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Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA (all types of use)?

Laszlo_Thoma
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎06-02-2023 9:14 AM

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last updated: 2024-02-07

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.

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What is SAP HANA?

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.

Prerequisites

Table of Content (The internal links had been removed cause the new blogging platform only supports basic html, and the use of anchor links not supported.)

  1. Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA?
  2. SAP Help Portal
  3. SAP Support Portal
  4. SAP HANA Academy
  5. Software Platforms
    1. ⚙️ Java - JDK/JRE
    2. ⚙️ SapMachine - JDK/JRE

  6. Tools (other)
    1. 🔨 SAPCAR (archiving/extracting tool)

  7. Tools / Features / Extensions (for SAP HANA)
    1. 🔧 SAP HANA Studio
      1. 🧩 SAP HANA Plan Visualizer (PlanViz)

    2. 🔧 SAP HANA Cockpit (and the Database Explorer)
    3. 📟 SAP HANA HDBSQL
    4. 🔧 Eclipse IDE
    5. 🔧 Visual Studio Code
      1. 🧩 SAP HANA Database Explorer
      2. 🧩 SQLTools and SAP HANA Driver for SQLTools

    6. 🔧 SAP HANA Dump Analyzer

  8. What blog posts can be helpful?
  9. Other articles belongs to SAP HANA, express edition
  10. Other articles in this series
  11. Other articles in connected series/li>

Where can I find information about the available tools for SAP HANA?

  • SAP Help Portal – Home
  • SAP Support Portal – Home
  • SAP Community – Home
    ❗Update: A New Home in the New Year for the SAP Community
  • SAP Guided Answers – Home
  • SAP Help Portal – Support Content – Home (prev. SAP Support/Community Wiki)
  • SAP HANA Academy – YouTube
    ❗Update: The SAP HANA Academy’s YouTube Channel has been closed.
  • SAP Notes & Knowledge Base Articles

SAP Help Portal
This is the initial entry point of the official SAP HANA documentations belongs to the available tools.

SAP Help Portal – Home

SAP Support Portal
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 HANA Academy
The SAP HANA Academy provides Technical Enablement, Implementation and Adoption Support for Customers and Partners with 1000’s of free tutorial videos.

Software Platforms
Some software platforms are required as prerequisites to use different tools.

⚙️ Java - JDK/JRE
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.

https://www.java.com/en/
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

⚙️ SapMachine - JDK/JRE
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:

Tools (other)
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:

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.

🔧 SAP HANA Studio
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 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 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 Knowledge Base Articles:

  • 2800006 - FAQ: SAP HANA Cockpit
  • 2433181 - SAP HANA 2.0 Cockpit Revision and Maintenance Strategy

❗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
"SAP HANA HDBSQL is a command-line tool for executing commands on SAP HANA databases." source SAP Help Portal.

SAP Help Portal:

🔧 Eclipse IDE
"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 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
"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:

Useful SAP Community article:

Installed extensions (in my environment):


🧩 SAP HANA Database Explorer
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 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
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:

What blog posts can be helpful?

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
✍️ Upgrading SAP HANA, express edition from SPS05 to SPS06 (solution for failed HRTT service deployment...
✍️ How to enable SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench in SAP HANA, express edition for Multiple Dat...

Other articles in this series
✍️ 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
✍️ Collected information about reclaim / shrink / defragmentation topic in context of SAP HANA persiste...

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 DateDescription
2023.06.02First/initial Release of the SAP Blog Post documentation (Product Information).
2023.09.07Section added: Software Platforms
2023.12.14Rename SAP Support/Community Wiki to SAP Help Portal – Support Content
2024.02.07SAP Community 2024 optimized content.
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