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Table of Contents
1 SAP HANA Overview 2 SAP HANA Architecture 3 SAP HANA Business Cases & ROI Model 4 SAP HANA Applications 5 SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse on SAP 6 Data Provisioning with SAP HANA 7 Data Modeling with SAP HANA 8 Application Development with SAP HANA 9 SAP HANA Administration & Operations 10 SAP HANA Hardware 11 SAP HANA Projects & Implementation 12 SAP HANA Resources
Acknowledgments
this journey, many people already been phenomenally helpful the scoping, content Although were at the beginning ofsupport has been invaluablehave many more people will be involved asinthe book progresses. preparation and reviewing of this book. Their and Many thanks to all of you for your support and collaboration. Jeff SAP Colleagues Margaret Anderson, Puneet Suppal, Uddhav Gupta, Storm Archer, Scott Shepard, Balaji Krishna, Daniel Rutschman, Ben Gruber, Bhuvan Wadhwa, Lothar Henkes, Adolf Brosig, Thomas Zureck, Lucas Kiesow, Prasad Ilapani, Wolfram Kleis, Gunther Liebich, Ralf Czekalla, Michael Erhardt, Roland Kramer, Arne Arnold, Markus Fath, Johannes Beigel, Ron Silberstein, Kijoon Lee, Oliver Mainka, Si-Mohamed Said, Amit Sinha, Mike Eacrett, Andrea Neff, Jason Lovinger, Michael Rey, Gigi Read, David Hull, Nadav Helfman, Lori Vanourek, Bill Lawler, Scott Leatherman, Wolfram Kleis, Tom Kurtz, Jay Foard, Sebastian Speck SAP Mentors Thomas Jung (SAP), Harald Reiter (Deloitte), Vitaliy Rudnytskiy (HP), John Appleby (Bluefin), Tammy Powlas (Fairfax Water), Vijay Vijayasankar (IBM), Craig Cmehil (SAP), Alvaro Tejada (SAP) SAP Partners Lane Goode (HP), Tag Robertson (IBM), Rick Speyer (Cisco), Andrea Voigt (Fujitsu), Nathan Saunders (Dell), KaiGai Kohei (NEC), Chris March (Hitachi) Production Robert Weiss (Development Editor) Roland Schild (Libreka) Michelle DeFilippo (1106 Design)
Foreword
By Vishal Sikka, Ph.D. Executive Board Member, SAP AG magazine picked Protester as its person of the of individuals the world from T ime Arab countries to The Street, from India to Greece year for 2011, recognition were amplifiedwho spoke up aroundmodern technology the Wall individuals whose voices and aggregated by and its unprecedented power to connect and empower us. Twitter and Facebook, now approaching 800 million users (more than 10% of humanity), are often viewed as the harbinger of social networking. But social networking is not new. A recent issue of the Economist described Martin Luthers use of social networking, especially the Gutenberg press, to start the Protestant Reformation. During the American Revolution, Thomas Paine published his Common Sense manifesto on a derivation of the Gutenberg press. Within a single year, it reached almost a million of the 1.5 million residents of the 13 American colonies about two-thirds of the populace, and helped seed democracy and Americas birth. I believe that information technologies, especially well-designed, purposeful ones, empower and renew us and serve to amplify our reach and our abilities. The ensuing connectedness dissolves away intermediary layers of inefficiency and indirection. Some of the most visible recent examples of this dissolving of layers are the transformations we have seen in music, movies and books. Physical books and the bookstores they inhabited have been rapidly disappearing, as have physical compact discs, phonograph records, videotapes and the stores that housed them. Yet there is more music than ever before, more books and more movies. Their content got separated from their containers and got housed in more convenient, more modular vessels, which better tie into our lives, in more consumable ways. In the process, layers of inefficiency got dissolved. By putting 3000 songs in our pockets, the iPod liberated our music from the housings that confined it. The iPhone has a high-definition camera within it, along with a bunch of services for sharing, distributing and publishing pictures, even editing them services that used to be inside darkrooms and studios. 3D printing is an even more dramatic example of this transformation. The capabilities and services provided by workshops and factories are now embodied within a printer that can print things like tools and accessories, food and musical instruments. A remarkable musical flute was printed recently at MIT, its sound indistinguishable from that produced by factory-built flutes of yesterday. I see layers of inefficiency dissolving all around us. An empowered populace gets more connected, and uses this connectivity to bypass the intermediaries and get straight at the things it seeks, connecting and acting in real-time whether it is to stage uprisings or rent apartments, plan travel or author books, edit pictures or consume apps by the millions. And yet enterprises have been far too slow to benefit from such renewal and simplification that is pervading other parts of our lives. The IT industry has focused on too much repackaging and reassembly of existing layers into new bundles, ostensibly to lower the costs of integrated systems. In reality, this re-bundling increases the clutter that already exists in enterprise landscapes. It is time for a rethink. At SAP, we have been engaged in such rethinking, or intellectual renewal, as our chairman and co-founder Hasso Plattner challenged me, for the last several years, and our customers are starting to see its results. This renewal of SAPs architecture, and consequently that of our customers, is driven by an in-memory product called SAP HANA which, together with mobility, cloud computing, and our principle of delivering innovation without disruption, is helping to radically simplify enterprise computing and dramatically improve the performance of businesses without disruption. SAP HANA achieves this simplification by taking advantage of tremendous advances in hardware over the last two decades. Todays machines can bring large amounts of main-memory, and lots of multi-core CPUs to bear on massively parallel processing of information very inexpensively. SAP HANA was designed from the ground-up to leverage this, and the business consequences are radical. At Yodobashi, a large Japanese retailer, the calculation of incentives for loyalty customers used to take 3 days of data processing, once a month. With SAP HANA, this happens now in 2 seconds a performance improvement of over 100,000 times. But even more important is the opportunity to rethink business processes. The incentive for a customer can be calculated on the fly, while the customer is in a store, based on the purchases she is about to make. The empowered store-manager can determine these at the point of sale, as the transaction unfolds. With SAP HANA, batch processing is converting to real time, and business processes are being rethought. Customers like Colgate-Palmolive, the Essar Group,
Provimi, Charmer Sunbelt, Nongfu Spring, our own SAP IT and many others, have seen performance improvements of thousands to tens of thousands times. SAP HANA brings these benefits non-disruptively, without forcing a modification of existing systems. And in Fall 2011, we delivered SAP Business Warehouse on SAP HANA, a complete removal of the traditional database underneath, delivering fundamental improvements in performance and simplification, without disruption. SAP HANA provides a single in-memory database foundation for managing transactional as well as analytical data processing. Thus a complex question can be posed to real-time operational data, instead of asking pre-fabricated questions on pre-aggregated or summarized data. SAP HANA also integrates text processing with managing structured data, in a single system. And it scales simply with addition of more processors or more blades. Thus various types of applications, across a companys lines of businesses, and across application types, can all be run off a single, elastically-scalable hardware infrastructure: a grand dissolving of the layers of complexity in enterprise landscapes. SAP HANA hardware is built by various leading hardware vendors from industry standard commodity components, and can be delivered as appliances, private or public clouds. While this architecture is vastly disruptive to a traditional relational database architecture, to our customers it brings fundamental innovation without disruption. Looking ahead, I expect that we will see lots of amazing improvements similar to Yodobashis. Even more exciting, are the unprecedented applications that are now within our reach. By my estimate, a cloud of approximately 1000 servers of 80-cores and 2 terabytes of memory each, can enable more than 1 billion people on the planet to interactively explore their energy consumption based on real-time information from their energy meters and appliances, and take control of their energy management. The management and optimization of their finances, healthcare, insurance, communications, entertainment and other activities, can similarly be made truly dynamic. Banks can manage risks in real-time, oil companies can better explore energy sources, mining vast amounts of data as needed. Airlines and heavy machinery makers can do predictive maintenance on their machines, and healthcare companies can analyze vast amounts of genome data in real time. One of our customers in Japan is working on using SAP HANA to analyze genome data for hundreds of patients each day, something that was impossible before SAP HANA. Another customer is using SAP HANA to determine optimal routes for taxicabs. The possibilities are endless. Just as the iPod put our entire music libraries in our pockets, SAP HANA, combined with mobility and cloud-based delivery, enables us to take our entire business with us in our pocket. Empowering us to take actions in real time, based on our instincts as well as our analysis. To re-think our solutions to solving existing problems and to help businesses imagine and deliver solutions for previously unsolved problems. And it is this empowerment and renewal, driven by purposeful technologies, that continually brings us all forward. Dr. Vishal Sikka is a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG and heads the technology and innovation areas.
Chapter 1
way the companies in industry operate. The rules might be adjusted from Every industry has a certain set of rules that govern thestay basically the samethatunless some massive disruption occurs that changestime to time as the industry matures, but the general rules the rules or even the entire game. SAP HANA is one of those massively disruptive innovations for the enterprise IT industry. To understand this point, consider that youre probably reading this book on an e-reader, which is a massively disruptive innovation for the positively ancient publishing industry. The book industry has operated under the same basic rules since Gutenberg mechanized the production of books in 1440. There were a few subsequent innovations within the industry, primarily in the distribution chain, but the basic processes of writing a book, printing it, and reading it remained largely unchanged for several hundred years. That is until Amazon and Apple came along and digitized the production, distribution, and consumption of books. These companies are also starting to revolutionize the writing of books by providing new authoring tools that make the entire process digital and paper-free. This technology represents an overwhelming assault of disruptive innovation on a 500+ year-old industry in less than 5 years. Today, SAP HANA is disrupting the technology industry in much the same way that Amazon and Apple have disrupted the publishing industry. Before we discuss how this happens, we need to consider a few fundamental rules of that industry.
however, each additional database operation continued to slow down the entire system. This bottleneck was even more pronounced when it came to reporting data. The transactional data known as online transaction processing, or OLTP from documents such as purchase orders and production orders were stored in multiple locations within the database. The application would read a small quantity of data when the purchasing screen was started up, the user would input more data, the app would read a bit more data from the database, and so on, until the transaction was completed and the record was updated for the last time. Each transactional record by itself doesnt contain very much data. When you have to run a report across every transaction in a process for several months, however, you start dealing with huge amounts of data that have to be pulled through a very slow pipe from the database to the application. To create reports, the system must read multiple tables in the database all at once and then sort the data into reports. This process requires the system to pull a massive amount of data from the database, which essentially prevents users from doing anything else in the system while its generating the report. To resolve this problem, companies began to build separate OLAP systems such as SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse to copy the transaction data over to a separate server and offload all that reporting activity onto a dedicated reporting system. This arrangement would free up resources for the transactional system to focus on processing transactions. Unfortunately, even though servers were getting faster and more powerful (and cheaper), the bottleneck associated with obtaining data from the disk wasnt getting better; in fact, it was actually getting worse. As more processes in the company were being automated in the transactional system, it was producing more and more data, which would then get dumped into the reporting system. Because the reporting system contained more, broader data about the companys operations, more people wanted to use the data, which in turn generated more requests for reports from the database under the reporting system. Of course, as the number of requests increased, the quantities of data that had to be pulled correspondingly increased. You can see how this vicious (or virtuous) cycle can spin out of control quickly. The Solution: In-Memory Architecture This is the reality that SAP was seeing at their customers at the beginning of the 2000s. SAP R/3 had been hugely successful, and customers were generating dramatically increasing quantities of data. SAP had also just released SAP NetWeaver2, which added extensive internet and integration capabilities to its applications. SAP NetWeaver added many new users and disparate systems that talked to the applications in the SAP landscape. Again, the greater the number of users, the greater the number of application servers that flooded the database with requests. Similarly, as the amount of operational data in the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse database increased exponentially, so did the number of requests for reports. Looking forward, SAP could see this trend becoming even more widespread and the bottleneck of the database slowing things down more and more. SAP was concerned that customers who had invested massive amounts of time and money into acquiring and implementing these systems to make their businesses more productive and profitable would be unable to get maximum value from them. Fast forward a few years, and now the acquisitions of Business Objects and Sybase were generating another exponential increase in demands for data from both the transactional and analytic databases from increasing numbers of analytics users and mobile users. Both the volume of data and the volume of users requesting data were now growing thousands of times faster than the improvements in database I/O. Having become aware of this issue, in 2004 SAP initiated several projects to innovate the core architecture of their applications to eliminate this performance bottleneck. The objective was to enable their customers to leverage the full capabilities of their investment in SAP while avoiding the data latency issues. The timing couldnt have been better. It was around this time that two other key factors were becoming more significant: (1) internet use and the proliferation of data from outside the enterprise, and (2) the regulatory pressures on corporations, generated by laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley, to be answerable for all of their financial transactions. These requirements increased the pressure on already stressed systems to analyze more data more quickly. The SAP projects resulted in the delivery of SAP HANA in 2011, the first step in the transition to a new in-memory architecture for enterprise applications and databases. SAP HANA flips the old model on its head and converts the database from the boat anchor that slows everything down into a jet engine that speeds up every aspect of the companys operations.
