SAP HANA Certification Pathways

(Same content also cross posted here: http://scn.sap.com/community/hana-in-memory/blog/2013/01/10/sap-hana-certification-pathways )

While exploring SAP HANA technology related certifications, we identified that SAP HANA provides two possible streams for certification:

1. For Technical consultants:
   1. Exam: C_HANATEC_1 (80 questions, 180 minute)
   2. Certificate awarded: SAP Certified Technology Associate - SAP HANA 1.0
   3. Topics: Data Provisioning, Installation, Security and Authorization, System Architecture Design, System Architecture Implementation
2. For Application consultants:
   1. Exam: C_HANAIMP_1 (80 questions, 180 minute)
   2. Certificate awarded: SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP HANA 1.0
   3. Topics: Business content, Data Modeling, Data Provisioning, Optimization, Reporting, Security and Authorization

Certification pathways

[Source: https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/]

Classroom teaching Pathway:
The following diagram shows a possible SAP HANA certification pathway via classroom teaching programs available from SAP. (Detailed information is available here: https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/ )

Figure 1. SAP HANA Certification Path via classroom training

Hyperlinks:

Course-HA100: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha100-sap-hana-introduction-classroom-097-us-en/

Course-HA200: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha200-sap-hana-administration-and-operations-classroom-097-us-en/

Course-HA300: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha300-sap-hana-implementation-and-modeling-classroom-097-us-en/

Exam-C_HANATEC_1: https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/c_hanatec_1-sap-certified-technology-associate-sap-hana-10-g/

Exam-C_HANAIMP_1: https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/c_hanaimp_1-sap-certified-application-associate-sap-hana-10-g/

E-Learning Pathway:
The following diagram shows the possible SAP HANA certification pathway via e-learning programs available from SAP.

Figure 2. SAP HANA Certification Path via e-learning

Hyperlinks:

Course-HA100R: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha100r-sap-hana-introduction-e-learning-097-us-en/

Course-HA200R: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha200r-sap-hana-administration-and-operations-e-learning-097-us-en/

Course-HA300R: https://training.sap.com/us/en/course/ha300r-sap-hana-implementation-and-modeling-e-learning-097-us-en/

Exam-C_HANATEC_1 (this is the same exam as above classroom exam, just repeating link again): https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/c_hanatec_1-sap-certified-technology-associate-sap-hana-10-g/

Exam-C_HANAIMP_1 (this is the same exam as above classroom exam, just repeating link again): https://training.sap.com/us/en/certification/c_hanaimp_1-sap-certified-application-associate-sap-hana-10-g/

Training details

A complete list of all SAP trainings is available at: https://training.sap.com/us/en/search?query=hana.

The following trainings are available and recommended (as shared by one user here):

• OHA10 : It’s a self-paced training; all the material is provided online. Obviously some content overlaps with HA100 but extra and latest content is available. This is nice to have (and not a must have) training for passing the certification exam.

This is a self-paced e-learning option, costs $500.00

• TZH300: A remote classroom training, the course contents includes: how to do transformations using SLT, advanced modeling with HANA Studio, importing-exporting objects, join types, advanced SQL Scripts and CE functions etc.

This is a remote classroom training option, costs $1300.00

Completely self-motivated learning

One person completed the certification without trainings, but just reading the content and doing Hands-On practice. The list of relevant material is available here: http://scn.sap.com/community/hana-in-memory/blog/2012/08/27/my-experience-on-hana-certification

Resources (some content taken from this link):

1. A good repository of all SAP HANA relevant links is available at this link: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/hana/blog/2012/11/30/the-ultimate-set-of-hana-related-links-from-sap.
2. A good collection of videos on practical demonstration of most common SAP HANA activities: http://www.saphana.com/community/resources/hana-academy
3. Go to http://www.saphana.com/community/solutions and play around. Go to the “Test Drives & Demos” section and spend some time playing with all the “test drives” available. Might not help for the exam but definitely gives an idea of how stuff works.
4. Some really useful videos: Hana Modeler (29 mins, gives very good overview of data modeling in HANA), Demo of Business Objects 4.0 tools
   consuming data from HANA (13 mins, if you are not used to Information Design Tool (IDT), its a good watch).
5. If you have access to an HANA system and some extra time, a lot of guides especially for reporting tools are available here: http://help.sap.com/hana_appliance.
6. You can also request access to an HANA system from SAP. All FAQs related to this access are here. 

SAP HANA on AWS.

In previous few blogs, there are very quick introductions about the SAP, one of the world’s largest vendors of independent enterprise software, and its latest innovation marvel for enterprises, SAP HANA.
Now they have brought this effort one step more forward, by bringing SAP HANA on Cloud.
Yes, SAP's  in-memory database and platform capabilities are now available in form of a pay-as-you-go commodity by Amazon Web Services.

What it means: So now if some organization has need of fast processing power, but is hesitant in making huge investments in purchasing the entire in-house solution (SAP HANA appliance is really costly !!), then they can opt for this option and use it for the desired time. It like, just pay the rent of a Huge Villa, and enjoy living there for the time you want.

Advantages: Enterprises seeking some fast processing solutions for its regularly recurring (but not frequently  occurring ) tasks, like processing the payrolls for all employees at end of every month, or analyzing the sales trends to prepare for a specific event, can take advantages of this time based solution.

At first looks, this idea seems to be a fast, stable and reliable business solution, but things from far as just visible nice. There may be potential factors like massive data transfers, additional hidden charges/add-ons required, that might be involved. But all factors apart, This solution provides some promising future for the Software as a Service (SaaS) market.

The pricing details are available here.
For more in-depth technical details, visit SAP's website here.

A quick brief about SAP

SAP is one of the world’s largest vendors of independent enterprise software, that provides specialized software applications for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), software supplier relationship management (SRM), and business intelligence (BI).

SAP provides enterprise software solutions (like SAP R/3) to a large number of multinational companies who require fast, stable and reliable business applications. These applications (categorized as platform applications, extension applications and composite applications) enable them to handle millions of transactions in multiple currencies and possess international presence. These applications are available in form of smaller components, which can be customized and configured as per the needs of the industry.

In case there is any need of further modification or functionality enhancement, these applications can be customized using the SAP Netweaver development technologies. SAP Netweaver development technologies includes ABAP (programming language along with an integrated development environment, something similar to COBOL), Java, and Composition development framework (tools and environment across heterogeneous systems).