Optimizing BDLS For HANA Large Scale Instances (HLIs)

Introduction:

The purpose of this blog post is to give the audience an overview of how I handled BDLS process in the refreshes of HANA Large Scale Instances. I will try to give as much information as possible (which is already publicly available and maybe not all be in a single place) and try to depict how I used it to build a solution.

The Motivation: 

All SAP Basis consultants had to deal with BDLS process in their careers at some point or the other, but it becomes a challenge and a pain when the size of the DB is in several TBs. The process then needs many hours or even days to run.

SAP HANA Fast Restart Option (tmpfs) – Reducing Downtime without Persistent Memory

The goal of fast restart option is to improve large in-memory SAP HANA database restart times. This article outlines the plan to address this important area of reducing downtime with a step by step approach, recommendation on tmpfs sizing and FAQ’s.

To understand the concept of fast restart option (FRO) with tmpfs, basic understanding of tmpfs file system functioning is required

Basics Of tmpfs filesystem: –

tmpfs (temporary file system) is a virtual filesystem created to store files in dynamic (volatile) memory also known as DRAM (RAM). Tmpfs filesystem is typically created on RAM.

Altering HANA behavior during peak load via ADMISSION CONTROL

Altering HANA behavior at peak load using Admission Control in HANA 2.0

Below are the details which helps us understand how HANA 2.0 uses admission control to handle higher system load in a simple question and answer format. Hope it helps!

NOTE:You might not be able to find some of system views (M_ADMISSION_CONTROL_*) specified here if you are not in HANA 2.0 SP05 , though HANA 2.0 has a default admission control enabled.

SAP HANA DB Migration/Restore from Multi-Node to Single-Node

Introduction:

As HANA DB is growing, there are many DB Migrations/Conversions coming up in the SAP world. I always had a question how to perform DB Refresh/Restore Multi Node(PRD) to single Node(QAS).  This post mainly outlines/answers the below questions

Best experience: Creation of HANA Indexes part I

May be some of you know that it is a myth that HANA needs no indexes. Every primary key in an ABAP system has a single index on each column. If for example a primary key is created on columns MANDT, BELNR and POSNR, implicit single column indexes are created on column MANDT, on column BELNR and on column POSNR.

HANA Partitioning – 2 billion rows limitation – Part II: BSoH / S/4HANA

It took me nearly two years to write the second part of this partition series. The first one for BW partitioning can be found here.

The main question of this blog: How to determine the best partitioning combination?

In an ERP or S/4 HANA system it is possible that a table is approaching the 2 billion mark. This is a HANA design limit for a column store table (per partition). In this case you have to partition the table. But different than on a BW system there are no standard rules for a partitioning. This means you have to choose a partitioning rule by your own. But how to determine the best partitioning combination?

SAP Hana 2.0 Revision Upgrade

Introduction

One of the key responsibility of SAP administrator is to maintain HANA database. Hana database maintenance means variety of administration tasks like performance monitoring, enforcing security standards, patching & upgrade of database etc. In this blog I will talk about HANA revision upgrade from version 2.00.040.00 to 2.00.043.00

HANA Multitier System Replication – HOW TO Configure/ Take-Over / Fail-Back Setup

I was searching for step by step HANA multi-Tier Replication fail-over and fail -back procedure for DR scenario . I read all the blog post related to multi-tier Replication, but I could not find any blog post mentioning the steps for DR scenario where both primary and secondary will not be available at same time. so thought of writing my experience on this.

S/4HANA 1909 FPS00 Installation: Part 2 – Installation and Upgrade

S/4HANA 1909 FPS00 Installation: Part 1 – Maintenance Planner

This blog highlights the necessary step to install S/4HANA Server using Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM) and apply Fiori add-on using Software Update Manager (SUM)

NOTE: SWPM will only install S/4HANA Server 1909 and all the add-on installation i.e. Fiori Front End Server, Fiori for S/4HANA etc. will be part of Upgrade procedure (SUM)

How to influence degree of parallel execution when modeling HANA Calculation Views

Background

SAP HANA uses an involved algorithm to decide about the parallelism with which queries are executed. However, in some situations you want to influence the degree of parallelization on top of the general HANA mechanism and control the parallelization of individual parts of your models based on business considerations.