more imposing problem: the data from a SAP BW cube. Thus, Project Euclid was born. At that time, many of the larger SAP BW customers were having significant performance issues with reports that were running on large data cubes. Cubes are the basic mechanism by which SAP BW stores data in multidimensional structures. Running reports on very large cubes (>100GB) was taking several hours, sometimes even days. The SAP BW team had done just about everything possible in the SAP BW application to increase performance, but had run out of options in the application layer. The only remaining solution was to eliminate the bottleneck itself. In the best spirit of disruptive innovators, the TREX team devised a strategy to eliminate the database from the equation entirely by indexing the cubes and storing the indexes in high-speed RAM. Initial results for Euclid were mind-blowing: The new technology could execute query responses for the same reports on the same data thousands of times faster than the old system. Eventually, the team discovered how to package Euclid into a stand-alone server that would sit next to the existing SAP BW system and act as a non-disruptive turbocharger for a customers slow SAP BW reports. At the same time, SAP held some senior-level meetings with Intel to formulate a joint-engineering project to optimize Intels new dual-core chips to natively process the SAP operations in parallel, thereby increasing performance exponentially. Intel immediately sent a team to SAP headquarters to begin the optimization work. Since that time the two companies have continuously worked together to optimize every successive generation of chips. In 2005, SAP launched the product SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator, or BIA. (The company subsequently changed the name to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator, or BWA) BWA has since evolved into one of SAPs best-selling products, with one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings. BWA solved a huge pain point for SAP customers. Even more importantly, however, it represented another successful use of in-memory. Along with LiveCache, the success of BWA proved to SAP and its customers that in-memory data processing just might be an architectural solution to database bottlenecks. The Next Step: The Tracker Project Once the results for BWA and LiveCache began to attract attention, SAP decided to take the next big step and determine whether it could run an entire database for an SAP system in memory. As well see later, this undertaking is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Using memory as a cache to temporarily store data or storing indexes of data in memory were key innovations, but eliminating the disk completely from the architecture takes the concept to an entirely different level of complexity and introduces a great deal of unknown technical issues into the landscape. Therefore, in 2005, SAP decided to build a skunkworks project to validate and test the idea. The result was the Tracker Project. Because the new SAP database was in an early experimental stage and the final product could seriously disrupt the market, the Tracker Project was strictly Top Secret, even to SAP employees. The Tracker team was composed of the TREX/BWA engineers, a few of the key architects from the SAP MaxDB open-source database team, the key engineers who built LiveCache, the SAP ERP performance optimization and benchmarking gurus, and several database experts from outside the company. Basically, the team was an all-star lineup of everyone inside and outside SAP who could contribute to this big hairy audacious goal of building the first in-memory database prototype for SAP (the direct ancestor of SAP HANA). In the mid-1990s, several researchers at Stanford University had performed the first experiments to build an in-memory database for a project at HP Labs. Two of the Stanford researchers went on to found companies to commercialize their research. One product was a database query optimization tool known as Callixa, and the other was a native in-memory database called P*Time. In late 2005, SAP quietly acquired Callixa and P*time (as well as a couple of other specialist database companies), hired several of the most distinguished database geniuses on the planet, and put them to work with the Tracker team. The team completed the porting and verification of the in-memory database on a server with 64gb of RAM, which was the maximum supported memory at the time. In early 2006, less than four months after the start of the project, the Tracker team passed its primary performance and reality check goal: the SAP Standard Application Benchmark for 1000 user SD two-tier benchmark with more than 6000 SAPs, which essentially matched the performance of the two leading certified databases at the time. To put that in perspective, it took Microsoft several years of engineering to port Microsoft SQL to SAP and pass the benchmark the first time. Passing the benchmark in such a short time with a small team in total secrecy was a truly amazing feat. Suddenly, an entirely new world of possibilities had opened up for SAP to fundamentally change the rules of the game for database technology. Shortly after achieving this milestone, SAP began an academic research project to experiment with the inner workings of in-memory databases with faculty and students at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam in Germany. The researchers examined the prototypes from the Tracker team now called NewDB and added some valuable external perspectives on how to mature the technology for enterprise applications.
However, passing a benchmark and running tests in the labs are far removed from the level of scalability and reliability needed for a database to become the mission-critical heart of a Fortune 50 company. So, for the next four years, SAP embarked on a bullet-proofing effort to evolve the project into a product. In May 2010, Hasso Plattner, SAPs supervisory board chairman and chief software advisor, announced SAPs vision for delivering an entirely in-memory database layer for its application portfolio. If you havent seen his keynote speech, its worth watching. If you saw it when he delivered it, its probably worth watching again. Its Professor Plattner at his best. Different Game, Different Rules: SAP HANA One year later, SAP announced the first live customers on SAP HANA and that SAP HANA was now generally available. SAP also introduced the first SAP applications that were being built natively on top of SAP HANA as an application platform. Not only did these revelations shock the technology world into the new reality of in-memory databases, but they initiated a massive shift for both SAP and its partners and customers into the world of real-time business. In November 2011, SAP achieved another milestone when it released SAP Business Warehouse 7.3. SAP had renovated this software so that it could run natively on top of SAP HANA. This development sent shockwaves throughout the data warehousing world because almost every SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse customer could immediately 3 replace their old, disk-based database with SAP HANA. What made this new architecture especially attractive was the fact that SAP customers did not have to modify their current systems to accommodate it. To make the transition as painless as possible for its customers, SAP designed Business Warehouse 7.3 to be a non-disruptive innovation.
landscapes. Making that business case involved much more than just the eye-catching speeds and feeds from the raw technology. SAPs customers would switch databases only if the new database was minimally disruptive to implement and extremely low risk to operate. In essence, SAP would have to build a hugely disruptive innovation to the database layer that could be adopted and implemented by its customers in a non-disruptive way at the business application layer.
to a new platform can do for overall usability of the solutions on top of the platform, there are some amazing possibilities. Take the ubiquitous iPod for example. When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it revolutionized the way that people listened to music, even though it wasnt the first MP3 player on the market. The key innovation was that Apple was able to fit a tiny 1.8-inch hard drive into its small case so you could carry 5gb of music in your pocket, at a time when most other MP3 players could hold only ~64mb of music in flash memory. (This is a classic illustration of changing the rules of the game.) I/O speed wasnt a significant concern for playing MP3s, so the cost per megabyte per second calculation wasnt terribly relevant. By that measure, 5gb of disk for roughly the same price as 64mb of RAM was a huge difference. It wasnt significantly faster than its competitors, but it was so phenomenally better and cheaper per megabyte (even at $399) that it became a category killer. In hindsight, Apple had to make several architectural compromises to squeeze that hard drive into the iPod. First, the hard drive took up most of the case, leaving very little room for anything else. There was a tiny monochrome display, a clunky mechanical click wheel user interface, a fairly weak processor, and, most importantly, a disappointingly short battery life. The physics needed to spin a hard disk drained the battery very quickly. Despite these limitations, however, the iPod was still so much better than anything else out there it soon took over the market. Fast-forward six years, and Apple was selling millions of units of its most current version of the classic iPod, which contained 160gb of storage, 32 times more than the original 5gb model. Significantly, the new model sold at the same price as the original. In addition to the vastly expanded storage capacity, Apple had added a color screen and a pressure-sensitive click wheel. Otherwise, the newer model was similar to the original in most ways. By this time, however, the storage capacity of the hard drive was no longer such a big deal. Hard drives had become so enormous that nobody had enough music to fill them. In fact, in 2001 people had been thrilled with 5gb of storage, because they could download their entire CD collection onto the iPod. Meanwhile, Moores law had been in effect for four full cycles and 16gb of memory cost about the same as a 160gb hard drive. In 2007, Apple could build an iPod with 16gb of solid-state RAM storage which was only one-tenth of the capacity of the current hard drive model for the same price as the 2001 model. It was the shift to solid-state memory as the storage medium for iPods that really changed the game for Apple. Removing the hard drive and its spinning disks had a huge impact on Apples design parameters, for several reasons. First, it enabled the company to shrink the thickness and reduce the weight of the iPod, making it easier to carry and store. In addition, it created more room for a bigger motherboard and a larger display. In fact, Apple could now turn the entire front of the device into a display, which it redesigned as a touch-screen interface (hence the name iPod Touch). Inserting a bigger motherboard in turn allowed Apple to insert a larger, more powerful processor in the device. Most importantly, however, eliminating the physical hard drive more than doubled the battery life since there were no more mechanical disks to spin. These innovations essentially transformed a simple music player into a miniature computer that you could carry in your pocket. It had an operating system, long battery life, audio and video capabilities, and a sufficient amount of storage. Going even further, Apple could also build another model with nearly all of the same parts that could also make phone calls.
Comparison of Apple iPod Models
Once a large number of people began to carry a computer around in their pocket, it only made sense that developers would build new applications to exploit the capabilities of the new platform. Although Apple couldnt have predicted the success of games like Angry Birds, they realized that innovation couldnt be unleashed on their new platform until they removed the single biggest piece of the architecture that was imposing all the constraints. Ironically, it was the same piece of technology that made the original iPod so successful. Think about that for a second: Apple had to eliminate the key technology in the iPod that had made them so successful in order to move to the next level of success with the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Although this might seem like an obvious choice in retrospect, at the time it required a huge leap of faith to take. In essence, getting rid of the hard drive in the iPods was the most critical technology decision Apple made to deliver the iPod Touch, iPhone, and, eventually, the iPad. Most of the other pieces of technology in the architecture improved as expected over the years. But the real game changer was the switch from disk to memory. That single decision freed Apple to innovate without constraints and allowed them to change the rules of the game again, back to the memory-as-storage paradigm that the portable music player market had started with. SAP is convinced that SAP HANA represents a similar architectural shift for its application platform. Eliminating the disk-based database will provide future customers with a faster, better, and cheaper architecture. SAP also believes that this new architecture, like the solid-state memory in the iPod, will encourage the development of a new breed of business applications that are built natively to exploit this new platform.
Note: as of early 2012, Apple still makes and sells the classic iPod (160gb/$249), but it is a tiny fraction of their overall iPod sales. So, somebody must be buying the old iPods and Apple must be making some money off of them, but do you know anyone whos bought a hard-drive based iPod in the last five years? Youd have to really need all that storage to give up all the features of the iPod touch. SAP thinks that there will also be a small category of its customers who will continue to want the old architecture so theyll continue to support that option, but theyre predicting a similar adoption trend once the SAP Business Suite is supported on SAP HANA. At that point, youll need an overwhelmingly compelling business reason to forego all the goodness of the new architecture and renovated SAP apps on top of SAP HANA.
In-Memory Basics
Thus far, weve focused on the transition to in-memory computing and its implications for IT. With this information as background, we next dive into the deep end of SAP HANA. Before we do so, however, here are a few basic concepts about in-memory computing that youll need to understand. Some of these concepts might be similar to what you already know about databases and server technology. There are also some cutting-edge concepts, however, that merit discussion. Storing data in memory isnt a new concept. What is new is that now you can store your whole operational or analytic database entirely in RAM as the primary persistence layer5. Historically database systems were designed to perform well on computer systems with limited RAM. As we have seen, in these systems slow disk I/O was the main bottleneck in data throughput. Today, multi-core CPUs multiple CPUs located on one chip or in one package are standard, with fast communication between processor cores enabling parallel processing. Currently server processors have up to 64 cores, and 128 cores will soon be available. With the increasing number of cores, CPUs are able to process increased data volumes in parallel. Main memory is no longer a limited resource. In fact, modern servers can have 2TB of system memory, which allows them to hold complete databases in RAM. Significantly, this arrangement shifts the performance bottleneck from disk I/O to the data transfer between CPU cache and main memory (which is already blazing fast and getting faster). In a disk-based database architecture, there are several levels of caching and temporary storage to keep data closer to the application and avoid excessive numbers of round-trips to the database (which slows things down). The key difference with SAP HANA is that all of those caches and layers are eliminated because the entire physical database is literally sitting on the motherboard and is therefore in memory all the time. This arrangement dramatically simplifies the architecture. It is important to note that there are quite a few technical differences between a database that was designed to be stored on a disk versus one that was built to be entirely resident in memory. Theres a techie book6 on all those conceptual differences if you really want to get down into the details. What follows here is a brief summary of some of the key advantages of SAP HANA over its aging disk-based cousins. Pure In-Memory Database With SAP HANA, all relevant data are available in main memory, which avoids the performance penalty of disk I/O completely. Either disk or solid-state drives are still required for permanent persistency in the event of a power failure or some other catastrophe. This doesnt slow down performance, however, because the required backup operations to disk can take place asynchronously as a background task. Parallel Processing Multiple CPUs can now process parallel requests in order to fully utilize the available computing resources. So, not only is there a bigger pipe between the processor and database, but this pipe can send a flood of data to hundreds of processors at the same time so that they can crunch more data without waiting for anything. Columnar and Row-Based Data Storage Conceptually, a database table is a two-dimensional data structure with cells organized in rows and columns, just like a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Computer memory, in contrast, is organized as a linear structure. To store a table in linear memory, two options exist: rowbased storage and column storage. A row-oriented storage system stores a table as a sequence of records, each of which contains the fields of one row. Conversely, in column storage the entries of a column are stored in contiguous memory locations. SAP HANA is a hybrid database that uses both methods simultaneously to provide an optimal balance between them. The SAP HANA database allows the application developer to specify whether a table is to be stored column-wise or row-wise. It also enables the developer to alter an existing table from columnar to row-based and vice versa. The decision to use columnar or row-based tables is typically a determined by how the data will be used and which method is the most efficient for that type of usage. Column-based tables have advantages in the following circumstances: Calculations are typically executed on a single column or a few columns only. The table is searched based on values of a few columns. The table has a large number of columns. The table has a large number of rows, so that columnar operations are required (aggregate, scan, etc.). High compression rates can be achieved because the majority of the columns contain only few distinct values (compared to the number of rows). Row-based tables have advantages in the following circumstances: The application needs to only process a single record at one time. (This applies to many selects and/or updates of single records.) The application typically needs to access a complete record (or row). The columns contain primarily distinct values so that the compression rate would be low. Neither aggregations nor fast searching is required. The table has a small number of rows (e. g., configuration tables). Compression Because of the innovations in hybrid row/column storage in SAP HANA, companies can typically achieve between 5x and 10x compression ratios on the raw data. This means that 5TB of raw data can optimally fit onto an SAP HANA server that has 1TB of RAM. SAP typically recommends that companies double the estimated compressed table data to determine the amount of RAM needed in order to account for real-time calculations, swap space, OS and other associated programs beyond just the raw table data.
Persistence Layer The SAP HANA database persistence layer stores data in persistent disk volumes (either hard disk or solid-state drives). The persistence layer ensures that changes are durable and that the database can be restored to the most recent committed state after a restart. SAP HANA uses an advanced delta-insert approach for rapid backup and logging. If power is lost, the data in RAM is lost. However, because the persistence layer manages restore points and backup at such high speeds (from RAM to SSD) and recovery from disk to RAM is so much faster than from regular disk, you actually lose less data and recover much faster than in a traditional disk-based architecture.
Finally, SAP HANA comes with several ways to connect easily to nearly any source system in either real-time or near real-time. These features are designed to make SAP HANA as close to plug-and-play as it can be and to make it a non-disruptive addition to your existing landscape. Well spend a few moments here explaining these capabilities at a basic level. Well discuss them in much more technical detail in the SAP HANA Architecture chapter.
SQL SQL is the main interface for client applications. The SQL implementation of the SAP HANA database is based on SQL 92 entry-level features and core features of SQL 99. However, it offers several SQL extensions on top of this standard. These extensions are available for creating tables as both row-based and column-based tables and for conversion between the two formats. For most SQL statements it is irrelevant whether the table is column-based or row-based. However, there are some features for example, time-based queries and column-store specific parameters that are supported only for columnar tables. SQLScript The SAP HANA database has its own scripting language, named SQLScript, that offers scripting capabilities that allow application-specific calculations to run inside the database. SQLScript is similar conceptually to stored procedures, but it contains several modern innovations that make it much more powerful and flexible. MDX Interface The SAP HANA database also supports MDX (MultiDimensional eXpressions), the de facto standard for multidimensional queries. MDX can be used to connect a variety of analytics applications like SAP Business Objects products and clients such as Microsoft Excel.
