SAP AG has announced the availability of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) 7.3 running on the SAP HANA platform. SAP HANA can enhance the query performance and provide faster data loads in SAP NetWeaver BW, and help customers significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for customers by simplifying the administration with reduced data layers, according to SAP. The announcement was made at the SAPPHIRE NOW and SAP TechEd co-located event in Madrid.
With the new release, the traditional relational database underneath NetWeaver is replaced with SAP HANA, enabling customers to non-disruptively move their databases to the platform, Byron Banks, vice president, marketing, Business Analytics, SAP, tells 5 Minute Briefing, with the result that more than 13,000 customers can take advantage of the benefits of HANA. SAP has been working on the new release for well over a year, says Banks.
This announcement follows SAP's announcement in September of two new solutions built on SAP HANA - SAP Smart Meter Analytics software powered by SAP HANA and SAP COPA Accelerator software. HANA has evolved from a core database engine, an in-memory-based computing engine, into a platform solution that supports what SAP believes should be the next generation of business applications, Amit Sinha, vice president, In-Memory Computing and SAP HANA, Solution Marketing, told 5 Minute Briefing at that time.
Citing SAP customer Red Bull as an example, Banks said that customers can benefit from the improved speed and flexibility enabled by the combination of NetWeaver and HANA. Red Bull has already been able to reduce its database size by 80%, from 1.5 terabyte down to 250-300 gigabyte. Geographically located in over 160 countries the company loads data during overnight across many time zones, so having information without delay is important. Next year, Red Bull is planning on expanding from just reporting to additionally including promotion management and planning.
SAP also announced the addition of more core foundational in-memory computing technologies inside the SAP HANA platform in support pack 3 to deliver improved performance to accelerate customer business processes. As part of the strategy to bring the power of in-memory computing closer to the data, the platform now has both business function libraries and predictive analysis libraries incorporated to help improve customer business process performance. Business functions, such as sales forecasting based on linear regression, seasonal adjustments or other business-defined factors, are available as reusable functions directly in memory. Business users can also utilize advanced data mining and statistical algorithms, such as decision trees, to analyze the most critical factors that influence customer purchase decisions, without deploying additional statistical analysis packages, to analyze massive amounts of data in real time.
And, extending the reach to more business users, SAP has also added an "information composer" tool for HANA to enable them to upload data into HANA using a spreadsheet or by cutting and pasting from a clipboard to create new analyses that blend private data with centrally published data. Business users can rapidly perform new analyses to answer business questions in real time without the need to engage IT, with many of the more technical steps such as typical data modeling processes automated through intuitive, wizard-driven interaction.
Additionally, SAP has made improvements to the enterprise reliability, availability, stability and performance of SAP HANA. Fully automated backup, including point-in-time recovery is now available, and data-loading performance has also been accelerated by enabling extract-transform-and-load activities directly in the in-memory layer, accelerating the data acquisition speed. SAP HANA is also integrated with the SAP Solution Manager application management solution, SAP NetWeaver Identify Management component and SAP BusinessObjects Access Control application to deliver unified lifecycle management and system monitoring, as well as comprehensive and compliant identify management across customer system landscapes.
Beyond the SAP NetWeaver BW and enhanced SAP HANA announcements, SAP has also announced the launch of the global availability of the Charitable Transformation (ChariTra) online network, a vehicle to connect volunteers, nonprofit organizations and corporations to work together for social causes, notes Ken Tsai, senior director, Platform Computing, SAP Global Marketing. The online network recently enabled over 50 nonprofit organizations and thousands of volunteers throughout India's Joy of Giving week, a nationwide event during which millions of people volunteered their time and resources to many causes.
For more information about SAP BW and SAP HANA, go here.
SAP will now make the ChariTra online network network available for use by volunteers, nonprofit organizations, and corporations around the world. Visit www.charitraglobal.com to learn more.