page_title: SAP HANA
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: SAP HANA / Architecture / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: SAP HANA architecture
context_page_description: SAP HANA is an in-memory, column-oriented, relational database management system developed and marketed by SAP SE. Its primary function as a database server is to store and retrieve data as requested by the applications. In addition, it performs advanced analytics and includes extract, transform, load capabilities as well as an application server.
context_section_description: The key distinctions between HANA and previous generation SAP systems are that it is a column-oriented, in-memory database, that combines OLAP and OLTP operations into a single system; thus in general SAP HANA is an OLTAP system. Storing data in main memory rather than on disk provides faster data access and, by extension, faster querying and processing. While storing data in-memory confers performance advantages, it is a more costly form of data storage. Observing data access patterns, up to 85% of data in an enterprise system may be infrequently accessed therefore it can be cost-effective to store frequently accessed, or "hot", data in-memory while the less frequently accessed "warm" data is stored on disk, an approach SAP have termed "Dynamic tiering".
  Column-oriented systems store all data for a single column in the same location, rather than storing all data for a single row in the same location (row-oriented systems). This can enable performance improvements for OLAP queries on large datasets and allows greater vertical compression of similar types of data in a single column. If the read times for column-stored data is fast enough, consolidated views of the data can be performed on the fly, removing the need for maintaining aggregate views and its associated data redundancy.
  Although row-oriented systems have traditionally been favored for OLTP, in-memory storage opens techniques to develop hybrid systems suitable for both OLAP and OLTP capabilities, removing the need to maintain separate systems for OLTP and OLAP operations.
   The index server performs session management, authorization, transaction management and command processing. The database has both a row store and a columnar store. Users can create tables using either store, but the columnar store has more capabilities and is most frequently used. The index server also manages persistence between cached memory images of database objects, log files and permanent storage files. The XS engine allows web applications to be built.
  SAP HANA Information Modeling (also known as SAP HANA Data Modeling) is a part of HANA application development. Modeling is the methodology to expose operational data to the end user. Reusable virtual objects (named calculation views) are used in the modelling process.
caption: Indexer components
exif: {"Image Tag 0x0301": "20000/9091", "Image Tag 0x0303": "0", "Image Tag 0x5110": "1", "Image Tag 0x5111": "0", "Image Tag 0x5112": "0"}