SAP expands HANA to BusinessObjects

Computerworld writes.

HANA entered general availability last June and has quickly become a focal point for SAP's entire forward-looking technology strategy.

The system holds data to be processed in RAM instead of reading it off of traditional disks, providing a performance boost that SAP has described as remarkable. Over time, the company plans to port HANA to all of its applications, and officials have predicted the technology will inspire many entirely new types of software as well.

Now, “one of the killer use cases for HANA is planning and consolidation”, InfoWorld quotes Sanjay Poonen, president of global solutions at SAP, as saying in an interview.

SAP's BusinessObjects planning software gives companies a unified way to run financial forecasts, create budgets and plans, and meet financial reporting requirements.

Rivals like Oracle and IBM offer similar capabilities in the form of Hyperion and Cognos software, respectively. But the new HANA support gives SAP an edge over those vendors, Poonen claimed.