SAP HANA is an in-memory platform that can be deployed locally (on-premises) or in the cloud. It is a revolutionary platform that is ideally suited for performing realtime analytics and developing and deploying realtime applications. At the core of this realtime data platform is the SAP HANA database.

As Figure 1 shows, SAP HANA can be deployed on-premises in two different models:

• Appliance model
• Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI) model

Figure 1.              SAP HANA appliance model versus the TDI model (picture © SAP SE)

SAP HANA combines SAP software components that are optimized on proven hardware provided by SAP hardware partners. An SAP HANA appliance includes integrated storage, compute, and network components by default. The entire appliance is certified by SAP, built by one of the SAP HANA hardware partners, and shipped to customers with all software components preinstalled, including the operating systems and the SAP HANA software. The TDI approach provides more flexibility than the appliance deployment model; the SAP HANA servers must still meet the SAP HANA requirements and be HANA-certified by SAP, but the network and storage components can be shared across multiple applications. Customers can use their existing enterprise storage arrays and integrate SAP HANA seamlessly into existing data center operations, such as disaster recovery (DR), data protection, monitoring, and management, to reduce the time-to-value, risk, and costs of an overall SAP HANA adoption.