Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
What's more, SAP (the software) has always had to rely on third-party database software
for the underlying data storage. SAP (the company) has had to field untold support calls
from customers dissatisfied with the performance of the ERP and BW software, where the
performance problems were largely a result of the shortcomings of the database software
itself. It is to address this problem that SAP has released SAP HANA.
SAP HANA is SAP's vision of in-memory computing. Based upon several existing technologies,
SAP HANA is a database system, designed to greatly speed up database accesses when reading
data, while not slowing data insertion. In several real-world scenarios, SAP has managed to show
speedup of more than 10 orders of magnitude, compared to previously recorded performance
figures on legacy database systems. Many clients who have implemented SAP HANA have
managed to achieve speedups of between 5 and 7 orders of magnitude—of course, the achieved
increased speed depends on several factors, including the state of the original system, the time
and effort spent transferring it to SAP HANA, and the workload. If the original system was not
well designed, and the transfer to SAP HANA used as an opportunity to rework the data model,
then the improvements would be greater.
HANA doesn't actually mean anything, but some people have coined the phrase
High
performance ANalytical Appliance
, and as this name suggests, it is not just some software you
can install. The SAP HANA system comprises both the software and the hardware necessary
to function. By selling SAP HANA as a complete system of its own SAP HANA database on
certified hardware supplied by partners such as IBM, HP, and Dell, SAP can guarantee some
level of performance (and avoid support calls from clients who aren't getting the performance
level they think they should be getting).
SAP HANA architecture
The two main parts of the SAP HANA server system are the hardware and the software.
On the client side, SAP provides the SAP HANA Studio which allows application modeling.
For data reporting on a SAP HANA system, SAP's
BusinessObjects
software can connect natively
to SAP HANA, and reporting can be done in any other program that can create and consume
MDX queries (such as Microsoft Excel pivot tables), which SAP HANA supports natively.
This topic will not go into any detail regarding the reporting software on top of SAP HANA,
except to show simple Excel integration—the topic of reporting is too vast for the scope of this
topic, and it is covered more than adequately elsewhere.
The following diagram is an overview (provided by SAP) of the SAP HANA system architecture,
showing clearly the different components and integration between them:
