At Your Service: SAP HANA in the Cloud | SAP HANA ...

dvankempen · ‎03-08-2020

In this blog series you will find quotes, backgrounds, suggested further readings and other information related to my latest book SAP HANA 2.0, An Introduction published by SAP Press.

As the goal of the book is to provide an introduction, we could not spend as much time and pages on each and every topic as we wished at times. Although we covered cloud technologies and hyperscalers in the DC chapter (see the "quotes" blogs about Data Center Architecture), an more general discussion of the topic was omitted. In this blog, I will cover these topics in a bit more detail and include references where to find more information.

The SAP HANA Cloud stories is told in two episodes;

Part one is about the different SAP HANA cloud offerings over the years (this blog)

Part two is about SAP HANA in Containers.

For the hands-on tutorials and information about the free SAP HANA Cloud trial, visit.

Getting Started with SAP HANA Cloud (Free Trial)

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On-Demand: SAP NetWeaver Cloud (Neo)

In a previous blog about SAP Analytics Cloud, we have already covered that apart from a state-of-the-art business intelligence suite with the Business Objects acquisition in 2008, SAP also acquired software-as-a-service: crystalreports.com and www.ondemand.com (Business Objects offers BI software on-demand, ComputerWorld).

Meanwhile, in Walldorf, Germany, SAP was working on the Business by Design SaaS solution and a little later also on a Java PaaS (platform-as-a-service), code named Neo (NetWeaver On-Demand). Neo was introduced as SAP NetWeaver Cloud at TechEd in 2011 and launched at SAPPHIRE NOW 2012 (SAP NetWeaver Cloud – We’re open! by steinermatt).

Here is a product demo. Music by Venetic (Neverless). Yes, the times have changed.

https://youtu.be/QfA-HfKs_pI

https://youtu.be/QfA-HfKs_pI

SAP HANA One and the SAP HANA Academy

For the first cloud-based offering of SAP HANA, SAP embraced Amazon Web Services. Announced at SAP TechEd 2012, it was available until recently on the AWS Marketplace: SAP HANA One (replaced by SAP HANA, express edition).

SAP HANA One was part of SAP HANA Cloud, which also included SAP HANA AppServices and SAP NetWeaver Cloud (SAP Introduces SAP HANA Cloud, One of the Industry’s First In-Memory Cloud Platforms).

At the time CTO, Vishal Sikka explains the 99 cents an hour offer for "startups, ISVs, and anyone looking to build amazing analytic data processing scenarios".

https://youtu.be/xdJEAQieNNc

To learn how to work with this new technology, the SAP HANA Academy YouTube channel was launched with free sharing of in-memory expertise, a sacrilege at the time.

With the introduction of SAP HANA One on AWS, the application and database services in SAP HANA and SAP HANA Academy for knowledge sharing, we have dramatically simplified the application development experience by collapsing the artificial layers between transactions, analytics and application servers (SAP News, SAP Brings Massive Scale to SAP HANA Platform).

The mini-site saphana.com was recently folded into the SAP HANA community.

SAP (HANA) Cloud Platform

In 2012, SAP released the first application powered by HANA (BW), and the HANA momentum resulted in 2014 in a new company tagline: SAP, the cloud company powered by HANA. To address complexity and confusion, the Run Simple campaign was launched.

For SAPPHIRE NOW 2013, the SAP HANA AppServices and Database Services were merged with SAP NetWeaver Cloud and renamed to SAP HANA Cloud Platform (HCP) and now available from hana.ondemand.com (Evolution of the SAP HANA Cloud Platform, by Aiaz Kazi).

Next to the new HCP PaaS solution, SAP also launched the HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC), both hosted from SAP data centers. From some, all these cloud offerings were a bit confusing (SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud – What the HEC(K) is going on?!? by steinermatt).

To complement the portfolio, SAP also acquired SaaS solutions Ariba and SuccessFactors (SAP to Accelerate Cloud Strategy with Agreement to Acquire SuccessFactors). The latter had just selected Cloud Foundry as PaaS (SuccessFactors and VMware Announce First-of-its-Kind Agreement to Deliver Platform as a Service Offe...).

Four years after its launch, SAP's cloud platform was renamed to SAP Cloud Platform (SAP Cloud Platform – New name, new dimensions by steinermatt). Around the same time, Cloud Foundry was added to the platform (The road ahead with SAP HANA Cloud Platform and Cloud Foundry – SAP TechEd Strategy Talk of the week by rui.nogueira), GA announcement SAPPHIRE NOW 2017.

Illustration from Is SAP Cloud Platform a real Cloud Foundry Platform? by ivanfemia.

Cloud-First: SAP HANA Service

After the release of SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 in 2018, new development on the in-memory platform was cloud-first and this resulted in the SAP HANA Cloud Edition (SAP Cloud Platform, SAP HANA service: Next Gen Transactional & Analytical Processing in the Cloud).

This edition was added to the existing database services under a single name SAP Cloud Platform, SAP HANA Service for which there are now two environments and three versions. See What Is the SAP HANA Service and Feature Scope Description for SAP Cloud Platform, SAP HANA Service for what's included.

Neo: The original database services hosted on SAP data centers (SAP HANA 1.0)

Cloud Foundry:
- SAP HANA cloud edition hosted by AWS and GCP
- SAP HANA 2.0 hosted by Azure

How to get started, is explained in Getting started with the SAP HANA service and SAP HANA Service Instances and Databases – by the SAP HANA Academy.

SAP HANA Cloud (Services)

SAPPHIRE NOW 2019

At SAPPHIRE NOW 2019, SAP announced SAP HANA Cloud Services and SAP HANA Cloud as a solution to deal with the tsunami of exabytes coming our way. This portfolio included SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, and SAP HANA Cloud (at the time under development).

See previous posts

Analytics with SAP (cloud) for SAP Analytics Cloud

Data Warehousing with SAP for Data Warehouse Cloud

For the highlights of the key note, see

https://youtu.be/pmGv8bIeCWU

Historical view of the SAP HANA Cloud Services portfolio.

SAPPHIRE NOW 2020

More recently, the SAP HANA Cloud Services portfolio was folded into the Business Technology Platform and is no longer advertised as such. The micro-site saphanacloudservices.com now redirects to saphanajourney.com.

SPAN + AMOUNT + QUALITY + USAGE is the data value formula with SAP Data Intelligence Cloud added to the troika.

Road Map

For the latest information about the overall SAP HANA roadmap, including SAP HANA Cloud, see

SAP HANA Road Map [October, 2020]

SAP HANA 2.0 - An Introduction

Just getting started with SAP HANA? Or do have a migration to SAP HANA 2.0 coming up? Need a quick update covering business benefits and technology overview. Understand the role of the system administrator, developer, data integrator, security officer, data scientist, data modeler, project manager, and other SAP HANA stakeholders? My latest book about SAP HANA 2.0 covers everything you need to know.

Get it from SAP Press or Amazon: