SAP HANA Reviews

Primarily, we used it for reporting and as the underlying database platform for SAP BW solutions.

My experience with SAP NetWeaver is primarily at the database level with SAP HANA. The database is still under development even after its official release over ten years ago. We often see new products with each major release, and there are still a lot of bugs.

As an in-memory database, expectations for HANA were already high, especially considering the infrastructure investments. 

We've seen reporting performance increase four to five times, which was a substantial improvement. At the end of the day, you expect those improvements when spending significant amounts on a solution.

It's a relatively new technology, and in-memory databases intrinsically require larger servers with more memory. We purchase the HANA license from SAP and the hardware from a vendor like HP or IBM.

Ultimately, as an organization, we aimed to speed up support and enable our executives to generate reports on their screens almost instantly with the click of a button. From that perspective, HANA delivered as a reporting solution.

SAP HANA's in-memory computing improved our operational efficiency. In terms of our overall business operations, I'd estimate a 30-40% improvement. Considering things like ticketing, resource allocation, and issue resolution, it's definitely had a sizable impact.

Its performance is one big benefit. 

Reporting is also valuable, but that's standard. I also like SAP HANA's ability to integrate with third-party tools. We can do reporting with tools like Tableau or Power BI by integrating them with HANA for visualization.

It's sufficed all of our requirements. We primarily needed it to run SAP applications, like NetWeaver or S/4HANA, and it has been really good at that. We also successfully integrated it with Tableau for reporting. Overall, it sufficed our needs.

The releases need to be more stable. It's surprising to still encounter significant bugs after ten years of the product being available.

In terms of features, SAP seems to be keeping up with its competitors like Oracle. The main issue is that the features they add often have a lot of bugs.

I've been working with it for ten years. I was a customer of HANA for ten years and have since moved on to new technologies.

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. It should be improved. It's not that the system goes down, but there are irritations that affect users.

It's a highly scalable solution. No concerns there. It supports our growing data needs.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. 

We have database-based users and business users. Overall, it would be more than five thousand at my last organization, we had many employees dependent on SAP. However, we were looking to onboard a few more of our business units to SAP. So, we were targeting an increase in usage by 20% to 30%.

There is room for improvement in the following areas:

1. The response times
2. The prioritization framework for customers
3. Reaching the correct expert quickly

So, those areas should be noted for improvement in customer service and support. 

Neutral

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a six out of ten, with ten being easy. 

Because with HANA, it's less about setting up a new system and more about migrating your old system to HANA. The migration experience isn't the same for everyone or for all customers; you can't follow a single runbook. 

You often need external consultants, SAP premium subscriptions, and SAP experts to manage the migration, and sometimes you need external code. So, from that perspective, it's a six.

I have used SAP HANA on the public cloud and on-premise.

There are two ways to think about the deployment stage:

1. For a Greenfield implementation of HANA, you are building a system from the ground up with SAP, which might take as little as a week. 
2. For large-scale brownfield implementations, where you're migrating your existing database to SAP HANA, it can take anywhere from five to six months to one year.

The price is on the expensive side, at eight out of ten, with ten being expensive. 

We were premium customers with our HANA boxes. It was part of an enterprise license that wasn’t tied to the number of HANA instances we had. 

I would recommend ensuring you have the proper SAP experts on your team if you plan to go for SAP HANA. 

If you don't have SAP experts, it's better to opt for SAP cloud solutions, which are managed by SAP.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

SAP S/4HANA recently established communication with SAP HANA database. No other database can be used with SAP S/4HANA application.

SAP HANA can be used for real-time analysis and resolving queries. It has an in-memory database that uses RAM instead of hard drive disks, making it a very fast tool compared with any other relational database.

Actually, SAP HANA has a different application for each purpose. If you want a better UI experience, SAP has its own application. If a user wants to manage an application, SAP has another application. If a user wants to use the baseline command, SAP has its own tool for it where one can manage it. There is always room for improvement in every field, but right now, I can't think of any area.

The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have experience with SAP HANA.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten.

I have barely faced any issues with the product in the last two or three years.

The product offers scalability options. The tool offers two to three scalability options. If you are stuck on the upgrade part and you want to expand the disk space at RAM or storage levels, you can easily upgrade your hardware or networks.