Engines
The core of the SAP HANA database contains several engines that are used for specific tasks. The two primary engines are the planning engine and the calculation engine. Planning Engine The SAP HANA database contains a component called the planning engine that allows financial planning applications to execute basic planning operations in the database layer. Calculation Engine What truly makes SAP HANA unique is that, in addition to its being a standard SQL database, it also natively supports data calculation inside the database itself. By incorporating procedural language support C++, Python, and ABAP directly into the database kernel through a dedicated calculation engine, it can achieve exceptional performance because the data do not need to be moved out of the database, processed, and then written back in.
Libraries
The technical details of communicating with the SAP HANA database are contained in a set of included client libraries for standard platforms and clients. The following client libraries are provided for accessing the SAP HANA database via SQL or MDX: JDBC driver for Java clients ODBC driver for Windows/Unix/Linux clients, especially for MS Office integration DBSL (Database Shared Library) for ABAP Business Function Library SAP has leveraged its deep application knowledge from the ABAP stack to port specific functionality as infrastructure components within SAP HANA to be consumed by any application logic extension. Examples of common business functions are currency conversion and calendar functionality.
In traditional databases, users experience bottlenecks when changing business requirements requires modifications to the existing data model, which required users to delete and re-load data into materialized views. In contrast, in SAP HANA, dynamic data modeling on the lowest granular level is loaded into the system. These raw data are constantly available in memory for analytical purposes, and they are not pre-loaded in cache, physical aggregate tables, index tables, or any other redundant data storage. Data Provisioning for SAP HANA SAP HANA offers both real-time replication and near real-time/batch replication to move data from source systems to the SAP HANA database. Replication-based data provisioning like Sybase Replication Server or SAP SLT (System Landscape Transformation) provide near real-time synchronization of data sets between the source system and SAP HANA. After the initial replication of historical records, the changed data are pushed from the source to SAP HANA based on triggers such as table updates. SAP SLT can also be used to direct write data back to the source system in scenarios where write back or round trip synchronization to the SAP source system is needed. ETL-based data provisioning is primarily accomplished with SAP BusinessObjects Data Services (DS). DS loads snapshots of data periodically as a batch and is triggered from the target system. The type of data provisioning tool used is primarily determined by the business needs of the use case and the characteristics of the source system.
Real-Time Replication Using SLT
SLT replicator provides near-real-time and scheduled data replication from SAP source systems to SAP HANA. It is based on SAPs proven System Landscape Optimization (SLO) technology that has been used for many years for Near Zero Down Time upgrade and migration projects. Trigger-Based Data Replication using SLT is based on capturing database changes at a high level of abstraction in the source SAP system. It benefits from being database and OS agnostic, and it can parallelize database changes on multiple tables or by segmenting large table changes. SLT can be installed on an existing SAP source system or as an additional lightweight SAP system side-by-side with the source system.
Real-Time Replication with Direct Write/Write-back
SAP HANA also supports real-time replication with direct write using database shared library (DBSL) connection. Using DBSL, the SAP HANA database can be connected as a secondary database to an SAP ECC system and provide accelerated data processing for existing SAP applications. Applications can use the DBSL on the application server layer to simultaneously write to traditional databases and the SAP HANA database.
Extraction (ETL) / Periodic Load
The ETL-based data load scenario uses SAP BusinessObjects DataServices to load the relevant business data from virtually any source system (SAP and non-SAP) to the SAP HANA database. SAP BusinessObjects Data Services is a proven ETL tool that supports broad connectivity to databases, applications, legacy, file formats, and unstructured data. It provides the modeling environment to model data flows from one or more source systems along with transformations and data cleansing. SAP HANA Database Administration The SAP HANA Studio Administration Console provides an all-in-one environment for System Monitoring, Back-up & Recovery, and User provisioning.
System Monitoring
The Administration console provides tools to monitor the systems status, its services, and the consumption of its resources. Administrators are notified by an alert mechanism when critical situations arise. Analytics and statistics on historical monitoring data are also provided to enable efficient data center operations and for planning future resource allocations.
Backup & Recovery
The Administration console in the SAP HANA Studio supports the following scenarios: Recovery to the last data backup Recovery to both the last and previous data backups Recovery to last state before the crash Point-in-time recovery In the event of disaster scenarios such as fires, power outages, earthquakes or hardware failures, SAP HANA supports Hot Standby using synchronous mirroring with the redundant data center concept including a redundant SAP HANA system in addition to Cold Standby using a standby system within one SAP HANA landscape, where the failover is triggered automatically.
User Provisioning
SAP HANA supports user provisioning with authentication, role-based security and analysis authorization using analytic privileges. Analytical privileges provide security to the analytical objects based on a set of attribute values. These values can be applied to a set of users by assigning them to user/role. SAP HANA Hardware SAP HANA is delivered as a flexible, multipurpose appliance that combines SAP software components optimized on hardware provided by SAPs leading hardware partners such as Cisco, Dell, IBM, HP, Hitachi, NEC, and Fujitsu, using the latest Intel Xeon E7 processors. SAP HANA servers are sold in t-shirt sizes ranging from Extra-Small (128GB RAM) all the way up to Extra Large (>2TB RAM). Because RAM is the key technology for SAP HANA, SAP uses the amount of RAM to determine the servers t-shirt size as well as its price. SAPs underlying philosophy
is the more processors (cores), the better, so it does not impose a per-processor charge for SAP HANA. With the current certified Scale-Out options from SAP HANA hardware providers, companies can deploy up to 16 Extra Large server nodes into on logical database instance, which equates to a maximum of 32TB of RAM and 128 CPUs with 1280 total cores. SAP is currently testing a 60 node SAP HANA instance in the labs. The hardware vendor provides factory pre-installation for the hardware, the OS, and the SAP software. It may also add specific bestpractices and configuration. The vendor finalizes the installation with on-site setup and configuration of the SAP HANA components, including deployment in the customer data center, connectivity to the network, Solution Manager setup, SAP router connectivity, and SSL support. The customer then establishes connectivity to the source systems and clients, including the deployment of additional replication components on the source system(s) and, potentially, the installation and configuration of SAP BusinessObjects business analytics client components. Although the term appliance suggests a black box that plugs into an outlet, in reality installing SAP HANA requires on-site activities and coordination on a high technical level. The appliance approach for SAP HANA systems reduces the implementation and maintenance effort significantly, but it does not eliminate it completely.
SAP provides a special licensing bundle to build an agile data mart use case with SAP HANA that includes the extractors and connectors needed to obtain data from source systems and the front-end tools needed to build analytical applications on top of the data. SAP Business Suite Accelerator The second major scenario where SAP HANA is being used is to accelerate transactions and reports inside the SAP Business Suite. Again, SAP HANA is being set up as a stand-alone system in the landscape, side-by-side with the database under the SAP Business Suite applications. In this scenario, however, SAP HANA is being used to off load some of the transactions or reports that typically take a long time (hours or days) to run, but it is not being used as the primary database under the application. We explained earlier that certain transactions or reports inside the SAP Business Suite can be very slow, due primarily to the slow I/O of the disk-based database underneath the system and the huge requests for data generated by these transactions and reports. Budgeting and planning transactions in SAP require the system to call data from many different tables in order to run its calculations and present a result. Reports are also very data-intensive, involving vast amounts of data contained in multiple tables. For both transactions and reports, then, the application must request the data from the database, load it into a buffer table in the SAP application server, run the algorithm or calculation, and then display the results. Sometimes, that completes the process. Other times, however, the user needs to make some adjustments to the results and then save the changes back to the database. Quite often, this process is iterative, meaning that the user must run the report or
transaction, review the results, make some changes, and then run the report or transaction again to reflect the changes. Imagine a scenario where every time the transaction or report runs, it takes one hour to finish (from when you press Enter until the results are displayed on the screen). What if it took several hours or even a day or two to run that transaction or report? Clearly, system latency can seriously slow down the entire company.
Eliminating System Latency: The Case of Hilti
To illustrate severe system latency, lets consider the case of Hilti, the global construction tools manufacturer. Hilti used to generate a list of 9 million customers from 53 million database records in its SAP ERP system in about three hours. A salesperson used to hit Enter and then return three hours later to obtain the results. Significantly, 99% of the time the system took to generate that list came from simply retrieving the records off the disk-based database. Once the data were conveyed to the SAP application, the algorithm only took a few fractions of a second to calculate. This major and unnecessary delay was the epitome of latency. To eliminate this latency problem, Hilti set up an SAP HANA system next to their production SAP ERP system and then copied the relevant tables into SAP HANA. The results? Hilti can now run the exact same report in about three seconds. In addition, installing SAP HANA was totally non-disruptive. It required no changes to the algorithm, no changes to the production database, and no changes to the user interface. In fact, the users didnt even realize there had been any change to the system until they ran the report for the first time. They expected the process to take several hours as always so they got up from their desks to do something else. To their complete surprise, the completed report appeared on their screen before they could get out of their chairs. Watch Hiltis SAP HANA story here. Technically, there is very little that needs to be done to accelerate a few problematic transactions or reports in an SAP Business Suite application. Well discuss this topic that in detail in the chapter on the Accelerated SAP Business Suite. In summary, SAP has already delivered the content for most of the truly problematic transactions and reports as part of the latest service packs for the SAP Business Suite for free. Once the relevant tables have been replicated to the SAP HANA system, there is a quick change in the configuration screen to redirect the transaction to read from the SAP HANA database instead of the primary database and thats about it. Users log in as they normally do, execute the transaction or report, and the results come back incredibly fast. SAP has also set up special fixed-price, fixed-scope SAP rapid deployment solutions (RDS) to assist customers in the rapid implementation of these accelerated transactions and reports. Accelerated SAP ERP Transactions and Reports You can expect to see many more problem transactions and reports generated at previously unimaginable speeds as SAP introduces enhancement pack updates to SAP HANA. Heres a short listing of some of the SAP ERP transactions and reports that are currently available:
Sales Reporting
Quickly identify top customers and products by channel with real-time sales reporting. Improve order fulfillment rates and accelerate key sales processes at the same time, with instant analysis of your credit memo and billing list.
Financial Reporting
Obtain immediate insights across your business into revenue, customers, accounts payable and receivable, open and overdue items, top general ledger transaction, and days sales outstanding (DSO). Make the right financial decisions, armed with real-time information.
Shipping Reporting
Rely on real-time shipping reporting for complete stock overview analysis. You can better plan and monitor outbound delivery and assess and optimize stock levels with accurate information at your fingertips.
Purchasing Reporting
Gain timely insights into purchase orders, vendors, and the movement of goods with real-time purchasing reporting. Make better purchasing decisions, based on a complete analysis of your order history.
Master Data Reporting
Obtain real-time reporting on your main master data including customer, vendor, and material lists for improved productivity and accuracy. SAP Solutions for Accelerated Applications
SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10.0 Powered by SAP HANA
The power of SAP HANA dramatically enhances unified planning, budgeting, forecasting and consolidation processes. Powered by SAP HANA, SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10.0, version for SAP NetWeaver aims to increase agility by helping enterprises harness big data to plan better and act faster with better insight into all relevant information and rapid write-back. The application is planned to be the first enterprise performance management (EPM) application to support the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, powered by SAP HANA announced last year. SAP intends to allow customers running the application that have invested in SAP HANA to leverage the power of in-memory computing technology to boost performance by accelerating planning and consolidation processing.
SAP CO-PA Accelerator
SAP CO-PA Accelerator dramatically improves the speed and depth of working with massive volumes of financial data in ERP for faster and more efficient profitability cycles. The solution helps finance departments to perform real-time profitability reporting on large scale data volumes and to conduct instant, on-the-fly analysis at any level of granularity, aggregation, and dimension. Furthermore, finance teams can run cost allocations at significantly faster processing time and be empowered with easy, self-service access to trusted profitability information. This solution can also be implemented alongside the wider SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management solutions
portfolio to help organizations create a complete picture of their cost and profit drivers. You can try the solution on your own with the SAP CO-PA Accelerator TestDrive and visit the website to discover how organizations are generating significant business value with the solution.
SAP Finance and Controlling Accelerator
SAP Finance and Controlling Accelerator supports finance departments with instant access to vast amounts of ledger, cost and material ledger data in ERP as well as easy exploration of trusted and detailed data. The solution offers four implementation scenarios Financial Accounting Controlling Material Ledger and Production Cost Analysis, which can be implemented individually or in any combination. The power of SAP HANA combined with SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) empowers financial professionals to perform faster reporting and analyses, accelerate period-end closing, and make smarter decisions.
With SAP Sales Pipeline Analysis powered by SAP HANA, sales departments can get real-time insight into massive volumes of pipeline data in CRM while performing on the fly calculations and in-depth analysis on any business dimension. Sales managers can now leverage the power of SAP HANA combined with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for complete and instant visibility of accurate and consolidated pipeline data. They can react more quickly to changing sales conditions with real-time information, and accelerate deals through the pipeline with powerful and user-driven analytics. As a result, best-run businesses can unlock hidden revenue opportunities as well as significantly increase profits and sales effectiveness.
T he SAP Customer Segmentation Accelerator helps marketing departments build highly specific segmentations on high volumes of customer data and at unparalleled speed. Marketers can now work with large amounts of granular data to better understand customer demands, behaviors and preferences targeting the precise audience with the right offers across every customer segments, tactics and channels. The power of SAP HANA combined with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) empowers marketers to maximize profits with highly tailored campaigns, dramatically reduce the cost of marketing by targeting more easily high margin customers, and react quicker to optimize campaigns and tactics. You can view a demonstration of the solution and discover how organizations like yours are generating significant business value by visiting this website.
