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reviewer1593270 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
New technology with good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "We like that the product is both vertically and horizontally scalable, allowing us to do around 86 percent compression of documentation from 50 to seven terabytes."
  • "It would be nice to know when SAP plans to stop its maintenance of a previous version of SAP ECC ERP because, at this point, anyone utilizing SAP will have no choice but to go on S/4HANA Database."

What is our primary use case?

We always make use of the latest version. 

We like that SAP HANA is a new technology. We also like that the product is both vertically and horizontally scalable, allowing us to do around 86 percent compression of documentation from 50 to seven terabytes.

In light of the hosting cost, we find this to be very interesting. We also like the warm and cold data in respect of the solution's technology. There is a real team involved. The customer can initially utilize SAP ECC on the HANA interface and then go on S/4HANA. From this point on, doing upgrades will be very easy and smooth and the risk management will be extremely light.

What needs improvement?

Since only some accommodation exists, there is a need to enquire of SAP about which environment would be good. While I know the HANA database on the Azure environment comprises a good solution, for example, it does not easily accommodate SAP. HANA is a new technology which only dates back to 2004 and we must give it adequate time before assessing its room for improvement. This is in contrast to DB2, which has been  around for 40 years or more years. Perhaps the flow will be improved. As of now, the technology is too new to properly comment on.   

The documentation is not an issue and, if anything, a surfeit of it is made available. This is actually one of SAP's stronger points.

Capabilities are also not at issue at present. When it comes to how EAP connects with SAP we are looking at a revolutionary paradigm. For now, we could not ask for there to be more features. This area is wonderful. We find the solution to be very helpful, safe, good and secure. Only with the passage of time will we be afforded a proper understanding of where the technology can be improved. 

This said, it would be nice to know when SAP plans to stop its maintenance of a previous version of SAP ECC ERP because, at this point, anyone utilizing SAP will have no choice but to go on S/4HANA Database. This will be contingent on when SAP will stop doing maintenance for the ECC version 6.0. 

We saw this with the 4.6 version ECC. Once SAP stopped its maintenance those with SAP were forced to go on the new version. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using SAP HANA for a couple of years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is secure and stable. 

Buyer's Guide
SAP HANA
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As the solution allows for document compression, I would consider it scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

We have had occasion to make use of technical support, although its level varies according to the locale of SAP's global presence. 

What about the implementation team?

While I was not personally involved in the installation, my engineers were. 

My deployment and maintenance team comprises around seven people, although I could not tell you which percentage of this is made up of managers, administrators and engineers. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

A monthly or yearly license must be purchased, although its utility will be based on the cost-benefit analysis that is reached by the individual customer. 

What other advice do I have?

The solution is cloud based

I would recommend S/4HANA to other users. 

I rate SAP HANA as a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1396107 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A feature-rich product that is easy to set up, stable, and scales well
Pros and Cons
  • "This is a feature-rich product and I like all of them."
  • "Technical support should be more customer-friendly."

What is our primary use case?

We are system implementers and we have many clients who use SAP HANA. Some examples of our customers are factories, hospitals, and other businesses.

What is most valuable?

This is a feature-rich product and I like all of them.

What needs improvement?

The price of this product should be reduced.

Technical support should be more customer-friendly.

We would like to see better CRM functionality in the future because there are other products that are better and more effective.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP HANA since they first launched the HANA database, several years ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SAP HANA is scalable and we have a lot of clients who use this product. We have installed it for perhaps 15,000 users, and plan to increase our client base.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support from SAP is medium. I'm not fully satisfied and it could be improved.

It isn't always a matter of them needing to being faster. Sometimes they cannot answer our questions, whereas other times, the answers come so late that we have already solved the problem.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used to implement our own product that we had developed. However, after engaging with SAP, we substituted our own product for SAP HANA.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We have a team of about 200 consultants who implement, deploy, and maintain solutions such as this one.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SAP HANA is an expensive product.

What other advice do I have?

SAP HANA is a good product and I can recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SAP HANA
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1155018 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant Application Manager at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Consultant
Good performance, and data compression reduces storage requirements
Pros and Cons
  • "The data storage requirement is reduced from the original database to the HANA database."
  • "I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

The deployment model used was on-premises.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the unique style of this solution, on the performance side and then the data. 

The data storage requirement is reduced from the original database to the HANA database.

Previously the data takes 100% storage space, but when moved to HANA, the data was 70% to 75%. The data compression is very high.

If you are using SAP applications, HANA is suitable.

What needs improvement?

I think that the pricing is high and it needs improvement.

In the next release, they could separate the modules from the costing of the database. If they bundle it together with a new affordable price then customers will be ready to purchase it.

They need an affordable price to achieve most of the minimum requirement assets.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable.

They keep upgrading to new versions and keep adding new add-ons to this solution. It is helpful to the customers who are ready to run HANA.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not complex to install. Anyone with Windows or a Mac would know the process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is expensive and it should be broken into two products.

