Modelling Learning Double Action or two things I just learned about modelling in SAP HANA SPS 11

The scenario in mind here was a SAP BW on HANA system reading data from a Suite on HANA system and using the SAP HANA live content installed there.
The Open ODS feature of SAP BW on HANA was to be used here as it allows reading from tables and views exposed via SDA in the local SAP HANA instance.

Now this idea sounds splendid.
Instead of having to manually build an extractor or an data export database view (both of which can be extensive development efforts), why not simply reuse the ready made content of SAP HANA live for this?
As usual the proof of the pudding is in the eating and as soon as it was tried out a severe shortcoming was identified:

HANA Rules Framework (HRF)

SAP HANA Rules Framework provides tools that enable application developers to build solutions with automated decisions and rules management services, implementers and administrators to set up a project/customer system, and business users to manage and automate business decisions and rules based on their organizations' data.
In daily business, strategic plans and mission critical tasks are implemented by a countless number of operational decisions, either manually or automated by business applications. These days - an organization's agility in decision-making becomes a critical need to keep up with dynamic changes in the market.
SAP HANA Rules Framework is already integrated with many SAP solutions and it enables their end users to enter business logic easily in different business processes (see some samples below).

Step by Step: Visualization using XS-based Application

Introduction:

Over the course of last few years, SAP HANA has truly evolved from the next generation database to “Real Time Data Platform”. Now all aspects of an application can be handled in the context of HANA platform i.e.

1. Data provisioning (native EIM capabilities for real-time replication, ETL and data quality)
2. High performance data base
3. Sophisticated Application Libraries (BFL, PAL libraries etc.)
4. Scalable Data Models (Attribute, Analytic/Calculation Views & Decision Tables)
5. HTML5 compatible application development (using XS)

Managing cold data in SAP HANA database memory

So once you have the cold data moved away from the main memory you will notice that it is re-loaded whenever needed. But for how long will the cold data stay in memory so that the aging still makes sense? This blog explains how cold data is managed in memory and describes different strategies for keeping it all under control.

HANA database takes care of loading and unloading data to and from memory automatically with the aim to keep all relevant information in memory. In most cases only the necessary columns (i.e. columns that are actually used) are loaded into memory on the first request and kept there for later use. For example after system restart only a few columns might be initially loaded into memory and only for the hot partition as shown in the figure below.

SAP HANA, S/4 HANA, IBP, cloud, IoT, DevOps, … BINGO!

SAP R/3 – a pioneer era

The current times within IT feel somewhat similar to what the first colonists felt when they started their journey from a struggling Europe to the new world. Everything must have been so different, so innovative, so much better. Everyone tells you what you can do, buy and strive for. Yet at the end, as always, it is just a matter of money.

Troubleshooting SAP HANA Delivery Units and HANA Live Packages issues. (HALM)

Whilst importing delivery units into your HANA System you can sometimes run into some common errors which can easily be fixed without the means of opening a SAP Incident.

Lets look at an example.

Here you are importing SAP HANA Analytics into your system. During the import you see an error:

Data based on Conditions in a table

All the user conditions are available in the Table: USER_CONDITIONS and these conditions will be applied on the Table: EMPLOYEE. To keep it simple, let us consider two tables with sample data as shown below:

Capturing and Replaying Workloads - by the SAP HANA Academy

Introduction

One of the new SPS 12 features for monitoring and managing performance in SAP HANA is the ability to capture and replay workloads. This feature enables you to take a performance snapshot of your current system -- a captured workload -- and then execute the same workload again on the system (or another system from backup) after some major hardware or software configuration change has been made. This will help you evaluate potential impacts on performance or stability after, for example, a revision upgrade, parameter modifications, table partition or index changes, or even whole landscape reorganisations.

In this blog, I will describe the required preparation and the operational procedures.

HANA Monitoring Handy SQL's

Monitoring Memory Usage

Used Memory
The total amount of memory in use by SAP HANA is referred to as its Used Memory. This is the most precise indicator of the amount of memory that the SAP HANA database uses at any time

When used:  To understand the current used memory in HANA when HANA alerts shows usage greater than licensed memory. Understanding memory usage by components will help in troubleshooting and perform necessary memory clean up actions.

Understand HANA SPS and supported Operating Systems

HANA Revision Strategy

SAP is shipping regular corrections and updates. Corrections are shipped in the form of Revisions and Support Packages of the product’s components. New HANA capabilities are introduced twice a year in form of SAP HANA Support Package Stacks (SPS). The Datacenter Service Point (DSP) is based upon the availability of a certain SAP HANA revision, which had been running internally at SAP for production enterprise applications for at least two weeks before it is officially released.

See SAP Note “2021789 - SAP HANA Revision and Maintenance Strategy” for more details

SAP HANA SPS 12 What's New: Security - by the SAP HANA Academy

In the upcoming weeks we will be posting new videos to the SAP HANA Academy to show new features and functionality introduced with SAP HANA Support Package Stack (SPS) 12.

For Security for the SPS 11 release, see SAP HANA SPS 11 What's New: Security - by the SAP HANA Academy

Overview Video

SAP HANA Security - SPS 12 - YouTube

LEARN WITH US : S/4 HANA Analytics!!

What it is?

S/4 HANA stands for Simple 4th Generation Business suite solutions from SAP which will run on SAP HANA. SAP HANA is one of the preferred product among the companies seeking for an optimized enterprise solution because the product has come a long way from its previous predecessors which had its transaction processing and analytical processing in different platforms, that meant more time on data output and decision making.

It is very well known as The Next Generation Business Suite and it is greatest innovation since R3 and ERP from the SAP world. It unites the software and people to build businesses to run on real-time, networked and in simple way. It has got built-in analytics for hybrid transactional and analytical applications.

