Technical Articles
Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA (all types of use)?
last updated: 2023-09-07
Introduction
Several tools are available for the SAP HANA database for different purposes. The knowledge belongs to the tools are very fragmented (Help Portal, Blog post, SAP KBA, SAP Note, other). In order to simply and make content consumption easier I have created a centralized page. Further I would like to help you to find the fastest way to get the necessary information.
Different categories are a kind of definition of tools.
- SAP HANA Administration Tools
- SAP HANA Developer Tools
- Other Tools for SAP HANA
I would also like to share some personal experiences, such as prerequisites, installation, configuration of different tools.
Architecture
In my scenario I am using Windows 11 operating system on my laptop. I am running SAP HANA, express edition (preconfigured) Server + applications virtual machine on VMware Workstation.
- Frequently Asked Questions About SAP HANA®, Express Edition
- Server + Applications: SAP HANA, express edition and XSA – by the SAP HANA Academy
- SAP Help Portal – SAP HANA, express edition
- SAP Help Portal – Getting Started with SAP HANA 2.0, express edition (Virtual Machine Method)
- SAP Help Portal – Getting Started with SAP HANA 2.0, express edition (Virtual Machine Method) – PDF
Prerequisites
- Hypervisor (VMware Workstation Player 17)
- SAP HANA, express edition (version: 2.00.061)
Install SAP HANA 2.0, express edition on a Preconfigured Virtual Machine (with SAP HANA XS Advanced) - SAP HANA Studio (version: 2.3.63)
Table of Content
- Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA?
- SAP Help Portal
- SAP Support Portal
- SAP HANA Academy
- Software Platforms
- Tools (other)
- Tools / Features / Extensions (for SAP HANA)
- What blog posts can be helpful?
- Other articles belongs to SAP HANA, express edition
- Other articles in this series
- Other articles in connected series
Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA?
- SAP Help Portal – Home
- SAP Support Portal – Home
- SAP Community – Home
- SAP Guided Answers – Home
- SAP Support/Community Wiki – Home
- SAP HANA Academy – YouTube
- SAP Notes & Knowledge Base Articles
This is the initial entry point of the official SAP HANA documentations belongs to the available tools.
SAP Help Portal – Home
- SAP Help Portal – SAP HANA Platform
- SAP Help Portal – SAP HANA Platform – Operarte
This is the initial entry point of the official SAP Notes, Knowledge Base Articles, Guided Answers and more. Also the SAP Software Download Center is available from here.
SAP Support Portal – Home
- SAP Support Portal – My Support – Knowledge Base
- SAP Support Portal – My Support – Software Downloads
The SAP HANA Academy provides Technical Enablement, Implementation and Adoption Support for Customers and Partners with 1000’s of free tutorial videos.
Some software platforms are required as prerequisites to use different tools.
The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a cross-platformed software development environment that offers a collection of tools and libraries necessary for developing Java-based software applications and applets.
Remark: The difference between Open JDK and Oracle JDK is that Open JDK is an open source project that is maintained by Oracle, Red Hat, and the community, whereas Oracle JDK is closed source, requires a paid license, and is maintained by Oracle.
Reference: https://openjdk.org/
- 2728220 – Does SAP support running OpenJDK instead of Oracle Java?
- 3350861 – Information about OpenJDK usage with SAP Disclosure Management
In July 2011, SAP AG announced that SAP officially joined the OpenJDK project. SapMachine is a build of the OpenJDK, maintained and supported by SAP. It provides a free and open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE).
https://sap.github.io/SapMachine/
SAP Notes / Knowledge Base Articles:
- 3026073 – SapMachine – FAQ
- 3140212 – Ho-To Upgrade SapMachine
- 3114464 – How to retrieve the SapMachine release used by an environment
- 3254224 – The relationship between SAP JVM, Oracle JDK and OpenJDK
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP Business Technology Platform – SapMachine
There are other tools that may be needed when unpacking, installing, or otherwise.
🔨 SAPCAR (archiving/extracting tool)
SAPCAR is a tool for extracting *.SAR files. This tool is necessary to have, to be able to extract the downloaded media before installing it.
SAP Help Portal:
- Installation and Maintenance Guide – Downloading the SAPCAR Utility
- Administrator – Installing the SAPCAR Utility
SAP Knowledge Base Articles:
- 212876 – The new archiving tool SAPCAR
- 2632047 – How to download SAPCAR for extracting .SAR files – SAP ONE Support Launchpad / SAP for Me
- 2695522 – How to Extract SAR Files on Windows OS
Useful SAP Community answer:
Tools / Features / Extensions (for SAP HANA)
Several tools can be used for the administration/monitoring/development/database access of SAP HANA.
❗Remark: The below list is not a complete list of the available tools only an extract from the most important ones. The list contains the tools which I have personal experiences with.
Even if the SAP HANA Studio marked as legacy tool, it is one of the most popular and used application to manage SAP HANA database.
“The SAP HANA studio is the legacy development environment and administration tool for SAP HANA, based on the Eclipse platform. Full administration of SAP HANA 2.0 is not possible with the SAP HANA studio. Certain tasks require the SAP HANA cockpit.” source SAP Help Portal.
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Studio Installation and Update Guide – SAP HANA Studio Installation and Update Guide
- SAP HANA Administration with SAP HANA Studio – SAP HANA Studio Administration
SAP Knowledge Base Articles:
- 2073112 – FAQ: SAP HANA Studio
- 2902153 – How to download HANA Studio?
