Skip to Content
Author's profile photo Poovin Kumar V

Design Studio 1.3 on HANA Platform

SAP Design Studio 1.3 is packed with lot of new features and improvements and the most important feature out of them is its ability to run in HANA platform. With this new feature, it can consume data, publish applications and execute applications on top of SAP’s revolutionary In-Memory technology. The combination of both SAP Design Studio and SAP HANA has pioneered a new vision in Visualization tools. Using HANA as a platform, Design Studio completely utilizes the computing power and speed of the HANA platform.

Installation:

Installing Design Studio addon in HANA platform is simple, faster and easier. The installer is provided as a “Delivery Unit” and it can be directly imported to HANA server.

Please refer to this link for a detailed step-to-step guide on Design studio – HANA server installation .

Native HANA Services:

While using HANA as a platform, Design Studio makes use of HANA components and HANA’s native languages. Design Studio applications are stored in HANA repository and it uses XSJS (Server side JAVA Script) to handle server requests.

Whenever a request is made by Design Studio to HANA server, it is processed by a XSJS service.

For example: Following is an error message shown by Design Studio when it communicates with XSJS service.

error-message-SAP-design-studio-1.3-HANA-server

Using the Repository:

Design Studio applications are saved in the HANA repository. However all the applications are saved to a common package named “designstudio”. So the applications published by all users will be available in the same repository package. As the applications are maintained in packages, this makes “Promotion”/”Transport” of Design Studio applications easier than ever. HANA specific promotion concept of “Delivery Units” can be used to promote apps from one environment to another.

open-an-application-sap-design-studio-1.3-on-HANA-platform

sap-design-Studio-applications-in-HANA-repository.png

Custom Addons:

The most important reason for an enterprise to use Design Studio for Analysis is its ability to interoperate with custom addons built by developers. Design Studio on HANA platform has the option to host custom addons as Design Studio on BOBJ does. However the installation of custom addons in HANA platform is easier than the BOBJ platform. Unlike Business Objects, there is no need for complex steps like restarting APS servers hosting “Analysis Application Service”. Installing the component to platform is enough for the applications to make use of the addon.

The custom components installed in HANA platform is also saved in the repository. The custom components are maintained in a separated package named as “designstudio_extensions”.

sap-design-studio-custom-add-ons-in-HANA-repository


Roles and Authorizations:

Design studio on HANA Platform makes use of Roles and Authorizations setup in the HANA system. Whenever user executes an application, he can see only the data what he is authorized to see. There is role named as “sap.bc.ina.service.v2.userRole::INA_USER” , which should be granted to users who need to execute Design Studio applications on HANA platform. If this role is not granted to the user, then he cannot see any data in his application though he has authorization to see that data.

Performance

Design Studio on HANA platform performs better than Design Studio on BOBJ/NW. Since Design Studio applications are hosted in HANA repository and executed in XS Engine, the performance and rendering is faster.

We tried a small benchmarking on response time between Design Studio on HANA and Design Studio on BOBJ using SAP’s HANA EPM Demo data. The results prove that Design Studio on HANA provides better performance than Business Objects, where the data is retrieved from same server and rendered to same client tool.

sap-design-stuido-1.3-on-HANA-performance

Benchmarking data set consisted of 23M records

These are our initial observations on SAP Design Studio 1.3 using HANA as Platform. Please keep following us for more information on SAP Design Studio.
 
Happy Learning!.

Republished from www.visualbi.com/blogs

Assigned Tags

      13 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hey Poovin, thanks for sharing Design Studio's native HANA deployment. Just a quick question though, how can mobile devices consume Design Studio apps when deployed through HANA? I understand when deployed through BI platform, the apps can be consumed through the BI mobile app on iOS as long as they are defined under the mobile category but how can we do the same with Design Studio on HANA? Any information will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

      - Mike

      Author's profile photo S N
      S N

      Thanks a lot for sharing

      Author's profile photo Alexey Raskatov
      Alexey Raskatov

      Hi Poovin Kumar V

      a qusetion - how did you overcome the issue on the picture under Native HANA Services section.

      I am trying to lgon from Design Studio to HANA and see exactly the error as you depicted. I wonder how I can trouble shoot it... Any help is appreciated!

      Regards, Alexey

      Author's profile photo Poovin Kumar V
      Poovin Kumar V
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Alex,

      This issue occurs when the credentials are wrong. So check your HANA username and password. If you are using your initial credentials, reset it by logging in to HANA system at-least once. Also check if your HANA credentials are still active.

      Also check the "Response Code" in the error. You get 401 for authorizations. If it is different like 404, 500 (or) 550, then something is wrong with DS addon installation. It has to be reinstalled.

      Author's profile photo Alexey Raskatov
      Alexey Raskatov

      Hi,

      this did the trick for me http://scn.sap.com/thread/3611713

      Author's profile photo Bart Van Peteghem
      Bart Van Peteghem

      Hi all,

      Just to let you know (if not yet known) that SAP is abandonning the strategy of deploying Design Studio on HANA. No new functionalities will be deployed and the solution is not stable. So only way to go... Design Studio on a BO platform !!!

      Rgds

      Bart

      Author's profile photo Mustafa Bensan
      Mustafa Bensan

      Hi Bart,

      Thanks for sharing this news.  Is there an official SAP document or post we can refer to that communicates this change in strategy?

      Regards,

      Mustafa.

      Author's profile photo Bart Van Peteghem
      Bart Van Peteghem

      Hello Mustafa,

      Not yet an official document by SAP... but confirmed by SAP France on a strategic SAP HANA worldwide project. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

      Rgds

      Bart

      Author's profile photo Mustafa Bensan
      Mustafa Bensan

      Thanks for the feedback, Bart.  I guess we'll have to keep an eye on the Design Studio Roadmap then.

      Author's profile photo Carlos Weffer
      Carlos Weffer

      Hi Bart

      Any link to sap note, communication confirming your post?

      Design Studio can also be deployed on SAP NW not only Business Objects.

      Regards

      Carlos W.

      Author's profile photo Fabien AUBERT
      Fabien AUBERT

      Hi,

      Here is the official status on the roadmap :

      Capture.PNG

      So BIP is the recommanded platform !!

      Fabien

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Fabien,

      I am relatively new to HANA and I was using Design Studio to access the HANA views.  For HANA Live, which BI Reporting Tool does SAP recommend?

      Thanks.

      Sandy

      Author's profile photo Fabien AUBERT
      Fabien AUBERT

      Hi Sandy,

      Technically Hana Live views are the same than Hana views. So you can also use Design Studio. Basically Design Studio can consume Analytical views and Calculated views. Then it really depends of what you want to do on top it. Application, Dashboard, reports,..

      Design Studio, Lumira or Webintelligence can be used for instance.

      Regards,

      Fabien