Understanding SAP HANA Solutions: Architecture, Deployment Options, and Use Cases

SAP is the world’s largest enterprise software vendor, offering ERP, SRM, BI and other applications; HANA (High‑performance Analytic Appliance) is SAP’s in‑memory database product.

HANA can be deployed as an appliance or in the cloud, providing a revolutionary platform for real‑time analytics and applications by combining data processing, analytics and business logic in memory, overcoming the limitations of traditional transactional databases.

Typical SAP HANA solution scenarios

Business Warehouse on HANA (BWoH) – OLAP workloads such as BW, BPC, BI, BO.

Business Suite on HANA or S/4 HANA (SoH) – OLTP workloads such as ECC, SRM, CRM, HRM, EWM, Hybris.

Common SAP system modules

OLTP: SAP Business Suite (ECC, SRM, MDM, PI/PO, CRM, HRM, EWM, Hybris).

OLAP: SAP Data Warehouse (BW, BPC, BI, FC).

Solution types

Scale‑Up – single‑node configuration with vertically added CPU and memory, suitable for SoH and BWoH certified machines. Advantages: no inter‑node network overhead and high memory utilization. Limitations: hardware must be identical in HA, and total capacity is lower than multi‑node clusters.

Scale‑Out – multi‑node cluster distributing a HANA database across several servers, mainly for BWoH. Advantages: strong horizontal scalability (up to 60 TB in an 8‑node cluster), automatic distribution of SAP BW data, support for multiple standby nodes with host‑auto‑failover. Limitations: performance loss due to inter‑node communication and higher cost for dedicated network and storage.

TDI (Tailored Data Center Integration) – a “server + storage” solution introduced in 2013, requiring SAP‑certified servers and storage; performance is guaranteed by the customer. It allows reuse of existing certified hardware to lower costs.

Certification query – hardware vendors that have SAP HANA certification can be found on the SAP website.

Differences between SAP HANA appliance and TDI

Appliance: standardized, pre‑configured hardware and software, fully supported by SAP with performance guarantees.

TDI: flexible hardware configuration (certified servers and storage), enables customers to leverage existing assets, but SAP does not guarantee performance.

Definitions of B1, SoH, BWoH

B1 (SAP Business One) – low‑cost, easy‑to‑implement ERP for SMBs, typically deployed on a 2‑node server.

SoH (SAP Business Suite on HANA) – OLTP suite (ECC, SRM, etc.) using 4/8/16/32‑node certified machines, usually Scale‑Up.

BWoH (SAP Business Warehouse on HANA) – OLAP suite (BW, BPC, BI, FC) that can use Scale‑Up or Scale‑Out configurations.

Virtualization support – SAP HANA can run on mainstream virtualization platforms such as vSphere and FusionSphere, provided the virtualization software is SAP‑certified.

Storage sizing for SAP HANA TDI

Based on physical RAM (R) and number of hosts (N): shared volume = R × N × 1, data volume = R × N × 2, log volume = (R > 512 GB ? 512 GB × N : (R/2) × N). Production logs should use SSD, while development/testing can use SAS.

SAPS benchmark

SAPS refers to the SD2 benchmark score, roughly equivalent to 2 400 SAP transactions per hour, 6 000 dialog steps per hour, plus 2 000 data entry operations. The B4H benchmark, based on HANA, is currently the most relevant performance metric for HANA appliances.