store is must faster than row
storage (provided you are selecting only some sets of
columns, not all).
Data Compression: Minimize data footprint through
Compression i.e. less data movement means faster
performance.
Idea is remove repetitive data, build a vector for the
data and point it with an integer (and integer is less
expensive than reading a string).
Q. Ok heard enough of Column Store in HANA.
But, how does Column Storage actually make it
faster?
Ans: Column store is divided into three parts: i) Main
ii) L2 Delta iii) L1 Delta/cache
Persisted data are saved in Main Memory, all buffer
and transaction changes are kept in L2 Delta and
High Inserts / Deletes / Updates etc in L1 Delta
L1-delta
– accepts all incoming data requests
– stores records in row format (write-optimized)
• fast insert and delete
• fast field update

• fast record projection
– no data compression
– holds 10,000 to 100,000 rows per single-node
L2-delta
– the second stage of the record life cycle
– stores records in column format
– dictionary encoding for better memory usage
– unsorted dictionary
• requiring secondary index structures to optimally
support point query access patterns
– well suited to store up to 10 million rows
Main
– final data format
– stores records in column format
– highest compression rate
• sorted dictionary
• positions in dictionary stored in a bit-packed

manner
• the dictionary is also compressed
So the smart innovation of L1, L2 and Main memory
and combination of all three, make data read and
write, really fast and effective.
These are some of the obvious questions, which almost
all beginners in SAP HANA have. I had to dig through
different sources to collect and understand these
concepts. Hope all these information at one place would
help you to understand it better.
Please stay tuned for more on HANA. In the next post, I
would show you how you can get free access to SAP
HANA Cloud Platform. Yes, it is free!! I have already
logged into it and making my hands dirty on it. I am
playing it using Eclipse Studio. I will show in details how
you can easily set it up.
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Series on SAP HANA
1. SAP HANA from Space Level
2. ‘ABAP for SAP HANA’ Points to remember
to be updated..

Image source : www.nasa.gov (modified)

7 COMMENTS ON "SAP HANA FROM SPACE LEVEL"
Previous post
Thank you so much for your info
You are welcome Suresh.
Hope the post was informative and
useful.
Regards,
Raju.
Very good information on the HANA basic
concepts…Thanks a lot

Suresh | September 16, 2015 at 3:43
am | Reply
SAP Yard | September 16, 2015
at 3:47 am | Reply
Santosh | September 16, 2015 at 6:35
am | Reply
at 1:45 pm | Reply

Thanks Santosh.. Glad you found the
post useful.
Regards,
Raju
How can I get into the HAna studio for free?
And all relevant objects.
Thanks Nick
Dear Nick – Thank you for
your question. I have downloaded the
eclipse and created HANA Cloud
platform account for free. I am drafting
a post on how to get it done in details. I
will publish it as soon as it is complete.
Please stay tuned.
I will let you know, as soon as I am done
with it.
Thanks.
Regards,
Raju.
Nick SCHERER | September 16, 2015 at
6:49 pm | Reply
at 6:56 pm | Reply

Very informative. Thanks for sharing.!!
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