UPDATE: The first milestone release for SAP HANA 2.0 on SAP BTP, Neo environment announced. Read here.
Context
SAP HANA
SAP HANA - the flagship technology innovation from SAP, is a high-performance, in-memory database that accelerates data-driven, real-time decision-making for your business, and supports all kinds of workloads (transactional & analytical) to transform data into business value.
SAP HANA and SAP Cloud Platform* (*brand retired)
SAP HANA has always been a vital part of the database portfolio of SAP Cloud Platform, since the days of platform inception. If you have been with the platform since the very beginning, you will remember that SAP Cloud Platform was also called SAP ‘HANA’ Cloud Platform or ‘HCP’ during its evolution.
The platform intended to bring the path-breaking, in-memory technology of HANA to the cloud, to provide a strong foundation for customers to build data-driven innovation. SAP HANA was and continues to be THE persistence option of choice, for customers developing applications in SAP Business Technology Platform.
Of course, it is important to note that HANA has been offered in different forms and versions on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).
- SAP BTP, Neo environment, which has been available since the early days, provides the SAP HANA service with HANA version 1.0 and
- SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment has been providing SAP HANA Service with HANA version 2.0.
Our platform customers have always been interested to know if HANA version 2.0 will be made available in the Neo environment.
Ciao SAP HANA 1.0!
In 2016, SAP had announced that SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12 will be the final release for HANA version 1.0 and it will have a five-year maintenance term. Consequently, SAP HANA revision 1.0 will reach
End-of-Maintenance in June 2021. This timeline will also have an impact on the SAP HANA version availability in the SAP BTP, Neo environment.
In order to ensure business continuity for our customers, we are pleased to announce that SAP HANA version 2.0 is currently planned to be made available on the Neo environment by the end of the year – Q4/2020. This upgrade will 'bridge-the-gap' by providing continued support for Neo customers running HANA 1.0 and bring customers one step closer to the target.
SAP HANA Cloud
As you already know, SAP has released a new HANA product line ‘architected for the Cloud’ -
SAP HANA Cloud. SAP has set SAP HANA Cloud as the strategic HANA-as-a-Service (HaaS) in the cloud and it is evolving to become a true ‘cloud-native’ service; meaning the database will adapt to the requirements of the cloud by providing cloud-native qualities, rather than just be a database on the Cloud.
With the release of this cloud offering, all the existing HANA offerings on the Neo or Multi-Cloud environments will have a path converging towards SAP HANA Cloud.
A migration path for SAP HANA service on Neo, with HANA version 1.0 to SAP HANA Cloud is currently in development. We aim to have this migration path officially released before the HANA 1.0 End-of-Maintenance date i.e. 30 June 2021.
If you are a Neo customer using the HANA service, as an alternate to a HANA 2.0 upgrade, you should also consider migrating to SAP HANA Cloud directly, as a part of your Multi-Cloud migration project.
We would recommend you to please check and evaluate the
features of SAP HANA Cloud and the differences between the “on-premise” HANA and our cloud-native HANA Cloud. It is also worth noting that direct migration to SAP HANA Cloud might require you to adapt your current XSC assets to be compatible with the cloud-native offering (e.g. using HDI instead of the HANA Repository).
Hello, HANA 2.0!
Although the feature itself will be available by the end of the year, we have already released detailed SAP Notes, which outline the pre-requisites & steps involved in moving to HANA 2.0 on Neo.
Step1: MDC Conversion
SAP Note for HANA XS to HANA MDC conversion (mandatory if you currently run HANA as an XS system and need to upgrade to HANA 2.0)
Step2: Version upgrade
SAP Note for HANA 1.0 to HANA 2.0 upgrade
It is important to note that any limitations included in the notes are not comprehensive. There may be additions to the list at any point in time. Hence it is highly recommended to subscribe to updates on the above notes.
What does this mean for me?
In this move from HANA 1.0 to 2.0, there are a few prerequisites that need to be highlighted:
- The version of your current SAP HANA database system must be at least 1.00.122.29 or higher (ideally latest).
