How to Install SAP HANA Studio

Installation of SAP HANA Studio  is pretty easy and simple. You need to download hana studio and install it on a client PC, in the same manner as any standard Windows system. Let’s check the Official SAP HANA Studio downloads section for the right zip file to download.

SAP HANA Studio Installation

In five easy steps, you can install the SAP HANA Studio and set it up on your system. Installation of the SAP HANA server is done by qualified technicians for certified hardware vendors—you cannot download the database software and install it on your server yourself. Hence, only client-side installation will be covered in this section.

#Step 1: Pre-Requisite for SAP HANA Studio

1. Before you install the SAP HANA Studio on your computer, you will need to check if you have all of the required elements, listed as follows:
2. A minimum free disk space of 190 MB. The objects you create in SAP HANA will be stored on the server; they will not take any space on your machine (unless you export them).
3. A recommended memory of 1 GB. SAP HANA Studio is built upon the Eclipse IDE, which is written in Java. The more memory you have on your machine, the smoother the Studio will run.
4. Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7, or SuSE Linux Enterprise Servereither the 32-bit or 64-bit version.
5. JAVA JRE 1.6 or 1.7. This needs to be installed and configured correctlyor the SAP HANA Studio installer will fail. Additionally, if you have 32-bit OS, you’ll need a 32-bit Java, and a 64-bit Java for a 64-bit OS.
6. A SAP HANA server to connect to, you will need the server name or IP address, and the instance number. You should ask for this information from you client/system administrator. You will also need to make sure that the Studio can connect to the server on the port 315 (for example, if the instance ID is 40, the port 34015 needs to be reachable). Check with your network administrator for this.

Related Article: SAP HANA Tutorial for Beginners

#Step 2: Download SAP HANA Studio

The easiest way to get hold of the SAP HANA Studio installation package is to use the SAP HANA DVD set; the Studio is available there.

If the DVD is not available, then you can use the SAP Service Marketplace Software Download Center link from here to download the Studio. You will need a SAP Service Marketplace login to download the software. Additionally, your SAP Service Marketplace login needs to have a current SAP HANA installation active, or else you will see that no downloads are available. 

Download the correct version of the Studio for your OS and Java installation. If you have a 32-bit OS and Java installation, install the 32-bit version of the Studio; if not, install the 64-bit version.

#Step 3: Installing the SAP HANA Studio

Installation of the Studio is straightforward. On Windows, just run the hdbsetup.exe program in the installation folder, as shown in the following screenshot:

                               

Then just follow the instructions. The only information that you’ll need to provide is the destination folder for the installation, and you can usually leave the default value as it is.

Installation takes only a couple of minutes, as shown in the following image:

                                     

The program will be installed, and you will have a Start menu item created for you.

Related Article: SAP HANA Introduction and Architectural Overview

#Step 4: SAP HANA Studio

The first time you run the Studio after installation, you are presented with a clean, albeit rather empty interface, as shown here:

                          

The four options available are as follows:

• Open Administration Console: This option allows you to administrate the SAP HANA appliance itself; for example, creating users and assigning authorizations
• Open Modeler: This is where you will do all your SAP HANA development work, creating views on data, running SQL queries, and so on—we’ll be spending the best part of this post using the Open Modeler option
• Open Lifecycle Management: Allows you to update the SAP HANA installation on the server, by applying patches you have received from SAP
• Documentation Overview: This is a link to the SAP HANA online documentation pages on the sap.com website

Choose the Open Modeler option to get to the main development layout (referred to as a perspective), with which you will do most of your work in SAP HANA; the main development layout is shown in the following screenshot:

                 

The main areas (panes) of the Modeler perspective are explained as follows:

1. The Navigator pane: Shows the SAP HANA systems you’ve configured, as well as the list of objects (notably, tables and views) available to you on those systems.
2. The Quick Launch pane: As its name suggests, a quick way to get to the creation screen of different object types.
3. The Where-Used List pane: Readers familiar with SAP will have already come across this concept, which is widely used in the SAP ERP. This pane will show, for the object selected in the Navigator, where the object is used (if, for example, an attribute view is used in several analytical views, the analytical views will be listed here).
4. The Cheat Sheets pane: Depending on the context (the action you’re currently performing), this pane will show you different options. In the previous screenshot,we are at the main page, not performing any particular action, so this pane shows us the option to add a new SAP HANA server.
5. The Properties pane: Lists, and allows modification of, the properties of the object currently being modified.
6. The Job Log, History, and Progress pane: Whenever you perform creation or modification actions in SAP HANA, your changes need to be activated before being usable in the database (again, a common notion in the SAP ERP world). Since activation can take a little while (especially if you choose to use a cascaded activation, which will activate an object and then attempt activation of all dependent objects), and can potentially fail (for example, in the case of syntax errors), these panes will show you the status of your current action.

[Check Out: Frequently Asked SAP HANA Interview Questions]

There are more panes in the SAP HANA Studio, which you can enable or disable according to your preference. The layout too is totally customizable and can be customized to suit your particular needs. Feel free to play with the Studio layout to find a layout that works for you.

If you find that you have “lost” a pane, or have made a complete mess of the layout and want to undo your changes, then go to Window | Reset Perspective; this will return you to the default layout at any time.

#Step 5: Configuring the Studio

Before you can do any work with the Studio, you need to connect it to your SAP HANA server. From the main Administration Console or Modeler perspective, right-click inside the Navigator pane, and from the menu that appears select Add System, which will open the following dialog window:

                                    

You’ll need to give the hostname and instance number of your SAP HANA installation, as well as a short description (especially useful if you have several instances configured). You can also specify the Locale (default language) setting of your installation, and can create folders to better arrange your different SAP HANA servers.

Once that’s done, click Next >, after which the login dialog window will open, as shown here:

                    

Here you are asked for your login credentials on the SAP HANA server. Ask your system administrator for this information—you might need to specify your User Name and Password, or your SAP HANA server might be configured to accept your operating system user (Single Sign-On).

You can create several entries to the same SAP HANA instance if you need to do so, for example, if you have two different sets of login credentials—an everyday user for development work, and a system administration account to create other users or perform administration tasks. If you need to do this, then the Add to Folder and Description fields can come in useful to help tell the difference.

Click on the Finish button to save the information.

And that’s it

By this point, you should have a working installation of the SAP HANA Studio and are free to play around and discover more about it.

In the next section, we’ll be taking a closer look at the Modeler perspective, and using it to create our first SAP HANA application.