Quick Answers

SAP HANA Cloud is a multi-cloud database as a service (DBaaS) that empowers customers to store data, tier data, and ensure that high-value data is accessible whenever needed. The  SAP HANA Cloud engine can be used to develop all the power applications that an organization needs, or it can simply connect any applications already in use.  

SAP Cloud Platform is a platform as a service (Paas) for the development, integration, and operation of cloud services. SAP HANA Cloud is a database as a service (DBaaS) that is offered, provisioned, and managed by the SAP Cloud Platform. 

SAP HANA Cloud is a new cloud-native implementation of SAP HANA, while SAP HANA Service is an SAP HANA on-premise version running in a cloud infrastructure. 

Yes. SAP HANA Cloud is the successor of SAP HANA Service. However, we will continue supporting SAP HANA Service for current customers in accordance with existing contracts. SAP is fully committed to assisting SAP HANA Service customers during their transition to SAP HANA Cloud with both the technical support and the license migration. 

SAP Data Warehouse Cloud runs on SAP HANA Cloud. SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is focused on advanced modeling capabilities and collaboration with business users of all technical levels. SAP HANA Cloud, as a DBaaS, is focused on data management strategies.  

Yes, SAP BW will be able to access SAP HANA Cloud and the data lake as a federated source.  

SAP HANA Cloud is a DBaaS that manages parts of your instance, like the complete hardware setup and other cloud-native aspects. The users have one admin to start with and can create a list of customizable roles and permissions for their own organization.

You will have access to the SAP HANA Cockpit, a communications platform as a service (CPaas) within SAP HANA Cloud. Here, you can monitor various performance metrics, like CPU, memory, response time, disk I/O, and network to confirm contention on infrastructure. 

There will be a cf command line for provisioning for users who require it.

Yes, you can add or remove compute power or storage capacity separately.  

With the launch version SAP HANA Cloud, it will be possible to move data based on SQL-statements. In future updates, we plan tooling with comparable features from DLM that allows semi-automatic data tiering. We also plan to automate data tiering in SAP HANA Cloud. 

Elasticity means that SAP HANA Cloud can adjust the allocated compute/storage resource consumption depending on the actual workload. The resource adjustment capabilities in SAP HANA Cloud will evolve in future versions, starting with ticket-based change requests, over self-service towards automated adjustments. 

You can tier directly.

The native storage extension is enabled by default in an SAP HANA Cloud instance. In the launch version of SAP HANA Cloud, data in native storage extension is managed by the user. You still need to explicitly specify tables/partitions/columns to be page loadable to take advantage of native storage extension. In the future, there will be also the ability to provision incremental disk storage to increase native storage extension capacity. In a later update, we plan to automate data management in native storage extension. However, you will be always able to control the native storage extension. 

There are lower prices and lower total cost of ownership compared to the current SAP HANA DBaaS. That’s because SAP HANA Cloud introduces a cloud-native database architecture that directly benefits from the cost-efficiency of hyperscaler’s infrastructure. 

Pricing details coming soon.

SAP HANA Cloud is consumable via SAP Cloud Platform only. 

The minimum size for an SAP HANA Cloud instance is 32GB memory and 120GB storage (with or without data) 

For data virtualization, SAP HANA Cloud supports many adapters from  SAP HANA smart data access/SAP HANA smart data integration on-premises. Additionally, SAP HANA Cloud supports data virtualization to AWS Athena (S3) and Google BigQuery.   

The SAP HANA Cloud adapters are different from the Open Connectors in SAP Cloud Platform. However, SAP HANA Cloud provides an SAP HANA smart data integration-adapter that integrates with the Open Connectors framework in SAP Cloud Platform. 

SAP HANA Cloud uses two replication modes: Remote Table Replication (RTR) for HANA-HANA and SAP HANA smart data integration replication for HANA-AnyDB. RTR comes with its own logging and SAP HANA smart data integration relies on the adapter capabilities for the corresponding remote database (and if the remote DB supports a DB logging API).  

Yes. Federation/replication capabilities in HANA Cloud are identical to the SAP HANA on-premise solutions.

You gain secure access to on-premises data sources with SAP HANA smart data integration DP Agent. The Cloud Connector is planned for a future release. 

SAP HANA Cloud can connect to S3 and ingest data.  We federate with AWS Athena to access S3.

SAP HANA Cloud can also ingest data directly from S3 via the built-in data lake.

The SAP Cloud Connector is still not available for SAP HANA Cloud. It is planned.

Yes. 

No, this feature is not yet available. 

SAP HANA Cloud provides various performance analysis tools with the SAP HANA Cockpit. There, you can analyze problematic workloads or queries in your application.

SAP HANA CDS is no longer supported in SAP HANA Cloud. The recommended development model for SAP HANA Cloud is the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model.

There are no changes for developers with SAP Cloud Platform CF concerning the application runtime. For a list of changes concerning SAP HANA Cloud, please refer to SAP note 2868742.

The data lake is included and no additional license is necessary. Consumption is measured based on capacity units, so your subscribed capacity units are used based on what instances you provision and how long they are running. 

Yes, this is the case. 

Multi-model processing will only be available through SAP HANA Cloud.  You will be able to access the data lake through virtual tables, but the expectation is that performance will not be good if analyzing large amounts of data.  

Multi-model analytics in the SAP HANA data lake is presently on the product roadmap.

Data is loaded into data lake row at a time via traditional SQL DML. Or, you can bulk load data from an object store (eg., Azure Storage, S3) using the LOAD TABLE statement.

SAP HANA and IQ have been working together for many years, and many optimizations have been made in the SAP HANA smart data access communications between the two. One example is that IQ and SAP HANA can exchange data in larger, more easily processed chunks (ITABS) than a standard SAP HANA smart data access connection to a third-party library, which would only exchange data row by row.

Data Hub/Data Intelligence can connect to SAP HANA Cloud as a data source and destination, so you have the full range of machine learning capabilities available. 

Yes. When the data lake is provisioned, the corresponding remote source is created in the HANA database automatically.

SAP HANA Cloud will be available on Azure and AWS first in the first half of 2020. Availability in GCP and AliCloud are planned in late 2020.

Yes. There are plans to use machine learning in SAP HANA Cloud for automated operations in future. 

As SAP HANA Cloud becomes available in the different hyperscalers, like AWS and Azure, it will support different regions (including the EU) when provisioned in the SAP Cloud Platform (SCP)