Sr Regional Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The IBP module was the most useful followed by the FI/CO and CNMM
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable."
  • "The initial setup was pretty complex, considering the enormous amount of data they had from an Oracle ERP."

What is our primary use case?

The client is using the solution for supply chain management, and at the same time, our enterprise uses it to track the businesses' performance. The rest of our regions are going to be using SAP ECC. We are the first region to go with HANA. We were shortlisted to show them the roadmap and guide them. Supply chain management and tracking raw materials were areas of concern.

What is most valuable?

The IBP module was the most useful followed by the FI/CO and CNMM modules.

What needs improvement?

The product could be improved in several ways.

First, before carrying out a project with this environment size, a POC needs to be carried out, for which you would have access to various environments. And those environments are something that SAP should invest in and others should provide. That would be an improvement.

Second, some good amount of handholding, guidance, or other validation or certification from SAP at different levels.  

Third, access to tools for a longer period than the pre-defined trial version license. That's something that we can ask our friends from SAP to extend or make available in a different licensing model at zero cost.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have three years of experience with the solution.

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SAP HANA
April 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. We would rate its stability as eight out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We would rate the scalability of the solution as eight-plus on a scale of one to 10.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty complex, considering the enormous amount of data they had from an Oracle ERP. Migration was an especially painful task, but we managed to sail through it thanks to the support of our customer. We delivered it within the timelines. We managed a few escalations. We worked with the customer. We had a weekly stand-up with the customer and various workshops and sessions to educate them and highlight the challenges. 

What about the implementation team?

Implementation was completely in-house with a team of around 18 to 22 people and a couple of people from SAP, who looked at the overall program management level, providing guidance plus certifying that best practices were being followed and implemented. 

The deployment, moving from Oracle to SAP HANA, took around eight months

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The customer took care of all the SAP license costs. Our scope was primarily implementation and migration support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Oracle ERP had the flexibility, but it didn't have the functionality that the customer was looking for.

What other advice do I have?

We would give the product an overall rating of nine out of 10.

We have an entirely SAP family, which makes it easy to manage and support. The customer opened its first, and we are doing multiple instances of SAP ECC implementations for the rest of the small countries in APAC, the Middle East, and Africa.

Around 175 to 250 people use the solution at every level of the customer's organization.

We will be providing maintenance for the next five years.

My advice would be to explore and play with the different systems available in the market. But, ultimately, look for a system with a brand, broad user usability, and support. For instance, my customer wanted to explore an open-source ERP. We persuaded him to go with SAP, primarily because they have the expertise. They adhere to the best policies. They offer support, etc. 

If you don't have all this, don't explore freebies. Go for a licensed version, recommended globally, and highly rated by Gartner or various research and consulting firms.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Gold Partners
PeerSpot user
Architect at Ernst & Young
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Excellent in-memory database that boosts performance
Pros and Cons
  • "The in-memory database is excellent."
  • "The product lacks some flexibility in its settings and configurations."

What is our primary use case?

I have customers who work with SAP, and I carried out performance research for them, comparing the different parameters of SAP HANA. The solution is generally used for data warehousing. 

What is most valuable?

I think the in-memory database is excellent as it boosts performance. 

What needs improvement?

The product lacks some flexibility in its settings and configurations.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is quite scalable.

How was the initial setup?

I don't think the initial setup is too complex. Obviously it's not easy because SAP HANA is a complex system, so it's somewhere in the middle.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing costs are quite expensive for the Ukraine but there is a range of different purchasing models so it's flexible in that sense. For a small enterprise, the costs might seem unreasonably high.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SAP HANA
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,065 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Consultant at HAND Enterprise Solutions LTD.
Consultant
It has a high computing speed, so developers can easily develop programs
Pros and Cons
  • "The best feature of SAP HANA is column computing. The computing speed of the solution is also very high, so developers can easily develop programs through SAP HANA."
  • "Per SAP, you can do both transactional and analytical processes in SAP HANA. Though that's true, the speed is slower when you combine the two functions, so this is what I'd like SAP to improve in SAP HANA. In the next release, I want to see better diagrams in SAP HANA and a more user-friendly interface."

What is our primary use case?

I use SAP HANA for enterprise, financial, and materials management.

What is most valuable?

The best feature of SAP HANA is column computing. The computing speed of the solution is also very high, so developers can easily develop programs through SAP HANA.

What needs improvement?

Per SAP, you can do both transactional and analytical processes in SAP HANA. Though that's true, the speed is slower when you combine the two functions, so this is what I'd like SAP to improve in SAP HANA.

In the next release, I want to see better diagrams in SAP HANA and a more user-friendly interface.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used SAP HANA for a long time because I'm a technical consultant for SAP.

How are customer service and support?

I used to contact SAP to ask for help with SAP HANA, and I'm giving the SAP support team a six out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

My company still uses SAP HANA because it's an SAP business partner, plus the company also helps other companies use SAP HANA.

