Technical Articles
What is/was the necessity to install SAP HANA As A Secondary Database (Sidecar Scenario) ? In most simple way !!
Introduction:
What exactly comes to your mind as soon you come across the word Sidecar ? Yes , you are right – a car attached to the side of a motorcycle or any vehicle for a passenger – sounds interesting !! .
The same concept you can corelate in technical terms as defined below :
SAP HANA Sidecar is nothing but a SAP HANA platform which serves as a secondary database to an already existing SAP system with its own traditional database.
Note : SAP HANA Secondary Database is also called as SAP HANA Sidecar Database where SAP HANA is its Database – as the name suggests.
SAP HANA Sidecar Architecture :
Fig.1.0
Note: Traditional Database can be Oracle , MySQL MaxDB , IBM DB2 and many more.
What is/was the Necessity ?
- Lets say you have few programs/reports/transactions or any object which is taking much time in Traditional(Primary) Database except these objects your system is stable and its working pretty cool. But , you don’t want to run all your other reports, transactions etc. on SAP HANA DB as it’s not causing any problems.
- So , you need those set of programs/reports/transactions or any objects to run on SAP HANA Database , as these are taking much time even after performing all sorts of performance tuning techniques.
- This is basically because of the limitation of Non-SAP HANA Database.
- As we all know that ,SAP HANA deployment empowers a business with a speed that is approximately 3600 times faster than that of the traditional databases.
- So , if you want to accelerate all these programs/reports/transactions or any object – which is taking more time for execution, one of the option to make it work efficiently is to use SAP HANA As A Secondary(Sidecar) Database.
How does this Work ?
- Lets say you have Report/any Object which is too sluggish and you need to make it work efficiently or execute quickly.So, what you do it ?
- For that Report/Object which is very slow in terms of execution , need to identify all the Database tables used in that Report/Object and after identifying – now you got to know that there are 5 Database tables used in that Report/Object.
- These 5 database tables are available in Traditional(Primary) Database & also the data of those 5 Database tables is stored in Traditional(Primary) Database.
- So,the data of only these 5 Database tables is replicated using SLT (System Landscape Transformation) server to SAP HANA Sidecar Database as shown in the above figure.
- Basically , SLT is a tool which is capable of doing real-time data replication.
- Once, the data replicates into SAP HANA Database with the help of SLT , reports running on Traditional(Primary) Database can read data directly from SAP HANA Sidecar(Secondary) Database – instead of processing it from the Traditional Database.
How can this be Achieved ?
- This can be done with the help of a Secondary Database connection.(Refer Fig.1.0)
- The connection from Traditional(Primary) Database to Secondary Database is established with the help of t-code : DBACOCKPIT where Connection Name of Secondary Database is maintained in order to establish the connection between the Primary & Secondary Database.
- There is a slight change in select queries of reports in order to read the data & the change is to add CONNECTION keyword followed by Connection Name before the target variable in Open SQL statements.
Conclusion:
- Generally , the customers go with this option to test the performance of SAP HANA as a Database , as they have very few reports/transactions which is causing them performance issues with the existing Traditional(Primary) Database even after taking care all sort of performance tuning techniques for those effected objects.
- Using SAP HANA Sidecar as a Secondary Database , it allows the customer to assess its capabilities & performance improvement.
- Hence , upon realization , the customers will go for full-fledged enterprise version of SAP HANA. Then ,they replicate their entire Database on it to make it fully functional.
Nice post Thank You!!
Thanks !! Mohammad Adil Ali for going through the complete blog post.
Very Good Explanation
Thanks !! Alok Kumar
Hi Pavan, Nice article related to sidecar scenario.
I have a question in this regard. You have considered the scenario for only few reports, however is it possible to implement sidecar scenario in case if we want to implement a new module altogether? In that case is it possible to replicate a lot of tables / data from the old system to the new system, for eg. vendor data related to payments?
Hi ,
Yes , exactly you are right it involves lot of effort . Basically , the customer will go with this option only when he considers few reports/transactions taking lot of time but then all other things to him are not causing any issue w.r.t performance.
In your case , if customer is moving a complete module then its better to use HANA DB as a primary database but yes again he has the option if many things are not involved in that module he can go with HANA as Secondary DB as well .
Note : Anyhow he has to migrate from any DB to HANA DB in coming years , as per SAP guidelines.
I hope I answered your question.
Thanks,
Pavan
Hi Pavan,
Nice blog!!
Just a small query, think that we have a BW 7.4(non-HANA) and a BW/4HANA system, due to some business requirements we want to continue using some applications in BW 7.4. Let us think that we have some BEx reports which are taking very long time(other reports are working excellent 😊) due to huge data volume. In this case we can side car approach to run the long running reports in secondary database(HANA), and present the report output in BW 7.4 system.
Where can we select/set some queries to side car approach and some not?
Regards, Kiran
Hi Kiran,
Thanks for going through the complete blog post.
After establishing the required connection via t-code : DBACOCKPIT w.r.t Primary & Secondary DB , there is just a slight change in the queries that needs to be incorporated & the change is to add CONNECTION keyword followed by Connection Name before the target variable in Open SQL statements.
Hope I answered your question.
Thank You.
Best Regards,
Pavan
Hello Pavan ,
Appreciating the excellent trivial explanation of yours , Can you please give little bit insights with respect to licensing the HANA DB for side car approach . How licensing for HANA DB ( side car approach ) works ?
Regards,
Saravana Kumar V S