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SAP HANA FAQ A dozen answers to the top questions IT pros typically have about SAP HANA ? ? ? ?

SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

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Page 1: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

SAP HANA FAQ A dozen answers to the top questionsIT pros typically have about SAP HANA

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Page 2: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

They know that the data collected about the business, its customers and even its competitors is a virtual gold mine of information. The question is, once you’ve collected it, how do you mine that data to gather the relevant information your company needs and have it available the moment your executives need it?

Company leaders are focused on better, faster decision making, and they need fast access to meaningful data to help them do that. Line of business managers need to make on-the-fly sales adjustments and enable real-time interactions with suppliers, customers and colleagues.

In short, today’s businesses need the kind of in-depth, meaningful data that it once took hours to capture in just seconds—or even fractions of a second. Executives want fingertip access to business-critical information at what is essentially the speed of thought—on any device, anywhere, anytime. They want to be able to plan and forecast with the assurance that their business decisions are based on current, in-depth analyses. And they want you—their IT department—to make all that possible in a way that is economically feasible and seamless to the organization.

SAP HANA may be the answer. But we know you have questions—probably dozens of them. To help you get started, Logicalis has put together the top 12 frequently asked questions about SAP HANA and their answers.

If there’s one thing that CEOs, CFOs, CMOs and CIOs agree on, it’s the importance of collecting data.

What is SAP HANA?

SAP HANA is an in-memory database technology that leverages the low cost of computer server memory (RAM), the data processing abilities of multi-core processors, and the fast data access of solid-state drives to deliver better performance of analytical and transactional applications.

Overview

Page 3: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

The “HANA” acronym stands for High-Performance Analytical Appliance. SAP HANA is an innovative in-memory database technology that leverages the low cost of computer server memory (RAM), the data processing abilities of multi-core processors, and the fast data access of solid-state drives to deliver better performance of analytical and transactional applications.

SAP HANA supports relational data, semi-structured and unstructured data management within the same system.

One of the most impressive features of HANA is its ability to reduce the analysis of billions of data records, a process that previously took hours to complete, to mere seconds or even fractions of a second.

What is SAP HANA?Question 1:

Page 4: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

In-memory computing is a technology that allows the processing of massive quantities of data in main memory to provide immediate results from analysis and transaction. The data to be processed is ideally real-time data that is available for processing or analysis immediately after it is created.

What is in-memory computing? Question 2:

Page 5: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 3:Who should consider SAP HANA?

There are many customers for whom HANA should be a consideration, including:

Customers who have SAP ERP installed already. While the majority of opportunities Logicalis has seen so far have been with businesses that use SAP ERP applications, SAP notes that HANA is also a solid choice for companies using ERP applications other than SAP.

Customers whose reports or analytic applications simply run too slowly to provide optimal business benefits, and for whom a 5X to 1000X performance improvement would be material to their business

Customers experiencing unacceptable downtimes where the client’s data warehouse is not available due to the need to load data

Customers reporting a need to see current, up-to-the-moment data

Customers who have a frequent need to create new reports or analytical applications, but whose IT struggles to maintain the business warehouse and keep it performing under changing user demands

Customers who say they are happy with their business warehouse or ERP solution, but who have a few reports that run in hours instead of seconds

Customers whose IT can’t respond quickly enough to user requests, the system is offline during the business day in one of their regions, or the data in the warehouse is “stale”

Page 6: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

SAP HANA uses a “hybrid structure” that enables it to process both transactional workloads and analytical workloads fully in-memory.

This means that organizations no longer need to spend time loading data from transactional databases into a reporting database, or even build traditional tuning structures to enable that reporting. Instead, with SAP HANA, as transactions are happening, organizations are able to report against them live.

By consolidating two database landscapes (OLAP and OLTP) into a single database, SAP HANA provides organizations with significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) at real-time speeds.

How does SAP HANA work? Question 4:

“In barely two years, SAP HANA has gone from an ambitious design to a major force in the IT world. SAP investments in architecture and technology—and in creating an ecosystem of applications, skills and third-party support—have encouraged rapid adoption worldwide.”

— International Technology Group “Cost/Benefit Case for SAP HANA

Deployment” — February 2013

Page 7: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

The key difference between SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA) and SAP HANA is that BWA offers near real-time access to data, while HANA offers real-time access to data.

For customers who don’t need the speed an SAP HANA solution offers, BWA may be a solid choice for speeding their queries. With BWA, only a subset of the data can be accelerated at any given time, yet query responses have improved for some customers from hours to minutes with BWA.

With HANA, all data is held in memory, making reports run even faster, though at an additional cost.

How does HANA differ from BWA? Question 5:

With HANA, all

data is held in

memory, making

reports run even

faster, though at an

additional cost.

Page 8: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 6:What does a typical HANA configuration look like?