How was the initial setup?

SAP HANA is easy to set up. It took a short time to deploy the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SAP HANA is very expensive here in China. My company bought the SAP ERP suite, which includes SAP HANA. For others who use SAP HANA as an analytical database, CPU numbers will affect the pricing, so as a solution, it's costly.

What other advice do I have?

I'm using SAP HANA version 2.0 from 1.0.

Here in China, most people use the on-premise SAP HANA version.

My company has five hundred employees, all using SAP HANA.

I suggest this solution to people using SAP ERP or any other software from SAP.

My rating for SAP HANA is eight out of ten because it's a very powerful database for traditional and analytical scenarios.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Ashwin Bhadouria - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager I.T. SAP HCM at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good, satisfactory, and very customizable product
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features I have found are speed, dashboard, and reporting."
  • "There are a few areas wherein there could be a patch upgrade, and that can cover up the country-specific payroll areas."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for the database and the network.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features I have found are speed, dashboard, and reporting.

What needs improvement?

There are a few areas wherein there could be a patch upgrade, and that can cover up the country-specific payroll areas.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP HANA for the past two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is amazing.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There is a high level of scalability. We currently have around three hundred and thirty licenses.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is excellent. There has never been a case where I was not given an answer.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very difficult and not easy.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment took two months to implement.

What was our ROI?

It is a good, satisfactory, and very customizable product. There has not been a situation where I have not been able to provide a solution to the customer. I think it is the best product.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is relatively high for both customers and partners.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend SAP HANA and would give it a ten on a scale of one to ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Executive Officer at Redment
Real User
Stable, with very good technical support and easily scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "We've had good experiences with technical support."
  • "The solution is very expensive for us."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use SAP HANA for machine learning and deep learning.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very stable.

The solution can scale well.

We've had good experiences with technical support.

The performance is excellent.

What needs improvement?

We use SAP HANA in our projects but it's very expensive for our projects. We need a relational database in-memory that can handle these issues.

The solution is very expensive for us.

It's hard for us to find test users and sometimes we need them to connect to SAP from Iran, however, this is an issue due to the sanctions against the country.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for more than six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've found the solution to be very, very stable, especially when you compare it to other solutions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale quite well. If a company needs to expand it so that it fits their growing needs, they can do so easily. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support on offer is very good. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We tried GQ database but it's not a stable database. Sometimes the results weren't correct. SAP HANA is much more stable, which is why we use it, even though it's expensive. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is very pricey. We're looking into other options because of this.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We're looking at Oracle products as an option right now. We're also looking at MAT-V, a CPU-based database it's very fast, however, we do occasionally face issues with it.

What other advice do I have?

We are a customer. We don't have a professional relationship with SAP.

SAP HANA is not just a memory database, it's a big platform. It's a very, very safe database. It's a very safe database and the performance is very, very good for an in-memory database. For example, sometimes we use Oracle databases 18C or 19C. The data is in the memory, however, when data is running, it's very slow, due to the fact that all data is in the memory and you need to and go to write disk. 

Sometimes when the data is very large, we might scale up our approach, and, in the scale-up approach, sometimes it is slow in HANA. That said, the scale-up approach is very, very good. SAP has got one problem. When you start the database, all data from the tool's memory takes a very long time. We've found that IBM's non-volatile memory is better than internal memory.  New users just need to be aware of that.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. The solution, overall, has fantastic performance, however, the cost makes it really hard for us to keep using it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Executive Officer at Redment
Real User
Excellent performance, scalable, and great for large-scale projects
Pros and Cons
  • "The performance is very, very good. It's one of the best aspects of the solution."
  • "There's an issue in the partition. When you record more than two million records, partitioning does not work well. In Oracle it's easy. SAP must resolve this issue in order to be more competitive with Oracle."

What is most valuable?

The memory capabilities are great.

The performance is very, very good. It's one of the best aspects of the solution.

I've used Oracle for ten years, and yet, I find SAP better than Oracle. Oracle is more cost-based.

What needs improvement?

Oracle tends to have better features than SAP HANA. They should work to add the kinds of features clients expect from Oracle.

With Oracle, you can install their cloud and that enables you to see more of the database and multiple accounts. This is better than what SAP has on offer.

SAP could really work on its monitoring capabilities.

There's data aging that needs to be dealt with on the solution. It's not ideal. You might have a lot of raw data and aging can really affect it.

It would be help if the solution had a graph database. They're lacking that right now.

There's an issue in the partition. When you record more than two million records, partitioning does not work well. In Oracle it's easy. SAP must resolve this issue in order to be more competitive with Oracle.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about five years at this point. It's been about half a decade.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is pretty good. We don't have any problems in that area.

How are customer service and technical support?

We've dealt with technical support in the past. It wasn't that good. Sometimes the information we received from them wasn't accurate. It's a difficult solution. I would say, to be fair, that their support is better than Oracle's.

