As mentioned in my previous post, SAP HANA 
has been the focus of much of SAP’s technical and marketing communications of late, and has been of great interest to the influencer community (see these excellent posts by John Appleby (@applebyj) and Vijay Vijayasankar (@vijayasankarv) for example). Many SAP customers with whom I spoke recently are also interested in HANA for a number of reasons. Strategically, HANA is very important to SAP – it can deliver a substantial new revenue opportunity for SAP and its ecosystem, provide customers with game-changing benefits, and at the same time change the competitive market dynamics relative to Oracle in SAP’s favor. Still, it is very early days for SAP HANA, and SAP’s customers are not always willing to jump on a new technology until it has been proven to provide a real business benefit. How can you determine if SAP HANA is right for you (now)?
SAP HANA Benefits
Let’s start by taking a look at the benefits of SAP HANA. HANA can provide significant improvements in query performance, low latency between operational and analytical data stores, reduced administrative overhead, and both better TCO and price/performance ratios as compared to traditional data warehouses. Each of these bears some explanation; however, my explanation has run into several thousand words, so I will cover the details in my next blog.
Recently, SAP announced that SAP BW now runs on SAP HANA as a supported configuration, and the product is in a controlled release. SAP also announced an intention to deliver pre-built applications on SAP HANA, but these are not available yet. While I believe that BW on HANA is a “killer app” for HANA, others have urged SAP to focus on applications. According to Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman), CEO of Asuret and an expert in achieving successful enterprise projects, “SAP’s challenge is to humanize HANA, focusing on line of business use cases while de-emphasizing the underlying technology, at least from a marketing perspective. If line of business customers see huge value, they will demand that their IT departments purchase HANA.”
Given the lack of availability of other packaged apps on HANA, I think the only real appeal of HANA can be – at this point – to SAP BW customers. Fortunately, given the benefits mentioned above (wicked fast query performance, reduced loading and preparation time, no latency between operational and analytical systems, and reduced complexity and cost), BW appears to be the perfect killer app for HANA – this will bring HANA in the door at many customer accounts, and then customers will find other uses for it.
Customers: Is SAP HANA Right for You (Now)
If you are a customer of SAP, chances are you will adopt HANA – maybe not today
, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for … oh, wait, this is not that movie, and I don’t think you’ll regret leaving your expensive and slow databases behind for HANA. Seriously, more than 13,000 SAP customers use BW today, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 customers use SAP Business Suite. In time, HANA will become so integrated with the Business Suite that customers will likely move to HANA, though this migration is some years out.
So, if you’re planning on continuing to use SAP Business Suite, chances are you will adopt HANA. This means that the question for SAP customers is more “should I begin my adoption of SAP HANA now, or should I wait?” And the answer is quite simple: you should begin your adoption of HANA if there is a good business case for this adoption in your organization. After all, the price of a HANA appliance (assuming you already own your BW license but not the HANA software) is going to run you up to a couple of hundred thousand dollars. If you are not currently (or planning to start) using BW, then this might not be the right time for your enterprise to use HANA. However, a number of HANA-native applications are in the works from SAP, such as the famous CO-PA accelerator; as these applications come out, you may find a good business case for their use in your organization.
You should strongly consider using BW on HANA if your organization has:
- … some reports or analytic applications that simply run too slowly to provide optimal business benefit, and a 5x to 1000x performance improvement would be material to your business,
- … unacceptable downtimes, where your data warehouse is not available due to the need to load data,
- … a need to see current, up-to-the-moment data, and/or
- … a frequent need to create new reports or analytical applications, but IT struggles to maintain BW and keep it performing under changing user demands.
Note: even Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA)
customers may find that they have some reports or analyses that cannot be made to perform well in BWA, or there are long loading times, and users cannot see near-real-time data.
Many BW customers with whom I’ve spoken are happy with BW, but most have a few reports that run in hours instead of seconds, or IT can’t respond quickly enough to user requests, or the system is offline during the business day in one of their regions, or the data in the warehouse is “stale.” If any of those issues sound like I’m describing your BW data warehouse, you might have a strong business case to move BW off Oracle (or whatever database you are using) and deploy it on HANA instead.
Even if you don’t think you need HANA (now), you could still benefit from HANA. Just go to your Oracle (or IBM, or Microsoft) sales rep and say that you are thinking about moving to HANA, and see if you can use that for leverage to get a better price on licenses and maintenance for your current database!
