Hello and welcome to the SAP HANA Academy.
The topic of this video tutorial series is SAP HANA platform Installation and Update
and in this video I will discuss the SAP HANA client.
Hi, I am Denys van Kempen.
Installing the SAP HANA client is very easy and maybe takes 20 seconds, if that - so,
this video will be more about what you need to know concerning the SAP HANA client,
documentation and important SAP Notes.
To start with documentation, there is a dedicated guide on the topic,
the SAP HANA Client Installation and Update Guide.
Here you will find, for example, the supported platforms listed.
The SAP HANA server only runs on Linux: SUSE and Red Hat (64-bit Intel and IBM Power Systems)
but the HANA client is supported on a much wider range of platforms.
UNIX: IBM AIX and HP on the Itanium processor, Solaris, Intel 64-bit and the SPARC architecture,
and Linux on 32-bit and 64-bit Intel, IBM Power Big and Little Endian and also on zSeries.
On Windows, both on 32 and 64-bit and on the Apple Mac OS X platform.
There is a link to the PAM and to SAP Note 2499500.
For the HANA client on the PAM, we would have to go the Release Information tab,
Operating Systems filtered on the HANA client.
Here we see them all listed; the different versions, AIX 6.1, 7.1, 7.2.
Under Details, you will find the maintenance information as defined by the vendor
(IBM for AIX, for example, not SAP)
and then under Additional Information, more general information is provided.
the number of notes is mentioned between brackets
8 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, for example
The ODBO driver is not available for this operating system.
This is not surprising, ODBO is pure Microsoft technology, only works on Windows.
For the 64-bit Red Hat Linux, you need to download the 64-bit driver: seems obvious.
Point 4 mentions that the operating system / platform support only covers the SAP HANA client component.
Also clear, I would say. That’s why we filtered on the client.
The client is usually installed on the SAP application server: Netweaver ABAP, that is presumably,
a common use case.
A note about HANA guidelines for Red Hat Linux.
A note about running HANA on IBM Power.
The other remarks, supported hardware platforms, recommended operating system settings,
and list of supported OS versions all refer to the HANA server
(not sure why they are included here)
If we switch to note 2499500 - version 7 from October 2017 - it is regularly updated.
Document lists the supported operating systems for the HANA 2.0 client and supplements the PAM.
Here we find a table where for each language or API (first column),
the supported versions are listed (second column), for each environment.
Group 1, group 2 are classified below.
Group 1 being the more common platforms and then we can see that Python is supported for
SPS 02 and later, both 2.7 and 3.4 and later.
ODBO - only supported on Windows.
Only works on Windows, so that makes sense.
In case you are not familiar with ODBO: it is very similar to ODBC.
ODBC connects clients to relational databases to execute SQL statements.
ODBO connects clients to OLAP databases to execute MDX statements.
However, unlike ODBC, so far, it has never gone beyond Windows.
In fact, it is mostly used to connect Microsoft Excel to an OLAP database (Pivot tables)
There is no ODBO driver for Linux, not even for the Mac, although it runs Excel perfectly fine.
So, ODBO/MDX only for Windows both 32 and 64-bit, Excel 2007 and later.
Same for ADO.NET, obviously.
Microsoft technology.
Here you can find the supported versions.
We will address both in a separate video.
Same for ODBC and JDBC, how to configure, how to connect - requires a bit more time
to cover - so will be the topic of a separate video as well.
For JDBC, you can use the Oracle, IBM, HP and SAP Java virtual machines.
So you have some choice there.
Go support is new for SPS 02.
Node.js support was added in SPS 01, couple of months earlier.
This note is referenced by the HANA clients FAQ note 2393013
This is definitely recommended reading.
Which client products are supported?
There is a note for that.
Which combinations of client / server versions are supported?
Another note.
How to trace client activities?
More notes.
Would make a great tutorial topic too.
I will look into this.
Maybe combined with the errors reported.
How to improve performance on the client side.
With reference to note 2503378 - SAP HANA Client Interface Performance Tuning
you might want to take a look at that one, as well.
Lots of good information here.
So, before proceeding, take a look at these SAP Notes to see if they apply to your environment.
