9/17/2015 SAP HANA from Space Level | SAP Yard

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SAP HANA from Space LevelTOPICS: Columnar Storage Eclipse

In Memory Database Persistent Storage

SAP HANA Studio

POSTED BY: SAP YARD SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

HANA the “Hot cake” of the market. I have beenhearing about HANA since the beginning of thisdecade or even earlier. Initially I thought it was just anew database, so why the fuss? My crooked mind usedto say: may be SAP does not want to share the marketrevenue with any other database provider

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(competitors); therefore they came up with their owndatabase. Pat SAP for Smart Business Acumen.

Later I had a notion that HANA is only for BI/BW folks,so being an ABAPer – why should I care? Everyoneused to talk about analysis and modelling. So, I usedto think, let the BI/BW modelers worry about HANA.

Then the rumour started in market; ABAP and ABAPerare going to be extinct in near future. I used to wonder,if ABAPer are going to die, then who in this wholeuniverse would support those tons and tons of ABAPcode written in the history of SAP Implementations?What will happen to all those time, effort and moneyspent in those large and small scales SAPImplementations? What a waste of rumour!!

I have spent more time is researching what is HANAthan actually learning what HANA actually is. Internetis full of information regarding HANA but finding theright answers for your curiosity or doubt, is an uphilltask.

I had some silly questions for HANA but felt a littleembarrassed to ask the experts. I spent and wastedlots of time trying to figure out what is HANA andwho needs it and why?

Some of the questions which I had and I am sure allnovice in HANA would have the same are below:Q. Is SQL a pre-requisite to learn HANA?Q. Without SAP BI/BW/BO knowledge, can I learnHANA?Q. Is SAP ABAP skilled required to learn HANA?Q. Is HANA for functional folk or technical folks

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or modelers?

Please find answers to these SAP HANA doubts from abeginner in HANA to another beginner in HANA.They might not be very technical or in-depth, but itwould definitely be enough for a beginner and I amsure the new comers would appreciate these selectiveinformation.

Q. Is SQL a pre-requisite to learn HANA? (Being anABAPer, this was one of the most feared question forme)Ans: No.SAP HANA is like any other relational database.Having Database Concepts and basic knowledge of SQLbefore starting SAP HANA is an advantage, but it is nota pre-requisite. You can always catch up with theseconcepts while learning SAP HANA.

Q. Without SAP BI/BW/BO knowledge, can I learnHANA? (I am sure all ABAPers have this question)Ans: Yes.BI is the Data Warehousing package implementationtool from SAP. Data Warehousing Concepts in SAP BIwill help understand the implementation aspectsfrom BW on HANA perspective. But unless you plan toa BW on HANA consultant, you necessarily do not haveto learn BI.

Similarly BW and BO are Business Warehouse andBusiness Object respectively. If you have prior BWexperience, understanding modeling concept andtransferring data SAP Business Suite System to HANAwould be child’s play for you. But, we can easily learnHANA modeling concept even if we do not havecurrent exposure to BW. But it would be a must forthose consultants who are eyeing the role of BW onHANA expert.

By now, I have understood that BO is a front end

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reporting tool. Prior knowledge in reporting toolswould be an advantage but, we can always learn BOconcepts while learning HANA.

But, if you already have BI/BW/BO knowledge, thenBW on HANA work would be the role you would betargeting to (if you are planning to shift to HANA).

Q. Is SAP ABAP skilled required to learn HANA?Ans: No.Whatever we said above for BI/BW/BO is applicable toABAP as well.

If you are an SAP ABAP programmer, thenimplementing the business logic and model would befun for you. You must have already heard about SAPABAP on HANA. Let’s put a full stop to the rumour thatABAPer are vanishing. With HANA, ABAPer would besmarter and more in demand. Only ABAP on HANAconsultant would need ABAP knowledge as pre-requisite.

Q. Is HANA for functional folk or technical folksor modelers?Ans: All.

Like any other technology, HANA also has segregation ofduty, therefore the answer to this question is‘ALL’. Some of the HANA job roles are as below:i) HANA Admin and SecurityOur current SAP Basis/Security/GRC guys would be thenearest cousins of HANA Admin and Security folks.

ii) HANA Data ReplicatorLike in normal SAP Implementation project we haveConversion and Interface team and experts, the HANAData Replication role would be similar to that. SAPBI/BO guys are the closest. They will use jargons likeSLT, BODS, DXC etc.SLT = SAP Landscape Transformation

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BODS = Business Objects Data ServicesDXC = Direct eXtractor Connection

iii) HANA ModelerSAP BW gurus are already modeling, so will SAP HANAModelers.

iv) HANA Application DeveloperHANA XS or ABAP on HANA Developers.

Also Read: ‘ABAP for SAP HANA’, points toremember.

Further, I had some other curious questions, a little moretechnical like:

Q. HANA means in-memory. In-memory meansRAM. We all know, RAM is volatile temporarymemory. Does it mean all data would be lost whenpower goes down, or there is reboot etc i.e. ifthere is a hard or soft failure?Ans: No. SAP must have thought this even beforethey started the development. (I cannot be smarterthan SAP)Data is stored in RAM, that is right. But on powerfailure for any reason, data is not lost. Here comes theconcept of Persistent Storage.

