Hana, Linux, OpenStack for zero euros

There is a dear colleague of mine on the southern edge of the republic who, instead of relying on the simple Business One with B1i Framework, has switched to Business ByDesign -. Cloud computing - has set.

Strategically a hasard piece: Of course, the Business processes more comprehensive in ByDesign. With the existing Enterprise Service Repository, this ERP-solution is also more flexible and open.

This is where you'll find all the business knowledge of the Walldorf-based company, but the technical implementation, the IT architecture are Cloud computing 1.0 - i.e. a beta version of Software as a Service.

The combination of Google, Amazon and ByDesign would be appealing, that would be ERP Cloud computing 4.0 - but that's as far as de facto SAP CEO Bill McDermott together with CTO Vishal Sikka yet.

And Hana?

A technical masterpiece from Hasso Plattner and friends. A technically solid foundation of SAP as well as Intel.

And it's about to get even better: Future Xeon-processors, special instruction structures from the Hana-Research and Development by SAP SVP Franz Färber have, as I was told by a Intel-Manager explained during my summer trip to Santa Clara, Calif.

Nevertheless, there are currently Hana in the SAP-Community for zero euros, just like public domain software!

The cause is not pirated copies, but once again the old mistake of our SAP: to look at only one side of the coin.

With Business ByDesign, Walldorf focused on business management and neglected the IT and Web architecture and, to some extent, the user interface.

At Hana all attention was focused on the speed. As close as possible to the Intel-processor was programmed not to lose a single millisecond of computing time.

The result is disastrous in several respects: Hana runs only on Intel–Xeon-processors, Hana is not portable to other architectures, Hana is hardly virtualizable and completely lacks a business perspective.

And after three years of market presence, the first shortcomings also become visible. The tight interlocking of CPU, memory, LAN and storage make flexible deployment and virtualization difficult.

I had a long and good conversation about this with a T-Systems-manager, who told of his own difficulties, Hana to the market as a hosted service in a SaaS-like form.

Why Hana?

Apart from the exorbitant speed records in selected ERP-areas has SAP not yet provided me with any business answers.

And I probably won't get answers anytime soon either.

The word from Walldorf is that almost the entire sales department regarding Hana has gone underground: Hardly anyone feels up to the complex topic.

The questions from existing customers are obviously too comprehensive and complicated for any VB to confront voluntarily.

Hana seems to have hardly any arguments beyond in-memory computing technology. The specified sales figures were largely not achieved, as a friend from Walldorf told me.

Hana is in intensive care. The final proof of this was recently brought to me by a Employees from our controlling department: It was an offer for Hanaservers and clients with a five-digit license fee in euros and an equally high discount.

In the end cost Hana zero euros!

The offer went to an investment of ours in Austria and came from a local SAP-Partner.

Thus, the in-memoryDatabase fully adapted to the necessary operating system Linux.

I doubt, however, that my golfing friend Oswald and his colleagues on the board had or have the goal of turning Hana to make a public domain software.

After Business ByDesign, this would be the second time that SAP billion for software development would have to be written off.

Possibly has Hana as Linux-database and OpenStack software success?

Vishal Sikka and Franz Färber develop Hana continues, while Suse Linux takes over distribution.

For SAP, it would be a bitter defeat and the realization: cobbler, stick to your last. S

AP has improved the situation at Hana misjudged. Technology and engineering may be the basis. The success is business management, organization, financing and communication.

The SQL-Server, DB2 and Oracle have shown the way. Hana must demonstrably improve the structural and process organization of a company.

Maybe the Hana, it has not been communicated to me yet.