In the case of Oracle, I had an issue once with Oracle GoldenGate. It took two weeks to resolve the issue. That's far too long. SAP is much more responsive. It's never taken two weeks to resolve anything.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also used Oracle. We find SAP to be very fast. It's much faster than Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was five years ago, so it's been a while. However, I do recall it being straightforward. We typically install a version on Linux. While it can be difficult, at the moment, it's pretty good. Things have changed a bit, and they've improved the setup a bit. It's not really that unsimilar to Microsoft's SQL server.

What other advice do I have?

We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with SAP.

We're using the latest version of the solution.

We use an on-premises version and e have a private cloud in our company.

I'd recommend the solution. If you have, for example, a huge project that's kind of a unique, scalable database I recommend SAP HANA for it. It's easy to use and handles more RAM.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
George Mukira - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Consultant at Spring Training & Consulting
Real User
Top 10
We can get more tenders because of the lower cost while providing a better product or service
Pros and Cons
  • "The most value for us was in terms of using it to issue tenders online. We host our server, but it is open to the public, so clients who want to buy those tenders were able to go online, put their tender documents up, and we could evaluate them using SAP."
  • "The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it."

What is our primary use case?

We are using on-premises, but I have also done some research in the last six months trying to go towards the cloud. We want to upgrade it because we also did the same thing with another company we are working with which is using the Sage X3 Cloud. We started with Sage Evolution, but now we are also moving to Save X3 Cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

It helped us because some of the people who are busy supporting us are not local. We opened SAP HANA more for the management. We even got some tenders that we were able to submit documents online and sending it to our servers. The key value is that we can get more tenders because of the lower cost while giving a better product or service. This is possible only because of our use of SAP HANA.

What is most valuable?

The most value for us was in terms of using it to issue tenders online. We host our server, but it is open to the public, so clients who want to buy those tenders were able to go online, put their tender documents up, and we could evaluate them using SAP. We were basically able to do pre-qualifications using SAP. After that, we could send notifications to people who qualified and go through the non-qualified people using SAP. That feature is very effective in terms of supplier relationship management. We can issue tenders and people put their big documents through SAP HANA, which helps with communication and gives them notifications.

What needs improvement?

One is the menu. There is a part of the menu where the button should be "reject." The interface is a little bit hard to customize. You almost have to consult the SAP original developer to change it. Now we have to consult SAP just to do some interface changes. You expect it to be easy to get into the menu, but you can't. Instead of changing the console you wanted to reject it, for example, if a tender that does not meet a specific qualification. Basically, the customization of the interface needs to be more friendly.

I think we are also going towards mobile technology, so I would like to see the integration of a mobile app.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using SAP HANA for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. There haven't been many cases of bugs, crashing, or freezing. It has been quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is good, in terms of meeting our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

I think technical support is okay. They should be more focused on updating the knowledge transfer for people who have experience with SAP in general but need to transition their knowledge to the local client. This part is a little bit challenging.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used another solution, but it was more of a client-oriented system, where you get developers to make and customize them for you. It's more local or in-house than regular IT systems. When you only have one company developer to make some products for you and he is the only one who can support you, it's a little bit of a challenge. With SAP HANA, if you get stuck somewhere you can call any other SAP HANA partner.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy for us to set up, because we had that QA code, in terms of the system analysis and system requirements. Once we got the system requirements, we were able to connect to the hardware and software. We could make sure before we did the implementation that we had the right environment.

What other advice do I have?

The main lesson is the importance of ERP capability, stability, and speed. The other lesson is about knowledge transfer because that is how you learn. 

At the end of the day, I like it because it's one of the affordable ERP systems. I would rate is as eight of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Works at great speed, providing agility and efficiency

What is our primary use case?

I've recently left the company where we were using SAP HANA. Our use case was for replication so that end users could use dashboard reports. I'm a senior manager.

What is most valuable?

It's great that the analytics are fast. I had previously worked on BW and when the same workloads were run on HANA, it was much quicker. 

What needs improvement?

We had some issues where the data was not replicating and also problems with the target when some records didn't sync up. Even though we worked on the problem together with SAP, and they were very helpful, it took some time to resolve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I don't think best practices were followed with the initial setup so we had frequent issues with the CPU utilization and we'd have to restart the system. We later implemented some threshold-related parameters on the VM which solved the problems we were having. It was stable after that. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is definitely scalable, we had around 1,000 users. 

How are customer service and support?

Customer service was very supportive. When needed, we had daily calls with SAP which was great. They also worked with us to address our major issue and were accessible daily by phone. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is quite straightforward. It can be done in a couple of modes; command line or the graphical interface. There are five or six components that get installed and deployment takes a maximum of an hour. It doesn't require much manpower. 

What was our ROI?

We've seen an ROI in terms of the speed with which reports come through. 

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution. The HANA database provided a lot of improvement in terms of speed, agility and efficiency.

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SAP HANA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SAP HANA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.