SAP HANA, the latest software release of SAP SE, is a column-oriented RDBMS that has been developed by SAP. SAP HANA does the important job of storing information that can be retrieved on demand as a database server. Various SAP applications can retrieve the necessary data when required using SAP HANA. Apart from behaving as a relational database management system predominantly, SAP HANA also dabbles in the field of advanced analytics such as predictive analysis, text analytics, text search, streaming analytics, graph data processing, and spatial data processing, and provides ETL (extract, transform, and load) services. SAP HANA also has an application server which is a server environment that endorses web applications. The benefit of SAP HANA is that it facilitates implementation of the in-memory database on-premises (in the company) and on the cloud.
Database and Platform in SAP HANA
- SAP HANA Platform- The customers can use SAP HANA’s in-memory database for analysing large volumes of data in real-time. It is a development platform that can be used by customers to write business applications which provide high performance and efficient results. The business applications are written using SAP HANA Extended Services (XS).
- SAP HANA Database- It is an in-memory database that is hybrid in nature, and it is considered to be the pivotal organ of the in-memory that has been developed by SAP.
The various editions of SAP HANA
- SAP HANA Enterprise Edition- This edition of SAP includes the data provisioning component (SLT, BODS, DXC) which also has core database technology. Customers who wish to opt for ETL-based replication or trigger-based replication must use the enterprise edition. People who don’t possess the necessary SAP Business Objects Data Services license can use this edition.
- SAP HANA Platform Edition- This edition is a crucial SAP HANA edition because it provides the core database technology. The benefit of this edition is that it can be easily integrated with SAP HANA database, SAP HANA Studio, and SAP HANA clients. Clients and customers that already possess the SAP Business Objects Data Services license and wish to use ETL-based replication can use SAP HANA platform edition.
- SAP HANA Extended Edition- The proportion of data provisioning (Sybase) features that are present in SAP HANA Extended Edition are more than SAP HANA Enterprise Edition and SAP HANA Platform Edition.
The in-memory database feature
- The SUSE Linux server is used to run all the processes that SAP HANA requires. The server is responsible for memory-reservation to all the processes that run on it.
- During the waking up mode of the SAP HANA program, memory is assigned to the program code, program stack, and static data. It is possible that the OS may require additional resources, and hence it has the power to dynamically reserve additional data.
- The memory that is consumed is monitored by the memory pool that is managed and tracked by SAP HANA.
- The memory pool stores all the efforts of the client in the form of in-memory data, data tables, system tables, thread stacks, and temporary computations. This structure helps in maintaining the database.
