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Just What is HANA – And Does it Really Matter to You?

by Scott Wallask, Managing Editor, BusinessObjects Expert

June 22, 2011

The term HANA comes up a lot these days, but its relevance for BusinessObjects users remains to be seen.

If you follow the yellow brick road over to SAP and peak behind the curtain, you’ll see that a creation called HANA drives a lot of inside discussion about all kinds of business software, including BusinessObjects.

HANA – which is an acronym for “high-performance analytic appliance” – aims to greatly reduce the time it takes to calculate data by using in-memory computing technology. What once took minutes may only take seconds now in some cases. HANA became available to companies on June 21.

On the surface, it seems HANA is likely to improve the way back-end applications process information for end users. But do BusinessObjects end users really need to know about HANA? Do they really care?

It’s too early to say, quite honestly. I was talking to a practice manager at a major consulting firm yesterday, and the manager’s conclusion was that currently, while HANA is getting a lot of lip service, most customers want to see real results from other customers.

Here are other HANA thoughts from industry analysts:

Thomas Wailgum, ASUG News: “While HANA can bring otherworldly time savings to certain business processes and decision-making opportunities, companies should first determine just what better business benefit will result from its HANA investment.”

Chris Kanaracus, Computerworld:, “HANA supports the common SQL and MDX query languages, meaning it can be compatible with any third-party BI software that uses those standards, but has been optimized for SAP’s Business Objects 4.0 BI platform …”

Davin Wilfrid, Insider Learning Network (a sister Web site to BusinessObjects Expert): “As the cost of hardware and processing continues to fall, and more business cases emerge from the real world, look for the promise of HANA to materialize into a peak performer for SAP. Why? Because, as they say in athletics, you can’t teach speed.”

Has your company been involved at all with HANA yet? If it has, I’m sure other readers of the blogs on BusinessObjects Expert would love to hear what it’s all about. Share your comments below.

The rest of us will have to sit tight while we figure out whether HANA is going to be floating in the background or whether it will become part of your vocabulary as you use Xcelsius, Web Intelligence, and the other BI tools.

Follow Scott on Twitter @BObjExpert or email him at scott.wallask@wispubs.com