If we then return to the Installation Guide.
Software downloads.
We already covered this.
Then we have two sections.
Installing the client on UNIX, Mac OS and Linux, and installing the client on Microsoft Windows.
In the first case, it will be mostly command line - we will look at that in a minute.
On Windows, although command line is available obviously, this is what you would use for
a scripted installation.
You wouldn’t want to be up at midnight to install the client because that happens to be
the only maintenance window.
You wouldn’t want to perform an installation on a hundred client machines either.
If you need to do it twice, script it.
Because there probably will come a third time as well.
Graphical installation (Next, Next, Next) is typically only done for one-off installs.
Here we have the available clients that are included with the SAP HANA client:
ODBO, ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, Python, Go and Node.js, we already mentioned.
SQLDBC is a SAP Netweaver client.
With the remark here that when using 64-bit Excel, you need the 64-bit client.
Then, default installation paths, as expected.
Also, if you want all users to use the client, make sure to install it with administrative rights
Nothing new there either.
Let’s switch to a Windows system.
Go to the location where you downloaded the software - we covered this in a previous video.
And then open the HDB_CLIENT_WINDOWS_X86_64 for the 64-bit windows client.
For a one-off graphical installation, double click hdbsetup.
SAP HANA Lifecycle Management will start.
Step 1. Define client properties
Here you can select the path.
Should there have been a client installed, you could have opted to update it or add a new client.
You can install as many clients as you like.
Step 2. Review & Confirm
The name of the ODBC driver is HDBODBC (this will be stored in the registry)
and if we expand Software Components, we can see the different clients listed here
ADO.NET, JDBC, ODBC, ODBO, Python, GO and Node.js plus some supporting tools like the installer.
Install to install.
No reason to even fast forward the recording.
It only takes 11 seconds and we are done.
You can view the log, if you wish.
OK.
For the command line client, let’s open a command prompt first.
Run as Administrator.
Change directory to the download location - let’s drag that in - and then with the
hdbinst command we can perform the installation.
A previous version has been detected now, which we can update or install a new client.
Of course, here you would use a scripted installation.
I am just showing you how this would look.
For the scripted installation, let’s use a Linux system.
I have zipped the Linux client using the 'Send to > Compressed folder' command here on Windows.
Then I have installed PuTTY on this computer
(a very common telnet client for Windows).
Putty includes the pscp (Putty Secure Copy) command line tool allowing me to copy the
zip file to a Linux server.
OK, let’s switch to our linux server: Ubuntu.
As we saw in the note, most recent Linux distributions are supported for the client.
Here is our zip file.
Let’s unzip. Oh, not installed. Let’s install unzip first.
OK.
We should be able to unzip now.
Yes, that works.
And then here - if we change directory - here, we have the installers: hdbinst, is the one we are looking for.
So, how to script?
For this, let’s briefly return to the installation guide.
Here we have the command and call option reference.
There are a whole bunch of them but for us, here, we can just limit ourselves
to the batch parameter, -b in short form.
Let’s run this.
Permission denied.
The original file permissions did not survive zip and unzip.
With the chmod command user plus execute (u+x) -R (recursive) we can fix this.
There we go - this is a bit quick-and-dirty as all files now ha ve execute permission.
You would have to check how to zip, unzip with the original permissions kept
if you want to do it properly.
OK hdbinst -b
Takes 5 seconds, Installation done.
With a log file.
Note that we performed a user installation this time.
Defaults to the home directory of student.
You could also install as root or with sudo and put it into /usr/sap or /opt/hana_client
or whatever matches local traditions.
If we run the interactive terminal, hdbsql, this Ubuntu server complains about a shared
library missing, libaio, asynchronous I/O.
This is specific to Ubuntu.
Most Linux distributions have this library installed by default.
Let’s add the library and then run hdbsql and all is well.
Documented?
Of course, let’s review the SAP HANA client supported platforms note: 2499500.
Here, you can see the shared libraries that are required.
So, always check your SAP notes.
OK.
That’s it for the client.
Very simple: takes 11 seconds using the Windows version and maybe 5 on the command line
which is available on all platforms and used for automated installations and updates.
Thanks for watching.
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