SAP HANA XSA Controller API Interaction

Since the introduction of SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model (XSA), SAP has supported many new approaches to accessing the platform APIs.  XSA is based upon Cloud Foundry which provides its core functionality via a command line client and a REST enabled web API.  XSA has this same functionality, but most of the focus on platform admin and interaction tends to focus on the CLI interface or the browser-based administrative UI which SAP deliveries. However behind that web UI are essentially calls to the controller APIs. These same APIs can be called from and used in your own applications.  In this blog I’d like to share some experiences trying to use these APIs.  There are some common challenges anyone using them will face and perhaps this blog can be helpful in that regard.

HANA Backup Recovery Strategy On AWS

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to highlight backup solution that can be designed for HANA database on AWS without any overhead of using third-party tool. The idea of specifically mentioning AWS is because I’m using AWS Simple Service Storage (S3) for this solution, otherwise you can incorporate this approach in any other cloud provider (Azure, GCP) or even on-premise.

LDAP Based Authentication for SAP HANA 2.0

Purpose

This blog provides details on the steps required to configure LDAP based authentication for SAP HANA 2.0. LDAP based authentication is of great help for below two reason to the users –

[HANA] Unleash the performance of your VM

Most performance issues which I was working on turned out to be basic issues regarding HANA / Linux parameter and configuration of the Hypervisor. Virtualization is regardless if big or small systems also in HANA environment an often-chosen architecture. If you want ensure good performance and how to check it in your environment keep on reading.

A short overview of What’s New for the SAP HANA Performance Management Tools in SAP HANA 2.0 SPS03

SAP HANA capture and replay

Testing database workload is still a large effort for administrators, testers, developers and consultants alike when looking to upgrading from one release to another. Especially when it comes at larger scale scenarios, the amount of work can grow exponentially.

SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 Installation – Preparation for HANA Migration using DMO

A lot of SAP customers have been migrating their existing SAP landscapes from traditional database platforms to SAP HANA. OS/DB migration using SAPinst (SWPM) has been in place since long, however the migration to SAP HANA database requires certain minimum SAP release/SPS level as a prerequisite for the existing SAP systems in the customer landscape.

Introducing enhancements to SAP HANA capture and replay in SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12 Revision 122.14 and SAP HANA 2.0 SPS02

SAP HANA capture and replay was first made available with the initial release of SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12. Since release, many enhancements have been added to SAP HANA 2.0 and are now also available on SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12 Revision 122.14. While it greatly simplified testing application workload, the testing of data- and system-related changes remains a challenge for many of our customers today, especially in large-scale and complex environments.

Bringing Machine Learning (TensorFlow) to the enterprise with SAP HANA

In this blog I aim to provide an introduction to TensorFlow and the SAP HANA integration, give you an understanding of the landscape and outline the process for using External Machine Learning with HANA.

There’s plenty of hype around Machine Learning, Deep Learning and of course Artificial Intelligence (AI), but understanding the benefits in an enterprise context can be more challenging.  Being able to integrate the latest and greatest deep learning models into your enterprise via a high performance in-memory platform could provide a competitive advantage or perhaps just keep up with the competition?

SAP HANA Under The Hood: HDB – by the SAP HANA Academy

Introduction

The objective of this SAP HANA Under The Hood series is to provide some insights on particular SAP HANA topics. Like a mechanic, look under the hood and take apart a piece to examine its functioning.

Server-side SSL configuration on HANA for inter-node communication and System Replication using openSSL

I have been seeing a growing number of security related questions from customers. This blog will cover step-by-step configuration of SSL for internal communication and system replication. I hope this will help you guys out.

Security is one of the most significant feature any product should posses. In SAP HANA, we can precisely configure both internal and external communication.