SAP HANA Rapid Deployment Solutions A great majority of these solutions powered by SAP HANA can be deployed as rapid-deployment solutions in order to ensure a quick time to value. The rapid deployment solutions streamline the implementation process bringing together software, best practices, and services ensuring maximum predictability with fixed cost and scope editions. SAP Rapid Deployment solutions leverage an innovative delivery model to accelerate the implementation times and lower risk. Implementation is supported by a standardized methodology, accelerators developed uniquely for each offering, and predefined best practices, meeting typical business requirements to address the customers immediate needs. Even as customers benefit from prebuilt functionality, these solutions provide a platform designed to evolve and extend as the customers business grows. SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions are available through SAP as well as SAP partners by traditional licensing or subscription pricing, transparency of price and scope eliminate project risks for companies. A good example is the SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for operational reporting with SAP HANA that can help you quickly generate insightful reports from sales to financials to shipping on high volumes of ERP data. A second example is SAP rapid-deployment solution for sales pipeline analysis with SAP HANA that helps you to analyze massive amounts of pipeline data in CRM. You can view a demonstration of the solution here. Here are a few of the SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions that are available to enable the accelerated SAP applications: SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for accelerated finance and controlling with SAP HANA Gain access to large volumes of secure and detailed data from cost and material ledgers quickly and easily. By running SAP HANA, you can improve decision making through accelerated reporting, analyses, and period-end closings. SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for operational reporting with SAP HANA Quickly and affordably generate insightful reports from sales to shipping in real time using our operational reporting solution with SAP HANA. Rely on in-memory technology to process high volumes of data quickly, and get ready to transform decision-making business-wide. SAP ERP rapid-deployment solution for profitability analysis with SAP HANA Analyze massive amounts of profitability data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) (CO-PA) faster than ever before. Our ERP profitability analysis solution with SAP HANA can help you perform real-time reporting and conduct instant, on-the-fly analysis for more profitable decision making across your enterprise. SAP rapid-deployment solution for customer segmentation with SAP HANA SAP HANA combined with SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can help you analyze and segment massive amounts of customer data in real time. You can target the precise audience with the right offers across customer segments, tactics, and channels. SAP rapid-deployment solution for sales pipeline analysis with SAP HANA Gain instant insight into massive volumes of sales pipeline data while performing on-the-fly calculations and in-depth analysis on any business dimension.
You can also try out a few of the current accelerated applications running LIVE: http://hanauseast.testdrivesap.com/copa. Well go into much more detail on the applications and RDS packages in the Accelerated SAP Business Suite chapter. SAP offers a specific licensing bundle to utilize SAP HANA for this use case that includes additional replication tools needed for the connections to the SAP source system. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Powered by SAP HANA Possibly the killer use case for SAP HANA in 2012 is SAP BW 7.3 on SAP HANA . In this scenario, companies replace the entire database under their SAP BW 7.3 system with SAP HANA. They simply swap out whatever disk-based database their system is currently running on with SAP HANA in just a few weeks.7 Recall from our earlier discussion of early SAP in-memory projects that SAP BW was the first SAP application that was renovated and updated to natively run on SAP HANA as its primary run-time database. Most of these renovations were necessary to more closely tie the SAP BW application to the SAP HANA database. In a disk-based architecture, SAP BW is separated from the database by an abstraction layer, essentially making it impossible for the application to see anything in the database other than bare tables. Once the abstraction layer is removed, the SAP BW application cannot only see everything in the database, but the entire database is designed around the needs of that specific application. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for SAP customers. With SAP HANA, SAP BW now generates turbo-charged query responses natively, without the need for any side-car accelerators or crazy multi-layered third-party architectures. Because the entire database under the SAP BW system physically sits in memory, every activity not just queries is executed orders of magnitude faster. SAP released the 7.3 version of SAP BW in general availability in early 2011 and then released the SAP HANA-enabled version into general availability in April 2012. All of the SAP HANA-specific enhancements were bundled into the SPS05 update, and customers who had already upgraded to 7.3 could install the service pack and migrate to SAP HANA in a matter of days (seriously). Red Bull was the first live customer of SAP BW on SAP HANA. They told the world about their amazing 10-DAY project to get up and running at the Sapphire Now 2011 conference in Madrid, Spain. The whole effort was incredibly non-disruptive. SAP is seeing similar results with the other customers in the ramp-up project. All of the changes on the SAP BW side are delivered under the hood in the service pack, and the database migration can be performed without any changes to the SAP BW application. All of the customers content and configuration are completely unchanged. Have a look at the end-to-end migration guide for a great overview of the SAP BW database migration process. You should also read a great blog post by John Appleby, a consultant who performed one of the first SAP BW on SAP HANA migrations. The speed and flexibility acquired by replacing the old database with SAP HANA reflect two fundamental benefits of keeping the entire database in memory: (1) This architecture eliminates the need to send huge amounts of data between application and DB servers, and (2) it allows users to execute performance-critical operations directly on the data in the database itself. Basically, running SAP BW on SAP HANA completely eliminates nearly every one of the nasty things that historically slowed down the system, from both a user perspective and an administration perspective. Well explore all of the technical enhancements in the SAP BW on SAP HANA chapter. SAP offers a specific run-time only license option to utilize SAP HANA as the primary persistence layer for SAP BW. If you are already an SAP BW customer, the company offers several options for license credits based on previous SAP BW and BWA licensing. Consult your SAP account executive for the details. SAP has also set up a special migration fund to provide professional services credits to migrate to SAP BW on SAP HANA. SAP HANA as an Application Development Platform Probably the most wide-open innovation opportunity for SAP HANA is as an application platform. If the speed and simplification that were achieved by porting SAP BW are any indication, users can realize an unbelievable amount of value not only by renovating existing applications (SAP and non-SAP) to run natively on SAP HANA, but by also building entirely new applications that are designed from scratch to maximize SAP HANAs powerful capabilities. The performance limitations of traditional databases and processing power have often led organizations to compromise on how to deploy business processes on their enterprise platforms. Now, these organizations can choose to liberate themselves from these constraints and optimize business processes in ways that are more natural to the way their employees actually perform their work. This is where SAP sees a clear parallel to the Apple App Store evolution. When Apple first released the App Store, most of the first apps available were mobile-ized versions of desktop or Web apps (email, browser, etc.). However, once developers considered the possibilities of combining the new capabilities of the device and writing native applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch (Angry Birds, Foursquare), innovation exploded. There are three basic types of applications being built on SAP HANA today: New apps built by SAP, New and renovated apps built by partners such as independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs), Custom apps built by companies for internal use. SAP brands applications that leverage SAP HANA as a database as Powered by SAP HANA. Partners whose applications have been certified by SAP can also add the Powered by SAP HANA brand to their solution name. SAP-built Applications for SAP HANA SAP is delivering a new class of solutions on top of the SAP HANA platform that provide real-time insights on big data and state-of-the-art analysis capabilities. These innovative solutions can empower organizations to transform the way they run their businesses by making smarter and faster decisions, responding more quickly to events, unlocking new opportunities, and even inventing new data-driven business models and processes that were simply not possible with disk-based databases. Below are a few examples of native-SAP HANA applications. Well consider them in greater detail in the SAP HANA Applications chapter.
This solution provides retailers with real-time access to critical information and allows nearly real-time interactive analysis, which is not possible with traditional database technology. It offers prebuilt data models, key performance indicators (KPIs), role-specific dashboards and customized reports to provide retailers with a deeper understanding of all factors influencing the merchandising life cycle. SAP BusinessObjects Sales Analysis for Retail aims at providing the integration needed for improved scalability and performance for retailers operating in separate sales, inventory and promotions systems. The new service provides Point-of-Sale (POS) analysis allow retailers to assess performance and generate quick responses through the use of prebuilt dashboards, interactive reports and more than 70 KPIs and inventory management to provide retailers with the ability to identify critical stock and margin issues through close inventory alignment.
SAP Smart Meter Analytics
SAP Smart Meter Analytics is a native-HANA application that was designed for utility companies facing an exponential increase in data volume driven by their deployment of smart meters. This new application enables utility companies to turn massive volumes of smart meter data into powerful insights and transform how they engage customers and run their businesses. With SAP Smart Meter Analytics, utility companies can: Instantly aggregate time of use blocks and total consumption profiles to analyze their customers energy usage by what neighborhood they are in, the size of their homes or businesses, building type, and by any other dimension and at any level of granularity Segment customers with precision based on energy consumption patterns that are automatically generated by identifying customers that have similar energy usage behavior Provide energy efficiency benchmarking based on statistical analysis so that utility companies can help their customers understand where they stand compared to their peers and how they can improve their energy efficiency Empower customers with direct access to energy usage insights via web portals and mobile devices connected to SAP Smart Meter Analytics via web services These capabilities delivered by SAP Smart Meter Analytics enable utility companies to increase adoption of service options such as demand response programs, launch targeted energy efficiency programs, improve fraud detection capabilities, and develop new tariffs and more accurate load forecasts.
SAP Sales & Operations Planning is a next generation planning application that is powered by SAP HANA and delivered in the cloud. The solution enables: Planning and real-time analysis with a unified model of demand, supply chain, and financial data at any level of granularity and dimension Rapid, interactive simulation and scenario analysis, using the full S&OP data model to support demand-supply balancing decisions Embedded, context-aware social collaboration enables rapid planning and decision-making across the organization These capabilities enable companies to align demand and supply profitably, reduce supply chain costs, and drive revenue growth.
SAP Supplier InfoNet is a cloud-based solution, powered by SAP HANA, that enables companies to: Minimize supply chain disruption by proactively monitoring and predicting real-time supply risks across a multi-tier supplier network Drive stronger supplier performance by benchmarking supplier performance for your company against others in the business network and identifying significant shifts and trends in supplier performance using leading-edge machine learning and statistical analysis Manage your supply base by aggregating and transforming supplier data to deliver instant insights into the operational health of the supply base.
Recalls Plus
Recalls Plus is SAPs first consumer mobile app that enables parents to proactively monitor recalls of their kids strollers, cribs, toys, and other items for greater safety and peace of mind. Features of the app include: Search recall history by brand or category Create a personal watch list of items like car seats, cribs, strollers and so on Track allergen related recalls Share relevant recalls with others Read and monitor recalls from all relevant US government agencies: CPSC, NHTSA, FDA and USDA Recalls Plus is available for free and can be accessed via an iPhone app or a Facebook app: iPhone app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recalls-plus/id499200328 Facebook app: https://apps.facebook.com/recallsplus
Partner-built Applications for SAP HANA The SAP partner ecosystem provides thousands of SAP-certified software solutions that plug into SAPs applications to provide a variety of value-added extensions and process enhancements. From that perspective, anything that speeds up an SAP system will also have a positive impact on any partner solutions that are integrated with that system. There are also numerous SAP partner solutions that need to turbocharge themselves to increase their own performance and to keep up with the turbocharged SAP systems coming on top of SAP HANA in the future. Regardless of the programming language these partner apps are written in, they all can be ported over to SAP HANA in a fairly straightforward way. However, just as SAP is renovating its existing applications, partners too can approach re-platforming as an opportunity to rethink some of the design parameters that they employed in the original solution design and to rebuild their apps to take advantage of SAP HANAs many benefits natively. Oversight Systems is one of the first ISVs to renovate their SAP-certified solution along these lines. Oversight Systems provides solutions that continuously monitor user activities in real-time inside SAP systems to detect policy violations and potentially fraudulent transactions, such as travel and expenses, accounting and reporting, and HR and payroll. Their solution conducts complex, on-the-fly calculations that demand a great deal of I/O performance from databases. Therefore, the addition of SAP HANA underneath their solution makes perfect sense. Custom Applications for SAP HANA As stated earlier, SAP HANA is a full-blown, do-just-about-anything-you-want application platform. It speaks pure SQL and it includes all of the most common APIs, so you can literally write any type of application you want on top of it. There are a few rules and guide rails that are designed to keep things from going wrong, but the sky truly is the limit when it comes to imagining what to build with SAP HANA. Although SAP HANA is valuable for all types of activities, it shines particularly well in a few unique situations. For example, if youre building an enterprise-scale application for a business scenario that (1) needs to search or aggregate huge volumes of data, (2) requires detailed/granular data analysis and/or complex algorithmic or statistical calculations, or (3) suffers from latency between transactional recording and reporting, then SAP HANA is a great choice.
Thats not to say that SAP HANA cant run your standard applications it certainly can do that (really fast). Nevertheless, the most exciting use cases SAP is seeing for SAP HANA as the foundation of custom apps are situations where a company has an urgent business need that is literally impossible to automate today due to the limitations of traditional databases or the lack of a supercomputer. If youre a business owner who has a killer idea that fits the above description, then SAP HANA could be the solution that makes the impossible, possible. This is where the Angry Birds analogy really starts to make sense. Once the SAP ecosystem of ISVs, SAP partners, and SAP customers starts to unleash their innovation on top of SAP HANA, there literally is no limit to the amazing and game-changing applications they can build. It is incredibly important for SAP to renovate its portfolio and build amazing new applications to exploit the vast potential of SAP HANA. It is even more important, however, for the SAP ecosystem to do this, because there are millions of unrealized business ideas in their companies that SAP HANA can bring to life.
intellectual renewal that SAP executives have been talking about, and it is having a monumental impact on the speed and volume of innovation coming from SAP. SAP HANA has literally awakened a sleeping giant of innovation inside SAP. Moreover, this enthusiasm appears to be contagious: People are witnessing the same type of awakening throughout the SAP ecosystem.
In the long run, once the entire SAP portfolio has been HANA-fied,8 SAP will be able to deliver a vastly simplified landscape for its customers. By merging OLAP and OLTP into a single SAP HANA instance, SAP can provide a massive reduction in layers and TCO in the landscape while at the same time providing much more flexibility and business value through real-time access to all of the relevant data. It will take SAP several years to engineer and deliver this vision to its customers. If the past five years of in-memory (r)evolution at SAP are an indication, however, the next five years of this journey will be extraordinarily fast and exciting.
1 Markides, C. (2002). Strategic Innovation. In: E. B. Roberts (Ed.). Innovation. Driving Product, Process, and Market Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
2 W oods, D. and W ord, J. (2004), SAP NetW eaver for Dummies, W iley Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, IA.
3 W ith the SAP HANA RDS migration package customers can migrate in ~7 w eeks, if they are already on BW 7.3 SP7, w ith Unicode, and 7.x data flow s and authorizations.
4 Magal, S. and W ord, J. (2011), Integrated Business Processes w ith ERP Systems, John W iley & Sons. Hoboken, NJ
5 People alw ays ask if all the data is in volatile storage like RAM, w hat happens if the pow er goes out? Well talk about that in more detail later, but basically, SAP HANA has some very sophisticated backup tools to prevent data loss from disasters.
6 Plattner, H & Zeier, A. (2011). In-memory data management: an inflection point for enterprise applications. Springer.
7 The SAP HANA RDS for database migration takes ~7 w eeks for most customers w ho are already running SAP BW 7.3.
8 Meaning Pow ered by SAP HANA and renovated to natively take advantage of SAP HANA.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
SAP HANA Business Cases & ROI Model COMING FALL OF 2012
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
require a new breed of processors that were optimized for the new architecture, and Intel has a long history of innovating for the future needs of the enterprise. SAP laid out its strategy for the shift to in-memory computing to Intels executives, and the two parties discussed the level of co-innovation that would be needed to jointly engineer both an in-memory database and optimized processors that could handle the unique needs of this new architecture. The top executives from each company agreed that the they would have to establish a new level of co-innovation partnership and starting in 2005, Intel sent a team of their best software and chip engineers to SAP HQ to begin the work of jointly optimizing each successive version of the industry-standard Intel Xeon chips for the needs of SAPs evolving in-memory database. Since that time, SAP has benefitted from early access to each new generation of Xeon processor from Intel, and Intel has incorporated SAPs unique in-memory processing requirements into its chip capabilities.
