SAP HANA Multiple Host Systems

SAP HANA Multiple Host Systems

SAP HANA supports the distribution of its server components across multiple hosts, for example for scalability and availability.

A multiple-host or distributed SAP HANA system is a system that is installed on more than one host. Otherwise, it is a single-host system. A host is a machine (comprised of CPU, memory, storage, network, and operating system) that runs parts of the SAP HANA system. An SAP HANA instance is the set of server components of a distributed system that are installed on one host. The following figure shows a distributed system with three hosts, which each run a name server, index server, and so on.

SAP HANA Multiple Host Systems, SAP HANA system, SAP HANA instance, index server, XS engine, pre processor server, statistics server, name server, web dispatcher, compile server

An SAP HANA system installed on multiple hosts is identified by a single system ID (SID). It is perceived as one unit from the perspective of the administrator, who can install, update, start up, shut down, or backup the system as a whole. The different server components of the system share the same metadata and requests from client applications can be transparently dispatched to different servers in the system.