SAP HANA Cloud: What’s New (and Changed) – Database Backups

Video Tutorial

In this video tutorial about database backups for SAP HANA Cloud with SAP HANA cockpit, we take a look at the following card and apps

• Database Backups (card)
• Backup Catalog
• Backup Configuration

What’s New and Changed?

Compared to the SAP HANA cockpit for SAP HANA platform (on-premise) there are no changes for the Database Backup user interface (SAP HANA cockpit) but backup is configured as a restricted feature for the SAP HANA Cloud H00 tenant database and hence not configurable. It is part of the managed service.

SAP HANA Cloud – SAP HANA Cockpit: Sessions and Threads

Backup Service

Backup service conditions are documented in the Getting Started Guide.

• Backups are encrypted using the capabilities of the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider.
• Backups are replicated in additional availability zones in the same region.
• The recovery point objective (RPO) is no more than 15 minutes.
• The retention time for backups is 14 days.
• If you delete an instance, it can be recovered for 14 days.
• If a logical database error occurs, you can recover an SAP HANA database to a point in time before the error occurred. To initiate a recovery, open a service request, component HAN-CLS-HC)

For the documentation, see

• Backup and Recovery, SAP HANA Cloud Getting Started Guide

Recommended KBA for general information about SAP HANA backup and recovery (but not specific and mostly not very relevant for SAP HANA Cloud)

• 1642148 – FAQ: SAP HANA Database Backup & Recovery

Database Backups

System Overview

The Monitoring and Administration topic area in System Overview includes a card for Database Backups with the time stamp of the last full data backup, the status and a link to Backup Configuration.

When selected, the card opens the Backup Catalog.

For the documentation, see

• Cards Available on the System Overview Page
• Display Information About Backups

System Overview

Backup Card

Backup Catalog

The Backup Catalog lists all backups taken (complete, log, catalog). The information can be displayed in table and graph format. When selected detailed information about the item is displayed.

SAP HANA Cloud backups use the BACKINT interface.

Backup Catalog

Backup Catalog – Graph

Backup Catalog – Details

Restricted Features

As covered in the blog Manage Services, the SAP HANA Cloud instance is a tenant database. The associated system database is managed by SAP and backups is one of the disabled features for the tenant. The system monitoring view M_CUSTOMIZABLE_FUNCTIONALITIES shows what functionality is enabled and disabled.

This overrules BACKUP ADMIN | OPERATOR system privileges.

For the documentation, see

• Disable Features on a Tenant Database, SAP HANA Administration Guide for SAP HANA Platform

Restricted Feature

As a consequence, executing the BACKUP command returns an error: feature ‘Backup’ is disabled.

Backup Disabled

System Privileges

SAP HANA Database Explorer

System Monitoring Views

The information displayed in the Backup Catalog and Backup Configuration apps comes from the M_BACKUP_* system monitoring views, which you can query in the SQL Console of the SAP HANA Database Explorer.

SQL Console

Although not specific to SAP HANA Cloud, the Statement Library of the SAP HANA Database Explorer also contains many statements and script that can be useful for backup monitoring.

For the documentation, see

• Use the Statement Library to Administer Your Database, SAP HANA Cloud

Recommended KBA

• 1969700 – SQL Statement Collection for SAP HANA

Statement Library

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For the author page of SAP Press, visit

• Denys van Kempen | SAP Press

For the SAP HANA Cloud e-bite, see

• Introducing SAP HANA Cloud