SAP HANA Reviews

We use HANA mostly for any live reporting directly from the ECC box or S/4HANA box. We also do some of the operational reports, where it is difficult to do or apply the logic directly in the ECC box. It's better to bring the data, do your logic in SAP HANA and do your reporting out of it. Or you can also push your data to BW as well, by doing all your logic, and you can also expose your HANA calculation directly to SAP Analytics Cloud as well as Power BI.

The maintenance is quick. It's analytics directly out of the box. You do not need storage. You bring the data, do your calculation, and do your reporting. That said, if you want to store it, there's a cost involved. However, if you just want to report out of it, you don't have to move your data to any other place. I won't call it a data warehouse; it's more about quick analytic reporting out of SAP.

The speed at which it gets the data is great. There's a quick response time and quick reporting.

Most of what we need is already there. 

The initial setup isn't too difficult. 

It's a scalable product. 

It's still improving there, still improving a lot. Most of the extractors that are now. Most of the standard things don't satisfy the requirements in order to go for the custom build. More standards would help in the future.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

There are always stability issues. However, that is why we have SAP. I'd rate the stability eight out of ten. It's reliable. 

The solution can scale. I'd rate it nine out of ten in terms of the ability to expand. Of course, it comes down to cot. While it can scale, it will cost to do so. We have six users dealing with the product right now. Everyone in the organization is on HANA, whether it S4 or BW.

While I haven't dealt with support in the past year, they are usually pretty good.

Positive

You do need resources specifically dedicated to the solution. However, it's not that complex. I'd rate the ease of setup around six to seven out of ten.

It is pretty quick to deploy. Deployments happen weekly or biweekly. 

One resource is enough to handle deployment, and three for maintenance.

We have witnessed a very good ROI since you don't have to install a separate box. 

The main concern of every customer is the cost of the product. However, the pro is maintenance. You do not have to do a lot of maintenance on it. The number of results that you need after go-live would be less compared to any other data warehousing tool. You don't need a bunch of data engineers or data scientists, you just need a couple of business resources and a couple of analysts. In that sense, it costs less.

We're working with the latest version of the solution. 

I really like SAP. It's the best ERP tool. If you want to implement analytics, go with HANA. Go with SAP Data Warehousing if you want to implement a data warehouse.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We use the solution for modeling and data extraction.

The solution can easily be modeled.

The openness of the system could be more developed.

The solution should go into the cloud. The cloud mechanism should be more invested.

I have been using SAP HANA for 11 years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. Approximately 200 users are using this solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The customer support team is good because of vendor and priority.

I have used AWS before. Both SAP HANA and AWS are the same product.

The initial setup is simple.

The tool has a high price. I rate the solution’s pricing, one on a scale of ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap.

SAP HANA is in the market, but there are other competitors available.

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven-point five out of ten.

There are no primary use cases of the solution in our company. We use SAP HANA as a database in our company because of the expiry deadline of our hardware, which is in January next year.

The benefit of SAP HANA can be observed from the fact that my entire organization depends on the solution since we use around nine to ten modules of SAP, including finance, inventory management, and SCM.

There are no weaknesses in the solution. My company tries to improve its different applications, making it one of the major reasons for us to move from SAP HANA to S4 HANA while also considering the fact that SAP may discard SAP ECC 6.0 by 2027. After that, SAP will provide us with the liberty to upgrade the product.

The only downside of the product is that it is an expensive solution that needs to consider lowering its prices to improve the product.

I have been using SAP for twenty years, and my company started using SAP HANA as a database for the past three years. My company uses the on-premises version of the solution. My company currently uses SAP ECC 6.0 EhP8 and SAP HANA as a database. My company is an end user of the solution.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

My company has around 290 users using the solution 24 hours daily.

My company has only one SAP administrator and one more person who provides support.

Before getting support from TMC, my company used to get support from SAP Pakistan. Within the company, my team is well-equipped to look after SAP, and because of this, we don't need to opt for additional support. If there are any changes, my company approaches sAP directly. We're not dependent on the local vendors for support.

My company has been using SAP since 2004, so I don't know the other products used in the past.

Speaking about the initial setup phase, my company is still in the planning phase, and because of this, there is no dedicated person involved to look after the initial setup process.

The solution is deployed on-premises, but we plan to move to AWS in the future. We will start the migration process in the next month or after two or three months.

The vendor takes care of the product's implementation part.

Price-wise, the product falls on the higher side of the spectrum. There is no need to pay for maintenance and support additionally. Support is available for bug fixes in the product.

As there is no alternative for SAP in the market, I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

They should develop and improve the solution's data management system. They should also work on the capabilities and features of their mobile and cloud applications.

We have been using the solution for five years.

The solution is highly stable once configured. It requires regular garbage collection activity to function smoothly. Also, it depends on the implementer and vendor's services.