Systems Integrators: Is SAP HANA Right for You (Now)
SAP Systems Integrators range from IT mega-vendors like IBM and HP, to “pure play” consulting and integration companies like Wipro and Accenture, to boutique consultants like Bluefin Solutions and Jon Reed (@jonerp). The question these shops are all asking themselves right now is whether now is the right time to invest in developing SAP HANA skills. I can think of a single question that should help clarify the answer: does your firm do a lot of BW engagements?
If you answered “No” to this question, then this is a good time to keep an eye on HANA, but not a good time to invest in it. On the other hand, if you answered “Yes,” then ask two more questions:
- Is SAP going to invest to make HANA important to my customers in the next twelve months?
- Can I develop HANA skills in-house or do I have to look outside?
Judging from the response HANA has been getting from SAP customers, and from the emphasis SAP senior management is placing on this technology, it is clear that SAP is going to invest to make HANA work, to develop more and more applications on the technology, and to drive the technology deep into the Business Suite. The marketing effort around HANA, combined with a working solution, is sure to drive a lot of customer interest in this technology.
A quick glance at the job boards shows that several consulting firms and integrators, SAP included, are looking outside for HANA skills
. There are about 50 job posts for HANA skills on Dice.com and Monster.com, posted by firms like SAP, IBM, Fujitsu America, and PwC. The good news is that – if you already have BW (or even better, BWA) skills in-house, you can easily upgrade these skills to HANA. SAP is making it easier and easier to learn HANA, from the information and test software available on http://ExperienceSAPHANA.com/ to new and simple utilities like the Information Composer in HANA SPS3.
In fact, if you have an in-house data warehouse built on SAP BW, it should be a matter of days to migrate it to HANA, assuming you have the budget for a system (which could run between $50,000 and $300,000). Think about trying hard to get a test system from IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Fujitsu, or Lenovo. Also, think about splitting the cost of this system with your marketing department, because nothing should help you close your first HANA client faster than saying “we’ve done the migration for our own data warehouse, and let me share our experiences with you.”
Independent Consultants: Is SAP HANA Right for You (Now)
Do you consult on data warehousing and/or BW? If so, you really should get started on HANA right now. The benefits of HANA are so compelling for BW customers, that you can really increase your business by demonstrating HANA to your clients.
Alternatively, if you are consulting in another area of SAP, and are looking to learn a little about HANA, you don’t have to go to the expense of buying your own HANA system. SAP has a HANA system running in the cloud, which you can access at http://ExperienceSAPHANA.com/, where you can study HANA and even implement your own systems to test out the software and develop your skills. Also check out this blog for information about another program SAP has created to get you hands-on with HANA.
ISVs: Is SAP HANA Right for You (Now)
Sadly, I don’t think this is the right time for ISVs to think about developing custom applications on HANA. The tools are not really there, and the HANA platform team has other priorities right now. If your product uses BW, then by all means get some HANA experience, and think about how your application could evolve for a world of high performance analytics. If your solution includes BW content, then definitely begin testing HANA with your solution, so you can support your customers. But, unless you’re an SAP Demo Jam master, this may be too soon for you to adopt HANA for new, HANA-native applications.
Summary
Given the substantial performance improvements, up-to-the-moment data in the warehouse, reduced operating costs and complexity, and other significant benefits HANA offers to SAP BW customers, it seems likely that SAP HANA will have substantial appeal – and uptake – in the SAP customer base by the end of 2012. SAP BW customers should look at SAP HANA as the optimized database appliance for HANA, and most SAP BW customers should begin planning or piloting an adoption of HANA soon. SAP consultants and integrators should expect a great deal of demand for SAP HANA skills both in the short- and long-term, and should begin preparing now. It may be too early for ISV’s to benefit from HANA, other than as it improves any BW components in the ISVs’ solutions.
Note: SAP is a client, and former employer, of mine.
Dennis – this was the first HANA blog post I have seen that has attempted to realistically break down the HANA “calls to action” for just about every player in the SAP ecosystem, so kudos for that. I thought a lot of your advice here was also realistic in terms of the HANA capabilities that are available now which is really important to those trying to sift through the hype and make sure they are not left behind either.
As you know from our G+ conversations, etc I am not in the “BW on HANA is a killer app” camp yet, but I do think there is a use case there that is well worth investigating, especially in cases where there are performance issues of the kind you are talking about. However I want to hear from more live customers before I issue any broad endorsements to dive in now. While I was extremely impressed by Red Bull’s quick move to BW on HANA (three weeks all-in), in my conversations with them I didn’t hear about the kinds of benefits to business users that Krigsman was raising questions about in your quote from him above.
