Hadoop and HANA Integration

HANA Hadoop:

Lets start with advantages of using Hadoop:

It can easily handle huge amount of data volumes
It is very good for storing Unstructured data
It is reliable, scalable and fault tolerant
It is Open source so is less costly
It provides Batch Processing

Now Lets look at some of the limitations of Hadoop:

It is not efficient to use for small anmount of data
It is less mature
It is difficult to find qualified Talent
It is not suited for real time scenarios

Voice of Customer, Sentiment analysis & Feedback service

Some time ago, I was watching a game on TV and the broadcaster started comparing the two teams by showing what fans, people are talking about these teams and players on social media . Broadcasters excitedly compared the percentages and numbers of tweets of the teams and flashed which marquee player is currently more trending.

It left me wondering with more deeper questions, is this public sentiment really that important for the determination of the play outcome or it has really become important enough to analyse , even if it is not as vital as  players and teams skills or  their strengths &  weakness ,  their game tactics & strategy? or is it  important as any other game analysis attribute ?

If a Presidential debate is happening or a new movie is launched or for example when a new consumer product is launched , I can see value of  such similar analysis on what people are talking about it as an important feedback.

Voice of Customer - Voice of the customer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has a intrinsic value, always have , always will be.

A first attempt at using HANA Cloud Integration to integrate Workday and Salesforce

Starting to do some research on this idea, I ran across an article about a recent agreement between Workday and Salesforce:
Under a technical agreement and go-to-market strategy, Salesforce and Workday will do the following:

• Salesforce will standardize on Workday's applications.
• Workday will standardize on Salesforce's applications and platform.
• Workday will integrate Salesforce with Workday's human capital management software, financials and big data analytics software.
• Salesforce will integrate Workday into Chatter and other applications. [SOURCE]

Then, I had an even more amusing thought – “What about a Workday – Salesforce integration”.

Since the Eclipse-based software for HCI is already available, I decided to see how far I could get with my nefarious – no - heretical plan.

Configure ABAP to HANA SSL connection

The below instructions are based on sapcrypto. In SP7, there is an option to use commoncrypto. OpenSSL is also an option if sapcrypto is not installed.

• Install sapcrypto on both CI and HANA systems
• This is well documented, so I won't provide details here
• Copy libsapcrypto.so to .../lib directory
• cp libsapcrypto.so /usr/sap/<sid>/SYS/global/security/lib
• Create PSE files for both the CI and HANA systems
• See 1718944 - SAP HANA DB: Securing External SQL Communication (SAPCrypto)
• If a Certificate Authority (CA) is not available, SAP provides an option to create a test cert that is valid for 8 weeks: https://websmp110.sap-ag.de/tcs

[SAP HANA Academy] Configure the SAP HANA Spark Controller to Read SAP HANA Vora Tables

In another part of the SAP HANA Academy's SAP HANA Vora series Tahir Hussain Babar (Bob) walks through how to configure the SAP HANA Spark Controller in nine tutorial videos. With the SAP HANA Spark Controller you will be able to read your SAP HANA Vora tables from SAP HANA.

Each and every script that Bob uses through out this nine part series can be found here on GitHub.

How to Install Hive and Load Data

How to screw up your HANA database in 5 seconds

I like the SAP HANA database. I really do. Writing demanding SQL statements has never been so much fun since I throw them at SAP HANA. And the database simply answers, really quickly. While the database itself works fine, from time to time I stumble upon some strange issues around HANA administration where I notice that SAP HANA is still a quite new database. In certain cases the database is in real danger, so I want to share with you a perfidious trap.

You remember that starting with SAP HANA revision 93, a revision update automatically changed the database from the standalone statisiticsserver to the embedded statisticsserver? You could in theory keep the standalone statisticsserver, but I believe no one actually did this. So did you ever wonder why the systemOverview.py script provides this irritating warning?

Myth of HANA

since SAP HANA was avaiable in the year 2011 (GA), I come across a lot of untruth about the new in-memory platform. As consultant I was able to talk to many costumers and other consultants on events like TechED, DSAG, Business partner days etc. Every time I was impressed after this long time that so much dangerous smattering is still out there.
The most answers to the statements are pretty easy to find in the offical notes, guides and other documents (blogs, presentations, articles etc.), but may it is an overload of information.

1) start time
2) cross SID backup
3) col / row store conversion
4) sizing *2
5) statistics
6) data fragmentation
7) persistency layer
8) high memory consumption HANA vs. Linux
9) Backup
10) Backup catalog

SAP HANA Academy: Backup and Recovery - Backup Configuration Files

The SAP HANA Academy has published a new video in the series SAP HANA SPS 7 Backup and Recovery.

Backup and Recovery - Backup Configuration Files | SAP HANA

Input Parameter with Key and Text in view help ( F4)

This blog would explain how we can use both Key and Text in  view help ( f4 values) of  HANA Calculation View

***Now this functionality has been added to SPS10, if you are at SPS10 or above, you no longer need this work around ***

Scenario :

Users want to filter data by Customer and see Customer Text in view help along with number . As the table has billions of rows, to improve report performance , we want to use Input Parameter in Projection Filter .  Available types of Input Parameter in SPS9 cannot use Key and Text both directly in View Help or F4 values.

