SAP HANA Reviews

HANA is used to analyze data quickly and build real-time dashboards, which allows us to track data live and monitor alerts. This helps in decision-making and responding to changes promptly.

We are able to perform read and write operations much quicker, which saves us significant time and resources. Additionally, it allows for real-time monitoring and reporting, which was previously delayed.

I am currently using the latest version. But before that, before I jumped into the version, I used the initial version of HANA, as well. This initial version of HANA was not that great, it had a lot of bugs. But the latest version is very good. It's excellent.

I'm afraid that HANA is not a relational database, it's a column-level database just like Sybase IQ. Sybase is also an activity product, an SAP product. SAP bought Sybase in May 2010. So normal Sybase is RDBMS. Sybase has one more variant called Sybase IQ. That is not RDBMS, that is a column-level database. Normal Sybase is a whole-level database. That's a column-level database. So SAP HANA is based on this column-level architecture.

One more thing. The success of HANA primarily depends on the RAM and the storage. HANA became a success because the cost of the solar devices has fallen down substantially. I don't know about British Pounds, but in Indian Rupees, earlier in 2007, 2008, when I was working for Microsoft, one terabyte of a SAN device, used to cost around 22.5 LAK. I would say I would have had a 100,000. I think that's the nature. So one SAN device was costing 22 LAKs. The same SAN device, in 2013 and 2014, was costing around three LAKs. So the SAN device cost reduced by more than 200%.

Also, in parallel, the RAM cost also decreased, and the technology and the fastness of RAM increased. This impacted the primary condition for RDB and RDBMSs like Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, and the like, that they need to support the foreign key relationship, where I have a few tables. For example, if I have five to six tables, suppose the first table is employment information. The second table is employee career details or his project, something like that.

Now, instead of populating the tables with the same information, the primary condition of RDBMS was to have a foreign key relationship between these two tables and reduce the redundancy. That was a primary condition, but in HANA, thanks to the cheap storage and high-speed RAM, I may not even bother to do a redundancy of data. I can combine all the tables and make a huge table. And as an entire table, whatever its size, I can pin the table in the RAM so that my access of information is not from the hard disk, but is directly from the memory, which is much, much, much faster. That is the beauty of HANA.

I'm still researching the features of HANA. In terms of memory, data access and data pitching, HANA has scored a victory, no doubt about that. But when I compare the non HANA architecture with SAP, ERP, the SAP ERP comes in two levels. SAP ECC, which is a non HANA based product, and SAP S/4HANA, which is a HANA-based product. If I compare these two, there are almost around 5,000 to 6,000 tables, which were merged together in HANA,  making it a robust architecture.

In earlier SAP we used to have fragmented, small-scale architecture. HANA is a robust architecture where one table itself is a behemoth quantity of many, many columns and a lot of redundant data. So my interest in HANA would be how SAP is catering to the demand of reducing the redundancy of data, and at the same time pinning the entire critical tables into the memory so that access to the data is faster. I am researching those factors.

Our company uses the solution for our accounting system and our services department. 

We have 60 companies so we take each project step by step. Most of our companies have been using the solution for one or two years so they have already converted to implementation or training phases. 

We have 18,000 users across all of our companies. 

The solution saves us in operational costs. The controls are very professional for managing orders with suppliers and partners. 

Our primary use case is working with various clients in industries such as pharmaceuticals and other services. We support clients as implementers of SAP HANA, providing expertise in functionality, finance, logistics, and processes.

The solution is very user-friendly and supports all kinds of functionalities across different industries. It enhances data processing with features like logistics and finance and provides real-time analytics with dashboards that are flexible and easy to work with.

SAP HANA is an integrated solution to improve our organization's real-time data analytics. It's a cloud-based solution, and it's fantastic for us. We serve various businesses, especially in the Gulf area, such as Saudi Arabia, across different production, manufacturing, sales, and distribution sectors. Everything, including SAP analytics and business intelligence, is available within SAP HANA.

The tool is an in-memory database that stores and retrieves data very quickly. This speed makes it faster to use and maintain data, as no additional processes move data between memory and disk.

With SAP HANA's in-memory technology, accessing your data is exceptionally fast. You don't need to retrieve it from disks or other media. Everything you need is already in memory, making data retrieval and report generation quick.

In certain instances, decisions must be made within 90 minutes. For instance, ideas that require data to support them are proposed during support meetings. This analysis involves comparing various data sets and dashboards to inform decisions. Integrating our infrastructure with the tool allows for connectivity between different functions, such as material management, manufacturing, human resources, and finance.

SAP S/4HANA recently established communication with SAP HANA database. No other database can be used with SAP S/4HANA application.

SAP HANA can be used for real-time analysis and resolving queries. It has an in-memory database that uses RAM instead of hard drive disks, making it a very fast tool compared with any other relational database.

Actually, SAP HANA has a different application for each purpose. If you want a better UI experience, SAP has its own application. If a user wants to manage an application, SAP has another application. If a user wants to use the baseline command, SAP has its own tool for it where one can manage it. There is always room for improvement in every field, but right now, I can't think of any area.

The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

The use case revolves around the ERP system, covering standard modules that begin with procurement, extend through sales, encompass the entire spectrum of business processes, including commercial aspects, inventory management, and production, and conclude with sales and financial tracking.

Technically it resembles Oracle, but as a somewhat lighter version.

Primarily, we used it for reporting and as the underlying database platform for SAP BW solutions.

My experience with SAP NetWeaver is primarily at the database level with SAP HANA. The database is still under development even after its official release over ten years ago. We often see new products with each major release, and there are still a lot of bugs.

As an in-memory database, expectations for HANA were already high, especially considering the infrastructure investments. 

We've seen reporting performance increase four to five times, which was a substantial improvement. At the end of the day, you expect those improvements when spending significant amounts on a solution.

It's a relatively new technology, and in-memory databases intrinsically require larger servers with more memory. We purchase the HANA license from SAP and the hardware from a vendor like HP or IBM.

Ultimately, as an organization, we aimed to speed up support and enable our executives to generate reports on their screens almost instantly with the click of a button. From that perspective, HANA delivered as a reporting solution.

SAP HANA's in-memory computing improved our operational efficiency. In terms of our overall business operations, I'd estimate a 30-40% improvement. Considering things like ticketing, resource allocation, and issue resolution, it's definitely had a sizable impact.