Upgrades and patches for the SAP HANA database are continuously provided.

Patches

Patches are provided for every version of the SAP HANA database for up to seven months after its initial release. Apply a patch to fix known bugs and benefit from other improvements.

By default, applying a patch requires the instance to be restarted, which causes downtime. To reduce the downtime, an upgrade can be performed without the need to restart the instance. You can choose whether the instance is restarted or not in the instance configuration under Advanced Settings  Upgrade Mode.

Upgrades

If a new version of the SAP HANA database is available, then a notification appears in SAP HANA Cloud Central.

A new version of SAP HANA Cloud is released every three months. The version is referred to by QRC (quarterly release cycle), the quarter and the year in which it was released, for example QRC 1/2021. In between QRC releases, patches that contain bug fixes and other improvements are made available.You cannot downgrade to a lower version or revert to the previous version after the upgrade was performed.

The currently installed version of the SAP HANA database and its version history are available on the instance configuration page under Version.

Upgrade Timeline of SAP HANA Cloud QRC Revisions

Upgrade Mode

By default, an upgrade to a newer version of the SAP HANA database requires the instance to be restarted, which causes downtime. To reduce the downtime, an upgrade can be performed without the need to restart the instance. If you change the upgrade mode from Upgrade with restart to Upgrade without restart, a replica of database instance is created. When initiating an upgrade, the replica is upgraded first and becomes the active instance once the upgrade is complete.

To change the Upgrade Mode, navigate to the Advanced Settings in the instance configuration and will be continued in next blog – Part 2