Executive Summary
- This page describes the issues with SAP HANA support and how our SAP support offerings help.
- We offer support coverage that exceeds what is available from SAP.
Introduction
This is the SAP HANA Support page of LaunchPad SAP Support.
On this page, we cover the specifics of our HANA support. For explanations of the broader package related to our HANA support, which explains many essential topics about SAP support, see our main SAP Support Page.
Issues With HANA
The reality of living with HANA is far different than what was promised. Of all of the databases track by Brightwork Research & Analysis, HANA is rated the highest in maintenance. This maintenance has caught most customers that have HANA off guard. Brightwork Research & Analysis has been the most accurate source of information on HANA while all of the SAP consulting firms and IT analysts like Gartner simply repeated SAP’s marketing material (as we cover in the article How Gartner Got HANA So Wrong, as just one example).
We covered how S/4HANA did not have a simplified data model in the article Does S/4HANA Have a Simplified Data Model? We still have the only coverage of the memory spiking issue of HANA as we cover in the article How HANA Takes 30 to 40 Times the Memory of Other Databases.
Support Divorced from the Influence of SAP Sales Reps
A support company cannot effectively support technology if that company cannot tell the truth about the technology. This is particularly important for HANA because SAP so aggressively overpromised what HANA would do and its support overhead, stating that it would be far lower than Oracle or DB2.
Since HANA was first introduced, Brightwork Research & Analysis has been the most accurate source of information on HANA, and we can provide the historical articles upon request.
One area of HANA that has caught customers off guard is that there are many components that support HANA that customer learn about only after they purchase HANA.
Even the largest companies that often can use more help than they get from SAP maintaining HANA. We know as people reach out to us with questions from around the globe, as we have published accurate information on HANA.
What This Means for Outcomes at HANA Customers
SAP tries to make it seem that these shortcomings are only specific to each customer, when, in fact, they are universal issues for companies that implemented HANA.
Improving HANA typically means bringing in a consultant or utilizing SAP’s exorbitantly priced Max Attention. Max Attention is really just a renamed type of consulting.
Right now, SAP customers around the world are sitting with the worst of both worlds. This means
- Consumed IT budgets by yearly HANA support costs, which provide close to no value to SAP customers.
- No hope for future improvements or future versions of HANA.
Getting Something Better
Imagine if you could radically improve HANA and cut costs at the same time. You can. But to do so, you will need to reject the advice from SAP and SAP consulting firms.
- The support provided by SAP is inadequate to resolve HANA issues, and SAP’s unwillingness to admit that the issues are real and long term in nature keeps customers from coming to closure on them.
- We begin from reality to improve HANA support.
What Do We Cover for HANA Support?
We cover the following for HANA in our support.
- HANA migration
- HANA optimization
- HANA performance tuning
- HANA maintenance
- Security Patches
- Database Refresh
Notice that many of these items are not covered by SAP. However, we cover all of these and more.
This presentation illustrates the problems with SAP support and how LaunchPad SAP Support addresses these shortcomings.
What Kind of Support is This?
If this does not sound like standard support, you are right. And that is the point.
We designed our support to help our customers get the most out of SAP, not to maximize our margin or to try to protect previous sales inaccuracies. We know how to get your SAP applications working better.
To see the broader information about our SAP support see our main SAP Support Page.