Intel and SAP: A History of Co-Innovation For more than 10 years, Intel and SAP have worked together to deliver industry-leading performance of SAP solutions on Intel architecture, and a large proportion of new SAP implementations are now deployed on Intel platforms. The latest success from that tradition of co-innovation is available to customers of all sizes in SAP HANA, which is delivered on the Intel Xeon processor. The relationship between Intel and SAP has become even stronger over the years, growing to include a broad set of collaborations and initiatives. Some of the most visible: Joint roadmap enablement. Early in the design process, Intel and SAP decision makers identify complementary features and capabilities in their upcoming products, and those insights help to direct the development cycle for maximum value. Collaborative product optimization. Intel engineers located on-site at SAP work with their SAP counterparts to provide tuning expertise that enables SAP HANA and other software solutions to take advantage of the latest hardware features. Combined research efforts. Together, researchers from Intel and SAP continually explore and drive the future of business computing As a result of these efforts, customer solutions achieve performance, scalability, reliability, and energy efficiency that translate into favorable ROI and TCO, for increased business value.
Having created an optimized core (operating system, RAM, and processors) for SAP HANA, SAP needed to reach out to the server manufacturers to package the software and hardware into industry-standard appliances in a way that would remove as much configuration and integration work from the customers as possible (again, lowering TCO). SAP realized that even though the core components of the SAP HANA servers would be nearly identical (OS, RAM, and processors), the hardware vendors provide a great deal of additional value in the implementation, management and operations of the hardware. Plus, customers typically have a preferred hardware vendor for their enterprise landscapes. This is really where SAP felt that customer choice would have the most value. So, they engaged seven of their primary hardware vendors (see the next paragraph) to build certified SAP HANA appliances and create packaged services to implement SAP HANA quickly and easily at customer sites. In early 2011, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, IBM, and HP all jumped on the SAP HANA bandwagon and had their flagship Intel-based servers certified and in production. Hitachi joined the list later that year, and NEC was certified in early 2012. This broad support from industryleading hardware vendors provides customers with a choice of seven hardware partners to deploy their SAP HANA solution, each with unique service and support offerings to fit their customers needs. SAPs strategy of solid core, multivendor hardware support for SAP HANA has been received extremely well by customers because it eliminates the confusing number of hardware combinations and focuses on the valueadded solutions that each vendor can offer on top of the solid core. General SAP HANA Hardware Specifications SAP HANA is sold as a pre-configured, pre-installed appliance that is delivered directly from the hardware partner. SUSE Linux SLES 11 is the only supported operating system, and Intel E7 processors are the only supported chips. Samsung RAM is currently the primary memory used by all of the hardware partners. Most partner systems use on-board 15k RPM hard disks (4x ratio for main memory) for data-volume backup and Fusion I/O SSD cards (1:1 ratio for main memory) for log-volume backup. SAP ensures the quality, availability, and performance of the certified systems through a rigorous process of end-to-end quality testing, performance testing, and continuous early access to next-generation technologies from all of its partners. SAP HANA Product Availability Matrix (PAM) The latest and most accurate PAM can always be downloaded from the SAP Service Marketplace. Here is the May 2012 SAP HANA PAM.
Additional Infrastructure SAP recommends that customers deploy 10 gb network data connections. SAP has no preference on external storage/SAN; rather, it is determined by the server vendor. Multi-Node and Scale-Out Options SAP HANA is a linearly scalable database, meaning, you can string together multiple physical servers into a single logical database instance and achieve linear performance results for every additional server added to the landscape. Currently, SAP HANA has certified a 16-node scale-out for production environments and is currently testing a 60 node scale-out landscape. Literally, you just add another node/server to the landscape, and you immediately enjoy an exponential increase in performance, in addition to the additional memory. Refer to the SAP HANA hardware partner section of this chapter for more information on the various scale-out offerings from the individual partners. SAP recently (April 2012) completed its first internal benchmark for the 16 node scale out solution. The data set consisted of five years of Sales and Distribution Records (100 Billion records) and was run on a single logical server consisting of 16 nodes. Each node was a certified IBM X5 machine with eight Intel E7-8870 processors with 10 cores, running at 2.40 GHz. The total cost of the 16 node system was roughly USD$640K. SAP HANA was able to scan 100 Billion rows/Sec on the 100 TB dataset and was able to load 16 million records/min. SAP HANAs compression algorithms were able to achieve 20x compression on the raw data when loading into memory, going from 100TB on disk to 3.8TB in memory. Typical query results were: BW Workload: 300ms 500ms Ad-Hoc Analytics: 800ms 2s No database tuning, indexing or caching were needed to achieve these results. To put that in context, the closest competitive database is roughly 1000x slower in the same benchmark and several times more expensive.
High Availability SAP HANA supports cold standby hosts, meaning a standby host is kept ready in the event that a failover situation occurs during production operation. In a distributed system, some of the servers are designated as worker hosts, and others as standby hosts. Significantly, you can assign multiple standby hosts to each group. Alternatively, you can group together multiple servers to create a dedicated standby host for each group. A standby host is not used for database processing. All of the database processes run on the standby host, but they are idle and do not enable SQL connections.
Disaster Recovery The SAP HANA database holds the bulk of its data in memory to ensure optimal performance, but it still uses persistent storage to provide a fallback in case of failure.
During normal database operations, data are automatically saved from memory to disk at regular save-points. Additionally, all data changes are recorded in the log. The log is saved from memory to SSD after each committed database transaction. After a power failure, the database can be restarted in the same way as a disk-based database, and it returns to its last consistent state by replaying the log since the last savepoint. Although save-points and log writing protect your data against power failures, they do not help if the persistent storage itself is damaged. Protecting against data loss due to disk failures requires backups. Backups save the contents of the data and log areas to different locations. These backups are performed while the database is running, so users can continue to work normally. The impact of the backups on system performance is negligible.
If the SAP HANA system detects a failover situation, the work of the services on the failed server is reassigned to the services running on the standby host. The failed volume and all the included tables are reassigned and loaded into memory in accordance with the failover strategy defined for the system. This reassignment can be performed without moving any data, because all the persistency of the servers is stored on a shared disk. Data and logs are stored on shared storage, where every server has access to the same disks. Before a failover is performed, the system waits for a few seconds to determine whether the service can be restarted. During this time, the status is displayed as Waiting. This procedure can take up to a minute. The entire process of failover detection and loading may take several minutes to complete. SAP Hardware Partner Details In the remaining section of this chapter, each Certified SAP HANA hardware partner was given the opportunity to briefly describe their SAP HANA offering and discuss their value-added services for SAP HANA implementation, support, and operations. We encourage you to speak directly to the hardware partners for more details about their products and services for SAP HANA. Links: Intel Cisco Dell Fujitsu Hitachi HP IBM NEC
SAP HANA T-Shirt Sizes Offered The Extra Small (XS) and Small (S)-size appliances are based on the Cisco C260 M2 rack mount server with 2 Intel Xeon Processor E74870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 256 GB of usable memory. This configuration is primarily used for development, test, and small production SAP HANA systems with uncompressed datasets up to 1.75 TB. The Cisco UCS appliance incorporates a persistency layer, based on internal SSD drives that require no additional drivers tainting the Linux kernel. The Medium (M)-size appliance is based on the Cisco C460 M2 rack mount server with 4 Intel Xeon Processor E7-4870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 512 GB of usable memory. This configuration is ideal for use in mid-sized and larger production environments such as the one used by
Medtronic, a large, worldwide manufacturer of medical devices (see customer example). The persistency layer is provided by two Fusion IO cards to avoid possible bottlenecks in duo card configurations sharing the same PCI slot. SAP HANA Scale-out offering The Cisco UCS solution that has been certified for large SAP HANA implementations is a uniquely scalable appliance. It allows customers to easily adapt to the growing demands of their individual environment by incrementally adding Cisco B440 M2 blade servers with 4 Intel Xeon Processors E7-4870 (2.4 GHz) and up to 512 GB usable memory each, as needed. For every four Cisco UCS blade servers, the persistency layer is provided by an EMC VNX 5300 or a NetApp FAS 3240, depending on customer preference. The basic configuration of the Cisco scale-out offering is made up of redundant fabric interconnects with embedded infrastructure management, a Cisco UCS C200 server for SAP HANA studio, a Cisco 2911 for secure remote management, and one enclosure with support for up to 4 Cisco B440 blades. The basic configuration can easily scale by adding up to 3 extension bundles each providing an additional blade enclosure for up to 4 more Cisco B440 M2 blade servers each and the correspondent storage from EMC or NetApp. High Availability SAP HANA Solution Cisco UCS SAP HANA appliances have redundancy designed-in providing no single point of failure. However, in the event of a hardware failure on a blade or rack server, any spare Cisco UCS server can take over the role of the failed server in minutes by simply applying the service profile to the spare server. Disaster recovery (DR) scenarios can be easily implemented by using service profiles to quickly provision servers at the DR site in conjunction with the classical replication technologies of EMC and NetApp. SAP HANA Support infrastructure All Cisco UCS servers are interconnected with a low-latency, high-bandwidth 10-Gbps unified Ethernet fabric. The unified fabric supports both IP and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connections through redundant, high performance, low-latency Cisco Fabric Interconnects. The Cisco Fabric Interconnect, with embedded management, is the core of the Cisco UCS and reduces both the number of network hops and network latency, critical to SAP HANA performance. The unified fabric radically reduces the number of cables, inter-chassis switches, and network adapters required by legacy platforms. This reduces energy consumption and operational costs resulting in much lower total cost of ownership. Additional software The operating system, Cisco UCS drivers, and Cisco UCS management software are all part of the appliance; therefore no additional software is necessary to manage the entire system. However Cisco Intelligent Automation for SAP HANA is highly recommended. The Cisco Intelligent Automation software solution supports the daily operation of a SAP HANA appliance by: Monitoring the CPU and memory workload, and the average index read time at blade level Automating quarterly maintenance, including firmware updates and file system validation Ensuring configuration management assurance for all appliance components Monitoring data services availability Proactively monitoring SAP HANA subsystem components status Monitoring query execution response times using the SAP HANA index for the query execution SAP HANA Query Response Time Executing sample queries and recording total execution time and query component performance breakdown Proactively monitoring the SAP TREX services statistics based on thresholds Alerting CPU, memory, or throughput thresholds for SAP TREX services Automating Cisco UCS blade and rack server provisioning for use in the appliance in minutes, instead of days SAP HANA Installation and Support Services Cisco SAP HANA installation services includes the assembly of all necessary hardware and software required for a SAP HANA appliance. Ciscos SAP HANA engineers will install the appliance into the customers network and connect it to source system(s). Also included are the necessary SuSe Linux Licenses, Smartnet 24x7x4 day 2 support for the Cisco hardware, as well as licenses, and firstyear maintenance for EMC or NetApp storage as required. Implementation of solutions based on Cisco SAP HANA appliances are provided through Cisco Advanced Services and Ciscos ecosystem of systems integrators and partners. These solutions include data modeling, data load, replication, and SAP HANA application configuration. Customer Success Story Medtronic dramatically improved reporting performance, increasing the value of its customer information, with the SAP HANA platform and Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) server platform.
Challenge:
Medtronic needed to increase its ability to analyze large amounts of data, such as customer feedback. BI reporting on its fast-growing data warehouse was straining the capabilities of the companys computer infrastructure. Because employees couldnt generate some types of reports (particularly using unstructured data), their ability to draw conclusions from existing data was limited.
Solution:
The company deployed the SAP HANA platform on the Cisco UCS server platform based on the Intel Xeon processor E7 family. In preliminary testing, users of an un-tuned system observed query times just one-third as long as those with existing production systems. With the fully scaled and optimized implementation now in place, Medtronic hopes to cut response times even further.
Customer Benefit:
BI operations at Medtronic will use the SAP HANA platform to report on structured and unstructured data, wherever it resides, whether on SAP or non-SAP systems. The added performance, scalability, and flexibility of this new architecture will increase the value of company data as it continues to proliferate, increasing employee efficiency and enabling smarter decision making. For More Information For more information on Cisco UCS, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ucs For more information on Cisco UCS SAP HANA Appliances, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/sap To learn more about Cisco Solutions, please visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns224/solutions.html To contact Cisco for addition information on SAP on Cisco UCS please email saponcisco@cisco.com
Fusion ioDrive solid state cards. The Fusion ioDrive from Dell provides high IOPs and low latency performance for the in-memory SAP HANA database. While Fusion ioDrive is used to maintain the systems logs, a RAID group made up of internally held 15K RPM disks is used to maintain a copy of the data image. T-Shirt sizes offered Dell offers several different sizes of HANA appliances based on the Dell PowerEdge R910 platform to meet your needs.
