FUDsy Oracle tactics on SAP HANA

FUD- Fear, Uncertainty and Doubts
Is a tactic used in sales, marketing, PR and mostly in politics and propaganda.
FUD was first defined with its specific current meaning by Gene Amdahl in 1975, after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corporation. "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products." The term has also been attributed to veteran Morgan Stanley computer analyst Ulrich Weil. As Eric S. Raymond writes:

“

The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of erroneous disinformation used as a corrosive competitive weapon"

FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence perception on the tactics of fear and ignorance - by mostly disseminating dubious and false information as negative. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of TCO with prospects or new customers.
The term originated to describe intentional disinformation tactics in the IT industry but has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the baser instincts and the overall fear-mongering appeal to C level stakeholders who are looking for their vendors to provide them with professional advice.


As a rule I keep quite far from negative blogging but in the recent months I have been exposed to some interesting FUD statements from Oracle- possibly in their desperation to keep their current SAP customers on Oracle as they rapidly start to migrate to HANA.


All these FUD's relate to BW on HANA migration only that I have personally been exposed to in one single customer. You decide if these are FUDS or not..


FUD 1: BW has Indexes that will not migrate to HANA and Oracle Exadata will be able to do this far more efficiently. Migrating to HANA will mean additional costs for re-indexing and index fixing
FACT 1: To the best of my knowledge there is no index in legacy databases that will not migrate to HANA.
FACT 1a: BW indexes come in 4 types
BWA Index: Once customers move to HANA they do not need BWA any longer
Analytic Index: HANA migrates these indexes transparently during migration
BTree Index: HANA migrates these indexes transparently during migration
BitMap Index: HANA migrates these indexes transparently during migration
CONCLUSION: The author this this is a very high FUDsy claim by Oracle as the statement has zero


FUD 2: Exalytics is only a database change whereas HANA is an appliance and dB change. As Exalytics is one change and HANA two it represents a lower risk for customers.
FACT 2: Exalytics is a database and an appliance so just Exalytics so this alone represents 2 points of change = HANA
FACT 2a: Exalytics is only an OLAP accelerator so what you are actually doing is replacing BW Accelrator with Exadata - not a good idea
FACT 2b: Exalytics will probably need Exadata as the underlying database in BW so that is still another database and represents change 3
FACT 2c: Exadata will probably require Times10 for Data load optimization so that is still another change and represent change 4
CONCLUSION: This is a high FUDsy statement as the total solution from Oracle will require far more change and exchange points than HANA


FUD 3: As Exalytics is Oracle to Oracle migration customers get higher data quality after migration
FACT 3: Data quality is compromised (BI Valuenomics 2010) at each point of data exchange and data change. As exemplified above the Oracle solution exchanges data, for BI analytics, between servers, applications, databases and appliances each is a possible data quality risk. HANA on the other side is designed as an all encompassing database with transforms, calculations, accelerated loads, accelerated queries, master data mergers, field selections, etc is done in one single database.
FACT 3a> It is critical to realize that standing up an Exalytics, Exadata, TimesTen databases and applications cannot be a trivial undertaking. There are multiple technologies, moving parts, database limitations and each one of these will need to be installed, harmonized, configured and maintained
CONCLUSION: This is a very high FUDsy statement based on the fact that data quality can be compromised at each point of data exchange, transformation and change. These numbers are many folds higher in the Oracle total solution than in HANA


FUD 4: For companies with very large number of records that require a full table scan, Exalytics has a special tool called 'SmartScan' that solves this problem. In HANA this will be a real problem
FACT 4: To start with a Full table scan is a bad design on a legacy RDBMS database. Imagine if you have a Cartesian product from two tables of a billion records each  and you conduct a full table scan for each record.
FACT 4a: Full table scans are a dilemma o the RDBMS databases . All Oracle is doing here is trying to spin one of their their fundamental shortcomings and creating a FUDsy message of something magical with still another application 'SMartScan'
FACT 4b: SmartScan are simply memory indices that are created on the Exadaa Storage server by the Exadata application. They are In-Memory, min/max indexes based on data artificially pushed into column format. While SmartScan is calculating its indexing the actual database actually sits virtually hibernating waiting for SmartScan to finish its transformations.
FACT 4c: In a traditional RDBMS database much of the space is taken by a viral growth of indexes. In some databases close to half the allocated space was occupied by indexes. HANA persists data differently , so disregards all indexes. In fact o not even consider the space occupied by indexes for HANA migration sizing.
CONCLUSION: This is a very high FUDsy statement based on the fact that full data scan is a RDBMS problem that is being FUDized as a solution by adding still another tool and probably an additional license.