In Red Bull’s case, that was partially because they were already getting “good enough” performance for business users because of the Business Warehouse Accelerator. It’s also important to point out that in these early BW on HANA customer stories I’m hearing about, the BW on HANA system is running in parallel to their existing BW system, they are not yet ready to move to BW on HANA as their “BW system of record.” That’s understandable at this point and is in no way a criticism of SAP’s laudable progress in a short period of time. But in my view that pushes us back from “game changing” rhetoric and more into “let’s carefully explore this use case” mode.
With that in mind, a couple comments on your closing comments:
“Most SAP BW customers should begin planning or piloting an adoption of HANA soon.” I’m not sure I would put it that strongly. In my view, most BW customers should have a fresh look at BW performance with HANA in mind, and start to ask SAP the tough questions about BW and HANA roadmaps and ask to speak with BW-on-HANA reference customers to get a clearer idea of when the right time to make a move will be, or if it better to hold off until the product matures a bit more.
“SAP consultants and integrators should expect a great deal of demand for SAP HANA skills both in the short- and long-term, and should begin preparing now.” I don’t agree with the short term aspect of this for consultants who aren’t working for the major HANA consulting partners. Those who are working for those partners should certainly start talking internally to those HANA teams to get a better idea of where the pockets of demand are going to be. If you’re a consultant not yet connected to an SAP HANA partner, I’d say the skills demand is not short-term but more medium term.
That means it’s time to start learning as much as you can about the product and how it impacts the other areas of specialization you might have. In particular, smaller consultancies and individuals have to be careful about over-investing and leaping too soon, you have to time the demand right. As HANA grows, the larger integrators will have to subcontract more and the skills demand will intensify.
In the HANA skills podcast I did with Vijay and Harald Reiter on JonERP.com, two SAP Mentors and key players in the HANA partner ecosystem, we got into some of those skills questions. Data modeling and expert SQL skills were a couple of the areas that not all “classic” SAP consultants will have at this point. So HANA will not necessarily be a seamless transition for all SAP folks, however I think you rightly point out that if you on the BW side of the SAP consulting world, it does make sense to start taking a very hard look at how HANA will impact your skill set. SAP itself will make its first HANA certification available in late November. Those who know me well are probably surprised to see me pushing SAP certification, however, I have always maintained certification can have some impact moving into new areas if you have deep relevant SAP experience in related areas.
So while a person new to SAP might have trouble breaking into HANA with simply a HANA certification, for a seasoned BW person, a HANA certfiication might give them an edge breaking into these projects on the early side. And if you can get in early, you could be in for a multi-year ride on HANA projects. 🙂 Thanks for the thoughtful post.
– Jon
We already have Exadata…
Oracle is an important player in the industry, and has shown itself able to cope with existential threats in the past numerous times. Some examples in my own experience were when hardware vendors introduced free databases (e.g., DEC with RdB), when tools went to free runtimes (e.g., Microsoft Visual Basic), and when cheap commodity databases attempted to disrupt from below (e.g., Microsoft SQL Server and (now Oracle) MySQL). Oracle faces numerous threats currently, including the move to non-tradition databases (e.g., NoSQL – HANA kinda fits in this category).
Exadata, despite its apparent high cost, can produce total cost of ownership (TCO) reductions for many customers with a large number of Oracle database servers, by consolidating and simplifying management, standardizing configuration, and optimizing hardware. Plus, unlike Exalytics and other Oracle Exa products, it has the benefit of actually being available for purchase, though I know of few customers who have taken delivery of this product.
Exadata is a continuous innovation – it might run your database 10% cheaper or 20% faster, but it won’t improve your price/performance ratio by 100x or 1000x. HANA, by contrast, has this potential for many/most SAP customers (including BusinessObjects customers), and perhaps others. In fact, HANA has achieved this level of improvement in some areas for some customers, though more data points are needed before “mission accomplish” can be declared.
Anyway, thanks for your comment!
– Dennis
[…] Add your own answer in the comments! Is SAP HANA Right For You (Now)? While I believe that BW on HANA is a “killer app” for HANA, others have urged SAP to focus on applications. According to Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman), CEO of Asuret and an expert in achieving successful enterprise projects, “SAP's challenge is to … Read more on Enterprise Irregulars […]
[…] Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments! Is SAP HANA Right For You (Now)? After all, the price of a HANA appliance (assuming you already own your BW license but not the HANA software) is going to run you up to a couple of hundred thousand dollars. If you are not currently (or planning to start) using BW, then this might not … Read more on Enterprise Irregulars […]
Hi sir,
good morning.
