April 4, 2023
The year 2023 brings several changes and additions to SAP HANA. The improved systems promise to deliver a better user experience, enhance tool performance, and increase your team’s productivity.
Let’s walk through the most important additions to the system this year.
Source: Shutterstock
SAP HANA is a relational database management system that offers high-performance data management and has superior analytics capabilities. It’s a step up from current SAP applications because of its faster processing speed and ability to integrate with several other products and tools.
However, SAP is constantly improving its tools to enhance the overall user experience for its customers. These are some of the new S4 HANA features:
The new update merges two tools: administration and monitoring. This will simplify and improve the user experience. For instance, there’s now a new command palette, which allows users to quickly search the list of tasks operators can perform on specific instances. It’s a centralized search bar that makes operations faster.
Another update is the usage monitor, which replaces the performance monitor. This allows you to visualize the health metrics over a specific period of time. SAP has also simplified the number of monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to declutter the screen. In addition, the alerts application has been moved to SAP HANA Cloud Central, so alerts will be displayed at a landscape level, giving a better view.
The SAP HANA Database Explorer-JSON collection also includes a few new features:
A selected functionality of HANA Cockpit will be integrated into HANA Cloud Central. Going forward, users can use a single tool for all their functions related to HANA Cloud. The purpose is to bring more uniformity and simplicity to the system so users will find it easier to search the features they need for their operations. This will result in enhanced performance and better productivity.
A major benefit of this update is that users won’t have to spend time learning to use a new tool. Instead, they can use their existing understanding of the tool to operate it according to their requirements.
After the 2023 update, users will engage with a new Cloud Central boasting better features. These include a new command palette, which allows everyone to search the list of tasks every operator is authorized to perform. It also has a better and more intuitive usage monitor to visualize the health metrics of different tasks.
The global alert view system will display alerts over the entire screen. In addition, users can now change the time frame for KPIs in the designated cards. This aligns with SAP HANA Cloud’s mission to centralize the control system. Finally, the Compute Metrics section will show information like capacity units, availability zones, and backup size in tab controls and header bars.
Native Storage Extension in SAP HANA lets users access less-frequently used data without actually loading the entire data set onto the memory. For this purpose, this solution harnesses the same technology as a flash drive.
SAP HANA also has a Table Partitioning feature that works on the foundations of the SAP HANA database. The in-memory storage and Native Storage Extension work together to provide users with extended storage space. Even the SQL files stored on the software are a part of this data link structure, including the Data Lake files.
In SAP HANA, users can set the range partition to create tables according to the partition load unit. The same concept is put into action for Dynamic Aging.
With this addition, the software supports automatic dynamic range partitioning. So, there’s no need for users to add new partitions or change the load unit; the HANA Cloud takes care of these tasks, including data storage. This gives users more time to work on other operations.
Even with all these features, users can still control Dynamic Aging according to their requirements.
The new update also added a new view monitoring capability in the form of buffer cache statistics. This will make HANA the best SAP service. In essence, users can get information about the data that has been read from the disk in the new column IO_READ_SIZE.
In the results generated after giving the command, users will be able to see a new column. Using this information, they can see the size of the buffer cache and identify problematic NSE objects by checking the IO_READ_SIZE. If it’s high, that means NSE has to be adjusted or the object isn’t suitable.
Calculation View Modeling displays flexible information that allows users to gain insights on advanced data slices. Here are some of the new additions and improvements:
This gives users better control over applying filters so the results processed are more precise. What’s more, with the function to apply the same filter on multiple columns, the software generates joined views for a better understanding.
Users will get more control over how the snapshots feature is used and deployed. They can set the feature to work during or after deployment.
A subtle but important addition was made to the undo and redo actions. Now, users can select the exact sequence of actions for undo and redo. This will eliminate the need for pressing buttons repeatedly.
The SAP HANA Data Lake helps organizations lower the costs of large-scale data extraction and processing. It also allows users to generate insights from data while providing relational capabilities to the users. Here are some updates you’ll see:
The VARCHAR character definition is also improved in the latest release. Users no longer need to declare the character length of the VARCHAR in the relational database. Instead, the SDA will take care of this function, convert the HANA VARCHAR() field, and give it the right size in bytes.
Now, SAP HANA allows creating a schema without also creating a user in the relational database. Removing the need to create new users makes it possible to create multiple schemas in a single database. The new version also grants more permissions to users in terms of creating and managing schemas.
As SAP HANA continues to improve its software, users stand to gain multiple benefits. However, managing complex databases is a tall task. So, a professional SAP service provider can ensure your systems are up to date.
Approyo is an experienced SAP service provider that can help you run SAP HANA smoothly. We’ve managed more than a thousand SAP environments worldwide. Connect with us today for a consultation.
