SAP bets on unified, in-memory database for Business Suite

SAP has launched a revamped, unified business suite that leverages its in-memory HANA database to provide real-time capabilities.

Hasso Plattner of SAP.

SAP chief executive Bill McDermott unveiled the overhauled software suite overnight. It has been named Business Suite 4 SAP HANA - or SAP S/4HANA for short - and can be deployed in the cloud, or from customer premises.

S/4HANA introduces a new Fiori user interface which will be available on mobile devices as well. The Fiori user interface can be personalised to suit users in different roles.

Source: SAP

The new business suite combines enterprise resource planning, customer relationship, storage resource, supply chain and product life-cycle management, SAP said.

Enhancements in S/4HANA include promised 1800-fold faster analytics, three to seven times faster throughput and a data footprint one tenth of the size of the previous set.

SAP said S/4HANA has unlimited workload capacity with fast response times for queries, thanks to the no-locking in-memory database that utilises parallelism for high throughput.

The company's founder, chairman and inventor of HANA, Dr Hasso Plattner, promised that S/4HANA will be a non-disruptive upgrade for customers.