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What are the limitations/challenges in HANA sidecar

Former Member
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Dear Experts,

I want to understand what are limitations/challenges experienced during  HANA sidecar engagements.

Thanks.

Br,

HG

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi Hidresh,

The advantage of sidecar is that you can continue using your existing system as-is while using HANA as a secondary database.

The way the current SAP systems work is, the data is transferred from database to application layer and calculations are performed in application layer. Here you have significant latency between disk to memory transfer and then calculations in application layer.

HANA databse on the other hand is optimized for mass parallel processing and performs calculations in the database layer and only submits a result set to the application.

Below are several limitations -

  1. Data must be loaded from current database to HANA database using any of the existing replication scenarios (DXC, Data Services, SLT) or abap custom code
  2. If you require real time loading into HANA sidecar you will still need SLT or have custom code that loads to HANA via secondary database connection everytime a change is triggered
  3. Custom abap programs are needed to be able to connect to HANA database and retrieve/insert/update data
  4. To fully optimize the performance of HANA as sidecar, all custom abap code must be optimized to run SQLSCRIPT in order to fully utilize the HANA calculation (refer to part_2 blog for more details)
  5. HANA only runs on SUSE LINUX SP11 so if your current hardware/os does not include SUSE LINUX you will need get hardware specifically for HANA
  6. This would mainly improve reporting but not affect the daily performance of your existing transaction system
  7. HANA as sidecar using in BW landscape is similar (not the same) to how BWA in current BW landscape works

This blog gives you a general idea of how you can use HANA as a sidecar approach.

You can also view the following blogs - part_1 and part_2 to see how you can achieve this.

Thanks,

Sharan

patrickbachmann
Active Contributor
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Hi Hirdesh,

We have successfully used HANA Sidecar and the only thing I can add to Sharan's comments is one of our challenges around code review.  For example on the HANA side of things we have code reviews for any new models that are delivered however sidecar queries that are written in SAP ABAP could potentially be changed and we could lose visibility.  For example say we approved a sidecar query to pull 10 fields from a table in HANA.  Everything is great and they are consuming lets say a gigabyte of memory.  Then a year from now somebody on the ABAP side decides they want to change their query and bump it to 20 fields.  This is a simple example but you can see they could suddenly be consuming more of HANA memory than originally intended.  So for this reason it's important to somehow have cross-functional code reviews so that the HANA team is always aware of what could be changing at the sidecar level.

That's my little tidbit, I hope it helps.

-Patrick

Former Member
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Going along with Patrick's statement of change, one other challenge you can add to the list is upgrades. If you upgrade your kernel or netweaver release of your SAP source system, you also have to ensure that all your custom abap programs remain unaffected. If you use SLT/DXC for loading to HANA, then you also need to see how these items are affected during/after an upgrade.

Another thing I would add is you basically have redundant data, 1 set in your transaction system and 1 set in the HANA database.

The final thing is if you have a disaster/multi-node/standby scenario. You need to ensure that if HANA server crashes, it doesn't become a single point of failure, or if you have to recover your system, the HANA system must remain in sync with data in your transaction system, etc.

Thanks,

Sharan

Former Member
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Ptarcik, We are about to start implementation of HANA Sidecar approach. I would like to know your experience and lessons learned from Sidecar approca. Is it possible to have a brief call to discuss this? I would appreciate your time. You can reach me at sarekapudi@commscope.com.

Thanks!

rama_shankar3
Active Contributor
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Sharan and Patrick - Good points and great clarity - thanks!

Saritha_K
Contributor
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Hi,

Can someone please list out on the limitations of side car approach?

Regards,

Saritha

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

Former Member
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This message was moderated.

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Hi

Can someone please  share the major steps involved using "HANA HEC as a Sidecar" approach for ERP Finance data/tables including how to install HEC side car ?.

Thank you