The 6 Key Business Benefits of SAP HANA

SAP HANA is a relational database management system which carries special feature of in-memory data storage and column-oriented management which was marketed and developed by SAP SE. The main function of this system as the database server is to store and retrieve data as requested by application

SAP HANA, on the other hand, perform advanced analytic operations such as predictive analytical data, text analysis, spatial data analysis, streaming analysis, graph data analysis and even serves as an application server with ETL capabilities.

The key factor that separates HANA from its previous generations SAP systems is the in-memory and column-oriented database which sums the OLAP (online analytical programming system) and OLTP (online transaction processing system) into a single system, therefore SAP HANA is a OLTAP system.

The storage of data in main memory than on disk provides faster data access which in turn helps in faster querying and processing, which in-turn is more performance advantageous but costly form of data storage.

Upon analyzing data access patterns it is observed that almost 85% of data in an enterprise system may not be used and accessed frequently, it may be cost-effective to store rest 15% data in-memory and while less frequently accessed data is stored on a disk which is an approach SAP have termed as dynamic termed as dynamic tiering.

SAP HANA follows column-oriented system rather than row-oriented systems which make storing of all data of single column at one place rather than storing all data of single row at single place, this technique is useful in OLTP where vertical compression which makes storing of large similar type of data as in most common in operation management in Wal-Mart’s and megastores. SAP HANA system is more grounded towards understanding trends and creating query makes inserting of day to day data easy.

Whereas row oriented system is favored traditionally for OLTP systems, whereas in-memory storage technique helps in developing hybrid systems for both OLAP and OLTP and thus creating a system where the separate need of a system to maintain both OLTP and OLAP operations.

Indexer components

The index server is equipped with performing session management, authorization of any object and transaction management along with command processing.

The database management system has both a row store and a columnar store through which users can create tables using either store. The columnar store has more capabilities and features so is most frequently used.

1. Performance

S/4 HANA is the SAP HANA flagship program. The speed of S/4HANA lets achieve maximum benefits with its data, as for instance, finance team can run multiple jobs without waiting for one to complete. The jobs can be run as many times to get refined results. S/4HANA allows one to experience top-notch performance as complex and time-driven business such as execution, reporting, real-time planning and various analytics of live data as well as improved forecasting and prompt period closing. The main benefit of it is to provide a customer-centric application.

2. Efficiency

The user interface is completely driven by SAP Fiori which is SAP HANA backed, therefore it makes a user-friendly version of real-time business insight and data on any device brings it a credible business advantage over anytime and anywhere. The use of Fiori SAP as the new leads to improved productivity. The advantage available across SAP S/4HANA and SAP SoH HANA provides several transactions using a single app and transactions are proceed with fewer clicks and screen fill out can be customized to get enhanced user experience

3. Optimum data management

The operation monitoring cost can be greatly reduced with the usage of SAP HANA. This helps in avoiding data delays which can bring the question to organization data reliability. Through SAP HANA  business tools an organization can directly report from their ERP databases. SAP HANA helps to make quicker decisions through enhanced visibility by SAP HANA Live help organizations. Users, in general, can create as necessary queries to extract any data as necessary which is limited for non-HANA database users.

4. Simplification

Simplification is a benefit that can be more directly linked with SAP HANA. This is particularly important since it reduces issues with the settlement and in its place promote one source of truth. FI- and CO-related dealings are saved as a single line item; this improves the reliability of the data across functions. SAP HANA brings vital simplicity to the management and administration of the complete IT landscape and attached with the cloud adoption potential that it brings to the front, hardware and network sources have never been so centralized.

5. Ownership management

The selection of SAP HANA is a cost-friendly option when you think the fact that you are able to join all the analytical and transactional capability of diverse systems into a single source of truth which drives sensitive and down to business making. The benefits of Cross-functional transparency comes as a beneficiary of SAP HANA so it enables a reliable and dependable workflow. The potential to access information in various system areas and work cross-functionally helps further the real-time insights and analytics into the data across the organization.

6. Innovation

SAP HANA is one of the commodity from SAP that is driving cloud adoption by businesses through cloud-based modeling. The cloud offers a platform for different software vendors to offer magnificent products that sum up and extend the ability of HANA.

The decision cannot be made lightly among traditional SAP ERP solutions as SAP comes from the leading ground of conducting business in today’s fundamentally challenging  and critical environment.

SAP HANA is one of the revolutionary database systems that has completely revolutionized database management through its simplified operations and monitoring with the integration of basic HANA administration capability with the BW Admin. The transformation in such database management has simplified existing models of modeling and remodeling through oversimplification of maintenance, hardware, and testing.

SAP HANA has arisen with its real-time replication service which can be used to access and replicate data from SAP ERP that will be in turn beneficial to the user. The great advantage here is that all data models are purely virtual and calculate results based on the underlying detailed operational data as asked and mentioned in the query so, in turn, to help the user to take strong decisions regarding his business.

SAP HANA aims at delivering real-time results as its all in-memory and all data resides in its RAM that increases the overall output performance of the business. As SAP HANA aims at empowering CEO all the required DATA about his business which makes him self-sufficient to take follow up on any Query without consulting the CTO of his company.

The most important fact that makes SAP HANA productive for business is the database speed of HANA which is about 3600 times faster compared to any traditional database. In other words, it can compute 50 terabytes of data in mere 0.04 seconds!!

SAP HANA is built in such a way that size of the business doesn’t matter as there are packagings of HANA for every business.

SAP HANA has advanced analytics processing by leveraging in-memory data processing capabilities –text, predictive, spatial, graph, streaming, and time series and you can get answers to any business question to take smart decision for your business.

SAP HANA helps in developing next-generation apps. Such apps can combine analytics and transactions and deploy them on any device as desired by the CEO. It helps in taking advantage of best-in-class tools and delivers a personalized experience with the right amount of data at the right time for the users.

SAP HANA makes your data more secure as they have increased native data encryption which includes all the data including log backups and redo logs. Additionally one can enable dynamic data masking to ensure that unauthorized users can only see the obfuscated version of sensitive data.

The system of SAP HANA aims at making the user experience as simple as possible to manage their IT landscape and reducing administrative efforts and to ensure that different workloads get appropriate resources.

Finally, SAP HANA has made it easier for one to adopt new software versions by building on top of the workload capture and replay capabilities introduced in SAP HANA as one can now capture, compare, and analyze multiple workload replays, perform in-depth SQL analysis and significantly lower the time and cost of tuning SAP HANA environments.

The predictive analysis of SAP HANA can be accelerated to by a great deal and in-database algorithms can be delivered right to the box which means users can adopt models very fast.

Through consolidation of Total Cost Ownership, one can minimize heterogeneous servers into SAP HANA servers. This is achieved by minimizing maintenance, lifecycle management, and hardware. Users can benefit greatly from the SAP HANA platform by tapping into the immense power of hardware available coupled with highly advanced capabilities like Data Virtualization, Spatial Processing, Text Analytics, and even predictive capabilities on the very same architecture. This refers to a single database and environment.

Conclusion

SAP HANA offers a highly advanced data platform, which permits faster data access utilizing any column as the index, and also by having only the relevant columns accessed through the encoded column store. Highly efficient compression is made possible through columnar data storage, which is especially applicable for the sorted columns. SAP HANA uses high-efficiency compression methods like run-length encoding, dictionary coding, and cluster coding.

That’s all for today. If you’re interested to read more blogs on this topic, feel free to visit our website. At ZaranTech, we also offer a self-paced, online certification program on SAP HANA,  mentored by some of the sought-after and experienced subject matter experts. Browse through our course pages for further information.

Happy learning!