SAP HANA

Let’s talk about SAP HANA and SAP HANA certification. We’ve already discussed the value of SAP certification and now ready to dig deeper into the certification options offered for SAP HANA – one of the most known recent SAP innovations.

What is SAP HANA?

SAP HANA is a flexible, in-memory platform that enables customers to analyze vast amounts of business data from both SAP and non-SAP databases in real-time as it happens. So what makes it any different from other industry-leading database solutions out there? The following business example explains.

Businesses today are in the dire need of being able to make business decisions upon the large data sets, termed as Big Data. Present database solutions fail to provide fast, reliable and accurate reporting on such enormous data sets often costing businesses valuable time and money. SAP HANA was designed from the core to be able to deal to with big data, from data provisioning, to data modelling and data reporting all in real-time and on the fly. SAP HANA achieves this surprising speed combining two extremely powerful features, in-memory computing and columnar data storage.

It breaks the barriers of traditional fetch-and-decode every time data is to be read from the storage by actively storing data into the main memory. The ability to store data into columnar tables further reduces the time taken to read the data thus enabling businesses to surpass their productivity levels saving time and money.

Did you know? Harley Davidson used to make a bike in 21 days. Now it takes only 6 hours thanks to SAP HANA!

The success stories of companies having deployed SAP HANA are plenty. Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, Procter & Gamble to name a few. We keep throwing around words like massive amounts of data and amazing speeds. What kind of scale, speed and improvements are customers really seeing? Here are some proof points:

• Amazing speeds: One of the customers reduced the time it took to run a report from one hour to one second. That’s 3600 times faster.
• Huge amount of data: During testing phases of HANA, queries were executed against 460 billion rows of data in less than one second. That’s like being able to analyze every repair and service visit for every car on earth in the last 12 months in one second. Or to process every address that everyone alive today has ever lived at, in one second. Or to calculate the amount of taxes paid by everyone on the planet since 1950, in one second. And this amazing rate of processing is increasing with every new version of HANA products.
• Amazing value: Having the ability to create new real-time processes and simplify your IT landscape has a big impact. According to a study by Oxford Economics, companies that implement real-time systems see an average 21% revenue growth, and a 19% reduction in IT cost.

Source of the statistics: HA100 SAP HANA Introduction course book.

What is SAP HANA Certification?

The following are the certifications tailored and currently offered by SAP for SAP HANA. I will provide brief information about each of them. You can find these exams on SAP Education website by searching for the certification codes.

SAP Certified Technology Associate – SAP HANA (C_HANATEC_11 or C_HANATEC_10)

This certificate earns you the title of SAP HANA Technology Consultant. It provides the candidate with administrative skills of SAP HANA Architecture such as Installation & Upgrade of SAP HANA, Users & Authorizations, Backup, Security and Troubleshooting. The exam constitutes of 80 questions to be completed within a duration of 180 Minutes and has a cut score of 64%.

SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP HANA (C_HANAIMP_11 or C_HANAIMP151)

This SAP HANA certification ensures that the candidate possess the fundamental knowledge for the profile of SAP HANA Application Consultant. It focuses on the architecture, deployment scenarios and use cases of SAP HANA, Data Modelling and Data Provisioning. Total number of questions limited to 80, duration 180 minutes and cut score of 59%.

SAP Certified Technology Specialist – SAP HANA Installation (Edition 2015) (E_HANAINS151)

Earning this SAP HANA certification ensures that you’re equipped with the knowledge of deploying SAP HANA system. Along with the basic knowledge gained from training and documentation, the candidate is required to possess practical experience as a member of SAP HANA project team. The exam includes a total of 40 questions, duration of 90 minutes and a cut score of 60% to pass is required. Availing SAP Certified Technology Associate – SAP HANA (C_ HANATEC_11 or HANATEC_10) is a prerequisite to obtain this certificate.

SAP Certified Development Specialist – ABAP for SAP HANA (E_HANAAW151)

This SAP HANA certification certifies that you possess the knowledge of ABAP programming for SAP HANA and awards you a profile of an SAP ABAP Development Consultant. It is comprised of 40 questions to be answered within a duration of 90 minutes. Cut score of 58%. However, successful completion of the certification exam for SAP Certified Development Associate – ABAP with SAP NetWeaver (C_TAW12_70, C_TAW12_71, C_TAW12_731, C_TAW12_74) is a prerequisite to obtain this certification.

SAP Certified Application Professional – SAP HANA (Edition 2014) (P_HANAIMP142)

Proven on-job experience is essential for this certification since it builds upon the practical experience gained as an active member of a HANA project team. The exam constitutes of 80 questions, duration of 180 minutes and a cut score of 55%. Note: This certification is due to retire on 30.06.2016.

How to prepare for SAP HANA Certification?

If you’re a beginner keen to launch your career with SAP or an IT professional looking to make a shift in the next generation database technology, it is best to start training for the associate level certifications offered in SAP HANA paradigm.

If you are interested in the administrative tasks that deal with setting up and running the SAP HANA systems then your first step shall be to train for SAP Certified Technology Associate – SAP HANA (C_HANATEC_11 or C_HANATEC_10) certification exam. It will equip you with the foundational knowledge necessary to administer SAP HANA systems.

Or if you are concerned with the front-end application development aspect of SAP HANA then you must consider beginning with the SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP HANA (C_HANAIMP_11 or C_HANAIMP151).

Pairing your associate level certification along with on-job SAP HANA project experience qualifies you towards professional level certifications.

The best way to prepare for any of the above stated certification exams is to study the official course material provided by SAP. This includes course books, instructor-led classes, or e-Learning solutions by SAP in form of the latest SAP Learning Hub subscription. The official course work will also provide you access to virtual lab environments which enable you to practice essential hands-on exercises. These exercises are crucial in-order to achieve a complete understanding of certain topics. Also it is important to note that SAP continues to improve the SAP HANA platform and this causes for changes to certain topics, therefore, the official course work ensure that you remain on right track.

However, we’d like you to begin by reading the following official SAP course books:

• HA100
• HA300
• HA350
• HA900

We wish you good luck with your SAP HANA certification and hope that it will boost your SAP career to the next level!

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This article was written and contributed to our website by Mir Nawaz Ali. You can get in touch with the author on LinkedIn.

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