SAP HANA Interview Questions

SAP HANA is a High-Performance Analytical Appliance-In-memory computing engine. HANA is originally linked to the ERP systems. For replication server management and load control, Frontend modeling studio is available for use.

The advantages of SAP HANA are stated below

• The first and foremost is In-Memory Technology, which helps the users to explore and analyze the transactional and analytic data in real time, virtually and also from any data source.
• The aggregation of data can be done from more than one source in SAP HANA.
• In SAP HANA Real-time replication services can be used. It can access and replicate data from SAP ERP.
• Information modeling and design environment are always available.
• It also has SQL and MDX interface from the third-party support system. And this is an add-on advantage for the users.

BWA or (Business Warehouse Accelerator): BWA is known as an in-memory accelerator for Business Warehouse (BW). The main focus of BWA is on improving the query performance of SAP Net Weaver BW. BWA is particularly designed to accelerate BW queries and also for reducing the data acquisition time by persisting the copies of the info cube.

SAP HANA: SAP HANA is an in-memory database. It is a platform where high-performance analytic reports and application is found. Another thing to notice here is that in SAP HANA data can be loaded from SAP and non-SAP Source System through SLT, BODS, DXC, and Sybase. This can be viewed using SAP BO/BI, Crystal Reports or Excel.

Currently, SAP HANA is working as an in-memory database for SAP BW. And now SAP HANA is able to improve the overall performance of SAP Net weaver BW.

There are two types of relational data stored in HANA. They are:

• Row Store
• Column Store

SAP HANA is well known as an in-memory computing engine that has access to the data without any backup. There is a chance of losing data in case of hardware failure or power cutoff. To avoid this high degree risk persistence layer is used. It plays the role of a savior by storing all the data in the hard drive. And hence a reliable backup is been made.

Modeling studio in HANA performs multiple tasks like:

• It informs which tables are been stored in HANA. And its first part is to get the meta-data, and then the job of scheduling data replication starts.
• It manages Data Services to enter the data from SAP Business Warehouse and other systems.
• It manages the ERP instance connection because the current release version does not support connection to various other ERP instances.

There are three different compression techniques in SAP HANA and they are:

• Run-length encoding.
• Cluster encoding.
• Dictionary encoding.

Latency is the length of time required to replicate data from the original system to the new system i.e. from the source system to the targeted system.

In the Advanced Replication settings, a transformation rule is specified. It is designed in such a way that transaction for source tables is transformed during the replication process. For example, users can specify a rule in case of Converting the fields, to fill empty fields and also to Skip the records.

One of the most important advantages of SAP SLT is

• It works on trigger-based approach. Therefore such an approach has no measurable performance impact in the source system.
• This also offers to filter the capability and transformation of data.
• It offers the real-time data replication.
• It is fully integrated with the HANA studios.

In case the user thinks few data are irrelevant then to avoid such unnecessary information from being stored, users have to pause the replication by stopping the scheme related jobs.

 The role of master controller job in SAP HANA is as follows:

• The Master controller job is liable for creating the database triggers and also for logging the table into the source system.
• The master controller also plays the role of creating the synonyms.
• It also liable to write new entries in admin tables in SLT server when a table is replicated.

When the replication is suspended for a longer period of time of SLT or HANA system then the actual size of the logging tables increases.

The role of the transaction manager is to coordinate the database transactions. He also keeps a record of running and closed transactions wherever possible. When the transaction is rolled back or is committed, it’s the duty of the transaction manager to notify the involved storage engines and about the event so that the necessary actions can be processed.

In the HANA database, each SQL statement is basically implemented in the reference of the transaction. Therefore in the further process, the new session is allotted to a new transaction.

The components of SAP HANA are as follows

• SAP HANA DB.
• SAP HANA Studio.
• SAP HANA Appliance.
• SAP HANA Application Cloud.

SAP HANA as mentioned is a next-generation in-memory business platform. Stated below are the few reasons why is SAP HANA chosen.

• Real-Time – SAP HANA Provides Real-time Data provisioning and Real-time Reporting of data.
• Speed – SAP HANA provide a high-level speeds processing on massive data and this is due to In-Memory Technology.
• Open to Data/Source- SAP HANA can access various data sources without any issues including the Structured and Un-Structured data from SAP or Non-SAP data source.
• Cloud- SAP HANA application and database can be easily deployed to the Cloud environment.
• Simplicity– SAP HANA is best known for its simplicity. It also reduces the efforts behind the ETL process, Data Aggregation, Indexing, and Mapping.
• Cost factor– SAP states that SAP HANA Software can reduce the total IT cost of any company.
• Choice option available– SAP HANA is supported by the different hardware vendor and has a list of the Software provider, so based on the requirement, the user has too many options to can choose the best one.

SAP HANA Database – SAP HANA Database is a hybrid in-memory database. This Database is known as the heart of SAP in-memory technology. As mentioned in SAP HANA, Database tables are of two types

• Row Store
• Column Store

SAP HANA Platform – SAP HANA Platform is called the development platform with in-memory data storage. This facility allows the users to perform the analysis on a large volume of data that too in a real time. This Platform works as a platform for development. It also provides infrastructure and tools for building a high-performance application.

The different types of SAP HANA edition are

• SAP HANA Platform Edition: This platform provides the Core database technology.  There is an Integration of SAP component including SAP HANA database, SAP HANA Studio, and SAP HANA clients. It is for customers who already have a license for SAP business objects Data service and when they want to use ETL-based replication.
• SAP HANA Enterprise Edition: This edition contains data provisioning (SLT, BODS, DXC) component including core database technology. It is only for customers who want to use trigger-based replication or ETL-based replication and does not have the entire necessary license required for SAP Business Objects Data Services.
• SAP HANA Extended Edition: This extended edition contains data provisioning the features more than any other Platform and Enterprises edition. It is the perfect choice for the customers who want to use the full potential of all available replication scenarios even the log-based replication.