Connecting AS ABAP 751 Developer Edition with HANA Express 2.0 as Secondary DB
This is the first part of a 3-part blog – covering my experience of connecting a SAP ABAP 751 Developer Edition server to HANA Express and then, replicating data over to HANA through ABAP and finally, running a quick performance test between the two system using ABAP CDS vs HANA CDS.
Thomas Jung has shared a similar post back in 2012 – discussing on the topic of connecting a HANA database as a secondary DB in ABAP and also shared the following image below – and this is the inspiration to the start of a personal initiative to set up something similar locally.
This blog post will simply be a documentation of how I was able to connect a HANA Express 2.0 system to a AS ABAP 751 SP02 Developer Edition following the steps that Thomas has shared and use this set up as a practice system between ABAP and HANA.
To start, I have the following systems installed locally on my laptop and both are running concurrently and I have updated the hosts file for all three system (Windows Laptop, HANA Express server and ABAP server) with the ip address of each systems.
- SAP HANA Express 2.0 running on VMWare Player – Download | Instructions
- SAP NW AS ABAP 751 SP02 Innovation Pkg Developer Edition on openSUSE running on VMWare Player – Download | Instructions
As stated in Thomas’s blog, I will need to download the SAP HANA Client from SAP Software Center and install it onto the ABAP server.
*Search for HANA CLIENT in the Software Center and then make sure to select the right OS version and download the latest version – see example screenshot below.
After downloading the HANA Client, extract the SAR file and then connect the folder that contains the extracted SAR files to VMWare Player.
Once connected, below are the steps to install the HANA Client on the ABAP server.
Make note of the installation path of the HANA Client – /usr/sap/hdbclient
Next step is to set a reference to the HANA Client in LD_LIBRARY_PATH in the file .dbenv.csh. in /home/npladm.
Add a new line as highlighted below.
Restart the SAP server incl. DB if you have it running while making these changes.
Configuration in SAP – Transaction DBCO
Head into SAP and run transaction DBCO to maintain a new entry to the HANA Express DB as secondary DB. (You can also perform this step directly in DBACOCKPIT as well. Look under Database Connections -> Add)
Username: SYSTEM (HANA DB)
Password: <master password>
Conn. info: hxehost:3<instance number>13
Once saved, this connection will show up in DBACOCKPIT and I can then execute a connection test.
And that’s it!
I now have successfully connected the AS ABAP 751 Developer Edition with the HANA Express server as a secondary DB.
In part 2, I’ll share a program that I wrote (taking inspirations and tips from Graham Robinson in a blog that he shared back in 2013 called Loading data into HANA using RFC) that will help me replicate data from any SAP tables into this HANA Express instance.
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Part 1: Connecting AS ABAP 751 Developer Edition with HANA Express 2.0 as Secondary DB (This blog)
Part 2: Replicating data into HANA using ABAP – ADBC (Native SQL)
Part 3: Unfair speed test – ABAP CDS on ASE vs HANA CDS on HANA (DUH!)
Hello Alban,
Exactly the thing I was looking for. Thanks a lot for posting it on SCN.
Just had one request for suggestion before i jump start on this .
As mentioned in your blog you have installed both ABAP and HANA Express locally on your laptop - was wondering about the configuration of your laptop.
I have a laptop that has 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD and i7 processor. I have already installed HANA Express Server + Application on VMWare and it's working fine. Now if I go ahead and install ABAP trial version on the same system. I fear about the HANA Server - not sure if all the services on HANA Server will start or not.
Do you think I should install HANA Express Server only instead of HANA Server + Application and ABAP trial on my laptop. Any suggestions before I go ahead trying the combinations?
Many Thanks,
Ashutosh
Hi Ashutosh,
I have tried running both instances in the past on a laptop with only 16GB of RAMs and it didn't turn out so well. I tried allocating 8GB over to HANA Express VM and 4GB over to ABAP VM and performance was just super slow till the point that everything was timing out.
Right now, I have upgraded to a laptop with 32GB of RAMs and I allocate 16GB over to HANA Express VM and 8GB over to the ABAP Trial VM with 8GB left for Windows. It is MUCH better!
So, I would recommend that you only try the above if you have 32GB of RAMs on either a desktop / laptop.
- Alban
Thanks Alban for the prompt response.
Appreciate your input.
Best Regards,
Ashutosh
Hi Alban,
I would really appreciate if you could help me!
Could you please share with me which Suse Linux release you used for your AS ABAP server and what is the Hana Client release you used (is it the yellow one highlighted in your download box)?
I am getting error: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object: No such file or directory
Below are the releases for Hana Client and Suse Linux I am using
IMDB_CLIENT20_001_75-80002085.SAR
and
Suse Linux Leap 42.3
Best regards,
Vishnu T
I'm not sure if your error is because you're trying to put both the HANA Express and ABAP trial servers on the same instance (it might be possible) but that's not what I've done in my set up.
As explained below, I had two separate VMs running and I installed them following the instructions to the blogs I've shared which should be pretty clear in terms of getting either a HANA Express VM set up or an ABAP Trial VM set up.
Good luck!
I am getting error while installing Hana Client on Suse Linux system that is running AS ABAP
Okay - I'm sorry if I weren't clear in my post above but I have two separate virtual machines running on the same laptop.
I have 32GB of physical RAMs on my laptop and I assigned 16GB over to the HANA express VM and 8GB of RAM over to the ABAP VM which leaves 8GB for Windows.