People who are technical will accept the cost, but financially they will assess whether this solution will bring them revenue or not. People often ask, how will I profit when the cost is so high?

If you value a good product and can afford it, then add it to the business.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user3372 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager of IT at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Databases, Decisions and Disruption

By now most of us are well aware of the data explosion, that businesses are creating more data than they can effectively manage. This is not a new problem. Throughout history societies have always made efforts to create repositories to organize, analyze and store documents (recorded knowledge). Some of these ancient repositories still exist today in the form of “brick and mortar” libraries. But just like anything else in a consumer’s market, demand (Time-To-Solution) eventually becomes greater than the supply (Information Available/Accessible).

The global economy is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation. Market dynamics and business rules are changing at an ever increasing speed. Those responsible for keeping the company on track for the future have a massive need for high-quality data--both from inside and outside the company. Technology decision makers are facing the challenge of having to create infrastructures that leverage speed, scale and availability.

Data technology must assist in the removal of silos and support collaboration and the sharing of expertise across the company and with business partners. Successful companies will need access not only to their own "Data repository" but to data from various heterogeneous sources. Today, finding mission-critical data or even being aware of all potential sources is more a question of luck and intuition than anything else.

How important is your data to your organization? How does your organization use its data? How do they access and interact with it? Are the decisions being made from data, innovative or disruptive in nature? What’s the value and impact?

According to a Forbes article written by Caroline Howard, “People are sometimes confused about the difference between innovation and disruption. It’s not exactly black and white, but there are real distinctions, and it’s not just splitting hairs. Think of it this way: Disruptors are innovators, but not all innovators are disruptors — in the same way that a square is a rectangle but not all rectangles are squares”.

Database accessibility is critical for rapid but sensible, innovative and disruptive decision making. A business database management system must be able to processes both transactional workloads and analytical workloads fully in-memory. By bringing together OLAP and OLTPL to form a single database, your organization can benefit dramatically from lower total cost up front. Additionally, gaining incredible speed that will accelerate their business processes and custom application.

SAP HANA DB takes advantage of the low cost of main memory (RAM), data processing abilities of multicore processors and the fast data access of solid-state drives relative to traditional hard drives to deliver better performance of analytical and transactional applications.

Fusing SAP HANA with a scalable shared memory platform will enable businesses and government agencies running high-volume databases and multitenant environments to utilize high-performance DRAM that can offer up to 200 times the performance of flash memory to help deliver faster insight.

Here’s my analogy: players go to the “Super Bowl” for one of two reasons, to watch or participate. To be successful in today’s global market companies must effectively participate or risk being on the sidelines watching.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user6855 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Why HANA Is Important

I’m not a great fan of SAP, or Oracle for that matter, but SAP’s HANA architecture is an unexpected innovation from a company that is rooted in serving the dull administrative needs of large organisations. In a nutshell HANA is an in-memory database capable of handling very large amounts of data with frightening speed. This is very timely, and more importantly will serve the needs of organisations for decades to come. While the focus is currently on the ability of HANA to address real-time analytics, the capability offered by HANA will serve us as we move into the feedback and control (cybernetics) era which has yet to unfold.

The current preoccupation with all forms of analytics (data mining, statistics, text mining, optimisation) and big data are predicated on very fast database systems. Traditional disk based technology is typically too slow and SAP has taken a simple idea – placing all data in much faster memory – and made it a reality. The idea is simple, but making it a reality is not. HANA enables many forms of business activity that were simply not possible before – real-time recommendations for customers, real-time tracking of very large distribution networks – and so on. This alone is enough to make HANA important for many businesses.

On the horizon however, and virtually unseen by most commentators, is the need to implement real-time feedback and control systems. It’s all very well to analyse current activity, but at which point is action called for, and what type of action will rectify a situation? Recommending additional purchases to customers in real time might not be optimal, and the response rate might start to drop off. At what point is remedial action needed, and how should the algorithms be modified? This is where we are headed – not just analysis, but analysis of analysis – a level of awareness within systems.

Massive computing ability is needed and there simply is no way that slow disk based technology will deliver the goods. HANA is a foundation for this move into a brave new world – and there are no real alternatives. There is a saying in technology markets that ‘if it works it’s already obsolete’ – I would make HANA an exception to this rule. For many organisations it will be a solid investment that will see them move into an age of real-time, intelligent business systems. Who would have thought that such an innovation would come from a German software company rooted in dull software applications that serve the needs of business administration.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
SAPcon677 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Consultant at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Good performance, but the interface should be easier to use
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution is very fast."
  • "The inclusion of a well-performing Time Machine is vital."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for database storage.

I am an SAP developer and consultant at my company. I examine the client's system and propose solutions that will ease their processes or make them faster. This involves programming, as well as other kinds of development.

We are using the on-premise deployment model.

What is most valuable?

This solution is very fast.

What needs improvement?