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Transaction data is updated to Log Volume on everycommit. Data is saved to Data Volume every 300 secor as configured. These create savepoints.

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In case of reboot or power start up, system can betaken back to last consistent save point and then replaythe Log Volume committed data.

Q. SAP HANA claims to be so fast. Whichprogramming language is it written in?Ans: World famous C++.

Q. What is the Operating System of SAP HANA?Ans: Suse Linux Server SPX & Red Hat linuxServer 6.5

Q. Another question which I always had was, ifHANA is about RAM, so can we increase thememory size of traditional database and getsimilar performance like HANA?Ans: No.We would definitely get better performance if weincrease the memory size of traditional database, butit would not be comparable to what we get in HANA.But Why?

Because, HANA is not just about database. It is ahybrid in-memory database which is combination ofniche Hardware and Software innovation as statedbelow:

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In-Memory storage (RAM): Processing data fromRAM itself is 1 million time faster than accessing datafrom hard disk. In practical scenarios, it might isaround 10x to 3600x time faster. Also, in today’sworld RAM is cheap and affordable expense wise.

Trivia: Read time in RAM: 2 MB/ms/core (2 megabyteper millisecond per core).

So to scan 1 GB of data, it would approximately take 0.5s/core. For 100 GB it would take 50 s/core. If you have 50cores in the hardware, scanning 100 GB data would takejust 1 second. Huh!! Quantitative numbers alwaysclarifies better than paragraphs of sentences. Isn’t it?

Multi core Architecture, Partitioning & EnormousParallel Processing: Servers are available with onenode up to 64 cores (and even more). So partitioningthe data foot prints in different node and running thequery parallel is the innovation which HANA uses soeffectively. This is perfect example of both hardware andsoftware innovation.

Columnar Storage: Contiguous memory allocationFaster reading with sequential memory access.Remember, column store not only makes readingfaster. HANA has built the column store is such a way

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that it is efficient for both READ and WRITE.

Quick aggregation (normally aggregation areexpensive) and also supports parallel processing.

Searching in column store is must faster than rowstorage (provided you are selecting only some sets ofcolumns, not all).

Data Compression: Minimize data footprint throughCompression i.e. less data movement means fasterperformance.Idea is remove repetitive data, build a vector for thedata and point it with an integer (and integer is lessexpensive than reading a string).

Q. Ok heard enough of Column Store in HANA.But, how does Column Storage actually make itfaster?Ans: Column store is divided into three parts: i) Mainii) L2 Delta iii) L1 Delta/cachePersisted data are saved in Main Memory, all bufferand transaction changes are kept in L2 Delta andHigh Inserts / Deletes / Updates etc in L1 Delta

L1-delta– accepts all incoming data requests– stores records in row format (write-optimized)• fast insert and delete• fast field update

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• fast record projection– no data compression– holds 10,000 to 100,000 rows per single-node

L2-delta– the second stage of the record life cycle– stores records in column format– dictionary encoding for better memory usage– unsorted dictionary• requiring secondary index structures to optimallysupport point query access patterns– well suited to store up to 10 million rows

Main– final data format– stores records in column format– highest compression rate• sorted dictionary• positions in dictionary stored in a bit-packed

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manner• the dictionary is also compressed

So the smart innovation of L1, L2 and Main memoryand combination of all three, make data read andwrite, really fast and effective.

These are some of the obvious questions, which almostall beginners in SAP HANA have. I had to dig throughdifferent sources to collect and understand theseconcepts. Hope all these information at one place wouldhelp you to understand it better.

Please stay tuned for more on HANA. In the next post, Iwould show you how you can get free access to SAPHANA Cloud Platform. Yes, it is free!! I have alreadylogged into it and making my hands dirty on it. I amplaying it using Eclipse Studio. I will show in details howyou can easily set it up.

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Thank you very much for your time!!

 

Series on SAP HANA

1. SAP HANA from Space Level

2. ‘ABAP for SAP HANA’ Points to remember

to be updated..

 

 

Image source : www.nasa.gov (modified)

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7 COMMENTS ON "SAP HANA FROM SPACE LEVEL"

Previous post

Thank you so much for your info

You are welcome Suresh.Hope the post was informative anduseful.

Regards,Raju.

Very good information on the HANA basicconcepts…Thanks a lot

Suresh | September 16, 2015 at 3:43am | Reply

SAP Yard | September 16, 2015at 3:47 am | Reply

Santosh | September 16, 2015 at 6:35am | Reply

SAP Yard | September 16, 2015at 1:45 pm | Reply

9/17/2015 SAP HANA from Space Level | SAP Yard

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Thanks Santosh.. Glad you found thepost useful.

Regards,Raju

How can I get into the HAna studio for free?And all relevant objects.Thanks Nick

Dear Nick – Thank you foryour question. I have downloaded theeclipse and created HANA Cloudplatform account for free. I am draftinga post on how to get it done in details. Iwill publish it as soon as it is complete.Please stay tuned.

I will let you know, as soon as I am donewith it.

Thanks.Regards,Raju.

Nick SCHERER | September 16, 2015 at6:49 pm | Reply

SAP Yard | September 16, 2015at 6:56 pm | Reply

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Very informative. Thanks for sharing.!!

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Srini | September 16, 2015 at 7:36 pm |Reply