All About the SAP HANA Database Explorer

What is the SAP HANA database explorer?

In this blog post, we’re taking a closer look at the SAP HANA database explorer, which is integrated into both the cockpit and the Web IDE.

Whether you’re a database administrator using cockpit or an application developer working with Web IDE, at some point you’ll find yourself accessing the database explorer perspective to view your database catalog, query your database, or set up and search through trace files.

However, the database explorer is more than just a SQL console and catalog tree-view. It allows you to perform both administrative and development tasks on different types of database schemas such as:

HANA single and multitenant databases
HDI containers (for SAP Web IDE)
Cockpit resources (for SAP HANA cockpit)

What can I do with the SAP HANA database explorer?

The database explorer provides many of the features that you may already be familiar with from HANA studio, such as:

A SQL console
A SQL debugger
Tracing configuration and the ability to view log files
Importing and exporting of catalog objects

The database explorer delivers even greater administrative and development functionality by delivering the additional features below:

View your database catalog

Like HANA Studio, you can easily view the objects in your database catalog. But with database explorer, you get to go beyond viewing tables, views, and functions, to explore objects such as graph workspaces, cubes, JSON collections, and libraries.

Query your database

The database explorer has both SQL and MDX consoles, allowing you to run either type of query against any of your databases. It also provides the ability to:

Store your commonly-used SQL statements (both system statements and user-defined statements) in a Statement Library.
Cancel SQL statements
View tooltips that describe database objects by hovering over the object with your mouse while holding the control key

Execute SQL Statements

Execute MDX Queries in the SAP HANA Database Explorer

Use the Statement Library to Administer Your Database

Run background activities

In HANA studio, if you wanted to execute a long-running query or operation, studio had to remain open and your machine had to remain on for the task to complete. The database explorer allows you to run queries or tasks as background activities. These activities continue running even after you’ve logged off cockpit or Web IDE, closed your browser window, or shut down your machine. Your query and its results are stored and can be retrieved later from the Background Activity Monitor.

Run a Query as a Background Activity

Analyze the performance of statements, procedures, and functions

You can use the SQL analyzer to analyze query performance by viewing in-depth information about statement execution, possible optimization, and potential query bottlenecks.

With the SQLScript Code Analyzer, you can analyze a procedure or function written in SQLScript to search for patterns that indicate issues with code quality, security, or performance.

Analyzing Statement Performance

Analyzing Procedure and Function Performance

Work with graph workspaces

Database explorer provides a graph workspaces visualizer that lets you view the data in a graph workspace and manipulate how the data is represented by adding filters, applying algorithms, and changing vertex and edge settings.

Where can I find out more about the SAP HANA database explorer?