Basic Concepts and Terminology of BTP and SAP HANA Cloud

Watch this video to learn about entitlements and quotas.

In order to find the overall information regarding the provisioning and consumption of resources at a global account level you go to the SAP BTP cockpit and navigate to Usage Analytics.

To get started with SAP HANA Cloud you will first need to setup a BTP global account. This is the highest level of account management in BTP. Think of the global account as the 'contract' level.

SAP BTP provides different types of global accounts: enterprise and trial accounts.

A trial account lets you try out the platform for free. Access is open to everyone. Trial accounts are intended for personal exploration, and not for production use or team application development. They allow restricted use of the platform resources and services. The trial period varies depending on the environment.

An enterprise account is usually associated with one SAP customer or partner. The global account is the level at which you purchase platform resources and services.

Once you have your global account setup, you can then create one or more subaccounts which consume the services of the global account. During the creation of a subaccount, you choose the cloud provider and also the region. For example, Azure in EMEA, or AWS in APJ. This service provider location does not have to be the same as the actual location of consumption. As more cloud providers become available, the list of providers in more regions will increase.

Subaccounts are technically independent of each other. This means users, applications, authorizations etc. are not shared between subaccounts.

Subaccounts can be optionally managed using directories. Directories allow you to group subaccounts for easy management of large numbers of subaccounts. Quotas can also be assigned to directories in case you don't want to assign quotas directly to subaccounts.

A directory can be sub-divided into more directories to create a directory hierarchy. Subaccounts can be assigned to any level of the directory hierarchy.

When you subscribe to the SAP HANA Cloud service, the SAP BTP guides you through creating a copy of the SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA database component in your SAP BTP account. This copy is called an instance, and creating an instance is referred to as provisioning. An SAP BTP wizard guide you through provisioning an instance using simple questions.

But before you can create your first instance, you must already have created a Cloud Foundry Space. A space provides complete isolation for applications to run independently. A space can contain more than one database instances.

Once you have an SAP HANA Cloud database instance, you are ready to begin developing your BTP application. During application deployment you can choose which database instance you wish to bind to.

Note

In the context of the SAP BTP, a service is a software product you use on a subscription basis through your SAP BTP account. SAP HANA Cloud is an example of an SAP BTP service you subscribe to.

Choose your cloud provider based on region where you would like you service provisioned from.

Also, consider that not all cloud providers offer the same services such as high-availability. They may also not offer all application development and run-time environments.

The current cloud providers are:

• SAP
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Alibaba Cloud
• Microsoft AzureMicrosoft Azure

Cloud provider are responsible for:

• Installing, configuring, and upgrading the operating system.
• Backing up and restoring, and recovering the database software.
• Tuning the database to run optimally on the underlying operating system, and hardware.

Cloud providers are not responsible for :

• Sizing and provisioning the SAP HANA Cloud database
• Monitoring the SAP HANA Cloud database
• Managing users, roles, and permissions in the SAP HANA Cloud database

Before you can create an SAP HANA Cloud database instance, you must already have fulfilled these prerequisites:

• You have created a subaccount in the Cloud Foundry Environment
• You have enabled Cloud Foundry environment for the subaccount
• You have assigned quota to the subaccount
• You have created a Cloud Foundry space in the subaccount

A database instance can then be created using the provisioning interface : SAP HANA Cloud Central.

Watch this video to learn how to create a database instance.