The product's initial setup phase was really easy. A user just has to choose the pre-configuration options, and the tool will prompt with every option to help what one should choose, after which the product can be installed within ten to twenty minutes.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and in the on-premises model. Depending on what a user wants, it offers an on-premises data center deployment option. People can also choose between the SAP Cloud and the public cloud options. In SAP Cloud, there are other products offered, and the cloud also helps manage the DBMS application.

Speaking about the value and benefits a company can experience from the use of the solution, I would say that if an organization plans to implement an ERP solution in their company, then it should be SAP S/4HANA as it will be very beneficial. SAP HANA provides a free database to users, but it has very limited functionality. If a company wants to get full advantage from SAP application, then they must go with SAP HANA.

The tool is expensive compared to other products, like Oracle R or Microsoft, but it offers a range of all the company's functions.

SAP HANA is a new innovation from SAP compared to the old databases, like RDBMS. SAP HANA serves as an in-memory database that works fast and solves queries in real-time.

In terms of the most valuable functionality in speeding up data processing tasks, the main features of SAP HANA revolve around the fact that it is really easy to manage since there is no need to work on the command line, as the solution has its own application that is used for it. Our company's work and manageability parts are very easy with SAP HANA. SAP has many applications that can help my company manage SAP HANA, which is a very easy process. With the product, it is easy to manage backup and restore.

In every project, my company uses SAP HANA for data management because we have to load all the data in the DB. At that time, I never faced any error while doing any configurations since there would never be any issues with the DB part. A specific person is needed to manage the DB part. Even in a small company, there will be one person to manage the DB since it is very easy to manage by SAP HANA.

When speaking about the tool's in-memory computing can impact data analysis capabilities, if one considers the old database or RDBMS, then I would say that they have capabilities related to rows. When we execute a query or when we analyze data, the query only works with the rows as it reads every line. SAP S/4HANA allows for the aggregation of columns, making the retrieval of data very specific. I think a range of 1-1000 can be considered for the analysis of data.

SAP HANA is specifically made for SAP applications and is called S/4HANA. SAP launched HANA database with applications for SAP-related operations. SAP has certain tunings to ensure that SAP applications work better. I just use the tool with SAP applications, and I will never use it with any other applications. From SAP's end, SAP HANA is a very good database.

From the admin side, I never got involved with any integrations related to the product, but I would recommend it.

If a company wants to manage its resources, like for different functions, if an organization wants an application that can be used for enterprise resource planning, SAP is the best solution in the world.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution for our accounting system and our services department. 

We have 60 companies so we take each project step by step. Most of our companies have been using the solution for one or two years so they have already converted to implementation or training phases. 

We have 18,000 users across all of our companies. 

The solution saves us in operational costs. The controls are very professional for managing orders with suppliers and partners. 

The solution is marvelous because it controls everything including workflow, and that makes our company more productive. 

The compatibility between modules and the control are excellent.

The documentation and archiving systems are good. 

The Attack dashboard needs improvement because there are some gaps after sales services. 

I have been using the solution for two years. 

The solution is very stable so I rate stability a ten out of ten. 

The solution is very scalable so I rate scalability a ten out of ten. 

Technical support is very good so I rate support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is easy so I rate it an eight out of ten. 

A third party handles implementations with assistance from our team of 40 IT managers. Our team works on the old core system but we are encouraging them to do that only for maintenance. 

The solution's license is very expensive so I rate pricing a one out of ten. 

We use the solution, SAP Business ByDesign, or Oracle depending on the project.

I recommend the solution and rate it a ten out of ten. 

We have used SAP HANA to do some tendering through the supplier management system. We have our own servers that are hosting the solution.

Primarily we use SAP HANA to manage suppliers, they can upload the tender documents. We are then able to do prequalification based on the preset requirements. We then know who is qualified and who is not. Additionally, it has helped us send notifications to the suppliers.

Using SAP HANA has reduced a lot of paperwork that we would typically be doing and the communication we have with our suppliers. Additionally, it has improved our organization and approval process.

The most valuable feature of SAP HANA is the interaction it provides with external suppliers and clients.

When we are using SAP HANA we have some difficulty with the customization. We would like to be able to add and make customized menus.

In a future release, there should be a way to cancel or delete, for example, a tender document. The deleting or canceling of documents is sometimes confusing.

I have been using SAP HANA for approximately three years.

SAP HANA is a stable solution. 

The scalability of SAP HANA is good.

We have more than 500 people using the solution plus the suppliers we have. We can give suppliers accounts. 