Hi Alban,
Sorry for the delay in my response because of personal emergency last 4 days
Thank you very much for taking time to respond
Yes like you I am running two virtual machines, one for running AS ABAP 751 and for running HANA Express edition 2.0 SP2 and memory distribution also same like what you done
Issue for me is that when I am trying to install Hana Client on the Suse Linux running AS ABAP, I am getting C++ library error which I mentioned above. So I was thinking perhaps it is because the Hana Client is referring to some libraries which are only available on earlier Suse Linux versions. The Suse Linux which I installed for AS ABAP is Suse Linux Leap 42.3.
If you could tell me which release / version of Suse Linux you used to run AS ABAP server AND what Hana Client you downloaded from Service market place. I will use the same to avoid this error.
Best regards,
Vishnu T
Sure thing. I am running openSUSE Leap 42.3 as well for my ABAP server and this is the latest HANA CLIENT 2.0 revision - LINUX SUSE 9 on X86_64 64BIT that I see available for download right now. You should not have any issues with it.
Thank you Alban! I will try and revert back..
Hi Alban,
Thank you very much for taking time to hep me!
There is a SAP note talking about the error I am facing: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1984787
Basically it goes like:
you encounter the following error message: DVD_CLIENT/CLIENT_LINUXX86_64/SAPCAR: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Solution: Either install the libstdc++33 package from the Legacy Module 12 repository (see above)
or
Download SAPCAR, kernel 7.21 EXT from SAP service marketplace and copy it to folder DVD_CLIENT/CLIENT_LINUXX86_64 .
For installing Legacy Modules, SUSE Enterprise subscription is needed.
For now I am trying the 60 day trial version of SUSE Enterprise for SAP
Looks like the Hana Client latest version still uses Legacy Module 12 libraries which the latest version of Suse Linux that I am using has replaced
My Linux version, as you can see shows 4.4.126-48-default, which is different from yours
The version you are using is no longer available from OpenSUSE
This is the error that I am getting and the Legacy Module 12 library that is needed can ONLY be downloaded through SUSE Enterprise Linux subscription or 60 day trial version
https://www.suse.com/products/server/features/modules/
Hi Alban,
Not sure if this is asking too much, but if you can upload the OpenSUSE Linux iso that you used for your AS ABAP installation to google cloud or somewhere, it would be great. That one seems to have Legacy Module 12 that Hana client installation needs
No issues, if that is asking too much!
Thank you for all the guidance
Best regards,
Vishnu T
Hi Vishnu, I am sorry - unfortunately, I have deleted the ISO that was downloaded and no longer has that copy. Would downloading the previous release help? You can get a copy of openSUSE Leap 42.2 - https://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/42.2/iso/
I do hope this works.
When I get a break, I'll try to set up a new box and see if I run into the same issue.
Hello Alban,
Just so this may be helpful to others...
The libstdc++.so.5 missing error can be resolved by downloading the rpm libstdc++33-3.3.3-34.2.x86_64.rpm from the below ftp path
ftp://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/devel:/gcc/SLE-11/x86_64/
Once downloaded, put it inside a shared folder that is already mounted on the Linux box hosting AS ABAP server. Install the rpm using
rpm -Uvf rpm libstdc++33-3.3.3-34.2.x86_64.rpm
After the above rpm installation, the "hdbinst -a client" command to install the HANA client should work.
Vishnu Tallapragada sorry for the late response but a big thank you for taking the time to come back and give and update on what you did to solve the issue. It is much appreciated and I'm glad you managed to get it to work!
Alban, thank you very much for making time and trying to help me out!
To be precise, I am running both VMs on Intel NUC7i7BNH with 32 GB ram and I also divided RAM just like you did
I am able to logon to the AS ABAP server through both Eclipse and SAP GUI. I am also able to connect and login to Hana Express edition through Eclipse after downloading the tools.
i am moving from nw to abap platform version 2020. Docker offers finer controls and resource usages than VM + Docker is microservice-oriented better for quantum-computing coing down the pipes now. I'm investing heavily into the new M1X Mac architecture going all into (actually back to the future?) with pure functions over and above limitations with OO.
Hi Alban
I found an error
“— ERROR Connection failed (RTE:[89001] Cannot resolve host name ‘hxehost’ rc=-2: Name or service not known (hxehost:39015))”
when I push test in DBACOCKPIT.
I have installed Hana Client successfully and I set a reference like this.
And I can ping or connect to ABAP NPL and HXE via Eclipse successfully.
Please help.
Best regards.
Hi Alban
I found it.
Must add IP Address of the HXE in the ABAP AS host file.
I assume these all work with ASABAP 7.52 sp04 ASE as well with no issues?
many thanks in advance. Love the ABAP SQL, ABAPGit etc. in 7.52 sp04.
btw, I'm loading ABAP Platform 1909 Docker onto my Asus ROG laptop w 32-gb ram, 2 1-tb ssd, 4700HQ cpu and awesome GPU great for AI algorithms.
On AS ABAP 752 SP04 - there's a better solution which is to use SLT. See my other blog post on this. https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/20/setting-up-ltr-from-abap-7.52-sp04-dev-edition-to-hana-express-2.0-sps04/
Sounds like you have an awesome machine for ABAP 1909! I know folks have trouble trying it on 16GB RAMs machines and it is a little slow since it does require a great deal of RAMs to run it.