- 2375176 – SAP HANA Revisions and SAP HANA Studio Versions
- 3049961 – How-To: find HANA studio version based on media name
Useful blog, which contains general steps to investigate the connection problems:
Useful SAP Community blog posts by the SAP HANA Academy:
To demonstrate the SAP HANA Studio tool, I use my virtual environment (in Prerequisites section) to connect.
🧩 SAP HANA Plan Visualizer (PlanViz)
The Plan Visualizer is a feature of the SAP HANA Studio.
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Performance Guide for Developers – Plan Visualizer
🔧 SAP HANA Cockpit (and the Database Explorer)
“The SAP HANA cockpit is a Web-based HTML5 user interface that you access through a browser. It runs on SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model (XS advanced). You can use it to administer and monitor SAP HANA databases…” source SAP Help Portal.
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Cockpit Installation and Update Guide – SAP HANA Cockpit Installation and Update Guide
- SAP HANA Administration with SAP HANA Cockpit – SAP HANA Administration with SAP HANA Cockpit
SAP Knowledge Base Articles:
❗Remark: I didn’t have to install SAP HANA Cockpit because it was already installed on SAP HANA, express edition (preconfigured) Server + applications virtual machine on VMware Workstation.
To demonstrate the SAP HANA Cockpit tool, I use my virtual environment (in Prerequisites section) to connect.
Database Explorer
“SAP HANA HDBSQL is a command-line tool for executing commands on SAP HANA databases.” source SAP Help Portal.
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Client Interface Programming Reference – SAP HANA HDBSQL (Command-Line Reference)
- SAP Event Stream Processor: Developer Guide – Executing DDL Scripts for the SAP HANA Database
“Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) used in computer programming. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customizing the environment.” source Wikipedia.
Official website: https://eclipseide.org/
SAP Development Tools site: https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/
SAP Learners site: How to Install SAP HANA Tools in Eclipse or HANA Studio
Prerequisites:
– Java (📀 Installer)
or
– SapMachine (📀 Installer)
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Service for SAP BTP in SAP Regions – Install SAP HANA Tools for Eclipse
SAP Knowledge Base Article:
- 2791513 – Support for SAP HANA Tools for Eclipse
To install the SAP Development Tools follow the next menu: Help – – > Install New Software…
To demonstrate the Eclipse IDE tool, I use my virtual environment (in Prerequisites section) to connect.
“Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code is a source-code editor tool” source Wikipedia.
Official website: https://code.visualstudio.com/
SAP Help Portal:
- Installation Guide – Install Microsoft Visual Studio Code
- User Guide – Visual Studio Code
Useful SAP Community article:
Installed extensions (in my environment):
Connect to the database we can use the SAP HANA Database Explorer extension.
SAP Developers:
Useful SAP Community article:
Connecting SAP HANA database (HXE tenant) with ☝️ SAP HANA Database Explorer.
🧩SQLTools and SAP HANA Driver for SQLTools
Connect to the database we can use the SQLTools and SAP HANA Driver for SQLTools extension(s).
Prerequisites:
– Node.js (📀 Installer)
▶ Official website: https://nodejs.org/en
– SAP HANA Client (📀 Installer)
▶ 2941449 – SAP HANA Client 2.0 Releases
▶ 2952352 – How to: Download HANA Client
Connecting SAP HANA database (TDB tenant) with ☝️ SQLTools and SAP HANA Driver for SQLTools.
❗Remark: During setup the database connection, the correct Port number of the specific database (SYSTEMDB or each Tenant DB) needs to be used in case of the SQLTools.
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP HANA Administration Guide for SAP HANA Platform – Port Assignment in Tenant Databases
SAP Knowledge Base Article:
- 2101244 – FAQ: SAP HANA Multitenant Database Containers (MDC) ➡️ 6. Usually we connect to SAP HANA Database through indexserver which also serves as SQL port so how do we connect to SYSTEM DB when there is no indexserver?
Other Reference:
SAP HANA dump analyzer is a Java program that can be executed directly when Java is properly installed. It allows drag and drop of runtime dumps, the dump will be automatically analyzed.
You can find a current version of the SAP HANA dump analyzer here.
Prerequisites:
– Java (📀 Installer)
or
– SapMachine (📀 Installer)
SAP Help Portal:
- SAP Business Technology Platform – SapMachine
What blog posts can be helpful?
- Tools of HANA SQL Data Warehouse
- Tools for the SAP HANA Administrator
- HANA Studio, Eclipse, Web workbench, Web IDE, Web IDE for HANA and Business Application Studio
There are multiple useful information can be found in the below article, such as SAP HANA Client or SAP HANA Studio installation.
Other articles belongs to SAP HANA, express edition
✍️ SAP HANA, express edition uninstall SHINE before upgrade to HANA 2.0 SPS06
✍️ SAP HANA, express edition and SAP HANA smart data integration – Complete Tutorial
✍️ SAP HANA, express edition and SFLIGHT demo database, modeling – Complete Tutorial
✍️ Where can I find knowledge and information belongs to SAP HANA?
Other articles in connected series
✍️ Collected information about memory in context of SAP HANA
✍️ Collected information regarding partitioning in SAP HANA (with examples)
✍️ Collected information regarding High Availability and Disaster Recovery in SAP HANA
Do you have further questions?
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have question or observation regarding the article.
Q&A link for SAP HANA: https://answers.sap.com/tags/73554900100700000996
Contribution
If you find any missing information belongs to the topic, please let me know. I am happy to add the new content. My intention is to maintain the content continuously to keep the info up-to-date.
Release Information
| Release Date | Description |
|---|---|
| 2023.06.02 | First/initial Release of the SAP Blog Post documentation (Product Information). |
| 2023.09.07 | Section added: Software Platforms |