High Availability The Dell PowerEdge R910 is a high-performance 4-socket 4U rack server designed for reliability and scalability for mission-critical applications. High availability features include: Built-in reliability features at the CPU, memory, hardware and hypervisor levels Intel advanced reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities Redundant power supplies Remote IDRAC6 connectivity
Integrated systems management, Lifecycle Controller and embedded diagnostics to help maximize uptime Internal Dual SD Module providing superior hypervisor redundancy Dells focus on reliability starts with product design and ends only when weve delivered a platform that meets strict testing and quality control standards. Support infrastructure Dells SAP HANA appliance is designed to be an all-inclusive solution that comes as a pre-integrated unit with all necessary hardware, storage, and networking capabilities. Additional software needed Dells SAP HANA platform is an end-to-end and all-in-one solution that comes preloaded with all of the software and management tools necessary. Additionally, Dell offers its OpenManage Essentials software for no charge. Open Manage Essentials is a web-based hardware management application that provides a comprehensive view of Dell systems, supported devices, and components in the enterprises network. This product provides additional system management capabilities, including: A simple and effective user interface Easy installation and low touch maintenance Tools to discover, inventory and monitor Dell Servers, storage and networking switches Agent-free Management to discover and correlate IDRAC / Server and Blades / Chassis Dell offers SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP for SAP HANA solutions. Support Services Dell is an expert in SAP HANA system support. Internally, we have over 65 instances of SAP with over 22,000 users, and globally, we have over 500 SAP consultants. In addition, Dell has more than 1,800 ITIL-certified professionals. The result is that we have a strong systems management and support practice and an in depth understanding of SAP hardware and software solutions. Customers are provided a responsive service and support experience with collaborative support for SAP HANA by Dell, SAP, and SUSE based on standard and enterprise support agreements. Dells SAP HANA appliance comes with 3 years of Dells award winning ProSupport Mission Critical services and a 3-year extended hardware warranty. Customers receive 24x7x365 phone support, escalation management and collaborative support leveraging Dells global ProSupport infrastructure of more than 30,000 technicians supporting more than 100 countries in 55 languages. Dells ProSupport Mission Critical services accelerate rapid resolution by providing quick delivery of onsite parts and or labor and providing access to Dells proven and reliable Critical Situation Process. Key support features: Onsite Response 4-Hour onsite service with 6-hour hardware repair available 24x7, including holidays. CritSit Procedures Severity level 1 issues will be reviewed by Dell and may be nominated for CritSit incident coverage through Dell Global Command Centers. During a CritSit incident, expert resource teams are mobilized to get you back up and running fast. Emergency dispatch Onsite service technician dispatched in parallel with phone-based troubleshooting when you declare a Severity level 1 incident. Additional SAP HANA services Dell offers additional SAP HANA services to assist with your implementation. SAP HANA Executive Workshop This workshop helps to develop the Use Case and Business justification for a SAP HANA solution and helps organizations determine whether SAP HANA is a fit for their situation. SAP HANA Proof of Concept Using Dell DIMCAM methodology and IMPROVE jump start process, customers can see quickly the value that SAP HANA will bring to the decision making process. SAP Modernization Services Dell has developed a portfolio of Modernization Service for SAP applications that features cloud computing, real-time analytics and mobile applications. These enabling technologies can provide the savings to invest in SAP HANA and will provide SAP customers flexible computing infrastructure, competitive knowledge through improved analytics and secure mobile computing frameworks. Implementation Once the Proof of Concept is complete, a SAP HANA Implementation workshop can develop a deployment plan and create the Business Justification for the rest of the deployment. Analytics Factory Dell offers global business intelligence consulting and support. Customer success stories Every Angle Software Solutions is an international software company that partners with Dell to deliver an add-on SAP performance and operations management appliance solution. The Every Angle solution enables the simple, flexible and fast production of valuable business content from an organizations SAP database; the software then enhances the data using intelligent algorithms. Every Angle has an impressive customer list including companies like Heineken, Philips, Bridgestone and Hunter Douglas and their current installations span multiple industries globally. Every Angle is upgrading its offering by developing an SAP HANA-based appliance using Dells PowerEdge R910 platform. Every Angle chooses Dell because:
The R910 offers a complete, integrated solution including hardware, software, services and support. Every Angles current SAP performance management appliance is based on the Dell PowerEdge platform, and the relationship between our companies is proven and strong. Dell Services consulting provided the expertise to accelerate Every Angles time to market. Every Angle can rely on award-winning support from Dell ProSupport. Every Angle has a long-standing relationship with Dell and uses Dell servers, storage and networking internally to run the company. Every Angles mission is to create a solution that is not only powerful and reliable bust also simple to install, quick to implement and easily supportable. The companys goal is to install the Every Angle appliance and have it delivering meaningful data in under a week! Every Angle pairs the power of SAP HANA with Dell technology and with their proprietary software solution. It will sell Dells R910 SAP HANA appliance as a Dell OEM. The solution is currently in testing.
Contact information for inquiries
* All configurations are constantly review ed and the latest technology is validated and made available w henever applicable.
The single node configurations are ideal for proof of concept/proof of value projects, development, tests, quality assurance, training and initial SAP HANA implementations with a defined scope. However, these systems can also be included as building blocks in a multi-node environment. Scale-out offering The Fujitsu multi-node offering for SAP HANA is based on industry-standard PRIMERGY building blocks combined with a shared NetApp storage system and high performance Brocade Ethernet Fabric switches as the standard option. Customers can start small and easily add and integrate PRIMERGY servers and storage capacity as requirements grow. Today the solution is certified for massive scalability of up to 16 nodes and 8 TB of main memory, however the concept is already disposed to further growth.
High Availability Special attention was paid to high availability as a major component for mission-critical readiness of the overall SAP HANA solution. Thus high availability is already an integral part of the building block concept. One server can be assigned as a fail-over server and quickly take over in case a productive server breaks down. The second pillar of the high availability concept is the utilization of NFS (Network File System) and the shared NetApp FAS 3240 series. The pivotal idea of in-memory computing is to store data in the main memory of a computer to allow fast access. The risk of this concept is that data stored in the main memory is volatile. Once the computer is down, data kept in the main memory is irretrievably lost. The usage of NFS ensures that all data is constantly mirrored on the NetApp FAS system. In case of a data loss in main memory, data can be copied back from the storage system. Besides, the inclusion of an external FAS storage system provides the classical back-up and restore functionalities. Highest demand concerning system availability can be met by expanding the infrastructure to a two-site concept, which means that all infrastructure components and data are reflected in a second data center. This guarantees disaster resilience with continuous operation even in case of a total data center breakdown. Support infrastructure As an additional, certified component the Fujitsu SAP HANA infrastructure solution always includes a PRIMERGY RX 100 Infrastructure Management Server (IMS). This mono socket rack server is used for: Efficient SAP HANA software maintenance: initial installation and upgrade Seamless integration into the customers systems management landscape Easy remote support access as a key part of the solution maintenance offering (SolutionContract) System administrators especially benefit from the IMS component when software updates are required in multi-node environments, as the update only needs to be started once from the IMS and is then automatically distributed within the entire server environment. Additional software needed AISConnect software (enables remote access to the SAP HANA landscape) Support Services The Fujitsu end-to-end offering comprises a complete set of services for non-disruptive implementation, integration and operation of the SAP HANA solution.
Services for HANA Implementation and Integration
Fujitsu SAP HANA SolutionContract (Services for SAP HANA Operation) SolutionContract is the maintenance and support service for defined Fujitsu solutions. It represents a mix of proactive and reactive services, which ensure that malfunctions are detected and corrected before they can have any impact on operations. The concept takes into account that Fujitsu solutions consist of hardware, software and network products from different vendors. Fujitsu is the single point of contact for all infrastructure components of a Fujitsu solution as well as their interoperability. SolutionContract offers several service-level options depending on individual requirements. Note: SAP Software support is not part of this solution contract! Additional SAP HANA Services
Fujitsu SmartStart Short Time to Value Offering (Rapid Deployment)
SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions support a fast implementation and utilization by providing business users with modular, pre-packed and ready-to-use business content. The Fujitsu SmartStart option expands this approach. SAP HANA, the Rapid Deployment Solution and customer-specific settings are implemented and pre-tested on certified Fujitsu infrastructure in the Fujitsu staging center. The end-to-end offering also comprises the onsite implementation plus infrastructure and application integration. Thus SmartStart combines SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions benefits with Fujitsu expertise and services to quickly go live with SAP HANA business scenarios fully integrated with the SAP Business Suite.
Fujitsu Global SAP HANA Demo Center
Fujitsu has set up the first Global SAP HANA Demo and Proof of Value Center to provide customers with a practical insight into the scope of SAP HANA capabilities and services. Customer Success Stories
SAP Business Warehouse Migration to SAP HANA
A leading international manufacturer of automotive components has to date used an SAP Business Warehouse (BW), but it took several hours
to generate reports meaning that important information was often only available the next day. To accelerate this process management opted for the innovative SAP HANA appliance software. The complementary portfolio of SAP HANA infrastructure and services, jointly offered by Fujitsu and TDS*, convinced the management to entrust this vital project to the two companies in combination. SAP experts at TDSs IT Consulting business unit were tasked with design and implementation, and with operation and support of the production system and Fujitsu contributed the certified SAP HANA infrastructure solution based on powerful PRIMERGY RX600 rack servers.
*(TDS a Fujitsu company) Mitsui
To promote the growth of Mitsuis businesses, it is essential to have an IT platform that flexibly adapts to change and supports rapid decision making. The objectives of SAP HANA align with these needs. We greatly value Fujitsus early leadership in support of SAP HANA, as well as Fujitsus capabilities in providing global support for our IT platforms, and we intend to continue to work with Fujitsu in this area in the future. With the global cooperation from the team at Fujitsu, we have already begun implementing this technology, and look forward to continuing to work with Fujitsu to achieve our mutual objectives.
Mr. Toru Nakajima
Associate Officer and General Manager of Information Technology Promotion Division Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Contact information for inquiries Global Fujitsu SAP Competence Center expert.sap@ts.fujitsu.com
Operating System: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for SAP Storage: AMS 2100, which is designed for high availability, down to the dual battery backup that protects the cache during power outage. It contains symmetric active-active controllers that self-balance workloads. Network: Fibre Channel host bus adaptors Compute: Hitachi Compute Blade 2000 offers the large I/O capacity and onboard memory required for effective implementation of SAP HANA
Hitachi-SAP Alliance Since 1994, Hitachi, Ltd., and its subsidiaries, including Hitachi Data Systems, have had a strategic relationship with SAP which includes the sale, integration and implementation of SAP solutions. During this time, Hitachi has won numerous SAP awards for exceptional customer satisfaction. In 2011, Hitachi became an SAP Global Technology Partner, the highest level of partnership SAP offers. Many large global enterprises run their business on SAP and Hitachi. Hitachi also ensures the necessary storage performance and high throughput to meet the stringent demands of in-memory computing. By dramatically reducing the traditional delay between operations and analytics, this platform helps business leaders gain near real-time insights and information to make smarter business decisions, faster. Services Hitachi Data Systems Global Solution Services (GSS) offers experienced infrastructure consultants, proven methodologies, and comprehensive services for Converged Platforms to help customers further streamline their SAP environments. The HANA Implementation Service ensures a smooth integration of the Hitachi Converged Platform for SAP HANA with our customers SAP landscapes. Support infrastructure Hitachi Consulting is equipped to support every aspect of a SAP HANA solution and can supply strategy, infrastructure, HANA Appliance, Integration, Development, and Support Services for a HANA initiative. The lines between infrastructure, software, and applications have been blurred. Having one partner that provides one fully integrated solution is a tremendous value. Hitachis full breadth of capabilities delivers one fully-integrated, highly optimized environment which ensures the desired results in a lower cost, lower risks, and high-business-value HANA initiative. Contact Hitachi If you would like to get in touch with the SAP team at Hitachi please email sap@hds.com. Further information can be found at
Scale-out offering HP offers a unique scale-out offering that provides the high availability your business demands today, and a future-ready solution that can grow as your needs grow. This design significantly reduces the cost, difficulty and down-time associated with future field upgrades. HPs scale-out solution is based on proven, industry-leading technology including: HP ProLiant BL680c G7 Server Blades, the blade solution that is ideal for SAP HANA scale-out implementations for balanced computing to handle the most demanding enterprise class applications. The HP X9300 IBRIX Network Storage System is a unique storage platform that offers unlimited scale-out capability and disaster tolerant features. HP P6500 Enterprise Virtual Arrays (EVA) delivers high-throughput, mission-critical, redundant storage for data & log files, SYS files, config files, traces and more. HP networking solutions like HP Virtual Connect for simplifying and virtualizing the connectivity between the HANA blade nodes, the network, and the shared storage. High availability is provided through a stand-by blade with automatic failover. Disaster tolerance technology is also included with HPs scaleout solution. When SAP certifies a disaster tolerant solution for SAP HANA, HPs scale-out appliance design is already equipped to handle this functionality, so you can be assured it will meet your future demands. High Availability and Disaster Recovery With HP AppSystems for SAP HANA, HP has delivered a fully automated failover mechanism for high availability, a stand-by blade that automatically is activated upon a failure of any node in the cluster. Only one node is needed, regardless of the number of nodes in the cluster.
As mentioned earlier, disaster tolerance is designed into HPs SAP HANA technology today, so once SAP HANA software is released with disaster tolerance capability, HPs scale-out solution is already equipped to enable this functionality. Storage infrastructure HP PCIe IO Accelerator for HP ProLiant Servers is a direct-attach, solid-state, PCIe card-based solution for application performance enhancement. Based on Multi-Level Cell (MLC) and Single Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash technology, these devices are ideal for accelerating IO performance and maintaining SAP HANA log file data. For mission-critical deployments and shared-storage infrastructures, HP X9300 IBRIX Network Storage System features an NFS cluster file system and support for single-node high availability. Its designed for high availability and extreme scalability while delivering excellent performance and a modular storage infrastructure to accommodate unprecedented storage growth. Additional Software HP ensures global quality standards by pre-loading and configuring SAP HANA software at the factory before delivery. No additional software is necessary for the HP AppSystems for SAP HANA. All solutions are built to your specifications and include all required components, services and support. However, optional monitoring and backup software solutions are available from HP to further enhance your solution. HP AppSystems for SAP HANA can be monitored by means of HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM), available as a free download from HP. SIM is also available as a component of the Insight Control suite of management software, which is available for purchase from HP. Support Services HP delivers a comprehensive solution that encompasses hardware, software, services and support from a single resource. HP delivers the full lifecyle of services required to get from assessment and design of a SAP HANA solution to the build, implementation, and support of the solution.
Design and Build
With every SAP HANA system, HP includes the resources to assist with the sizing and configuration of an SAP HANA environment. This includes the sizing of the appropriate system, and recommendations on the configurations to address your requirements for multiple SAP landscapes, high availability, and disaster tolerance. Then with every SAP HANA order, HP includes its core competency process for factory integration where we integrate the hardware, load all software components, and apply your unique environmental settings for network and source systems. And then the system completes a burn-in test before shipment to your location.