I will keep this one active and communicate them as and when I see another FUDtastic statement 

BoT, BoX or BoH (BW-on-HANA)-Version 2

Question: What does Radio VOE (Voice of Experience) recommend about migrating  SAP-BW to

[1] Teradata;

[2] Exadata/Exalytics; or

[3] HANA

Ask 1: What is the major difference between Oracle Exadata+Exalytics and HANA
Oracle Exadata is a standard RDBMS row storage data base. It uses the legacy methodology for modeling that includes. In order to run queries as fast as BW Accelerator it needs Exalytics (Which is exactly like the BWA)
1. Extraction to a PSA
2. Storage to an DW layer: ODS and Cubes
3. Indexing
4. Aggregation
5. Caching summaries
6. Query calculation in a separate server
7. Query Optimization in Exalytics (separate Server)
8 Query Results and rendering
All this creates multiple copies of data, is infra heavy and creates a latency between Data creation and Analytics (Decision Systems)
  

Visualization  1: Attributes for customers with SAP applications as source system for 50%+ of critical data

This above view represents a visual radar as to the capabilities of BoT, BoX and BoH











Visualization  2: Same information different visual

 

This visualization is a tabular view of Teradata, Exadata+Exalytics and HANA

      1.        BW-on-Teradata (BoT)

In the early 2000’s SAP partnered with Teradata as an alternative database for BW. To cut the story short globally there is currently only one customer with BW on Teradata and probably will always remain as the only customer to have ever taken a very short trip on a BoT (BW on Teradata). You don’t want to go there or ever take this path.. end of story

So that should lay to rest any endeavor for a BoT migration

PS the customer is currently seriously considering migrating their BoT to BoH in 2013..

Recommendation: Keep away from even trying a POC for a BW on Teradata.

     2.       BoX (BW-on-Exadata) vs. BoH (BW-on-HANA):-

F     For BW-on-Exadata the foundational advice would be similar to the one for BW-on-TD. If 99% of the planet is going on one path don't try to reinvent another one on your own. There is inherent safety in numbers. Radio VOE has validated that the strategic advantage of following the herd far outweighs the adventurist assumptions & costs of being a loner, ie. Having the self-cannibalistic honor of being the 5:3000 implementations on a unique track does carry its own risks and disadvantages. The key decision is not only about tactical cost but about strategic Business Value.

       Keep this as your 'center-of-the-universe' decision factor of your final decision.

Recommendation: Let the strategic benefit and the process drive your decision, not some business emergency creating unrealizable timelines due to inefficiencies of the past, drive your process.

Visual 3- An Oracle chart from Oracle Site on Exadata

This screen shot is from an oracle website for Exadata. It is important to note that at best Oracle can take a 50 minute Query down just below 7 minutes, another 40 minutes query down to 3 minutes and 40 seconds. The best they can report is 40 seconds to 4 seconds










Now let us dive together and look at what lies under the cover

Attributes	BoX (BW on Exadata)	BoH (BW-on-HANA)
What it really is	Database	Business Application platform
Does it need anything else	·  Mostly will need Times 10 for data load ·  Exalytics for OLAP acceleration	Nothing else
Core Strength	Write, i.e. getting data in	Read, i.e. getting data out
What you get on the BW side	Database	·  Business Application Platform ·  Over 300 RDS solutions ·  Automated Database slimming applications ·  Predictive analytics platform ·  Prescriptive analytics capabilities
What you get with SoH ·  ECC (ERP) ·  CRM ·  SCM	Database	·  Over 900 prebuilt views for real-time operational views ·  Prebuilt Operational analytics that come free with SoH ·  Access to state-of-art analytics and informatics ·  Predictive analytics platform and algorithms
Database Type	·  Exadata is standard RDBMS ·   Exalytics is Columnar for OLAP	Columnar and In-memory
Apples to Apples	Exadata + Exalytics (appliance)	HANA (appliance)
Pricing	·  Exadata for the db write ·  Plus Exalytics, for the read (analytics) ·  A license for every non PRD system including DR ·  Data base license, Plus Analytics engine ·  OLAP engine ·  Calculation engines and other applications ·  Check the total and final cost of ownership	All in one HANA platform and one price for PRD HANA. All other systems in the landscape come free

Master Node RAM availability	NA	1TB currently, up to 8TB by Q2 of ’14 and up to 16TB by Q4 of ‘14
Similarities	Exadata is an appliance	BW on HANA is an appliance
ACID compliance	NA	Fully Compliant
Need for MOLAP, Aggregates, Caches	Yes	No
Very High Strength	·  Structured data - Oracle ERP ·  No seamless SAP integration ·  No seamless comprehension to SAP  config changes	·  Structured Data- integration to SAP Applications ·  100% seamless integration to SAP Master and transactional configurations ·  Seamless merging of multiple master data and source system deviances – on the fly in memory mergers

