What’s New in HANA 2.0 SPS 00 Smart Data Access

What’s New in HANA 2.0 SPS 00 SDA

In this post I will highlight the new Smart Data Access (SDA) features coming your way in the SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 00 release. In this release we focused heavily on reducing TCO by simplifying your workflow, as well as on general performance optimizations and enhancements. Some of the features you can look forward to in this release include sync of virtual table metadata, integration of virtual tables with result caching, Kerberos constrained delegation for Hadoop, SDA monitoring in Cockpit 2.0, as well as SAP HANA to Hadoop native connectivity. 

Let’s say you have a virtual table in SAP HANA pointing to a remote object and the metadata of the remote table changes. In previous SAP HANA releases, it could be quite cumbersome to refresh the virtual table if there were dependent objects. With the new virtual table metadata sync functionality – you can now quickly and easily refresh the virtual table metadata without disturbing any dependent objects, greatly simplifying your workflow. To refresh the virtual table simply use the ALTER VIRTUAL TABLE [xxxxx] REFRESH DEFINITION command.

With the SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 00 release, we have integrated virtual tables with result caching in HANA. Static caching has been available as of SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 11, what is new in this release is the support for virtual tables. If you choose to enable the caching feature on virtual tables you can look forward to improved performance by means of avoiding redundant computation of identical and frequent queries. You can enable this feature either directly via the ini file or by using SQL. Also keep in mind that you need to define a cache staleness restriction when configuring.

In the Hadoop area you can anticipate a new SAP HANA Vora ODBC adapter that allows HANA users to connect directly to the SAP HANA Vora engine via SDA. This provides an alternative to using the Spark interface for integration between SAP HANA and Vora/Hadoop. It is a direct connection to the SAP HANA Vora engine which avoids any intermediate component on the Hadoop side. Please keep in mind that you will need the SAP HANA Vora 1.3 release to be able to leverage this functionality. We are also extending support for Kerberos constrained delegation for SAP HANA to Hadoop connectivity allowing users to log on to Hadoop from SAP HANA but only explicitly authenticate once. As of SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 12 users can leverage Kerberos constrained delegation in HANA-HANA SDA scenarios. The new Kerberos for Hadoop functionality is currently available for SDA connections to Hadoop via the Spark Controller 2.0. To enable this feature, several configuration changes are required in Kerberos/KDC, SDA, HANA users, Spark Controller, and Hadoop. 

The SDA tiles from HANA Cockpit 1.0 are revamped and integrated into Cockpit 2.0. In the SDA tile you will have access to the remote statements monitor as well as the remote connections monitor. 

Image I: Smart Data Access tile in the Monitoring and Administration section of the SAP HANA Cockpit 2.0

Last, but definitely not least, there are a couple of noteworthy performance enhancements and optimizations for SDA in the SAP HANA 2.0 release. The first is support for more complex update and delete queries which allows you to have multiple sub-query levels, correlation levels, as well as aliases. In HANA-HANA SDA connections you will notice enhanced performance and users can also now use the SELECT FOR UPDATE command with virtual tables.

Additional Information

What’s new in SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 12 – Smart Data Access

SDA Central Note 1868209 (login required)

SAP HANA Administration Guide (SPS 12)