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dvankempen
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert










This blog series complements SAP HANA 2.0, An Introduction published by SAP Press.

For the highlights post, see

For the hands-on blogs, see

For the previous posts on this topic, see

See also

Any good? Post a comment, share on social media, and/or give a like. Thanks!



A Strong Foundation for Continued Innovation


Every new support package stack (SPS) release comes with its own theme. We have had Intelligence, Agility, Efficiency for SPS 04 last year, Business Data Platform for the Intelligent Enterprise for SPS 03 in 2018 and the Next Generation Platform for Digital Transformation for SPS 02 in 2017.

For this year it is a A Strong Foundation for Continued Innovation.

A foundation built on a decade of growth. 2020 and SPS 05 also marks SAP HANA's 10th anniversary. [#SAPHANATurns10 | Facebook].

We already looked at the family album pictures in April:



Release and Maintenance


Predictability versus Innovation


The pace of innovations with SAP HANA has always been high. A bit too high for some customers.

In the spirit of bimodal IT as coined by Gartner, predictability versus innovation, we have witnessed the split between SAP HANA 1.0 and SAP HANA 2.0 with maintenance for the initial release extended to 5 years, now ending in 2021 (no worries, laggards, there is still time left  (laggards is the official terminology from the technology adoption lifecycle, no offense).

Cloud First


In 2018, innovation also slowed down for SAP HANA 2.0 as it switched to an annual release cycle. High paced innovation would now come cloud-first and the same year a cloud edition was released: SAP Cloud Platform, SAP HANA Service. Technically, it was the SAP HANA cloud edition database YEAR.XX.XX containing SAP HANA 2.0.

On a side note, and for a bit of fine print, this service was added to two already existing SAP HANA database-as-a-service offerings. They all had one thing in common: VM-based (lift-and-shift). We covered this topic in At Your Service: SAP HANA in the Cloud.

Earlier this year, SAP HANA Cloud was released, replacing for new customers all previous offerings. SAP HANA Cloud is cloud-native, container-based, which translates to a separation of storage and compute (unlike VMs) with as a result elastic scaling. Technically, SAP HANA Cloud is still the cloud edition database but now it is version 4.0. The trial version will be available soon.

Hybrid


With SAP HANA Cloud carrying forwards the banner of innovation, SAP HANA 2.0 on-premises now takes over the role of predictability from SAP HANA 1.0 with five year maintenance extension. Note that unlike 1.0 SPS 12, 2.0 SPS 05 is not the last station. Work on SPS 06 has already started.

Predictability typically is not obtained by adding zillion new features and we can see this reflected in the page count of the What's New Guide: SPS 03 = 80; SPS 04 = 80; SPS 05 = 40. This is not to say there are no new features. Given how condensed new and changed features are described in the guide, one-liners typically, there is still a lot to discover.

Unlike before, we no longer have to choose between predictability and innovation. Hybrid replaces bimodel IT and with SAP HANA Cloud and SAP HANA on-premises you can have both.



What's New


For the What's New release highlights, read the overview blog posts from SAP HANA product management (Vink) and the head of the database development organisation.

For the full list, see the What's New section on the SAP HANA documentation product home page which contains the links to more detailed information and is divided into the sections database enhancements, advanced analytics, application development, and data management.

As with the previous releases, there is also a series of webinars covered by the different product managers and highly recommended. The first one is starting today.


For an overview of this and previous releases, see the product home page on SAP.com.


What's New - Release Documentation


SAP Help Portal (Documentation)


For more detailed information about what's new and changed for the different domains, we can consult the documentation. There is a section for each of the guides: Installation and Update, Security, Planning and Design, Administration, etc.

The SAP HANA client has its own "home" on the Help Portal with a separate What's New

This will also be the case for SAP HANA options, like smart data integration (SDI), dynamic tiering, streaming analytics, etc.


Although tightly integrated with SAP HANA, the SAP HANA cockpit is on its own release cycle and has a dedicated product section on the SAP Help Portal. Support Pack (SP) 12 for SAP HANA cockpit and database explorer was released earlier this month.



SAP Note (Support)


For the latest and more technical information about the software and the documentation, there are SAP Note(s) published on the SAP ONE Support Launchpad site. There is a release note for the platform and for each of the components (database, client, cockpit, etc.). A valid SAP support account (S-user) is required to access the SAP ONE Support Launchpad. For more information, visit support.sap.com.


For information about what's in the box, standard versus enterprise edition, options, etc., see



Software Downloads


Besides notes and knowledge base articles, SAP ONE Support Launchpad is also the place to go for the downloads; both the full support package stack (SPS) as the latest revisions for each component (support packages and patches). Related info points to the release notes.

The shortcut URL of its predecessor, the Software Download Center or SWDC still provides a convenient way to access Software Downloads: support.sap.com/swdc.

Another easy way to directly access the software is through the SAP Software Download Center tab of the Product Availability Matrix (PAM). This also points to the release notes and the documentation. make sure to bookmark this resource.

Software Downloads



Product Availability Matrix (PAM)



 


Complete Support Package Stack release (14 GB)



Learn More


SAP Training and Certification


New courses and certifications for SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 will become available later this year.

For information about the previous version, visit

SAP Community


As you are reading the blog post on the community, you are probably already aware of this but in case you came to this page through search, there is also a dedicated topic are on the SAP Community listing all relevant content and the latest blogs and Q&A's.









SAP HANA 2.0 - An Introduction


Just getting started with SAP HANA? Or do have a migration to SAP HANA 2.0 coming up? Need a quick update covering business benefits and technology overview. Understand the role of the system administrator, developer, data integrator, security officer, data scientist, data modeler, project manager, and other SAP HANA stakeholders? My latest book about SAP HANA 2.0 covers everything you need to know.

Get it from SAP Press or Amazon:











For the others posts, see



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For the author page of SAP PRESS, visit








Over the years, for the SAP HANA Academy, SAP’s Partner Innovation Lab, and à titre personnel, I have written a little over 300 posts here for the SAP Community. Some articles only reached a few readers. Others attracted quite a few more.

For your reading pleasure and convenience, here is a curated list of posts which somehow managed to pass the 10k-view mile stone and, as sign of current interest, still tickle the counters each month.


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