Our Data Model is Calculation View .  Input Parameter behaves differently in Calculation View and Analytic View.

Real-time Sales Operations for the pioneers of Flash Memory

SAMRAT SENGUPTA
SENIOR DIRECTOR - IT
OPERATIONS AND SALES APPLICATIONS
SANDISK CORPORATION

[SAP HANA Academy] Utilize Modeled Persistence Objects in the SAP HANA Data Lifecycle Manager

In a series of three tutorial videos the SAP HANA Academy's Tahir Hussain Babar (Bob) details how to use Modeled Persistence Objects in the SAP HANA Data Lifecycle Manager. In this series Bob is using DLM SPS03 on top of SAP HANA SPS 11. This series is part of the SAP HANA Academy's comprehensive playlist covering What's New in SAP HANA SPS 11.

Overview of the Exploration Module

In the first video of the series Bob provides an introduction to the SAP HANA Data Lifecycle Manger's Exploration Module by showcasing how to use it for analyzing a system's data.

Using Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) to connect to SLES11 SP2

"Why?" might be your first thought and quickly followed by "But I use VNC for Linux". That is correct, but many IT departments have no VNC Client in their standard software portfolio. For this reason I have written this document to show you how to configure the SAP HANA server to allow connections via the Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) protocol. This setup is a 100% SAP HANA server-side configuration, so the IT departments doesn't need to change their policy on the VNC Client software.

As of SLES11 SP2 for SAP the package xrdp is shipped. For the installation and configuration perform the following steps:

• Installation xrdp package
• Configuring the Firewall to allow RDP
• Start xrdp during boot 

Installation xrdp package
The xrdp package is shipped with SLES11 SP2 for SAP, so it can be installed from the installation DVD. No extra software download is needed.
1.  Start the YaST2 Control Center by selecting Menu => System => YaST

HANA System Rename (hostname) through hdblcmgui command

Prerequisites

• You are logged in as root user.
• The SAP HANA system has been installed with the SAP HANA database lifecycle manager (HDBLCM).

The SAP HANA database server is up and running. Otherwise, inconsistencies in the configuration might occur.
Go to HDBCLM directory of the HANA host
# cd /hana/shared/SEC/hdblcm
# ./hdblcmgui

Dynamism of Fuzzy Search in SAP HANA

This blog is about one of the feature that SAP HANA provides, FUZZY SEARCH.

Now the question arises, what is Fuzzy search?!... So, Fuzzy search is the technique of finding strings that match a pattern approximately (rather than exactly). It is a type of search that will find matches even when users misspell words or enter only partial words for the search. It is also known as approximate string matching.

According to Fuzzy Search Reference guide, Fuzzy Search is a fast and fault-tolerant search feature for SAP HANA. The term “fault-tolerant search” means that a database query returns records even if the search term (the user input) contains additional or missing characters, or other types of spelling error.

Fuzzy search can be used in various applications, like:

• Fault-tolerant check for Misspelled words and typos
• Fault-tolerant search in text columns
• Fault-tolerant search in structured database content
• Fault-tolerant check for duplicate records

Demystifying SAP HANA Administration

Since its release, SAP HANA represented a radical change in the direction of SAP's product architecture. As an SAP Instructor, I’ve been wondering how easy it would be to manage the new SAP HANA platform. Can I use platform and administration tools that are currently in place? Or, do I need to learn a new set of gadgets?

After reading through some of the documentation available in SAP Learning Hub, and reviewing SAP courses such as SAP HANA Introduction (HA100), SAP HANA - Operations & Administration (HA200), and SAP HANA Implementation and Modeling (HA300), I realized that the learning curve is quite easy – if you get some guidance up-front. That’s why I’m here! This blog will demystify SAP HANA administration by listing tools you can use to handle periodic administrative tasks, and by explaining the key capabilities of each and when to use them.

Inactive versions - Switch Ownership

Multiple developers work on modeling Information views based on many tables belongs to schema. The information views will become Active version of object only when it is 'Activated' after 'Save and Validation'. After building the information view if the user only 'save and validate' and does not activate, it becomes the Inactive version of the object.

If one user just created the object, then it is possible to take over that object by another user as long as it is inactive version of the object. This concept is called as "Take Over" or "Switch Ownership". The difference between these two is:

Take Over: To take single inactive object from another workspace.
Switch Ownership: To take single or multiple inactive objects from other users.

In this blog we will have a look on Switch Ownership (version SPS 05 Revision 47).
For simplicity we assume that there are two users (USER1 , USER2) working on two tables (EMPLOYEE, DEPT) on which Analytic view is based on schema "SRK" and both the users have the same privileges but USER1 developing views in system (HAN(USER1)) and USER2 in system (HAN(USER2)).

