Technical Articles
Get Certified: C_HANATEC_16
SAP Certified Technology Associate – SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04
For the most recent edition of this post (SPS 05), see |
In this blog, you will find some personal suggestions about how to get certified as SAP Certified Technology Associate – SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04.The SPS04 exam is available as of December 2019. For the blog posts about the other SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 exams, see
For the blog post about the SAP Press Certification Success Guide, see Questions? Post as comment. Useful? Give us a like and share on social media. Thanks! |
Once you passed the exam, you will receive a digital badge from Acclaim
See the FAQ for more information about SAP Global Certification Digital badges.
About the Exam
Associate Level
Information about the exam is published on the SAP Training website. This is also where you can book the exam (or get a certification hub subscription)
The C_ stands for associate level type exam.
Other flavors are P_ for professional and E_ for expert (associate add-on) but these are not available for SAP HANA.
There are three types of associate certications:
- TEC = Technology (system administration)
- IMP = Application (implementation, here modeling)
- DEV = Development (native development)
Validity
For each release there is an exam. Currently valid are
- 17 = SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 | until 2025
- 16 = SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 | until 2021
- 12 = SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 12 | until 2021
As you may have noticed, SAP Training simply continued the SPS release count.
Certifications expire with the maintenance support for the SAP HANA release. For this reason your certification for SPS 12 from 2016 is still valid while those for 2017 (SPS 01) and 2018 (SPS 02) no longer are.
You can check the validity of the certification at training.sap.com/certification/validity.
Should you still need to pass the SPS 12, see blog (with videos)
For the certification FAQs, see
Topic Areas
Information about the topic areas covered is also listed on the exam information page.
Note the small print: SAP reserves the right to update the exam content (topics, items, weighting) at any time. So make sure to check the page before applying.
Major Topics 8% – 12%
- Perform SAP HANA Sizing and OS Preparations
- Installing, upgrading and performing the post-installation task of the SAP HANA database
- Create users, setup authorizations and verify security settings
- Perform a SAP HANA backup and recovery
- Perform daily administration tasks
- Execute database migrations to SAP HANA
Minor Topics <8%
- Explain the SAP HANA system architecture and deployment options
- Configure and manage SAP HANA Scale-out systems
- Installing and configuring SAP HANA Cockpit
- Describe the different database administration tools
- Work with SAP HANA MDC systems
- Set up and manage SAP HANA System Replication
- Proactive Monitoring and troubleshooting of SAP HANA
- Analyze system performance Root Cause Analysis
These topic areas more or less match the units and lessons from the listed SAP training courses.
- HA200 (SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04) – 5 days
- HA201 (SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04) – 3 days
- HA215 (SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04) – 2 days
- HA250 (SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04) – 2 days
For example, topic area Perform SAP HANA Sizing and OS Preparations points to HA200 and when you download the course manual index, you can see that this matches the lessons from unit 2.
What’s New
Compared to the previous edition, apart from the release (SPS 03) and a reshuffle of the exam topics, the most noticeable is that the training HA240 is no longer included as exam material.
HA240 is now part of certification
How to Prepare
SAP PRESS
Whether you take the official training courses or not, the SAP PRESS Certification Guide(s) remain an excellent preparation for the exam. The book covers all the core topics with references for additional study material, together with a glossary and hundreds of sample questions.
SAP Training
When you have the time and budget, take the SAP Training courses. Nothing beats a 2 week+ focus with hands-on exercises and training environment.
- HA200 – Installation and Administration (SPS05) – 5 days
- HA201 – High Availability and Disaster Tolerance Administration (SPS05) – 3 days
- HA215 – Monitoring and Performance Tools (SPS05) – 2 days
- HA250 – Database Migration using DMO (SPS05) – 2 days
Note that the courses have as requirement
- HA100 – SAP HANA – 360° Introduction – 3 days
With limited resources, consider
This delta training takes 3 days and covers the material from HA200, HA250, and HA240 (not required). As mentioned on the course leaflet: to be fully prepared for the C_HANATEC_17 certification, you need to attend the HA201 and HA215 courses as well, as the HATD20 Col17 course only covers the delta course materials of HA200 and HA250.
SAP Learning Hub
Alternatively, consider a subscription for the SAP Learning Hub and/or Certification Hub. There is a trial edition available for you to try it out.
Learning Journey
The learning journey shows a visualisation of the courses to take. You can logon and mark your progress.
The (free) openSAP courses about advanced analytics topics are listed under Expand your Skills.
Note that the learning journey lists courses HA240 and HOHAA1 as input for the C_HANATEC exam but this does not correspond to the exam information page where these courses are absent.
