SAP HANA

SAP HANA (High-Performance Analytic Appliance) uses an In-Memory Database technology that processes massive amounts of real-time data in a short span of time. Using the In-Memory computing engine, HANA processes data stored in RAM as opposed to reading it from a disk. This leads to instantaneous results from customer transactions and data analyses.

Commvault software provides a simplified end-to-end backup and recovery solution for both large-scale single node and multi-node SAP HANA environments. It uses the SAP Backint interface program to back up the data directly to the attached media. In case of a data loss due to hardware failure, natural disaster, accidental deletion, or corruption of data, you can restore the backed up data and the log files directly from the media using the SAP Backint interface program. This reduces complexity, human intervention and the risk of data loss.

SAP HANA Studio is the most common tool used to back up and recover HANA databases because it is pre-installed on SAP HANA. It is used by administrators to administer activities, such as to start and stop services, monitor the system, configure system settings, and manage users and authorizations. SAP HANA Studio is a client environment which can be used to access the SAP HANA database located in the same environment or at a remote location.

The image below displays the components of HANA database that can be backed up using the backup tools. You can also automate or schedule the backups.

The following are some of the key features that the SAP HANA agent provides while backing up and recovering the HANA databases.

• Online Full Backup

  This agent provides the flexibility to backup the SAP HANA databases in different environments. This is very essential since the data is subjected to constant changes.

  You can perform an online full backup of the entire database at any point of time.

• Automatic Log Backup

  Log backups should be automatically configured in the SAP HANA Studio Interface. You can specify timeouts for the log backups. Timeout refers to the time interval after which the logs are automatically backed up.

  However, the log backups can also start before the specified timeout if the log segments are full or if the database services are restarted. The data backups and the log backups are independent of each other.

• Database Recovery

  In case of data loss, SAP HANA restores a recent state of the lost database to a point-in-time, to a specific data backup, to a specific log position or to the most recent backup.

• Command Line Support

  Backup and restore operations can be initiated from the SAP command line as per the requirements. The iDataAgent is fully integrated with the SAP HANA database using the SAP HANA Studio Interface or the hdbsql command.

  You can perform the restore operation from the SAP HANA Studio Interface.

• Efficient Job Management and Reporting

  You can view and verify the status of the SAP backup and restore operations from the Job Controller and the Event Viewer windows. You can also track the status of the jobs using reports which can be saved and easily distributed. Reports can be generated for different aspects of data management. You also have the flexibility to customize the reports to display only the required data and save them to any specified location in different formats. For example, you can create a backup job summary report to view the completed backup jobs.

  In addition, you can also schedule these reports to be generated and e-mailed without any user intervention.

• Database Copy

  You can perform a database copy to:

  • Build a demonstration database from a production system

  • Build a test database that tests the production database without affecting the production database

  • Schedule a disaster recovery test

  The destination SID can be different from the backup SID.

• SAP HANA System Replication Support

  You can use the SAP HANA System Replication feature to have a secondary server be an exact copy of a primary server by have the data and transactions copied from the primary to the secondary server. This solution provides high availability as the secondary server can become the primary server in the event of a failover.

  Backup and restore operations are always started on the primary server.

Administration

You can configure SAP HANA single databases, and multitenant database containers from the Command Center and the CommCell Console. For more information, see SAP HANA Databases.

Automatic Discovery of Applications

You can automatically discover SAP HANA databases in your environment and install software to back up the SAP HANA databases.

Terminology

The SAP documentation uses the following terminology: