SAP Business One on MS SQL vs. HANA – A Detailed Comparison

When choosing the right database for your SAP Business One ERP system, the decision between MS SQL and SAP HANA is critical. The database serves as the backbone of your ERP, ensuring seamless data transfer, fast retrieval, and real-time insights for better decision-making. It also provides essential backup and security features to safeguard your business data.

Among the leading ERP solutions for small businesses, SAP Business One is supported by MS SQL and the SAP HANA database systems. To use the SAP Business One or SAP B1 tool in your business functions, you must choose between running your solution on the SAP HANA or MS SQL database. Which of these two database technologies is better? The answer depends on your business requirements and how you plan to leverage their capabilities.

SAP Business One on Hana

To simplify, here is a detailed comparison of SAP B1 on HANA vs. MS SQL.

SAP HANA vs. MS SQL – The Basic Difference

While MS SQL is based on disk storage, SAP HANA uses in-memory technology. This means that SAP HANA can load data into the server memory and process the data much faster than MS SQL. Hence, HANA is more suitable for applications that need higher processing power.

Is it better to run SAP Business One on HANA or MS SQL? Let’s discuss that next.

SAP HANA or MS SQL – Which is Better for Running SAP B1?

First, look at some SAP Business One on HANA features unavailable on MS SQL.

  • Additional analytical tool features include pervasive analytics, interactive analytics, and the analytical portal.
  • Intelligent forecasting and delivery schedule management allow you to confirm the status of purchase orders, select alternative products, expedite selected orders, and reschedule sales orders.
  • Enterprise-wide SAP HANA features include in-memory technology and real-time data aggregation.
  • Easy integration with SAP OData web protocol for building on external web technologies such as HTTP. This helps in accessing information from external applications, platforms, and devices.
  • Built-in dashboards for business functions such as financials, sales, marketing, and customer service.
  • Real-time forecasting of cash flows with a graphical representation can streamline your cash flow management with proper timelines and accurate reporting.
  • Enterprise searches like Google allow you to search the HANA database for documents, business partners, and other data.
  • Ad-hoc and interactive data analysis for improving end-user productivity and insights.

Additionally, the Analytical portal functionality available only in the SAP Business One HANA version allows you to:

  1. Publish and share your documents to MS Excel and SAP Crystal Reports.
  2. Display only authorized reports to any portal user.
  3. Download the authorized documents in multiple formats, including MS Excel, PDF, and HTML.
  4. Run the documents on various devices, including web clients and mobile devices.
  5. Support both on-premises and on-demand users.
  6. Schedule the automatic downloading of documents daily, weekly, and monthly, or whenever you need them.

Next, let us look at some of the SAP Business One on HANA benefits compared to using MS SQL.

1. High performance and scalability

As we know, SAP HANA can store critical data on its memory against MS SQL, which must be retrieved from its hard disk storage. This makes it possible for SAP HANA to deliver high performance and processing power for SAP B1 users to access and analyze their data much faster for any use case.

2. Stability

The question is whether SAP HANA is stable as a new technology. As the database technology, SAP HANA has been around since 2010 and was initially used only for high-end SAP applications. In 2012, SAP HANA was integrated into SAP B1 applications. On its own, the SAP HANA tool is being used by over 16,300 global customers.

3. Cost

The next consideration is if the HANA license fees are more expensive than SQL? Essentially, the license fees for SAP Business One are the same for both databases. The license fees for both SAP HANA and MS SQL are competitive at the basic level. However, SQL fees for an enterprise-level package are much higher than for SAP HANA.

SAP HANA does cost more when you run it on an on-premises server, as it needs a server with a specialized configuration that enables it to process data much faster.

4. Server configuration

Does SAP HANA need a high-end server to run compared to MS SQL? SAP HANA requires a “Certified by SAP” configuration specially designed to run HANA. All leading server manufacturers offer these.

5. Cloud compatibility

The next question is if the SAP Business One on HANA solution is available on the cloud and if it is more expensive? The answer is yes. SAP Business One on HANA is available as a subscription-based SaaS Cloud plan. Alternatively, a customer can deploy the application (HANA-based) on a server in a data center.

6. Business requirement

Which is better for SAP Business One –HANA vs SQL? This question is best answered after analyzing the customer’s nature of business, the complexity of the business processes, the quantum of data and reports that need to be processed and the intrinsic need for business analytics in critical decision-making.

7. Business Intelligence (BI) & Analytics

Which database is better when it comes to BI and analytics capabilities? On its part, SAP B1 on HANA does not separately require a database system for running analytics. Thanks to in-memory data storage, BI tools like SAP Lumina or Crystal Reports can directly access the stored data and perform real-time analytics without any performance drop.

This integrated capability creates less complex IT infrastructures, as BI reports can be generated dynamically and executed directly on the SAP B1 ERP tool.

8. Additional benefits

While MS SQL and SAP HANA both support SAP B1, enterprises running SAP Business One on HANA can benefit from the following capabilities not available on SQL:

  • Over 50 pre-packaged dashboards and KPIs
  • Excel-powered interactive analysis for slicing and dicing business data
  • Enterprise search functionality for quickly retrieving information without opening multiple files
  • Business forecasting capabilities, including cash flow and inventory forecasts

9. Future scope

As an ERP technology company, SAP is investing more in its HANA database to improve its in-memory capabilities. Future possibilities for better mobility, scalability, and dashboard reporting features look positive for SAP HANA. Businesses leveraging SAP innovation should invest in SAP tools for future benefits.

Conclusion

In short, SAP Business One users can choose between the SAP HANA and MS SQL databases based on their specific business requirements. Overall, SAP HANA offers a wide range of functionalities, such as support for advanced analytics, intelligent forecasting, and more options in ATP functionality. MS SQL database has been in the market for much longer, and resources with skills in this DB are available easily.

Since its inception, Praxis Info Solutions has developed industry expertise delivering a range of SAP B1 solutions for its global customer base. The company has experience in implementing both SQL-based and HANA-based applications.

If you are looking for a reliable IT partner to maximize your SAP investments, then it is time to call us.

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