The backup solution and time machine should be more accurate, reliable, and comfortable to use. The inclusion of a well-performing Time Machine is vital.

If the interface were more comfortable and easy to use then it would be excellent. Sometimes, an incorrect request is taken to production and it will corruption everything in the production database.

When there are a large number of records to process in a transaction, it is not any faster than Oracle.

For how long have I used the solution?

One year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is very stable. We have been using it for one year and there have been no problems with the database.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the setup of this solution. I only installed SAP HANA Express on my laptop, which was easy. The full version requires professional knowledge. It's not something you can install, like Microsoft Office, on any laptop.

What about the implementation team?

We hired a consulting firm in Turkey to set up our solution. The two machines were configured by SAP Turkey.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have more than nineteen years of experience with the Oracle database, from version 7.2 through to RAC. I know the administration, as well as backup and recovery very well.

There are not many differences between Oracle and HANA. As an example, for transactional purposes, it is very similar to Oracle.

We switched to HANA from Oracle because SAP systems are moving entirely to the HANA platform. There will be no support for SAP using Oracle.

What other advice do I have?

We do not use the HANA features, for example, embedded scripts. This is something that we may use in the future.

My advice to anybody looking to implement a relational database is to use Oracle, rather than HANA. HANA consultants are very rare and therefore costly. My testing has also shown that Oracle in memory is much faster than HANA.

This is a good solution, but the vendor inaccurately promises that the database is ten-thousand times faster than Oracle.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1717869 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head- IT at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Stable and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is easy to scale."
  • "Technical support could be better."

What is our primary use case?

We work with the latest update.

We use the solution as a database. We primarily use it for the SAP application. Some of the use cases involve CDS Views, which provides a quicker processing of the report and the application.

What is most valuable?

The in-memory database is a good and valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

Since we use BW, we are required to use an SLT tool to carry out the data for generating the reports. But, when it comes to in-memory database in respect of the realtime reporting, I do not see why this report cannot be made available from the system itself. This would allow for some partitioning of the database, so that there would not be a need for the EMP in respect of the realtime data.

The initial setup was complex. I am talking about how the data is replicated to the site. We had an Oracle Database and did replication to the VR site. Yet, when it comes to HANA, we are forced to work out the method for ensuring that this replication works as it should. It is at this point that the solution becomes stable. 

Technical support could be better. When we have requested this, the tendency has been to instruct us to implement a note and keep them apprised. In reality, there is no one who helps us with actual troubleshooting of the problem. 

The pricing is a bit on the high side. 

While I would definitely recommend the solution, I would caution that one should employ the proper resources that are geared towards the system. Unfortunately, SAP does not provide a structured training program, which means a person must rely on multiple system integrators and some service providers.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using SAP HANA for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good and we have encountered no issues regarding it. 

The initial setup was complex. I am talking about how the data is replicated to the site. We had an Oracle Database and did replication to the VR site. Yet, when it comes to HANA, we are forced to work out the method for for ensuring that this replication works as it should. It is at this point that the solution becomes stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is easy to scale.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support could be better. When we have requested this, the tendency has been to instruct us to implement a note and keep them apprised. In reality, there is no one who helps us to actually troubleshoot the problem. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had already been using SAP when we switched from it to Oracle, because all of the innovations were taking place on HANA. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. I am talking about how the data is replicated to the site. We had an Oracle database and did replication to the VR site. Yet, when it comes to HANA, we are forced to work out the method for for ensuring that this replication works as it should. It is at this point that the solution becomes stable.

The deployment lasted six months. 

What about the implementation team?

We deployed with the help of a vendor.

No real maintenance is required. Data volume management is needed and all the reports are available, based on which the maintenance is easy. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is a bit on the high side. 

The use of hardware does not incur additional costs. 

What other advice do I have?

There are 40,000-plus users making use of the solution in our organization.

I rate SAP HANA as an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Imran Hafeez - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Real User
Highly stable, plenty of features, and useful Fiori application
Pros and Cons
  • "It is difficult for me to narrow down what the best features are in SAP HANA because they work together to provide the overall functionality of the solution. However, the Fiori application is very good."
  • "In a future release, SAP HANA should add a module for taxation, such as income tax and withholding tax."

What is most valuable?

It is difficult for me to narrow down what the best features are in SAP HANA because they work together to provide the overall functionality of the solution. However, the Fiori application is very good.

What needs improvement?

In the Asian market, we have to customize SAP HANA to fit our needs and if we are implementing any solution from SAP or Oracle it is not recommended to customize them. 

In a future release, SAP HANA should add a module for taxation, such as income tax and withholding tax.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP HANA for a few months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

SAP HANA is highly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not gone live yet with the solution to determine how many people with be using it. We have some applications deployed on our CRM and others will be deployed on SAP making it difficult to determine the potential usage of the solution at this time.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of SAP HANA is very expensive and it is paid annually.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have evaluated other solutions from Oracle.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SAP HANA a six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user