Is SAP HANA a Hybrid Database?

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to find a thesis question about SAP HANA!
From my understanding SAP HANA is a Hybrid database, having a Column-based store and a Row-based store.

Therefore, I thought we have a duplication of data in 2 (or more) different databases one being Column-based (Or mix) and a Row-based (Or different mix).

Then I found out about HYRISE (Rodent-store: http://ares.epic.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/apps/static/papers/hyrise_hybrid_engine.pdf),

how does HYRISE fit in SAP HANA?

Does SAP HANA follows some HYRISE principals?

Thank you guys in advance for the help!

Marouan

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

Hi Marouan,

in it's current implementation SAP HANA is not duplicating data over various storage engines.

You could either store data in the row- or in the column store.

You can migrate data between those two and you can query data from both storage types in one query, but the data itself is always stored just once.

If and how an approach similar to the one described in the paper you referenced will be implemented is not disclosed.

- Lars

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the quick answer!

Just as a follow up question, who or what decides to migrate data from one store to the other?

Is done by the processing engine (depending on the types queries)? or manually?

Finally would be fair to say that HANA storage is close to a PAX method(Partition Attributes Across http://www.vldb.org/conf/2001/P169.pdf)

Marouan

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

hmm... looks like this PAX method would apply to the row store only, doesn't it?

Anyhow, I don't know enough about our approach to pack the memory structures to competently comment on this.

- Lars