I have used the support from SAP HANA. We have expectations some of our problems should be fixed in 24 hours but they are not fixed for 48 hours. It's not that the support does not know how to do it, but sometimes it takes a little bit longer for them to have our solution.

Neutral

I have used previously Oracle and Microsoft Innovation. We switched to SAP HANA because the cost was more favorable than Oracle and it was more user-friendly.

The initial setup of SAP HANA was gradual, it took us approximately six months.

We used consultants, project managers, and our team to do the implementation of SAP HANA. The solution is stable and we do not have to do a lot of maintenance.

There is an annual license to use SAP HANA.

I rate the price of SAP HANA an eight out of ten.

My advice to others is for them to do a lot of research and training before they decided to go live with the solution.

I rate SAP HANA an eight out of ten.

We use SAP HANA mostly for fetching data. There are a lot of tables for which we need to do some troubleshooting. For example, if the fill rates are low daily, we examine various factors, such as yield production versions and inventory levels, to understand why it is happening. To assist us in this process, we leverage Blue Yonder ESP, which operates on HANA View. As a supply chain consultant, we use SAP HANA to fetch data from these tables to troubleshoot the issue and find out why the fill rate is dropping. This helps us determine if it is a genuine issue related to supply or something related to the model.

We have been building a lot of sniffer audits for users. For instance, if a bond structure is not going a particular way, the master data team and the business users can check those audits. These audits, made to assess the data quality, will confirm if it is something we have already identified. So all the data quality audits are built on HANA View.

SAP HANA's interface is pretty user-friendly. It is not very difficult to pull out data extract, and even a beginner can fetch data easily. Additionally, data snapshots are available. Also, building upon a more advanced query is not that difficult. In terms of usability, SAP HANA is pretty good.

SAP HANA's long run time to extract data could be improved upon. Also, the analytics given in SAP HANA's interface is basic and could be improved upon.

I have been using SAP HANA for a year.

I rate SAP HANA an eight out of ten for stability.

I rate SAP HANA a seven out of ten for scalability. SAP HANA can be used in the tactical horizon, which for us is 52 weeks. Anything beyond that needs scenario-based planning, which is not possible with SAP HANA.

Around 5,000 to 6,000 users are using SAP HANA because we are a team spread across the globe in places like Boise, the US, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and India. The first users are supply chain engineers and IT employees. Business users hardly use it because it is a little complicated for them. Since we are trying to expand our tactical horizon from 12 months to 18 months, the usage of SAP HANA will increase in the future.

SAP HANA's technical support is pretty good.

Positive

Before using SAP HANA, we were entirely using SAP APO. We switched to SAP HANA because it is an optimizer and gives better results than SAP APO.

I rate SAP HANA a seven and a half out of ten for its initial setup. The deployment of SAP HANA took around 18 months.

The major part of the deployment was done internally. However, initially, we did use external consultants. So SAP HANA's deployment was partly internal.

The first step in the deployment process is customization, which involves obtaining the solution according to our requirements, including the data we use and the basic tables it provides. Our bond structure was changed to enterprise bonds so SAP HANA could process it. An IT team worked entirely on the data transformation part to ensure the data from other upstream systems could be processed. After that, we went into the design part, the user acceptance testing, and finally went live.

New users of SAP HANA need to have basic SQL coding skills and attention to detail to see data using the solution. It might be complicated for someone, not from a background where they're used to seeing a lot of data.

Overall, I rate SAP HANA an eight out of ten.

We are consolidating SAP HANA into our environment as one of our primary projects. This is not a greenfield implementation, but rather a conversion from our current environment to the consolidated project, where multiple databases are combined into one. So far, this has been going well, and the major advantage of SAP HANA is that it can read both rows and columns at the same time, unlike other databases. Despite this progress, we still need to evaluate its performance as it has not been as fast as we initially anticipated.

This database for SAP is deployed on-premises, and it supports over 40 SAP applications in our environment.

I provide the infrastructure support for data centers and databases, and I can see that the background jobs run much faster with SAP HANA than with Oracle or DB2. Furthermore, SAP HANA has fewer licensing issues, making it cheaper than Oracle. Additionally, the support for SAP HANA is the best we have seen.

The best part of our multi-node system is its ability to help us a lot. This system consists of a primary and secondary node, which is a database, and it works effectively. 

SAP's HANA database is said to be the fastest database, with simultaneous reading and writing of rows and columns. However, we have not seen the promised improvement in speed. Additionally, shutting down a large database of 6 TB can take up to 30 minutes, whereas databases of other types are much faster to shut down. The long recycling process of HANA can be quite frustrating and has room for improvement.