SAP Hana Information Composer - for the Non-technical User - ASUG Webcast

SAP HANA Information Composer (new with SAP HANA 1.0 SP03) is a modeling tool developed specifically for the needs of non-technical users. From installation through end-user experience, you will leave this session with a comprehensive understanding of this modeling environment and how it fits in to your modeling options. You will also learn how more advanced data architects and centralized IT can benefit from and extend scenarios initiated by non-technical users in the SAP HANA Information Composer via the SAP HANA Modeler.
Agenda:

• User Experience
• Installation & Admin

SAP HANA Information Composer V 1.0 - External Data Upload

Introduction.
This document will walk you through the process of creation of tables and uploading data into HANA database without writing single SQL statement. This tool helps us to create physical table in HANA database in accordance to the sample data set we provide. It removes all the technicalities of modeling and provides an easy to use simple modeling environment with limited functionalities. Hence it bridges the gap between backend system and business users.
It allows Business users to gather their own data, upload it, and combine/compare it with corporate sources. They need not to understand various modeling technicalities, the tool itself is intelligent enough to suggest various joins/Unions etc once it analyses the data.
Hence SAP HANA (SP3) delivers the first version of “Self service data warehousing” solution.

How to Deploy and Run SAPUI5 application on ABAP Server

Prerequisite

To run application on ABAP server, we need to have ABAP Development tools and SAPUI5 ABAP Repository Team Provider plugin installed into your Eclipse IDE.

Complete End-To-End ABAP For HANA 7.4 SP 09 Development

Steps Involved For Displaying Flight Details:

1. Creation of ABAP CDS view.
2. Creation of Gateway O Data service.
3. Testing of GW service in Gateway client.
4. Creation of FIORI-Like App.
5. Deployment of SAP UI5 Application to ABAP Back-End.

Lets start......

1. Creation of ABAP CDS view.

          -  Go to HANA studio ABAP perspective and Choose the package in which you want to create CDS view. Right click on package - New - Other ABAP Repository object - DDL source - Next
          -  Provide Name and Description
          -  It seems like below

Play the game of life with SAP HANA

What is the game of life?
So first of all, what is the game of life? You can find rules of the game of life from Wikipedia as follows.

"The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

Creating HANA DB based SAP Netweaver Gateway Service

SAP has provided with GW SP04 a basic integration framework for creating an OData service based on the HANA DB. With this framework you can easily expose the HANA analytical models via the REST based Open Data (OData) format.

 I was very enthusiastic to try this one out and I was able to create such a service in very less time. And you don’t have to be an ABAP expert to build such a service.
I have outlined the steps to create such a service referring to the help document at
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_gateway20sp04/helpdata/en/33/0e14f0590b48318ea38b3a06a92d17/content.htm and some from trial and error.
There are also some limitations currently on the integration which are also documented above. I will create a simple service on an attribute view which will fetch the data in the service.

1. The First step you need logon to the HANA Client and create a View (Attribute/Analytic/Calculation). Make a note of the catalogue name and the view name.
2. Check your SAP Netweaver Gateway system or the Backend system wherever you are trying to create the service has the add-on component Installed.

SAP HANA Extended Application Services

We introduce an exciting new capability called SAP HANA Extended Application Services (sometimes referred to unofficially as XS or XS Engine). The core concept of SAP HANA Extended Application Services is to embed a full featured application server, web server, and development environment within the SAP HANA appliance itself. However this isn't just another piece of software installed on the same hardware as SAP HANA; instead SAP has decided to truly integrate this new application services functionality directly into the deepest parts of the SAP HANA database itself, giving it an opportunity for performance and access to SAP HANA differentiating features that no other application server has.

ODXL - An open source Data Export Layer for SAP/HANA based on OData

Introductions: 

ODXL is a framework that provides generic data export capabilities for the SAP/HANA platform. ODXL is implemented as a xsjs Web service that understand OData web requests, and delivers a response by means of a pluggable data output handler. Developers can use ODXL as a back-end component, or even as a global instance-wide service to provide clean, performant and extensible data export capabilities for their SAP/HANA applications.

Currently, ODXL provides output handlers for comma-separated values (csv) as well as Microsoft Excel output. However, ODXL is designed so that developers can write their own response handlers and extend ODXL to export data to other output formats according to their requirements.

Projection Filter push down in Calculation View

*** Please note that below document is based on the personal experience of using different HANA Information modeling constructs. The results of Performance tests depend upon the data volume and the Query filters. It is advisable to make the final judgement based on your own testing of such models.

Many of the reporting scenarios implement data comparison business case like “This Year to Last Year comparison” or similar. Such business requirement implementation in HANA can be done using the Calculation View model which is discussed in many of the presentations / training sessions. Something like shown below.

Table Transpose in SAP HANA Modeling

Approach 1:

• Analytic view will be built on each base table column which needs transposition.
• In this case 6 columns need transposition, hence 6 Analytic views will be created.
• Calculated Column (VALUE) is created in each Analytic view which derives the value of a particular month in a year.
• Create Calculation View based on Analytic Views created above and join them together using Union with Constant Value.
• No need to create Calculated Column (MONTH) in each Analytic view as this can be derived in Calculation View to improve performance.

What is SAP HANA?

SAP HANA is an in-memory data platform that is deployable as an on-premise appliance, or in the cloud.  It is a revolutionary platform that’s best suited for performing real-time analytics, and developing and deploying real-time applications. At the core of this real-time data platform is the SAP HANA database which is fundamentally different than any other database engine in the market today (figure 1).