Reset the SYSTEM User's Password in HANA DB

Overview
If the SYSTEM user's password is lost, you can reset it as the operating system administrator by starting the index server in emergency mode. If your HANA DB is Multitenant, this process will not work.  My HANA DB revision was 102.04

Prerequisites
You have the credentials of the operating system administrator (<sid>adm).

Procedure
Step 1: Log on to the server on which the master index server is running as the operating system user (that is, <sid>adm user).

Step 2: Open a command line interface.

Step 3: Shut down the instance by executing the following command:
/usr/sap/<SID>/HDB<instance>/exe/sapcontrol -nr <instance> -function StopSystem HDB

Spotlight on the Enhanced Search (F4 Help)

I would like to highlight the Enhanced Search functionality that has been delivered with AS ABAP 7.4 SP05 and improved with higher SPs.

Lately, I’ve received some requests from different channels around the enhanced options of the search helps and especially about suppressing them (when set to active). So I would like to handle the topic in this blog.

Using Multiple Values in Input parameter for filtering in Graphical Calculation View

In the previous blog SAP HANA: Handling Dynamic Select Column List and Multiple values in input parameter have shown on how to select multiple values for filtration using "Replace" function in procedure.

In that document, we went to procedure approach, since the user needs the dynamic output based on input conditions.

But if the output is static column list, you wouldn't want to use procedure, so in this blog will be explaining on how to achieve the same functionality of handling multiple values filter condition on a graphical calculation view using "Projection".

Problem Description:

Giving the flexibility of choosing the values he wishes to see in the report and then pushing the filtration logic to the lowest level possible.

SAP HANA REVISION UPDATE – SPS10

Reason for HANA DB patch level update
We are copying HANA DB from SLES 11.3 revision 102.01 to RHEL 6.5 revision 102.00 through Backup / Restore method using SWPM (homogeneous system copy). While restoring any HANA DB it is necessary to have at least same or higher patch level into the target environment. This is reason we are updating target HANA DB environment from revision 102.00 to latest available patch level 102.04.

Download SAP HANA patches
Download following updates (Database, Studio & Client) from SAP marketplace and transfer to HANA server

SAP HANA Rules Framework End-to-End Tutorial

This blog describes my steps from installing the SAP HANA Rules Framework 1.0 SPS 07 Patch Level 1 and configuring it until creating a HANA Rule and executing a HANA Rule Service with varying HANA Rule Conditions in the end. For further details please refer to SAP Note 2259199 - Release-Informationen zu SAP HANA Rules Framework 1.0 SPS07 and to the SAP HANA Rules Framework's official documentation on SAP Service Marketplace.

The SAP HANA Rules Framework 1.0 SPS 07 can be downloaded from SAP Service Marketplace:

[SAP HANA Academy] SAP HANA Cloud Integration for Data Services

In a series of 14 videos the SAP HANA Academy's  Tahir Hussain "Bob" Babar shows how to preform the most common SAP HANA Cloud Integration for Data Services tasks. SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI) is SAP's strategic integration platform for SAP Cloud customers. HCI provides out-of-the-box connectivity across cloud and on-premise solutions. Beneath the real-time process integration capabilities HCI also contains a data integration part that allows efficient and secure usage of extract, transform and load (ETL) tasks to move data between on-premise systems and the cloud.

Bob's 14 tutorial videos are linked below with accompanying synopses. Please watch the videos here or on the SAP HANA Academy's HCI-DS playlist.

A killer app for SAP HANA?

It is almost 18 months since SAP released business suite on HANA. They now claim a little over 1000 customers have jumped aboard – although the number that are running in production is significantly less. This is hardly a ripple on the surface - in fact if we take SAP numbers at face value there are more startups using HANA than Business Suite customers.

HANA is brilliant, HANA is great, yada yada yada, but the adoption rate is pretty underwhelming. And that makes sense because HANA is a platform and no one needs a platform until you have something to run on it. To achieve mass adoption a killer app or, even better, several killer apps are needed.

When the personal computer first appeared last century most people, and especially enterprises, responded with a “meh”. The killer app that drove mass adoption of the personal computer was the spreadsheet. Once the CFO saw that he fell in love and away we went.

Step-by-step Guide to setup ABAP on HANA with Eclipse

Step by Step guide to install ABAP on Eclipse for HANA Development

This blog describes how to install and update the front-end components of ABAP Development Tools (ADT) for SAP ABAP on HANA.

I’m writing this blog as I see many people have asked questions about ABAP Development tool on Eclipse. One can take different approaches within Eclipse to bring ABAP development tool and this is one such approach. This blog is suitable for anyone who seeks to start the ABAP Eclipse setup or those who need of such information.

I have also provided you with detailed screens on installation and how to configure ABAP back-end system for working with ADT to get you started. Hope you enjoy !!!

Core Data Services in ABAP

Core Data services (CDS) are domain specific languages (DSL) and services for defining and consuming semantically rich data models in SAP HANA. They are integral part of SAP HANA, and can be leveraged in the ABAP stack.

Core Data Services are enhanced “view entities” in ABAP provides several advantages:.