I rate the solution's stability as an eight.

I work with an enterprise business client with 500 users using the solution. Based on the requirement, the solution allows us to scale up our capabilities and business processes.

Thus, it is scalable, and I rate the scalability as an eight.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward, but it requires experience for implementation.

On average, it takes six to eight months for deployment. There are some instances where it takes a year when the client wants to combine two solutions together.

We use SAP's new project management model for deployment. It is a complete infrastructure service where we get the hardware from hyperscaler and implement the application.

Our implementation team includes business, functional, and POD consultants.

The solution's licensing is expensive for SMEs and large enterprises alike. There are no additional costs included.

I recommend the solution to others and rate it as a nine. In comparison with other DMS solutions, it offers good performance and is excellent in administration management. It has a simple table structure that makes it a high-performance system for customers. I advise others to select an implementer with knowledge and experience in using the solution.

We have a full landscape for SAP. Currently, my customer is using it. We are using the native HANA for the non-SAP sources.

We have our data nodes for different business domains. The data is coming from non-SAP sources. The data is coming from different systems. We have a database warehouse approach.

The solution is very fast in terms of memory. It's very convenient and very innovative. It's very good at handling the input and output of the data. There is no lag.

It has become the base of building graphical calculation views. 

It is very convenient when you are working with Postgres or Snowflake. When you have modeled everything correctly, it's easy to translate the model. 

With the way native works, it builds a good platform. It's not just a database. It's much more.

It has an inbuilt smart data integrator which you can use for sourcing, researching, and loading the data. It's included in the web IDE version of the web HANA deployment. 

This is a very mature product. The performance is very good. 

I cannot think of any features that are missing at this time. 

In the calculation views, the functions that have been provided to build the graphical views should be enhanced and could be made more flexible. There should be more functionality available.

You cannot apply mulit-join inside the calculation views, for example, when you are joining tables. You have to do it in a four-node. You have to join them one by one instead of joining everything together in one step. 

I've been using the solution for six years. 

The performance is good. It is mature and stable. I've never experienced any issues like crashing or freezing.

The scalability is very good. I'd rate it 8.5 out of ten in terms of ease of scaling. 

This is a good solution for enterprise solutions. 

In terms of the initial setup, I do not know how to install it on the server itself. I don't handle the technical aspects since I am a consultant. I don't directly handle the setup process. Likely, it is installed on Linux.

While my understanding is the product is likely expensive I do not handle the pricing. I don't know the exact costs. 

Smaller companies may not be suitable as the pricing is quite expensive. Even medium-level companies would have trouble affording a full SAP stack. An enterprise would have the budget to take this solution on.

The cloud may be more affordable, however, on-prem would be very expensive. 

I'm a consultant. 

In terms of relational databases, this is the best option.

If you are going to work with HANA, make sure to use the latest version. It has the latest approaches.

Users should utilize the HANA platform to the fullest extent. Get the most out of it by using all of the tools, as much as possible. Don't just use it as a data model database.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We primarily use SAP HANA for ERP in the manufacturing and delivery industries.

What I like best about SAP HANA is that it's faster than Microsoft SQL Server.

The SAP HANA interface has room for improvement because it takes more work to manage than the Microsoft SQL Server interface.

Nowadays, you'll see more no-code tools in the market with a drag-and-drop feature, and that's what I want to see in SAP HANA in the future.

I've been using SAP HANA for six months.

SAP HANA is a stable product. Its stability is eight out of ten.

The scalability of SAP HANA is a six out of ten.

My company used to work with Oracle Database version 10.2, but migrated to Microsoft SQL Server and now also using SAP HANA because Oracle Database is expensive, plus it requires users with a higher level of experience on Oracle Database.

The initial setup for SAP HANA is so-so. It's not easy, yet it's not so difficult. I'm rating its setup as six out of ten.

The total time it takes to deploy SAP HANA depends on the type of integration. I have a lot of integrations where one integration gets deployed within thirty minutes, while another takes more than two days to deploy.

The pricing for SAP HANA is high. It was expensive. You have to pay a lot, and it's the highest-priced solution in the local market, though when you compare it to other tools in the global market, the price is similar.

You pay a lot for the license, and you also have to pay for some add-ons.

I'd rate SAP HANA licensing fees as two out of ten.

My company uses SAP HANA.

My company has SAP Business One version 9.3 that integrates with SAP HANA, but I haven't worked much on SAP HANA yet.

I'm a user of SAP HANA, not a partner.

Around thirty people, mostly technicians, work on deploying SAP HANA. The solution requires five to six engineers for maintenance.

My company has eighty-eight SAP HANA licenses used mainly by the end-users, for example, managers.

I'd tell anyone looking into using SAP HANA that it's a good tool but expensive for smaller-scale companies.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate SAP HANA as ten because it's a good tool, and I like its technology.