Implementation
Delivery of the SAP HANA appliance is not the final step. Beyond the design and build of a SAP HANA solution, implementation of the solution into your environment is equally, if not more, critical to a successful experience with getting SAP HANA up and running. So HP includes installation, implementation, and training with every SAP HANA solution we deliver. The basic foundational service includes the following: Incorporation of SAP HANA in the local network Connection of SAP HANA to source systems Implementation of basic security and authorizations Configuration of SAP BusinessObjects front end or Microsoft Excel to communicate with SAP HANA Validation of the integrated environment and the end-to-end functionality of the SAP HANA system Review of the access to, and use of, the SAP in-memory computing studio Installation and configuration troubleshooting
Support
After a successful implementation, support of your SAP HANA solution is turned over to HP Services SAP support teams. HP includes both proactive and reactive support to ensure the highest availability of the solution. For proactive support, you are assigned a local HP engineer responsible for delivering an Account Support Plan, customized to fit your needs, and consisting of delivering updates to hardware firmware and operating system, regular system health checks, and setup of remote monitoring. For reactive support, HP delivers support from SAP HANA trained engineers in its mission-critical response center. This team is one of the most experienced teams in the industry for resolving issues with SAP in-memory appliances. With a connection to SAPs support operation, HP can take first call on any SAP HANA support issue. Based on this well established process, HP is able to deliver industry best support and minimize downtime for SAP in-memory solutions. Additional SAP HANA services from HP HP provides services to help you identify your strategy, quantifying the business opportunity, computing the ROI, and implementing an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA into your SAP landscape. These services were designed exclusively for SAP HANA, and include: The HP Business Intelligence Master Plan Service is an overarching BI strategy development service designed to assist you in the definition of a BI strategy and the design of a landscape to enable the realization of that strategy including a roadmap for implementation. The HP Impact Analysis for SAP HANA helps you understand the technical feasibility of introducing SAP HANA to meet real-time and high-volume data analysis requirements, and is highly recommended for each SAP HANA implementation. The HP Financial Assessment for SAP HANA provides granular information to support your decision process and is formatted to be suitable for use in supporting budgeting processes.
The HP Solution Assessment for SAP HANA is an engagement during which HP consultants will assess the existing information landscape in detail, identify data sets for use with SAP HANA, identify any gaps in the current environment and create a solution blueprint based on the findings. The HP Landscape Preparation Service for SAP HANA is designed to ensure that the surrounding solution landscape is in place and optimized in order to allow for the inclusion of the SAP HANA appliance and speed time-to-value of the SAP HANA solution. This includes the upgrade or installation of SAP and non-SAP components in the landscape. HP Fast Start Service includes required services that accompany the appliance to ensure the appliance is properly installed, database connections are made, and the replication and extract, transform, load (ETL) of data from the source systems have been tested and confirmed as fully functional. The HP Implementation Service for SAP HANA is a complete end-to-end SAP HANA implementation based on a solution blueprint designed by a team of HP consultants. HP consultants follow the HP Global Implementation Methodology for Business Intelligence for all SAP HANA implementation projects HP Migration Services SAP HANA Appliance Software Service Pack 3 supports the deployment of an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA as the database for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse. HP is offering a migration package for current SAP NetWeaver BW customers to assist in migrating from their existing database to an HP AppSystem for SAP HANA. This migration package includes complimentary phone assessment services, asset recovery services, financial services and migration services: On-site migration assessment workshops SAP NetWeaver BW upgrade service SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3 migration to a database built on SAP HANA SAP NetWeaver BW optimization for the SAP HANA database Customer success stories T-Mobile selected SAP HANA to help them address the challenge of tracking their customer promotions and offers in a timely manner. With SAP HANA, they could process POS data in real time to evaluate what offers were successful, and even micro-segment their customers for more effective real-time promotions. The challenge: T-Mobile had an extremely short timeline to get their SAP HANA solution up and running. They contacted HP and asked if we could get a HANA solution built, installed and implemented in less than 3 weeks. HP delivered. The T-Mobile requirements were captured and an SAP HANA system was sized and built in HPs SAP HANA factory. HP then integrated the hardware; loaded software, customer network and host settings; all delivered within 2 weeks. With HP Fast Start Service implementation, TMobile was loading data, testing the reporting use case scenario within the 3-week timeline requirement. The T-Mobile SAP HANA project is just one example of how customers can rely on HP to provide reliable, high-performance technology for SAP HANA, and the services required to design, build, implement, and support for a successful implementation. Contact information for inquiries For more information, visit www.hp.com/go/sap/hana or contact your HP sales representative.
the first vendor to have multi-node scale-out configurations and currently has 4-node x3690 X5 and x3950 X5 and 16 node x3950 X5 solutions validated. You can start with one 256GB node, upgrade to a 512GB node, and grow your environment to 16 nodes. This modular approach enables you to invest in a Workload-Optimized solution for SAP HANA and grow your infrastructure as your SAP HANA environment grows. In addition, you can handle unplanned outages by including an additional High-Availability (HA) node in your configuration. These multi-node scale-out configurations do not require an external Storage Area Network (SAN) or multiple SANs. The IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) software in these configurations has the unique capability to use the storage contained within each node helping to simplify the infrastructure required for SAP HANA. Only IBM has a High-Availability concept which allows customers to seamlessly extend their installation to enable High Availability using GPFS replication and an additional stand-by node. GPFS, with its high-performance enterprise file management, can help move beyond simply adding storage to optimizing data management for SAP HANA. High-performance enterprise file management using GPFS gives SAP HANA applications: Performance to satisfy the most demanding SAP HANA applications Seamless capacity expansion to handle the explosive growth of data SAP HANA environments High reliability and availability to help eliminate production outages and provide disruption-free maintenance and capacity upgrades Seamless capacity and performance scaling along with the proven reliability features and flexible architecture of GPFS help your company foster innovation by simplifying your environment and streamlining data workflows for increased efficiency for SAP HANA applications. IBM Intelligent Cluster integrated packaging and assembly can help speed installation and deployment of multi-node scale-out HA configurations as well as reduce implementation risk if you require all of your HANA server nodes preassembled and packaged in a rack. By implementing SAP HANA on eX5 enterprise servers with GPFS, you can realize faster performance, less complexity and greater efficiency from a powerful and proven converged infrastructure environment of integrated technologies. These workload-optimized solutions for SAP HANA can help simplify operations, consolidate resources and dynamically migrate functionality as business changes, while delivering the ability to quickly change the way users look at mass amounts of data without compromising data integrity or security. For more information about the IBM Systems solution for SAP HANA and the IBM System x Workload Optimized Solutions for SAP HANA, please read the IBM Redpaper: SAP In-Memory Computing on IBM eX5 Systems Services to speed deployment To help speed deployment and simplify maintenance of your x3690 X5 and x3950 X5: Workload Optimized Solution for SAP HANA, IBM Lab Services and IBM Global Technology Services offer quick-start services to help set up and configure the appliance and health-check services to ensure it continues to run optimally. In addition, IBM also offers skills and enablement services for administration and management of IBM eX5 enterprise servers. IBM offers Quick Start implementation services to help you install and configure your SAP HANA appliance and HealthCheck services to help you manage and maintain your SAP HANA appliance. IBM also offers skills enablement services to provide technical training to your teams that need to manage the HANA appliance. If you determine that you do not want to manage the SAP HANA appliance, then IBM offers a Managed Service that can provide 24x7 monitoring and management of the SAP HANA appliance. A trusted service partner Many clients require more than software and hardware products. They need a partner to help them assess their current capabilities, identify areas for improvement and develop a strategy for moving forward. This is where IBM Global Business Services (GBS) provides immeasurable value with thousands of SAP consultants in 80 countries. GBS combines its SAP implementation experience and skills with the broader IBM business intelligence competencies to create an unparalleled opportunity for our clients to not only implement SAP HANA solutions, but to then take that implementation to new heights and identify transformational opportunities. The GBS HANA team within IBM has leveraged the experiences gained to date on SAP HANA offerings and grouped efforts into two main opportunities for clients who wish to deploy SAP HANA Do New Things and Run Existing Things Faster. The GBS Consulting Practice offers a broad range of services for SAP HANA such as: Discovery and assessment services to maximize business impact Architecture assessment and benchmark services Proof of concept services Express deployment offerings, including industry best practices These services have been grouped into four key offerings as shown in the table below:
Combining the strengths of GBS with IBM System x Workload Optimized Solutions for SAP HANA allows our customers to gain the maximum benefits of their investment in SAP HANA and to bring those solutions to life to address immediate information needs and identify the transformational opportunities that can bring the organization to the highest levels of insight and action. IBM can also offer financing options helping clients to acquire IT solutions that are tailored to their individual goals and budget. For more information
To learn more about the IBM Systems and Services solutions for SAP HANA and IBM eX5 Workload Optimized Systems, please contact your IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit: www.ibm-sap.com/hana.
Support Infrastructure Virident FlashMax is a Storage Class Memory (SCM) solution that offers enterprises unconditional performance combined with the industrys highest storage capacity in the smallest footprint. FlashMAX has been designed from the ground up to fully exploit modern computer architectures, such as SAP HANA, which leverage many fast CPU cores and the PCI Express interconnect bus to deliver maximum application performance. It also offers supreme performance without compromise over the entire lifetime of the device, across all application workloads, even when the device is full or nearly full. The scale-up configurations of NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA leverage Virident FlashMax to implement Log volume backup which is a key component to achieving smooth collaboration with existing database tools. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is a fine-tuned and supported operating system based on fully open source technology towards the nature of SAP applications workload and its system lifecycle. Its priority support provides unlimited 24hx7d technical support from SUSE, and its extended support offers additional 18 months for package maintenance. It also maximizes system uptime with highly-selected package-updates; only packages that affect SAP system shall be upgraded. NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA uses SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, including its priority support. NEC has a lot of experience providing mission-critical grade support on Linux systems, and has contributed various kind of open source community including Linux kernel development. Through the long-standing partnership with SUSE, NEC provides mission-critical class support for SAP HANA. Additional software supported NEC ESMPRO/ServerManager is server management software that provides administrators a centralized view to manage or monitor distributed multiple nodes. It leverages EXPRESSSCOPE Engine SP2 of Express5800 servers and ESMPRO/ServerAgent installed on the system, to collect the runtime information of both hardware and software; which enables administrators to identify issues quickly if and when something should happen. Support and Additional Services Through the longstanding partnership with SAP and SUSE, NEC will offer mission-critical grade support service from hardware to applications, for the global market. NEC was one of the first distributors of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) solutions in Japan market, which is the front-end tool for visualization and analytics for SAP HANA, and NEC has experience supporting more than 500 installations with help of our sales, support and consulting organizations. In addition, NEC has established an evaluation team of SAP HANA to make the latest technology commercially available as soon as possible.
Support Service For more information, please contact NEC sales representative in your region.
Chapter 11
Introduction
So, youve decided to move forward with SAP HANA. Great! But how do you get started? SAP HANA is a new technology, so your organization may lack the in-house expertise to implement it on their own. Fortunately, whatever your situation, expert project planning, implementation, and development services are available that can help ensure that you get the maximum business value from SAP HANA, as quickly as possible.
The more attention you devote to planning your implementation, the more you will benefit from your SAP HANA investment. First and foremost, a good implementation partner should help you develop a comprehensive roadmap detailing how in-memory computing can help your company run at maximum speed and solve specific business problems. To accomplish these goals, that partner must ask the critical questions that mean the difference between success and failure and be able to answer these questions correctly. Although the specific questions will vary by engagement, you should start by identifying the right business use case for SAP HANA in your company. At SAP, we often distinguish between business intelligence and technology intelligence. The best technology in the world will not necessarily create value if it isnt aligned with the proper business scenario. Thus, the first question to consider is: Where can an in-memory solution create the most value for the least investment in the shortest timeframe, with the least disruption for business users? The answer to that question will help you align desires (what you want) and needs (what you actually need). At that point you can begin mapping the solution back to a technical landscape. Proper risk assessment is also crucial. Ask yourself: How can we realize the solution in the shortest time with the least risk? Does either SAP or its implementation partners offer any predefined services or application solutions that can help? What does the high-level project plan look like, and how well does it align with our business requirements and expectations? What personnel do we need to ensure successful planning and delivery?
Everyone Wants a Low-Cost, Rapid Implementation But How?
Once youve documented and received signoff on the planning phase, its time to identify the expertise and skill sets you need, whether internal or external (or both). The goal: an efficient, low-cost implementation that mitigates risk to both business and IT. Your solution partner should be able to offer a wide range of solution scenarios including end-to-end project implementation experience
coupled with a holistic delivery methodology. For many projects, prepackaged fixed-price offerings based on globally compiled best practices, such as SAP Rapid Deployment solutions, can accelerate deployment while limiting costs. Such solutions include preconfigured software, implementation services, content, and end user enablement that together can radically accelerate time to value delivering benefits in weeks rather than months.
What about Highly Complex Projects?
If your business problem is really complex for example, you need to manage large amounts of data, work with highly-customized systems, extend existing solutions, or build new solutions specific to your needs you may want to consider specialized services. If you choose this option, its especially important that you select a partner with deep knowledge and skilled resources, one who understands your unique issues and has a track record for delivering custom solutions that successfully address their clients needs.
Service Provider Selection Checklist
The right service provider for your project should be able to: ____ Ensure appropriate due diligence during planning ____ Build a bridge between business and technology ____ Contribute the necessary resources and skill sets ____ Validate the value attained from your investment ____ Ensure that your SAP HANA installation fits well into your overall IT landscape and architecture ____ Identify additional business benefits that might be gained with a SAP HANA installation ____ Execute completely on the selected strategy, on time and within budget ____ Ensure skill transfer to in-house stakeholders ____ Execute installation so as to reduce risk Weve just discussed the importance of selecting a qualified solution implementation partner. The next step is to determine how best to use SAP HANA within your current environment to deliver maximum value in your organization.
Shipping reporting Master data reporting These dashboards and reports leverage existing reporting capabilities from SAP ERP. However, they offload the physical processing of the reports to a dedicated SAP HANA system that sits beside the live SAP ERP system. All relevant tables for each dashboard or report are physically copied from the SAP ERP system onto the SAP HANA system, which is then used to generate the reports and display them to users in a variety of user interfaces. Lets review the key elements of each bundle.
Accelerated Sales & Distribution Reporting
The SAP HANA business content for Sales and Distribution (SD) enables sales managers and sales representatives to check basic key figures for sales in real time. Whereas sales managers use sales analytics to access instant overview information regarding the various performance indicators for their sales teams, the sales representatives focus on detailed information relating to the results of their sales activities.
The SAP HANA Financials content package provides the prerequisites for building reports that provide the following analysis data: Real-time analysis of the subledger for Accounts Payable (FI-AP) and Accounts Receivable (FI-AR) Flexible analysis of customer and vendor items based on the single line items from the back-end ERP system Calculation and analysis of the days sales outstanding (DSO) Note that currently only General Ledger Accounting (new) is supported.
The purchasing content package for SAP HANA enables procurement managers to analyze key procurement processes in real time. Procurement managers use spending key figures along different dimensions including Material Groups, Vendors, Plants, and Purchasing Organizations to gain instant insight into inefficiencies that may point to savings potentials or internal and external process improvements.
Accelerated Master Data Reporting
Master data are essential for nearly all business transactions, irrespective of the business area. The master data in this package concentrate on master data objects that are available in SAP ERP, such as material, customer, and vendor.
