QGIS 3.18 supports SAP HANA Cloud

On February 19th, 2021 the QGIS project has released QGIS 3.18. One of the new features is support for SAP HANA (On-premise and Cloud) as a native database provider (see changelog). With this new functionality QGIS can be connected to SAP HANA via ODBC to visualize and analyze geospatial vector data residing in SAP HANA. The installation packages for Windows, macOS and Linux are available since February 23rd, 2021.

To learn more about the Open Source GIS client QGIS visit QGIS.org. To get a good overview of community content around SAP HANA’s geospatial vector data engine, please check the respective resource blog. By following the SAP Community Tag SAP HANA Spatial you can make sure to not miss upcoming hands-on material on SAP HANA Spatial in combination with QGIS.

How to get started NOW:

• Download and install QGIS 3.18
• Download and install the latest SAP HANA ODBC Client
• Create a free SAP HANA Cloud Trial instance (..or use any other existing instance)
• Connect QGIS to SAP HANA Cloud. For details you may review the video below or the QGIS documentation:
  • Connecting to SAP HANA
  • SAP HANA Spatial Layers
• Use QGIS to upload spatial data to SAP HANA and start your journey with spatial analytics!

If you are unsure wich dataset to start with, you may want to check out OpenStreetMap data from Geofabrik (e.g. SHP files containing OSM data around the SAP Headquarters). These files can opened with QGIS and moved to SAP HANA using drag’n’drop.

On a personal note: If, today or in future, you are planning to use QGIS in combination with SAP HANA in your company, I personally encourage you to also consider a donation or a sustaining membership in favor of the QGIS project. Open Source or Closed Source, Free-to-use or Paid License – this is about great software, whose development and maintenance never comes free of cost. If you are interested in details on our contribution to the QGIS project, you can check my article It’s Been a Ride published on The Startup.

(Cover image background by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)