Do you support other databases beside SAP HANA?
ALV and FPM on SAP HANA leverages the features SAP HANA can provide due the its architecture. For example, it is possible to sort any column as any column is an index. If you want to sort columns on other databases, you may run into performance issues. For these other databases, the classical behavior of ALV and FPM lists fits perfectly. Or, if you think about paging on the database. Sure databases support offset handling, but is it fast enough to push down every UI paging request to the database?
So we face principal limitations with other databases. Currently we work on a convenience method for developers who would like to use the features of ALV or FPM on SAP HANA if they run on SAP HANA, but who also must ensure, that their code runs on any database. We will provide the classical behavior with the new interface, so that the if-statements are not spread over the code. Still it is for convenience, the disadvantages remain with respect to performance, memory consumption and truncation.
Do you support write scenarios?
No, we do not support write scenarios.
The question suggests itself. However write scenarios have different characteristics: normally they do not deal with mass data, they need a transactional buffer to execute consistency checks before updating the database and they do not have memory problems. If there are mass updates to be performed, the application provides a batch job and a comfortable error log to work on. So write scenarios would not take advantage of ALV or FPM on SAP HANA.
How difficult is it to change from a classical ALV or FPM list to SAP HANA one?
For a simple example it is very easy. You have to get familiar with a new interface, but the methods and their signatures are not surprising. To get an impression, you can assist the transformations in a video for ALV or FPM.
Depending of what you want to achieve, it may be more expensive: creating a SAP HANA view to push down code and importing it in ABAP as an external view for example is certainly more demanding.
How does ALV on SAP HANA fit to the other ALV variants?
ALV on SAP HANA is an other ALV variant. The feature set of ALV on SAP HANA will not be integrated into to classical variants of ALV. We are currently working on integrating the read only part of the classical variant into ALV on SAP HANA, so that later can be used for every read only scenario - with differenent flavors depending on the database.
Do you support printing and Excel export of very big result sets?
We do not support Excel export or printing for arbitrarily big result sets. We truncate the list if you want to print or export too much data. Basically this question is not one of ALV or FPM but one of streaming.
Does it also work with SAP NetWeaver Business Client?
Yes, it works also with SAP NetWeaver Business Client.
Which features of the classical ALV are supported?
We are working on feature parity. Be aware that not all features behave in the same way - sorting and filtering for example work on the complete result set on the database and not on the truncated one in the ABAP memory. Having said this you find the mapping of the available features to support packages in the ALV on HANA - Feature Matrix.