Medium Strength	Seamless	Seamless Integration to semi Structured data
Weakness	Unstructured pure Big Data Partnered with Hadoop	·  Unstructured pure Big Data ·  Partnered with Hadoop providers ; Funding Hadoop startups
Competition	Box compete with Teradata	HANA has no apparent competition for SAP customers.
No of Customers	NA	2400+ to date
Additional Needs	Will need Exalytics to provide accelerated queries	Does not need any additional accelerators
HW selection	·  Only from Oracle ·  Monopoly in HW development, support and services. No competitive forces encouraged.	Multiple global HW partners approved by SAP . This leads to customer advantage as it leverages automatic market driven  competitiveness and development between HW partners
Who are the top HW Suppliers	Oracle, Oracle and Oracle	HP is currently reported to be in the leadership position for HANA appliance installations followed by IBM

Strategic Impact	Does not align with SAP Suites strategy	Aligns to the HANA One-database strategy where customers get actual gains of HANA. Zero latency between OLTP and OLAP
How does it transform	·  Disc to server and back. ·  Data is passed from server to server till results are compiled. There is a need to break up responses	·  Database ·  All the calculations are done in memory in the db itself ·  No need to break up responses
How does it perform	·  Slower than Teradata ·  Oracle Benchmark: 10 bill records under 10 secs	·  Fastest on the planet ·  My experience 45 billion records under 10sec ·  SAP Benchmark- 240 billion records under 1sec
Maturity of the technology	Is equivalent to BW Accelerator (thus 2006)	Undisputed global leader
Point of Transformation	OLAP Layer – 90+% This is the worst point of transformation Better is in the DW layer	Optimal point of transformation = database layer

How does it work	·    1.  Database server to ·    2.  Compute server to ·    3.  Storage cells to Exadata cells	All in-memory
Data Loading	·  ETL files in DBFS ·  Oracle golden Gate ·  Streams ·  3rd Party	·  Data integration tools ·  SLT (Real-time from ECC ·  BODS for batch loads ·  DXC direct BW
*** License	Every system in the landscape is subject to a SEPARATE license 1.        DEV, Test, QA, and PROD 2.        HA, RD and Training 3.        Other, i.e. Projects landscapes, etc..	Only PROD is licensed All other systems and Free (not licensed)
What you get	Traditional DB accelerator 1.       Traditional ‘Wait and Debate’ engine 2.       Database 3.       Transaction Engine Everything else supposedly are separate tools and licenses	Breakthrough HANA Platoform 1.        Real-time ‘Business NOW’ engine 2.        Database 3.        Transaction Engine 4.        Dimensional Engine 5.        Analytics Engine 6.        Predictive Engine 7.        Text Engine

Modeling methodology	Traditional- 10+ steps 1.      ETL 2.      DW 3.      ODS 4.      Cube 5.      Caching 6.      Indexing 7.      Aggregation 8.      Query Calculation Engine 9.      Query Transform 10.  Query Rendering = RESULTS	Breakthrough 4-steps 1.      ELT/ ETL 2.      DSO 3.      In-Memory Analytics 4.      Query Rendering = RESULTS
Impact of modeling method	·         Latency between operational and decision data ·         Infrastructure intensive ·         Expensive by system resources ·         Creates duplicates and is slow	Up to 1,000 times faster No indexing or aggregates
Calculation / Transformation methodology	Traditional: ·         Most at OLAP (Query) layer – extremely inefficient ·         Rest in DW layer                    - Very Inefficient	Breakthrough calculation ·         Direct database transformations ·         Real-time db calculations ·         No mid-tier bottlenecks
Data-Center Impacts	·         Typically RAC (extra Costs) ·         Storage uses ASM failure groups ·         Box is a single point of failure ·         DR is a full license	Uses MPP automatic failover
Disaster recovery	·         License: full license for HCC, and even remote mirroring ·         2nd Exadata server/ non-Exadata server ·         Decompression to standard Oracle server possible with considerable performance loss	License: No extra Charge Provided by HANA vendors

For SAP customers

You just get another database. That too mostly RDBMS

All new functionalities only being developed on HANA 1.        BW seamless upgrade & migration in one step 2.        Over 900 views for ECC 3.        New RDS for CRM 4.        New RDS for SCM 5.        Industry specific solutions

Just FYI in 2013 SAP, HP BMSoft and Red-Hat broke the Guinness World record for the largest data load at 34.3TB in one hour
The certificate is attached to the left..


Happy reading to this second print as the first one had got damaged in translation and lost most of its table properties, it is now back but I will keep updating this one as more information becomes available