What is SAP HANA? A Quick Understanding and introduction

Before going into deep, first thing we need to  know is the from where SAP HANA come from. Let us talk about 'What is SAP HANA' and "What HANA stands for". 

What HANA Stand for in SAP HANA and why so?    

Let us go back to the history of development of this system. The first major demonstration of the platform was in 2008. Teams from SAP SE, the Hasso Plattner Institute and Stanford University demonstrated an application architecture for real-time analytics and aggregation called HYRISE. Former SAP SE executive, Vishal Sikka, mentioned this architecture as "Hasso's New Architecture" (HANA), that's how this application known as SAP HANA.

What is SAP HANA?

SAP HANA is a full in-memory and parallel ACID compliant database, that takes advantage of large main memories and massive parallel processing on multi-core CPU’s. It is used to handle almost all the diverse workloads such as analytical (OLAP) and transactional (OLTP), structured and unstructured or simple and complex data in a single instance.

Why did SAP build a database?

SAP HANA is a realization of Hasso Plattner’s idea of a single in-memory columnar database for analytical (OLAP) and transactional (OLTP) workloads. Hasso believed that if a database could be built with a zero response time, that business applications would be written fundamentally differently – and IT landscapes could be simplified.

What makes SAP HANA fundamentally different?

1. HANA leverages the modern hardware technology . It uses large main memories and massive parallel processing on multi-core CPU’s. Due to this, the access speed increases and response time decreases.
2. It stores all data in-memory and in a columnar format (via encoding). Though, it is both row and column stored. Due to columnar structure many of the transactions like aggregations become quite fast. And, this can reduce the database footprint by 95%.
3. All the operations are carried on demand , in the memory. This makes it possible to run OLTP and analytics applications in a single instance.
4. Apart from this, HANA also has certain mechanisms like delta storage and row-level insert and update performance.
5. Also, SAP HANA has added bunch of functionalities like data virtualization, search, text analysis, geospatial etc.

What are the benefits of SAP HANA?

• Handle large number of DATA

With SAP HANA your organization is much better equipped to handle, and even go beyond, the Big Data trend. Not only will you be able to process a far greater volume of data, but, thanks to changes in the way it’s stored and accessed, you’ll also be able to make use of a much wider range of data.

• Real-time Analytics

In-memory technology means you’ll waste no time loading data from one location to another, and we’ve seen basic HANA setups process data up to 10-times faster. This drastically reduces the amount of time needed to perform even the most comprehensive of reports.

• Scalable Solutions

One of the best benefits of migrating to SAP HANA is that, when your needs increase and your business grows, you can very easily increase the size of your HANA solution.

Where is SAP HANA used?

1. Optimizing business operations
2. Operational Reports , Dashboards and analytics
3. Real-time operational intelligence
4. Data Warehouse and Data mart
5. Big Data
6. Decision Support, Simulation and Automation.

Is SAP HANA just a database?

NO. SAP HANA was designed to be a modern database but it’s actually a database and a platform that can be deployed on-premise and on cloud.

Here, I tried to cover most of the topic related to SAP HANA that may help you to get some insight of it. Please let me know your view on this in the comment section.

Thanks for your valuable time and reading..