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Applies to:
This blog applies to SAP HANA Express, Edition and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 (any service pack for the sections related to the Semantic Layer), BI4.2 SP3 and later for the section related to SAP BI client tools such as SAP Web Intelligence.

What is SAP HANA Express Edition?


SAP HANA Express edition is a streamlined, downloadable version of SAP HANA In-memory platform that can run on laptops and other resource-constrained hosts, such as a cloud-hosted virtual machine, for free up to 32G of memory use. SAP HANA express edition is optimized for fast and continuous development of data-driven applications, and any developer can download it for free from the SAP site

Get and Install SAP HANA Express, Editon


To download SAP HANA Express, for free, you must first register to SAP from the following link:

http://www.sap.com/sap-hana-express

After reading the prerequisites, you must decide on the SAP HANA Express install option. Indeed, SAP HANA Express is available in two versions according to the developer OS:

  • Virtual Machine (VM), mainly designed for Windows or Mac OS X

  • Binary version, only for SLES for SAP or Red Hat Enterprise Linux



Once downloaded the VM or binary for SAP HANA Express edition, you must follow the instructions in tutorials below to install and start your SAP HANA platform and its In-memory database.

http://go.sap.com/developer/topics/sap-hana-express.tutorials.html

Note that the default system configuration for HANA Express, Edition are as below:



















Field Name Value
System host hxehost (i.e. your VM’s IP Address)
SID HXE
System Instance Number 00

 

SAP HANA Express, Edition is configured to run on multi-tenant mode with SystemDB as the default database. The default port used by the hxehost is 30013 for this default system database.

Configure SAP HANA Studio for SAP HANA Express, Edition


Once installed and started your SAP HANA Express, you can now connect to your HANA server with HANA Studio in order to create tables and HANA views in your system.

  • Install first HANA Studio if not yet done

  • Open HANA Studio and select the SAP HANA Administration Console perspective

  • Select Add System in order to insert a new system in your project

  • Enter:


              Host Name: hxehost (i.e. your VM’s IP Address)

              Instance Number: 00

  • Ensure you click Multiple container mode and click System database

  • Under Authentication by database user, enter:


              User Name: SYSTEM

              Password: (Password you specified when you changed the default SYSTEM password)


  • Click Finish.


You are connected to your HANA Express system, named HXE(SYSTEM). You can now create or import tables and HANA views in your system.

Connect SAP BusinessObjects BI to SAP HANA Express, Edition


To connect SAP BusinessObjects BI to SAP HANA Express in order to analyze or test your HANA views, you must first create and publish Relational or OLAP Connections to HANA inside SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform.

Create relational connections to SAP HANA Express


To create relational connections on HANA, install first Information Design tool if not yet done

  • Open Information Design tool and create a new local project (if not yet done)

  • Select New > Relational Connection in order to insert a new connection in your local project

  • Select SAP HANA > JDBC Dirver

  • Under Authentication by database user, enter:


              User Name: SYSTEM

              Password: (Password you specified when you changed the default SYSTEM password)

  • Ensure you click Multi server option

  • Enter:


              Server (host:port[;host:port]): hxehost:30013 (where hxehost is your VM’s IP Address)



  • Click Finish.


Once your connection created, you can publish it into the repository of your BusinessObjects BI Platform.

Create OLAP connections to SAP HANA Express


If you want to consume HANA hierarchies created in HANA views, you would need to create OLAP connections to your HANA Express.

To create OLAP connections to HANA, you can use Information Design tool or you can also create them directly from BusinessObjects Central Management Console (CMC) as following:

  • Open BusinessObjects CMC and go to OLAP Connections pane

  • Select New Connection in order to insert a new connection in your BusinessObjects BI Platform

  • Select SAP HANA as Provider

  • Enter


              Server (host:port): hxehost:30013 (where hxehost is your VM’s IP Address)

  • Ensure you click Pre-defined Authentication option

  • Under Authentication by database user, enter:


              User Name: SYSTEM

              Password: (Password you specified when you changed the default SYSTEM password)


  • Click Save to publish it into the BusinessObjects BI Platform.


Connect Web Intelligence to SAP HANA Express


Once created and published HANA connections into your BusinessObjects BI Platform, you can now connect to SAP BI client tools such as Web Intelligence to HANA views available in your HANA Express system as following:

  • Connect your browser to the BusinessObjects BI server and enter your BI credentials




  • The Launchpad opens, click on the Web Intelligence application




  • The Web Intelligence interface opens: it is empty. Click to create a New Document




  • The list of possible data sources appears, you choose a SAP data source such as SAP HANA Online in order explore in live data your HANA Express system:




  • Now you navigate into the HANA connections defined on your BI platform which expose HANA views. In your case, select a HANA Express connection you created above, and browse HANA views created under this connection




  • Double click on one of the HANA views available under this connection. The Web Intelligence Report opens. You can see all available HANA view objects in the Available Objects pane



  • From the Available Objects pane in the Report pane, you drag and drop the objects you want to see in your report on the right.


In the example below I am asking to see the Year, the Country and the Unit Sales measure.


Now you can play with SAP Web Intelligence on SAP HANA Express, Edition. Have fun!

Other Web Intelligence access to SAP HANA Express



  • You can also connect SAP Web Intelligence to your HANA Express system in selecting SAP HANA as data source for Web Intelligence. In this case, you will have to create a query on the top of your HANA view using Web Intelligence query panel.

  • From Information Design Tool, you can also create a relational UNX universe on tables and HANA views hosted by your HANA Express. In this case, Web Intelligence can connect to your universe in order to access to tables and HANA views of your HANA Express system.

  • From your HANA relational connection, you can also access to tables and HANA views of your HANA Express system using Web Intelligence Free-hand SQL.

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