

SAP HANA and IBM Informix are prominent contenders in the database solutions market. SAP HANA stands out for its advanced integration and real-time analytics, particularly benefiting large enterprises. IBM Informix, while less modern in marketing, offers robust replication and is well-suited for hybrid business environments.
Features: SAP HANA offers efficient in-memory computing, scalability, and seamless integration with third-party tools, delivering outstanding customization and data modeling capabilities. IBM Informix is renowned for its ease of management, flexible replication, and advanced data virtualization, efficiently supporting SQL and NoSQL functionalities.
Room for Improvement: SAP HANA could benefit from simplifying its interface, reducing costs, and enhancing its update process and integration flexibility. IBM Informix would gain from increasing its marketing efforts, improving data anonymization, and accelerating feature releases to remain competitive.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SAP HANA provides variable customer support, with mixed experiences in response and consistency. Its deployment is feasible on both on-premises and cloud, yet concerns about cost persist. IBM Informix offers diverse deployment options, including private and public clouds, receiving high satisfaction for its reliable service and competent support, albeit with a less global presence.
Pricing and ROI: SAP HANA is expensive, suitable for large enterprises seeking comprehensive functionality despite prohibitive costs for smaller entities. It offers ROI through enhanced speed and efficiency. IBM Informix provides a cost-effective solution with tiered pricing, delivering reliable performance without excessive expenditure. ROI for both solutions is commendable, influenced by enterprise scale and requirements.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| SAP HANA | 9.2% |
| IBM Informix | 2.3% |
| Other | 88.5% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 8 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 26 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 12 |
| Large Enterprise | 62 |
IBM Informix is a widely used and scalable relational database management system designed to handle large amounts of data and high transaction volumes. It is known to provide exceptional performance, thanks to its Parallel Data Query Engine (PDQ) that enables parallel processing of queries and operations, significantly reducing response times for complex queries and large data sets. Additionally, Informix supports online operations like backup, restore, index maintenance, and table reorganization, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous availability.
Informix provides robust high availability and replication features, including shared-disk clustering, remote data replication, and high-availability data replication (HDR). These features ensure data redundancy, failover protection, and disaster recovery capabilities, making it a reliable choice for mission-critical applications. Furthermore, Informix offers specialized features for data warehousing and analytics, such as in-database analytics, data compression, and parallel load capabilities, making it suitable for business intelligence (BI) and data analysis applications.
Informix can be deployed as an embedded database, allowing it to be tightly integrated with applications and systems, reducing overhead and simplifying deployment. It includes workload management capabilities, enabling organizations to prioritize and manage different types of workloads, such as online transaction processing (OLTP) and analytical queries, ensuring efficient resource utilization and meeting service-level agreements (SLAs). Informix also provides robust security features, including role-based access control, data encryption, auditing, and compliance with industry standards like FIPS 140-2 and Common Criteria.
SAP HANA, also known as SAP High-performance Analytics Appliance, is a multi-model database that stores data in its memory, allowing users to avoid disk storage. The product combines its robust database with services for creating applications. SAP HANA is faster than other database management systems (DBMS) because it stores data in column-based tables in main memory and brings online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transaction processing (OLTP) together.
The column-oriented in-memory database design allows users to run high-speed transactions alongside advanced analytics, all in a single system. This provides companies with the ability to process very large amounts of data with low latency and query data in an instant. By combining multiple data management capabilities, the solution simplifies IT, helps businesses with innovations, and facilitates digital transformation.
The solution is structured into five groups of capabilities, categorized as:
There are three more SAP products that work alongside SAP HANA and complete the experience for users together. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a ready-to-run cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). SAP BW/4HANA is a packaged data warehouse, based on SAP HANA, which allows users to consolidate data across the enterprise to get a consistent view of their data. Finally, SAP Cloud is a single database as a service (DBaaS) foundation for modern applications and analytics across all enterprise data. All three products can combine with SAP HANA to deliver to users an optimized experience regarding their data.
SAP HANA Features
Each architectural group of capabilities of SAP HANA has various features that users can benefit from. These include:
SAP HANA Benefits
SAP HANA provides many benefits for its users. These include:
Reviews from Real Users
According to a database consultant at a pharma/biotech company, SAP HANA is a very robust solution with good data access.
Bruno V., owner at LAVORO AUTOM INF E COM LTDA, likes SAP HANA because the product offers advanced features, helps reduce hours, and makes it easy to find what you need.
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