The client is using the solution for supply chain management, and at the same time, our enterprise uses it to track the businesses' performance. The rest of our regions are going to be using SAP ECC. We are the first region to go with HANA. We were shortlisted to show them the roadmap and guide them. Supply chain management and tracking raw materials were areas of concern.

The IBP module was the most useful followed by the FI/CO and CNMM modules.

The product could be improved in several ways.

First, before carrying out a project with this environment size, a POC needs to be carried out, for which you would have access to various environments. And those environments are something that SAP should invest in and others should provide. That would be an improvement.

Second, some good amount of handholding, guidance, or other validation or certification from SAP at different levels.  

Third, access to tools for a longer period than the pre-defined trial version license. That's something that we can ask our friends from SAP to extend or make available in a different licensing model at zero cost.

I have three years of experience with the solution.

The solution is very stable. We would rate its stability as eight out of 10.

We would rate the scalability of the solution as eight-plus on a scale of one to 10.

The initial setup was pretty complex, considering the enormous amount of data they had from an Oracle ERP. Migration was an especially painful task, but we managed to sail through it thanks to the support of our customer. We delivered it within the timelines. We managed a few escalations. We worked with the customer. We had a weekly stand-up with the customer and various workshops and sessions to educate them and highlight the challenges. 

Implementation was completely in-house with a team of around 18 to 22 people and a couple of people from SAP, who looked at the overall program management level, providing guidance plus certifying that best practices were being followed and implemented. 

The deployment, moving from Oracle to SAP HANA, took around eight months

The customer took care of all the SAP license costs. Our scope was primarily implementation and migration support.

Oracle ERP had the flexibility, but it didn't have the functionality that the customer was looking for.

We would give the product an overall rating of nine out of 10.

We have an entirely SAP family, which makes it easy to manage and support. The customer opened its first, and we are doing multiple instances of SAP ECC implementations for the rest of the small countries in APAC, the Middle East, and Africa.

Around 175 to 250 people use the solution at every level of the customer's organization.

We will be providing maintenance for the next five years.

My advice would be to explore and play with the different systems available in the market. But, ultimately, look for a system with a brand, broad user usability, and support. For instance, my customer wanted to explore an open-source ERP. We persuaded him to go with SAP, primarily because they have the expertise. They adhere to the best policies. They offer support, etc. 

If you don't have all this, don't explore freebies. Go for a licensed version, recommended globally, and highly rated by Gartner or various research and consulting firms.

SAP HANA is one of the best databases known for its performance. Since the solution offers a functionality known as in-memory computing, its performance cannot be measured with other databases. If a customer has a large amount of data, especially data in gigabytes or terabytes, because of which they face performance issues, then SAP HANA is the database for them.

SAP HANA should go for big data solutions as well. So, SAP HANA is good for large enterprises and large databases. Even for large databases, we have to rely on other tools, especially those that fall under big data solutions. Hence, SAP HANA needs to be a part of big data solutions.

SAP HANA has almost all the features, and with every new release, they are introducing some new features because of the development team working on the solution. The solution has started supporting its integration with other applications, which can ensure the solution's development. The solution's development platform should be more flexible and scalable to adapt to other solutions. In short, the development environment of the solution needs to improve. Such improvements will make the integration and adaptation of the solution more flexible.

For almost four to five years, I have been working on SAP HANA. I am not only an end user of the solution but also a part of a company that provides the solution to its customers.

The new version of the solution is stable. SAP HANA Version 1.0 had some performance issues, but after SAP HANA Version 2.0 got introduced, the solution became more stable. So there is no need to put in more effort since most things have become automated in the solution.

It's a scalable product. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Presently, we have around 15 customers.

Since I haven't faced any issues with the solution, I haven't contacted technical support yet.

The solution's initial setup was straightforward.

Only one or two days were required for the deployment part, which the technical department took care of in our organization.

If SAP provides simple and standard documentation to its users explaining every solution process in detail, the steps to deploy the solution can be simplified. In short, the deployment process won't take long if one follows the documentation. Also, it will ensure that the users do not have to get involved in any troubleshooting steps or face any other problems while using the solution.

Only one system administrator is required to deploy and maintain the solution.

SAP offers a license for both ERP and HANA, which means that if you purchase SAP ERP, you will be provided with a license that covers both products. In the case of on-premises deployment, the license is perpetual, which means that you only need to pay for annual maintenance. On the other hand, for cloud deployment, licensing payments are made on a yearly subscription basis.

While the cost of the license may seem high, it is important to note that the benefits of the solution far outweighs the cost. Therefore, it can be considered a normal cost.

I would tell those planning to use the solution that it works fine but needs to become more portable. The solution should also be made capable of supporting non-SAP application environments. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.