I completed MCA. I want to learn SAP_HANA so please suggest me
1) what are the prerequisites to learn SAP_HANA?
2) How the future with SAP-HANA?
I,m waiting for your valuble responce
Thanks & Regards
Basha
Hi sir,
good morning.
I completed MCA. I want to learn SAP_HANA so please suggest me
1) what are the prerequisites to learn SAP_HANA?
2) How the future with SAP-HANA?
I,m waiting for your valuble responce
Thanks & Regards
Basha
Basha –
Good questions. Before learning about SAP HANA, you should of course understand the basics of databases (and operating systems). I would also recommend learning SAP BW if you are hoping to contribute in a BW/HANA environment.
SAP sold over 160 million Euro of SAP HANA licenses in 2012, in just the few months (about half a year) that it was available. I would expect we will shortly see a version of Business Objects optimized for SAP HANA, and as well SAP Business Suite (at least ERP) running on SAP HANA – http://twitter.com/#!/vsikka/statuses/162554739156987904 .
Good luck!
– Dennis
is it mandatory to learn sap-bw inorderto learn sap-hana?
Basha –
Although SAP HANA can be used like a database, most adoption to date is as a database for SAP BW.
– Dennis
Hi,
Where i can learn SAP HANA, any e-learning process available, Im from India,
Pandiyan –
Check out http://www.experiencesaphana.com/ to learn more about HANA. Good luck!
– Dennis
WHAT IS THE PREREQUISITE FOR LEARNING SAP ABAP
Anita –
I’m not sure there are any real prerequisites for learning SAP ABAP. There are many books and classes on the subject. SAP ABAP/4 is a programming language, so it would be helpful to know another programming language already. Also, ABAP/4 makes heavy use of tables, so a good understanding of database concepts is helpful. Of course, some understanding of SAP (R/3 or Business Suite) is also helpful. Good luck!
– Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I am a BI Consultant with ABAP and BO skills. Should I need to go for HANA certification, does my previous experience help to persue my career in HANA . Would I be able to get more benifits if I have HANA skills than what I have now? In HANA there are 2 ie Technical consultant and Application consultant , what should I prefer? OR instead of HANA do I need to go for BO Data services? Lot of questions from my side…please guide me.
Hi Dennis,
I have five years of exp in Dot net technology and now I wanted to move in SAP BASIS.I have started to read SAP BASIS, now I wanted to know about HANA what is the role of HANA in SAP BASIS.please provide me tutorial .
Regards
Raj
Hi All,
I have 3+ Experience in Mainframe , Now I am looking to move to SAP technology.
While doing i found SAP HANA as hot cake.
I require your valuable suggestions for my growth.
Can i directly learn SAP HANA or its mandatory to have SAP BI/BW knowledge.
How abt opportunities for me if i learn SAP HANA with a pilot project exp.
Please suggest
Thanks
MAC
Mahesh – While it is not mandatory to learn BW or another technology when you learn SAP HANA, the reality is that most customers are going to want HANA in support of either a BW or Business Objects (“BOBJ”) project. If you look at the job posts currently available for HANA, most of them ask for skills in BW and/or BOBJ. Check Dice.com and Monster.com for examples, such as http://jobview.monster.com/Senior-Database-Developer-Job-San-Antonio-TX-111129645.aspx, http://jobview.monster.com/Analyst-Senior-Business-Systems-Job-Natick-MA-110345068.aspx, http://jobview.monster.com/SAP-BI-Lead-Platform-Analyst-Enterprise-Platform-Architec-Job-Benton-Harbor-MI-111416945.aspx, and http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=302&dockey=xml/6/e/6ead502092626ee951a965dff85dc2e5@endecaindex&source=19&FREE_TEXT=sap+hana&rating=99 .
– Dennis
Hi Dennis ,
Nice to see your Valuable suggestions , I am basically an ABAP Senior Consulatant , with Experience on BASIS for nearly 2 years . would like to get your suggestion whether I should get Transfered for SAP HANA . I just had a bit knowledge in SAP BI. Its that my ABAP can help on HANA .
Shiv –
Good question. Eventually, HANA will be more relevant for ABAP/BASIS folks, as more and more ABAP apps are written either to support HANA or optimized for HANA. If you’re not already a BW consultant, might as well focus on ABAP/BASIS and some of the new apps built on HANA. Not too long from now, ERP itself will be on HANA.
