ABAPer first steps towards deploying SAP HANA Express edition to Google Cloud Platform
I have been trying to get my hands dirty onto SAP HANA Express edition for some time but sadly did not have the laptop to support the high RAM requirements. So, through this blog, I wanted to share my side of crazy doubts & questions which I have in my mind by reading through different materials. Hopefully this will help the other beginners like me settle down quickly without struggling much.
Rather than beginning with set up etc. let me begin with the doubts which I had before even I began my adventure. It is okay to laugh also at my silly doubts:). My journey just has started I will keep updating the doubts/issues which i face further in this journey.
Doubts and Resolutions
How will this console like window open? Do I need to configure anything?
This was the most trickiest one till the time i started:). In most of the blogs we see people running commands, I was thinking do I need any local installation? The answer was no, once you set up your SAP Express edition on Google Cloud, you will get the option of opening the console in a browser.
Where will I code? How do I check my HANA database and contents?
SAP Web IDE provides you all the features which you need to code your native application.SAP Web IDE also has inbuilt database explorer which can we used to display data, create table typically SQL console is available to you.
Why do I get error when I try to add create database with correct host?
In my case if I was mentioning host as only HXEHOST it was not taking the moment I mentioned HXEHOST.localdomain as per SAP HANA Admin cockpit it started working
What all I can do in Console
You can do all the things practically for example
- For logging as admin you can use sudo su – hxeadm
- For listing out all the XS apps you can use xs apps
- For Stating and stopping HANA Database you can use HDB start/stop
Restarted the instance but my Web IDE is not loading neither HANA Cockpit?
For me I went to the console, login as HXEADM as started the database HDB start and used XS APs command and it worked normally afterwards. So, after restarting the machine we need to start the services as well as database.
Problem here was i was directly shutting down the Virtual Machine instance not doing a clean exit as mentioned by Lucia in the comments. It is must to use HDB stop from command line to stop the VM step by step.
If I provide my credit card on google cloud platform will it charge?
As of now Google cloud platform is offering 300$ credit which will be used first, then after that they will not auto deduct it will need confirmation from you. So, bottom line is do not worry, you are in safe hands
How does this billing work?
Billing depends on the time till your VM is up and running. So always stop your instance when not using, it will show you the balance also at top in console.
Initial Set Up
Luckily found this blog by Lucia Subatin where it talks about deploying the SAP HANA express addition to Google cloud Platform. This blog talks about deploying only the server, but we wanted to deploy server as well as application. On further searching found this video from SAP HANA Academy showing how to install with application.
Must read blog series
XS Advanced for (not so) dummies by Lucia Subatin is a must read series for beginner like me to understand at high level what HANA XSA is. It gives good picture what is UAA, HDI, Routing etc.
First must try exercise
Once everything was setup and running, I followed this wonderful tutorial Build a basic SAP HANA XS Advanced application by Craig Cmehil to begin my journey into the world of XSA. It is must to try all the tutorials to get comfortable.
What can be explored next?
Read more, explore more and share more. As of now I have below mentioned things on my mind.
- Consuming XSOData on Google Cloud vial SAP Cloud API will be tried
- Native app with CRUD operations
- Something related to Machine Learning
- GeoSpatial stuff.
- Deploy Data Hub on Google cloud as now feeling bit comfortable.
- Streaming analytics on and on:)
Feel free to provide your feedback, open to all ears.
Hi Nabheet,
Thanks for sharing your experience and the endorsement 🙂 Of course, I have some notes that may be of good for anyone in your situation and would like to hear more about your experience so we can improve it for everyone out there.
The HXE + XSA tutorial is out there too: https://www.sap.com/developer/tutorials/hxe-gcp-getting-started-launcher-xsa.html
And the full list of all possible deployments showing how to get HANA Express on the different platforms is here: https://www.sap.com/canada/developer/topics/sap-hana-express.html#flowchart We are careful to update those for every revision as some things may change.
That should have taken you to the XSA on GCP tutorial, so i am curious how you got to the server-only one to begin with. How did you reach that initial tutorial?
Also, manually starting the database and xs apps is not necessary upon restarting the DB. What is necessary is that you perform a clean exit before shutting down (HDB stop as hxeadm). It generally is a matter of patience (HDB info will tell you the progress).
I am also curious on your error when adding a new DB. hxehost should work (and works for me on standard GCP machines). Can you please share how I can reproduce that error so it can get fixed?
Thanks again for the feedback and looking forward to more!
Best,
Lucia
Thanks Lucia for the detailed feedback. Please find below my response.
Since I have googled for installing SAP HANA Express edition XSA Google cloud,it took me to that link.
This is a great tip which i was not aware of, i was shutting down the VM directly. I will follow this going forward and updated in the blog also.
What i was doing was add the database in Web IDE database explorer. When i was entering hxehost it was not able to connect, but when i had a look at the name of database in HANA cockpit it was shown hxehost.local then it worked.
Their is one small thing, can you please update the name the streaming file in the optional section to hsa.tz as sa.tz is no longer available.
Thanks
Nabheet