The SAP HANA content for Shipping enables shipping and warehouse managers to check basic shipping and stock key figures in real time.
Managers use shipping analytics to obtain instant information for planning and monitoring outbound delivery-related activities. In addition, the managers can get an up-to-date overview on materials stock at any time.
SAP HANA Accelerates Reports Imagine a long-running ABAP report within a particular business function, one thats been an ongoing problem for users. As a result of system latency, many reports could not provide real-time data analysis and therefore could not be used to make proactive business decisions. SAP HANA can reduce a reports run time from several hours to minutes or even seconds, making the information much more current and valuable.
Primary Database for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse In our third use case example, SAP BW is powered by SAP HANA. In this scenario a company replaces the previously underlying database for their SAP BW system with SAP HANA. The IT team can perform a standard DB migration over to SAP HANA and then enable specific objects to be in-memory optimized as necessary depending on the companys requirements. SAP BW is the first SAP application that was optimized to run with SAP HANA as its primary underlying database. With SAP HANA, SAP BW can leverage in-memory capabilities for improved performance, without the need for any sidecar accelerators or extensive modeling workarounds. The entire database physically sits under the SAP BW system, eliminating the need for in-memory aggregation. This arrangement simplifies the data modeling and query design, which in turn greatly enhances system performance while lowering IT ownership costs. Replacing an old database with SAP HANA generates speed and flexibility for two key reasons. First, keeping the entire database in memory eliminates the need to send large amounts of data between the application and DB servers, thereby reducing latency. In fact, running SAP BW on SAP HANA eliminates most of the problematic issues that slow down the system, from both a user and an administrator perspective.
Custom Applications for SAP HANA As stated earlier, SAP HANA is a full-blown, do-just-about-anything-you-want application platform. It speaks pure SQL, and it includes all of the most common APIs, so you can literally write any type of application you want on top of it. There are a few rules and guide rails that are designed to keep things from going wrong. Overall, however, the sky truly is the limit when it comes to imagining what to build with SAP HANA. Although SAP HANA is valuable for a broad range of applications, it shines particularly well in a few unique situations. If youre building an enterprise-scale application for a business scenario that has high data volumes, needs detailed/granular data analysis, needs to search or aggregate huge data volumes, requires complex algorithmic or statistical calculations, or suffers from latency between transactional recording and reporting, SAP HANA is a great choice. Future Use Case Scenarios As SAP HANA matures and SAP updates its portfolio of solutions to take advantage of the extensive horsepower of SAP HANA, you can expect to see nearly every SAP product supported natively on SAP HANA as a primary database plus many more native SAP HANA
applications. By now you should have a good understanding of how typical use cases take advantage of SAP HANA. The next step is to ensure that you understand the best ways to deploy this new technology in your environment to drive maximum value.
1. Customer education. Education is especially important for an SAP HANA project. The technology is new, so the relevant knowledge is not yet widespread. The technology is also rapidly evolving, with new use cases being created almost daily. Both the project team and the executive sponsors must be educated so they understand what SAP HANA can do and how it works. (Hint: Give them a copy of this book!) 2. Use case identification. Workshops can help determine where to apply the power of SAP HANA within the organization. Ask yourself: What are the possible scenarios for SAP HANA, and where might the company make improvements? Where could the technology have the biggest impact on corporate objectives or unlock deeper insights into the reported data? Once you have defined a use case, you should perform a comprehensive requirements gathering to ensure that the end solution addresses all of your companys needs and maps back to your original use case expectations. 3. Solution approach. The SAP HANA solution must be designed and documented so that if your personnel or solution partners change, the new resources will understand how to support the solution. Most likely, this will be an iterative process, looking closely at use cases and their supporting infrastructure. As new information becomes available, the solution approach will evolve into a comprehensive deliverable. 4. Modeling / Development A key task to implement your SAP HANA solution is creation of the data models and the different views to it. These models are adapted, modified, and enhanced to improve performance. For packaged applications this content is delivered by SAP, but can be adapted to your specific needs. Custom development projects will include both traditional application development and modeling aspects. 5. QA/testing. This is the final test of all front-end reporting, data quality, data integration, and performance. The production system is up and running, and business processes begin to operate in the new SAP HANA environment. Quality assurance continues, along with end-user training and support. 6. Go live. SAP HANA is delivered as a production solution.
Common Scoping Pitfalls to Avoid If changes are required for front-end reports or analytics, then expectations must be managed. Often, as a result of dependencies, even small changes to a report can have a large impact on underlying systems; for instance, a change to a field may require changing a data model.
Because of this factor, it is important to fully define requirements and to ask about any proposed report modifications. Reviewing the original form of a current report can be very helpful because you can see what the business user is accustomed to seeing, as well as how it might be improved. You should also perform a proper data decomposition to document how the current report is built and how it is working. In addition, identify any custom code within the business rules that may be difficult to replicate inside the SAP HANA modeler. Finally, map the sources from which the data are drawn, and how the data are imported into a formal deliverable for signoff. The right services partner can provide the needed level of due diligence in this area during planning.
After youve outlined a systematic approach to implementation, you need to identify the key timelines and activities for your SAP HANA implementation.
T he SAP ASAP methodology has been updated to incorporate the SAP HANA activities required for a standard in-memory project. Accelerators, best practices, and implementation tools have also been updated or developed to shorten the project timeline and reduce risk. Methodology, timelines, and key activities vary based on three considerations: Current technical landscape. Depending on the current landscape, the customer may have to consider prerequisites for delivering in-memory solutions. For example, data quality may need to be addressed, or the organization may first need to upgrade some applications that work in conjunction with SAP HANA. Expectations for in-memory functionality. As customers learn more about the capabilities of in-memory solutions, they may want to introduce additional functionality. It is important to manage this need and to consider it during the initial requirements phase. Original requirements per use case(s) identified during assessment. A key component of the successful delivery of SAP HANA is ensuring that the final solution meets the companys requirements and expectations, as identified in the original use case scenario. In addition to defining an implementation methodology, youll need to identify the key skills required to ensure your implementation of SAP HANA is a success.
results.
SAP Business Suite Accelerator at a Chemicals Company
Our first example is a European consumer chemicals company that specializes in developing new fragrances and flavors. Every one of its hundreds of new recipes each with unique ingredients and compositions must be checked for compliance with legal regulations. As the demand for these chemicals increased and their recipes became more complex, the company simply became unable to scale its compliance checking. To resolve this problem, the company collaborated with SAP to build an application that enables it to quickly check new recipes while they are still in development to ensure that they comply with a vast array of local legal regulations. Using SAP HANA to augment support of existing processes, we have demonstrated how the new application can cut processing time from 20 minutes to less than 4 seconds. This vastly improved performance enhances their scientists productivity while simultaneously driving down the costs of new product development.
Custom SAP HANA Application in Use at a University Hospital
With a mature analytics program in place, the biggest university hospital in Europe provides 150,000 inpatient and 600,000 outpatient treatments every year. The hospital invested in SAP HANA to harness the big data associated with its vast inventory of patient data, medical records, and study results and make a positive impact on patient care and healthcare research. For example, the hospital now uses SAP HANA Oncolyzer to search for and examine information involving cancer patients, such as tumor types, gender, age, risk factors, treatments, and diagnoses. This information enables the hospital to quickly identify the best candidates for each clinical study. In the future, when DNA is added to the data set, the Oncolyzer will analyze up to 500,000 data points per patient in real time. SAP HANA analyzes both structured and unstructured data and greatly accelerates the identification process.
Primary Database for SAP Business Warehouse in Use at a Financial Institution
A leading North American mortgage lender has successfully completed proof of concept, migrating a half-terabyte of data from a competitive database to the SAP HANA database and upgrading to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, powered by SAP HANA. The result has been a dramatic improvement in reporting runtimes in the data warehouse and business intelligence environments. Data query speeds have increased on average 8-12 times, simple queries run up to 450 times faster, and data store object activation is 19 times faster. Based on these impressive results, the customer is re-architecting its entire reporting environment to leverage the power of SAP HANA.
Vijay Vijayasankar Associate Partner IBM Global Business Services Twitter: @vijayasankarv 1. Find the best data modeler you can for your SAP HANA projects. That is the make-or-break issue for most SAP HANA projects. 2. Do not jump into a POC (Proof-of-Concept) just to prove loading/ reporting works faster in a data mart. SAP or IBM can easily show you how quickly their systems can report and load data. 3. Spend a lot of time refining your use case offline before you start the project. An important part of this step is to accurately define success up front. This helps reduce wasteful scoping efforts during the project, and it will help the project team focus on specific targets. 4. Size the hardware correctly. If you do not, then you will not see the expected results. Even if you want to scale out and buy new boxes, you should be aware that these boxes are not available off the shelf. Consequently, they will require some lead time to acquire. 5. Each HW vendor has some secret sauce on what makes them special for SAP HANA. Make sure you understand that before investing in HW. 6. Check SAP HANA performance under a variety of situations reporting performance while heavy loads happen, while multiple people are working on system, logging on from different parts of network, etc. 7. Engage closely with your SI (system integrator) and SAP while the project is going on. SAP HANA is fairly new, and it will probably need a few workarounds. Your SI and SAP will probably have seen your issues before, and they can advise you and help minimize time spent reinventing the wheel. 8. If you are going to migrate to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse on SAP HANA, test as you go when migrating objects to their inmemory versions so that you can spot challenges sooner. Definitely consider re-engineering the design of SAP BW to take advantage of SAP HANA and avoid doing only an en-masse migration and leaving it at that. 9. SAP HANA security/administration is a specialized skill, and a good design is needed to make it work for all your use cases consistently. Plan to spend time refining the model. 10. Last but not least poor data quality is even more damaging when the data come at you in lightning speed. Garbage In/Garbage Out still applies. Profile the data, and fix them at the source or as close to the source as possible before sending them to SAP HANA.
Harald Reiter Senior Manager SAP Deloitte Consulting Twitter: @hreiter 1. Rethink what is possible a. Revisit analytics that previously were not possible or were too difficult to perform. b. Processes can now actually change, be simplified, or be minimized because you dont need as big a staff to conduct the analysis. c. Eliminate the data volume and speed barriers from the equation, and focus on the real business needs. 2. Develop a roadmap a. Move from theory to reality real-time BI delivers true value. b. Make it dynamic to adapt quickly to new capabilities and integration options. c. Align business and IT goals. d. Be proactive to influence the product development, and make your voice heard to ensure timely delivery of new capabilities. 3. Pilot early a. Get used to rapid development cycles and capabilities. b. Dont get caught up in all the hype and excitement be pragmatic, and dont forget basic due diligence. Focus your efforts, define what is really important, achieve success, and build on that success iteratively. c. Dont try to throw all the data into the database just because you can. 4. Start with the hard stuff a. Be realistic dont assume you go through fewer cycles of data analysis to find the best answer (or question); you will be able to do the cycles faster, though. This allows you to change your assumptions, quickly run scenarios, and ask different questions to uncover anomalies in your data. b. Embed statistical models and predictive analysis into your daily operations to detect risk, negative trending, and anomalies. c. Make sure there is a measureable ROI 5. Establish priorities a. Define what you really want, and make certain your objectives have a positive impact on your organization b. Dont forget to look at unstructured data in your organization; these data can provide a new perspective. Incorporating unstructured data and rapid processing enables meaningful and timely analysis to minimize risk, losses, or negative exposure. c. Dont underestimate the importance of data quality. Revisit your data quality initiatives using SAP HANA to quickly identify issues that result from processing massive data sets in one pass. Correlation of results without complex partitioning and staging areas can uncover skewed results. 6. Begin cultivating talent a. Team composition is key for successful implementations. b. Dont forget about change management. Focus on changes for end users because they can be empowered to do agile reporting as well as on changes for administrative staff due to technology and implementation tools. c. Resources can now be assigned real value-added tasks instead of time-consuming administrative tasks just to obtain basic information. 7. Incorporate mobility a. Continuous monitoring of key metrics is a reality using mobility and SAP HANA 8. Revisit your technology architecture a. Examine your overall landscape, and identify all areas that can benefit from technology modernization. b. Understand the database operations capabilities of SAP HANA. c. Identify your must-have requirements, and address any shortcomings. d. Identify the best tool for each job. 9. Size right a. One size does not fit all b. Data composition and data source impact the compression rate and thus the sizing estimation. c. When in doubt, move up one T-shirt size. d. Scale-out capability mitigates the risk of not sizing correctly, but it should not be relied on. e. The quality of the data model impacts the available size for data versus workspace. 10. Establish metrics and plan for tuning and performance testing a. Dont forget about SLAs (service-level agreements). b. Tuning and performance testing can make the fast even faster. c. Reveal bad data model designs.
Vitaliy Rudnytskiy Lead BI Architect HP Enterprise Information Solutions Twitter: @Sygyzmundovych 1. Accept nothing less than excellence from your project team and partners a. Technology makes things faster, better, and cheaper; but technology itself is still just a tool. Make sure you assemble an excellent team: business, project team, partners, and SAP support. 2. Understand the technology a. If you are reading this book, you are already on the right track. 3. Think about details, but always consider them in the context of the big picture a. The devil is in the details, so think them through. At the same time, however, never lose sight of the complete picture of where all the details fit into. 4. Open your mind to the New World a. Question your old habits; forget about your 15 years of technical/project experience under the belt. Old techniques do not necessarily work well or at all with new paradigms. 5. Dont build the solutions for Go Live a. Your solution will live a long time after the go-live date and will need to accomodate new requirements, unexpected cases, and a surrounding environment that is in constant transition. Build for the long run.
9 Gard Little and Elaina Stergiades, IDC, Help Rethinking the Art of the Possible with SAP HANA Services, March 2012.
Chapter 12
Integrated Business Processes with ERP Systems (2011), Essentials of Business Processes and Information Systems (2009), Business Network Transformation: Strategies to Reconfigure Your Business Relationships for Competitive Advantage (2009) and SAP NetWeaver for Dummies (2004). Jeffrey has more than 18 years experience in IT strategy and business consulting working with Fortune 1000 companies. Over the last 13 years at SAP, he has worked on technology strategy with focus on corporate innovation initiatives and enterprise architecture design. Prior to joining SAP, he worked in the high tech industry for several hardware and software vendors throughout the Americas and Europe in a variety of leadership roles. Dr. Word earned his PhD in Information Systems at Manchester Business School in England. His research focus was on event-driven business process design and next-generation enterprise architecture. He also earned an MBA in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA in European Studies/Spanish from the University of Oklahoma.