Demystifying SAP HANA Administration
This is the first in a series of blogs by SAP instructors, designed to “demystify” some of the hottest topics in SAP technology. We’ll also provide links to information that can help you expand your knowledge. If you have a topic you’d like us to discuss, post a reply to this blog. And of course, we encourage you to comment or ask questions. We’re here to help each other learn!
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.
If you’re an SAP System Administrator (BASIS Administrator) or Database Administrator, you may be surprised to learn that although there are new tools to manage SAP HANA, some of the old SAP BASIS tools will also help you get the job done. These are the five major SAP HANA administration tools:
- SAP HANA studio
- SAP HANA cockpit
- SAP DB Control Center
- SAP Solution Manager/DBA Cockpit
- Command Line (HDBSQL)
Please note that all diagrams are courtesy of SAP Education and are from the course HA200.
The following figure summarizes the role of each tool.
Tool #1 – SAP HANA studio
Administrators use SAP HANA studio to start and stop services, monitor the system, configure system settings, perform backup/recovery, and manage users and authorizations.
Tool #2 – SAP HANA cockpit
SAP HANA cockpit is an SAP Fiori Launchpad application that provides single point-of-access to a range of web-based applications for the administration of SAP HANA. It’s installed automatically with SAP HANA and displays the content as tiles arranged in groups that can be customized. Additionally, the cockpit provides a role-based concept that enables you to control which tiles/apps from the tiles catalog can be accessed by which administrator.
Tool #3 – SAP DB Control Center
SAP DB Control Center is SAP’s new generation of enterprise-class systems management solutions that enables DBAs to administer and monitor a variety of SAP database products in one graphical user interface, either locally or remotely.
It was first available with SAP HANA SPS 09, and it’s added as a delivery unit that can be downloaded from the SAP Support Portal – Software Downloads.
Tool #4 – SAP Solution Manager/DBACOCKPIT
DBACOCKPIT is an ABAP based database management tool available in SAP NetWeaver ABAP systems such as SAP Solution Manager. It supports SAP HANA as well as other databases.
The transaction code DBACOCKPIT enables you to monitor and administer SAP HANA remotely. Additionally, it provides quick access to a range of analysis information, for example, performance monitoring, space management, and job scheduling.
Tool #5 – HDBSQL – Command Line Tool
SAP HANA HDBSQL is a command line tool for entering and executing SQL statements, executing database procedures, and querying information about SAP HANA databases.
If you liked this blog please leave you rating and feedback.
Thanks,
Fabio Souza
Hi Fabio.
Nice compilation of information.
Thanks for sharing. I will keep following this blog.
Regards.
Osvaldo Dias Ferreira
Hi Osvaldo,
Thank you so much. I am glad you liked.
I will do my best to keep my blog series as interesting as possible.
Best regards,
Fabio Souza
HI Fabio,
Thank you for the HANA admin blogs. please can you list hana admin tasks and probably write blogs on them too. you can probably avoid basic tasks but high end tasks like SLT, etc. can be covered.
Thanks,
Ranjith
Hi Ranjith. I am glad you liked my blogs content. I really appreciate your suggestions on topics. I will try to come up with some content on the topics soon. Best Regards. Fabio Souza
Hi Fabio -
Where can I find details or material regarding utilities and tools such as DBMON with which we use to work as Basis Admins. Is this still provided somewhere as a delivery unit with SAP HANA.
I'm aware and you also mentioned DB-CC is this similar to what I'm looking for. Kindly confirm.
Thanks for providing a good review of available offerings.
Hi Ahmed,
DBCC is the new tool and it's added into SAP HANA as a Delivery Unit (like an Add-On).
Best Regards,
Fabio
Hello Fabio,
Thanks for sharing your compilation with us.
This blog is helpful for me as a first step towards SAP HANA. Beside my interest of SAP BW (on application level and tech. level), it is - in my opinion - quite necessary to get a basic knowledge of related (or basic) technologies, too.
I'm also planning to take the HA* documentations at SAP Learning Hub to get a deeper understanding of this incredible product.
So I will enjoy following this blog like the other commentators.
Best Regards,
Julian
Hi Julian,
SAP Learning Hub is a great source to start learning since you can access it at your convenience and schedule, but if you want in depth information about SAP HANA and the new SAP BW I would recommend attending our classroom courses.
I agree with you that SAP HANA is an incredible product.
Best Regards,
Fabio
Hi Fabio,
In General I agree with you, but as a Student its out of range for me to afford classroom courses. Never the less I would like to ask you the following:
May I be able to take a certifiction after studying the learning hub courses in depth?(according to different Curricula/learning maps)
Fair call, the learning hub courses are aimed at professional's education.
My personal experience was that I never really took any of the HA* courses, but I held them a couple of times... And only last year I went and took a certification exam.
And for that I've got to say, that all Richard and I put into our book (Book Announcement: SAP HANA Administration) helped quite a lot.
That and trying out all the stuff that appeared in the documentation since then.
And - again that's my view on it - this trying out out and just working with the product is what makes all the difference in understanding it better.
Hi Fabio, Great read.. Indeed, Very helpful... Awesome article.... Nice post on " SAP HANA Administration ". This is a brilliant way to go. 🙂
Hi Ashok,
Thank you so much. It feels really good to be able to help our SAP community.
Best regards,
Fabio
Hello Fabio,
well done, a good blog. I'll keep following your blog.
Best regards
Martin
Hi Martin,
Thank you for following me.
I hope you will enjoy the next Blogs.
Best Regards,
Fabio
very well compiled Fabio.
cheers!!!
Amit T
Hi Amit,
I tried to make sure everyone understand that SAP HANA is a new technology but easy to manage.
Best regards,
Fabio
Hello
I am always bemused when people say SAP HANA is new - its been GA for over 5 years. 😉
Michael
Spot on, Michael. And the conceptual pieces of it (column store, multi-core processing, map-reduce, vector processing...) had been around for much longer.
In all honesty, we can all say, it's not new technology, but technology we're new to.
Thanks Fabio for sharing your compilation with us.
I have a question. How can I know the memory used by each tenant with Hana studio?
Regards
See also: SAP HANA Administration Tools - SAP HANA Administration Guide
Buenas tardes,
Estoy queriendo preparar un servidor virtulizado en VMWARE para instalar desde cero sap hana.
Estoy buscando informacion sobre las especificaciones tecnicas que debera tener el servidor a preparar, cuanto de disco, cuando de memoria minima, que tipo de procesador ect.
Tambien si esta soportado para plataforma de VMWARE
Muchas gracias.