When there is blocking occurring on the database level, the process responsible for it should be killed automatically. We have not seen any CPU or memory increases, but often the memory is almost completely utilized in Linux environments where HANA is installed. As HANA cannot be installed on any other OS, the memory usage should be checked to determine why it is almost entirely taken up.

The cost of the solution is high and has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for almost five years.

I give the stability of SAP HANA an eight out of ten.

I give the scalability of SAP HANA a six out of ten.

The return on investment is good and that is why we are moving ahead with the transition.

SAP HANA is expensive, but unfortunately, we do not have any alternatives. Therefore, we must transition to HANA databases by 2025.

I give the solution a six out of ten.

Anyone currently using SAP will be transitioning to HANA. Those who wish to implement SAP will also be using HANA, as it is the only supported platform for SAP applications, not for any other applications.

We are a consulting company, and we use SAP HANA mainly to understand and recommend to our customers.

It's an ERP system. Everybody needs an ERP system. You either have SAP HANA, Microsoft Navision, or you need an ERP system to do the accounting, production planning, purchasing, and sales.

SAP HANA has everything, and that is the advantage of SAP because you can get everything in one suite, whatever you need for your company. If it's from finance up to packaging, warehousing, everything is in there. The advantage of SAP HANA is not a special feature; the advantage is that everything is there. It's a complete stack.

They also have analytics features such as real-time analytics, some predictive analysis, and they have Signavio.

SAP has actually too much with SAP HANA. They should rather let others do the specialty works, and SAP wants to do the whole business for themselves. The problem is the price; it's too expensive for what it actually delivers.

The deployment of SAP HANA is far too complicated and takes far too long. The typical implementation time is between six months and two years.

The deployment of SAP HANA is far too complicated and takes far too long. The typical implementation time is between six months and two years.

Unlimited scalability is one of the strengths of SAP HANA.

I hope they are satisfied with SAP technical support, because we do the support. We are the ones who do the support for them.

It's a very big company, and it takes a while until you get real help from them. If it's really urgent, people pay expensive money for the maintenance, but technically speaking, the support is very difficult with every big company.

SAP support would rate a three on a scale from one to ten.

Time to respond to SAP support is an issue, and finding the right person and handling the whole process are problems too.

We can handle most things ourselves. We contact SAP only if it's really in the core and needs fixing.

Neutral

If you're a big concern, if you're a BMW, Volkswagen, or Airbus, then it's fine because that is what you need. But if you're a mid-sized business, then you really should look if the cost is really bringing you a return on investment.

If I compare SAP HANA with Oracle, it's quite similar, although Infor is doing a little bit better. Microsoft is easier to implement, and Odoo, the open-source variation, is the best, but it lacks features. It's more a CRM tool.

On average, the prices for Oracle and SAP HANA are quite the same.

The customers who purchase SAP HANA range from top to the middle because it's so expensive. It is either the higher mid-sized businesses or the big concerns that are using it.

Pricing might be an issue regarding SAP HANA.

Everybody adopts it. If you cannot work with SAP, you're out of the business. Power BI is the most popular one in this context, and SAP itself is selling Signavio, which is their own product, but it's too expensive.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate SAP HANA a seven.

We are using the solution for the DW system. The primary function of the solution is for the database in memory.

I would like to see improvements in the connectivity of the solution with other BI software. Not every software can connect to it natively.

I have been using the solution for the past five to six years.

I would rate the stability of the solution an eight out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is quite scalable. You can increase the usage if you have enough hardware. There are about 5000 users in our organization.

Previously, we used Oracle Database, but we have changed to HANA database now.

The initial setup was not easy since it took a couple of days to install the tool. We had to download it from the internet and follow some processes so that the tool could be integrated into our internal network.

The deployment of the solution was done in-house.

I would rate the pricing of the solution a ten out of ten. The pricing for on-prem SAP HANA is on a yearly basis and expensive. I am not aware of the actual pricing but it is based on 64 Gigabytes. For instance, if you consider $10,000 for 64 Gigabytes, then you can calculate the cost for Terabytes in case you have one. You will have to buy expensive hardware as well which is quite a lot.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. There are three SAP-based individuals involved in the maintenance of the solution. This solution is recommended for SAP-oriented users only since it is very expensive as a database.