Good luck!
– Dennis
Thanks a Lot Dennis for giving your valuable suggestions to my query .
SAP HANA Enteprise Edition 64GB RAM Unit by price – 160K EUR + 15% for Oracle.
1 TB HANA EE cost = 2 560 000 EUR + 384 000 for DB = 2 944 000 EUR = 3 Millions Euro.
Wow –
I don’t understand your comment. Why would anyone pay Oracle 15% for HANA?!? Sorry, I don’t understand.
– Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I am really overwhelmed by your answers.
Actually I am a datware house professional who has Informatica(ETL) and OBIEE(Reporting) experience with good amount of SQL and Pl/sql skills coupled with moderate Unix skills.
My questions is,at this juncture If I move to SAP Hana,is this a clever move? and
am I ok with the prerequisites part or should I learn more technologies other than just simply learning sap hana?
Please answer my queries,as I am really looking for your valuable advice.
Thanks in advance.
Ajay
Hi Dennis,
I am having 6+ years for Experience in Mainframes in Telecom Domain.I am planning to switch my carrier to another technology which is having huge demand. I got some information SAP Hana is having the best in the industry now.
Can you please let me know how the jobs and where to get training in india
Hi Dennis. .
I have 3 years of .net experience. I decided to switch to SAP. Currently m learning SAP – BASIS. Also i had a plan to learn SAP – ABAP simultaneously. . I have been going through the details of SAP HANA also and it really seems to be interesting. If you can please guide me little bit. Which module would be more relevant to BASIS or which one would be more beneficial along with BASIS ? ? (ABAP OR HANA). . Is HANA more of a technical module or Functional ? ?
Thanks a lot . . .
Jigar
Hi Dennis
I completed my graduation in electronics and communications ,
but later got into a technical recruiter job…as a recruiter i see that there is a good future in SAP HANA..
i now want to get into a technical IT Field by learning Sap hana…
I have a few questions…Please help me sort out
1) as i see, most of the job descriptions require sap Business objects 4 exp for HANA Openings..so is it better to learn sap BO first and then learn Hana? if so , what part of HANA Should i learn? should i learn all modules in hana?
2) Or should i learn Sap BW first , and then learn HANA..as i dont have exp with data warehousing , is learning SAP BW first mandatory?
3) is there a chance to find a job in HANA with only BO knowledge and not with BW..
if so what kind of job in hana should i target?
Please help me with my queries , so that i can join some classes in the weekends ASAP.
Looking forward for your help
thanks.
MAG
Guys
Mail me on graspsaphana@gmail.com if you want to get trained on SAP HANA ( Online).
Hi, I am having 9 years of exp in mainframe tech and would like to change to SAP. I don’t have any knowledge on SAP.Please suggest me which is the best module. Can I learn BI with Hana without any knowledge of SAP.Does this module has good openings in the market? Plesae suggest me.thank You
Hi Dennis
Could you please let me know if its a good choice to move from BO to hana, basically I have 4 years of Oracle DBA experience and then 2 years worked as support for SAP BO Data Services and now looking to move into BO or Basis. Please advice which would be a better choice BO/Basis or Hana. Thank you.
HI Denis, Need guidance for SAP HANA I have done Oracle,SQL long back but have not put in practice presently working in SAP business ByDesign suggest me whether I should concentrate on SAP HANA ?
Dear Dennis
This vasanth am working in SAP BASIS having 2 years exp i would like to switch over to SAP HANA .its related to BASIS and give suggestion for me.
Thanks
Vasantha kumar
Hello Dennis,
I have a similar question. I am an ABAP Consultant and am planning to learn SAP Business Objects reporting. Do you think it would be good to learn HANA also along with it.
Thanks,
Sushanth
Hi
I am 3 + years of experience in SAP ABAP , Can I learn SAP Hana .
Is it sufficient with ABAP knowledge or do I require any further skills
Please Suggest.
Dear Mr.Dennis i am working in Sales and Marketing.I am end user of crm.I have done Graduation and Mba in marketing I am interested to Move to sap.Can u guide me which is suitable module for me in Sap.Is its better to do certification or learn with any experienced perosn.
Thank you so much for this useful article.
Also you can check the following sites for sap basis info.
http://www.sapbasisinfo.com
I am working as Basis consultant since 3 years i would like to switch to HANA could you please let me know do i need to learn SAP BW or can i continue with SAP HANA directly…