Some tips and Preparation Guide for prospective HANA certified members (HANA 1.0 SP03; As of April 20th, 2012)

[Former Member]

Dear Members,

As you all aware that SAP HANA is new BI Strategy and Roadmap for SAP and it is moving faster speed than expected. After many of my friends' demand I decided to write some generic tips and helpful guidelines for available HANA Certification (HANA 1.0 SP03) at this point. Recently I have been certified and would like to share some thoughts:    

As you all know, HANA is the gateway for Innovative BI Strategy and SAP Roadmap. No more DB bottleneck and much more.... benefits or ROI (out of scope for this Blog). Also would like to make sure I am not crossing the boundary so these tips are very generic but very helpful for your next milestone (Certification in HANA 1.0 SP03 as of 20^th April, 2012).

Please follow the following guidelines:

1. Your hands-on will play a big role in certification questions – either from SAP Sandbox, Partner training or SAP training programs….

2. TZHANA training material is good start but make sure you cover all the scopes of this Certification (many members already posted valuable tips and
documents in many places - I would suggest to Google it for more details or see LinkedIn HANA group (If you are member).

3. Certification details from SAP: https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/c_hanaimp_10-sap-certified-application-associate-sap-ha...

Take some extra precaution for each area - to make sure you have prepared well before facing all 80 questions:

1) Business Content = <8% – (Research on it – you will not find much in documents)  

2) Data Modeling = >12% (Lot of questions with mix and match with other areas too)

3) Data provisioning = >12% 

4) Optimization = 8-12%

5) Reporting = 8-12%

6) Security = <8% – (You need to be careful – be very clear and precise, prepare well)

Misc.:

• Make sure to prepare mix and match questions for some areas (like 3 & 6; 2 & 6 is common combinations)
• Read more about new/ongoing changes (like Persistency Layer, Data Replication etc….)
• Make sure you are very clear with external interfaces with HANA systems (SQL, MDX, BICS) – which one runs at what scenario; ODBO/ODBC/JDBC configuration and capabilities…
• Pay more attention on BO 4.0 & BODS feature and capabilities 
• Make sure you are very clear about all BO 4.0 reporting tools (and think interfaces methods, IDT and other used components) & Excel features with HANA
• Make sure you understand many analytical capabilities in HANA system itself

4. Focus on HANA internal components (Architecture inside HANA box, is very important) - must be very clear about each and every components and their role), it looks simple but try to go in details – each component plays crucial role (you will see complete architecture in some of the documents

I have suggested in end of this post - do not leave any components untouched)

5. Pay attention on multiple correct answers questions - need very precise knowledge about internal components (it is always known as classical

answers); Remember even you miss one right answer will make no score for any particular question - this is crucial in test

6. Do not forget, you prior experience (if you are from SAP BW background ECC --> BW --> BO) as well as many logical questions about SAP architecture and connectivity & applications (like RFC, iDoc,  COPA knowledge etc…) and how will it change with new HANA DB architecture - if you are seasoned SAP

Consultant and have worked on many full life cycle projects – definitely it is easier for you….

7. At last but not least; I would suggest, keep going with all questions but note down all in-doubt questions and re-visit with doubtful questions after you have completed all 80 questions. Once you will finish all 80 questions many doubts will get clear in test itself – I know 3 hours is too long but believe me you will get some bonus points before pushing final submit button in your test and chances are you will get good percentage too :smile:  

Suggested links: 

eLearning: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/elearn?rid=/webcontent/uuid/e04da73b-3a72-2e10-969a-b032c46e7509

SCN  Blog: http://scn.sap.com/community/in-memory-business-data-management/blog

Couple of good books/documents:

• This is little bit old – still I like this document: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b053ef1a-e6e1-2e10-01b0-91c13e715...
• HANA Modeling Guide – This is pretty up to date and handy to understand command sequence: http://help.sap.com/hana/hana1_model_en.pdf

• Master Link - if you have some more time: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/hana

Rest, I would like to say good luck and get ready for next milestone. 

I hope this blog will be helpful to your next journey of "Certification in HANA technology".

Best Regards, 

Ravikar Prasad.