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 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?
Visit the official SAP documentation for the database explorer:
SAP HANA Database Explorer (SAP HANA Platform)
SAP HANA Database Explorer (SAP Cloud Platform)
Check out this SAP HANA Academy video that provides a brief introduction to the database explorer:
SAP HANA Academy – Web IDE for HANA: Database Explorer [2.0 SPS 00]