Skip to Content
Technical Articles
Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen

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.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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.

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.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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.

Note that the courses have as requirement

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:

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:

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.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

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

For the author page of SAP Press, visit

/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/sapnwabline_885687.png

Assigned Tags

      8 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Jens Gleichmann
      Jens Gleichmann

      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:

      • a crashed data volume
      • an intact log volume
      • 9 hours old full backup
      • 4 hours old incremental backup

      We don’t know (that is what worries most people – the unknown):

      • did the log backups work the till time the instance crashed?
      • do we have access to the log backups?
      • backint config valid?
      • is the backup catalog valid and do we have access to it?
      • is the backup config valid and do we have access to the data backups?

      If we are take all not given variables as default and assume everything is working fine:

      • log backups were performed at least every 15min
      • the log segments were deleted after a successful backup, handled as normal and were deleted if not needed any more (for restart/roll back purpose)
      • we have access to the log backups for a recovery
      • backup config is valid

      This means:

      • we use the full backup
      • additionally we can use the delta backup (incremental)
      • at this point we can use the log backups till the last successfully saved one
      • due the log segments inside the log volume are consistent, they can be used for further processing and instance recovery to the latest point in time (last commited transaction)

      If no log backups were performed:

      • all log information can be read from the log segments
      • they can be used for further processing and instance recovery to the latest point in time (last commited transaction)

      If only the data backup config is valid the answer would be latest incremental backup.

      Tip: So, if no more details specified, assume that everything is working and all not given values are default.

      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

      Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen
      Denys van Kempen
      Blog Post Author

      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,

      Author's profile photo Soham Panchal
      Soham Panchal

      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

      Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen
      Denys van Kempen
      Blog Post Author

      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

      Author's profile photo Soham Panchal
      Soham Panchal

      Thank you Denys!

      Author's profile photo Atul Kumar Prajapati
      Atul Kumar Prajapati

      Hi Denys,

      Thank you for this blog giving great information.

       

      Best Regards,

      Atul Kumar

      Author's profile photo Deepa Awasthi
      Deepa Awasthi

      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

      Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen
      Denys van Kempen
      Blog Post Author

      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.