A typical SAP HANA Appliance consists of three parts:

Page 9: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

There are a number of SAP HANA appliances available through Logicalis from leading vendors like HP, IBM and Cisco in a range of sizes from extra small to extra large that will meet clients’ unique needs and budgets.

These solutions are “fit-for-purpose” appliances as opposed to one-size-fits-all, and can best be described through a t-shirt-like sizing approach.

Does HANA come in different sizes? Question 7:

Page 10: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 8:Is SAP HANA appropriate only for existing SAP BWA customers?

While HANA presents a logical transition for SAP BWA customers, previous SAP implementations are not the only route to a HANA deployment.

Both SAP and non-SAP applications customers can take advantage of HANA, and a HANA deployment can reside side by side with an existing ERP or non-SAP data warehouse.

It is best to seek advice from a solution provider experienced in SAP HANA implementations to help you choose the right size and flavor of HANA for your specific needs.

Page 11: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 9:What is a HANA appliance?

While the SAP HANA database accelerator is marketed as an “in-memory” solution, it requires dedicated, special-purpose servers and storage to hold a view of the data for persistence and high availability.

These SAP HANA hardware appliances are available from several leading vendors, including IBM, HP and Cisco.

Page 12: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 10:What does HANA cost?

The price is determined based on a number of factors, including the amount of data to be loaded/stored in an SAP HANA appliance and the number of users accessing that data.

Contact a Logicalis HANA expert at 866-456-4422 for pricing information specific to your company’s potential usage.

Page 13: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 11:Is SAP HANA available as a mobile solution?

Being able to perform dramatically faster business analytics loses its effectiveness if you have to drive to headquarters to act on the analysis.

SAP HANA is never going to run on your tablet, but a disciplined mobility strategy

can ensure that the insights SAP HANA helps you uncover are immediately available to key personnel wherever they are on the device of their choice.

Page 14: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Question 12:

Additionally, in cooperation with select partners, Logicalis can provide the ongoing managed services needed to ensure long-term success for your SAP HANA or BWA project.

What is Logicalis’ value-add? A significant number of Logicalis’ clients are SAP ERP users who’ve turned to Logicalis for our in-depth infrastructure skills and experience to guide them through these technically advanced implementations.

The skills and experience Logicalis has built in the SAP arena have enabled us to develop an SAP practice well positioned to fully engage with the many users who are planning SAP HANA and BWA projects today.

We can help you determine how your BWA solution or HANA appliance should be sized and designed, architect the right disaster recovery and high availability solution for your specific environment, and guide you through the implementation phase of your SAP or BWA project.

Additionally, in cooperation with select partners, Logicalis can provide the ongoing managed services needed to ensure long-term success for your SAP HANA or BWA project.

Page 15: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

What’s the next step?While our FAQ is a good starting point, we know you’re sure to have dozens more questions. What’s next?

Talk to us. Taking the next step doesn’t commit you to anything more than a phone conversation. Call us and let our expert solution architects answer your questions, assess your situation and tell you what they think will work best for your company. This won’t be salesy, it won’t commit you to anything, and there’s no charge for just asking questions. Get the information you need with a simple call to Logicalis.

Let us come to you. Logicalis has a FREE workshop that we’ve designed to get to the heart of your toughest questions about SAP HANA, and to help you determine if HANA, BWA or another business intelligence solution will work best for your company’s specific needs. This workshop, held on-site at your location, is a no-cost, no-obligation way to pick our expert’s brains and find out what will work best for you today and into the future.

In either case, all it takes is a phone call to Logicalis to get started getting your questions answered: just call 866-456-4422 and tell us you have questions about SAP HANA.

All it takes is a phone call to Logicalis to get started getting your questions answered: Just call 866-456-4422 and tell us you have questions about SAP HANA.

Page 16: SAP HANA FAQ - Logicalis

Who is Logicalis?Logicalis is an international IT solutions and managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration, data center and cloud services, and managed services.

Logicalis employs nearly 3,500 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of almost 6,000 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM, CA Technologies, Microsoft, NetApp, VMware and ServiceNow.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $1.4 billion from operations in Europe, North America, South America and Asia Pacific and is fast establishing itself as one of the leading IT and communications solution integrators specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues of over $5 billion.

“Having the right business analytics solution in place is as vital to the overall health of today’s enterprise organization as having air and water are to human beings. Simply put, you just can’t live without it,”

– Malek el Khazen, Senior Certified Solution Architect,

Logicalis US

CONSULT Architecture

and Design Services for SAP Infrastructures

Logicalis SAP HANA Work-shop

MANAGE AIX i5 OS Windows Linux

BUILD Configuration

Implementation

Knowledge transfer

OPERATE Maintenance Support Services

What can we do for your organization? Contact Logicalis to learn how we can help. Visit www.us.logicalis.com Call 866.456.4422