The tiles for each of the courses show the available formats: classroom and e-books. When subscribed to the learning hub, you also have access to an SAP HANA system for hands-on exercises (Live Access). The assessment contains the sample questions from the course.
SAP Help Portal
Most material will also be covered in the documentation on the SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Master Guide 2.0 SPS 04
- SAP HANA Server Installation and Update Guide 2.0 SPS 04
- SAP HANA Administration Guide for SAP HANA Platform 2.0 SPS 04
Unfortunately, the administration guide alone counts well over 2,000 pages and contains a lot of information you do NOT need to know.
Papers
The following papers are covered in detail in the above-mentioned courses, so make sure you are familiar with their content:
- SAP HANA Tailored Data Center Integration – FAQ (2018)
- SAP HANA TDI-Storage Requirements (2017)
- SAP HANA Network Requirements (2018)
- High Availability for SAP HANA (2017)
The latest versions of these papers are maintained in note 2407186 – How-To Guides & Whitepapers For SAP HANA High Availability.
SAP Development Center
Of course, the tutorials from the SAP Development Center also provide a great learning opportunity. This is also the place to download the free SAP HANA, express edition or find out how you can run this in a cloud environment.
Knowledge Base
For those that have access to the SAP ONE Support Launchpad knowledge base articles (KBAs) (S- or P-user account), take note of the many excellent FAQ articles. As with the documentation guides, this will cover more material than you will need to know but it does provide an excellent resource.
Sample Questions
On the exam page, there is a link to a sample exam similar to the real one from ondemand.questionmark.eu.
For a discussion of the questions and answers, see
Share and Connect
Questions? Post as comment.
Useful? Give us a like and share on social media. Thanks!
If you would like to receive updates, connect with me on
- LinkedIn > linkedin.com/in/dvankempen
- Twitter > @dvankempen
For the author page of SAP Press, visit
Hi Denys,
thanks for your details about the new SPS4 certification.You are doing a great job for the community with your blog posts and social media presence!
As always I’m struggling with the wording and the details of the questions. As trainer I’m getting a lot of questions after someone attended at a certification “how I should interpret this question” / “I’m missing context details – how I should act?”. On every onside test you will receive a blank page. There you can write down your assumption regarding the questions. This page will be checked if you have not passed the certification.
But I would wish, that SAP could check the wording and make such certification questions rock solid without a gray zone without room for interepretations.
Just an example from the sample questions:
Let's break down the details:
We don’t know (that is what worries most people – the unknown):
If we are take all not given variables as default and assume everything is working fine:
This means:
If no log backups were performed:
If only the data backup config is valid the answer would be latest incremental backup.
I think if such sentences would be added to the questions a lot of people would be happy. I offer to verify the questions ?
Regards,
Jens
Jens,
Thanks for taking the time to provide this extensive example and thanks for volunteering. Your contributions to the SAP Community are first class.
I can only agree but as I am not part of the education department my options are limited (the training and certification experience is identical for employees, partners, and customers) so I will request the product owner of the exam Henricus Bouten to comment upon your request.
Thanks,
Hello Denys,
Thank you for this blog giving great information. I just wanted to ask you if I only apply for certification without training, do I get access to learning content in learning hub?
Regards,
Soham Panchal
Hi Soham,
These are different SAP Training "products".
Certifications are listed in the shop with CERxxx prefix, like CER001 for a single certification, CER006 for a bundle of 6, and CERS001 for a student edition ($145).
The learning hub is listed in the shop with HUBxxx prefix of which there are many, including another student edition HUB050 ($276). Just search the shop with term HUB to see the all listed (361 in the US shop currently).
There are bundles, like HUBB02 (HUB030 + CER006) but most pricing assumes a corporate budget.
For the FAQ, see https://training.sap.com/help-center/search?query=Cloud+Certification
Thank you Denys!
Hi Denys,
Thank you for this blog giving great information.
Best Regards,
Atul Kumar
Hi Denys,
Thank you for information on this certification exam.
I have a query, I have books for SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 02, then can I appear and pass exam c_hanatec_16 for SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04.
Also one more query:
Is that more relevant in the market that I appear for C_hanatec_16 or can i opt for C_hanatec_15 or C_hanatec12.
Can you please give your opinion.
Many thanks,
Regards,
Deepa
Hi Deepa,
Most of the material will be the same but I would recommend to focus on the delta (differences) between SPS 02 and SPS 04. See the release notes for what has changed and then look the topic up in the documentation.
Your certification remains valid as long as the release is still supported. SPS 03 (15) has expired in June; SPS 04 (16) will expire in April next year. SPS 05 (17) will be valid for the next 5 years.
We are currently working on a certification guide for the SPS 05 exam coming out later this year.