So, in case you have a HANA system version < 1.00.122.29 currently, please plan to update the database system to the latest available version (1.00.122.33) using the self-service available in the Cloud Cockpit.
SAP HANA 2.0 in the Neo environment will only support database system sizes of 64GB and upwards.
So, in case you have a 32GB HANA system provisioned currently, please plan to upsize the database system to 64GB or higher via the self-service available in the Cloud Cockpit. Of course, the corresponding entitlement should be available in your account before the upsize. Details on the commercial impact of this upgrade will be communicated soon.
UPDATE: This pre-requisite is no longer relevant. You will be able to convert and upgrade 32GB HANA systems to HANA 2.0 without upsizing or purchasing additional memory.
- SAP HANA 1.0 systems should be running on OS SLES12 SP5 or higher to be available for conversion and upgrade to HANA 2.0.
So, in case you have a HANA system with OS version < SLES12 SP5 currently, please watch out for an e-mail when the host of their database system has been prepared by SAP. The email will request a restart of the database systems for applying the OS upgrade; to be completed within 14 days.
If you feel ready for an earlier migration to SLES 12 SP 5, customers can open a support ticket on BC-NEO-PERS-HANA and the OS migration will be prepared within five working days.
- SAP HANA 2.0 in the Neo environment will only support SAP HANA tenant database systems (MDC – Multitenant Database Containers).
So, in case you have an SAP HANA single-container (XS) system provisioned currently, you will need to use the conversion feature (which will be released with HANA 2.0), to convert your XS system to MDC.
- SAP HANA 2.0 in the Neo environment will only support the SAP HANA eXtended application Services, Classic model (XSC). SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model (XSA) will not be available.
So, it is expected that for most straight-forward use cases, your current XSC content/assets might run without the need for any adaptation. Note that not all HANA 2.0 features (like Data anonymity) will be supported on the Neo environment because XSA support will not be available.
It is essential to know that there are feature differences between HANA versions 1.0 and 2.0. So the version upgrade may have an impact on your application/project depending on the specific HANA functionalities used by you.
The SAP Note indicated in
'Step2: Version Upgrade' above, includes some useful notes detailing the differences between the two versions. Kindly note that all the differences indicated by the notes may not be relevant to the offering in the Neo environment.
Next Steps
Refer to the SAP Notes provided and plan for the HANA 2.0 upgrade steps based on your current state.
Please plan to try out the upgrades on your development/test/sandbox HANA systems to catch any bugs/breaks in functionality, upfront. It is also strongly recommended to plan for a dedicated 'Test' phase during your version upgrade.
Example:
In case you have a 64GB Single container (XS) SAP HANA database system, you will need to perform the following steps for your move to HANA 2.0.
- Validate that your HANA database system has version >= 1.00.122.29; preferably the latest.
- Once HANA 2.0 is released (on SAP BTP, Neo environment),
- Run conversion of the XS system to MDC (the conversion feature will be released with HANA 2.0)
- Make note of the memory estimation provided by the system and take necessary action to ensure OOM issues do not occur. If there are memory issues identified, it might be necessary to go for an upsize.
- Once the conversion is complete, update the SAP HANA system from version 1.0 to version 2.0.
And Voilà! you are done.
We encourage you to plan your version upgrades from HANA 1.0 to 2.0 and/or a
migration to SAP HANA Cloud to be completed before June 2021, once the HANA version 2.0 for SAP BTP, Neo environment has been released
(All milestones released as of Feb 2021).
Rest assured that forced migrations of your HANA instances to version 2.0 are not currently planned. But you should note that there may not be any bug fixes, security patches provided for SAP HANA 1.0 systems starting July 2021.
We request your support in ensuring a smooth transition of your HANA instances on the platform.
In case you have further queries on this topic, please write to
sapcpcoresupport@sap.com with ‘HANA 2.0 on Neo’ in the Email Subject for prompt responses.
