Install SAP HANA on your laptop or PC using Express edition virtual machine - Start

So whats the next step, you know the future is Hana but how do you get to try it out, especially if your company hasn't started the process to upgrading yet. Well just like we are able to install a local copy of the standard ABAP development environment called miniSAP, we can also install a local copy of the SAP HANA database called HANA Express edition.

Part 1 - Install your own virtual machine player
Part 2 - Download HANA express virtual machine file
Part 3 - Run the HANA express virtual machine
Part 4 - Login to the HANA express virtual machine
Part 5 - Download the eclipse based IDE for SAP ABAP development
Part 6 - Install SAP Development eclipse tools including SAP cloud platform and HANA studio

..but be warned this is not like installing the latest app to your phone or PC. It's not hard, just takes some time and you need to do all the required steps to get it to work. For me, the standard guide jumped around too much, contained a few too many options you don't need initially and missed out a few important steps that would have saved me minutes, even hours of head scratching and coffee making. Not complicated things but within a process that was all new to me it took a bit of time to problem solve the issues and I wasn't really able to just follow the steps.

I have therefore put this guide together to try and create a logical single step by step process flow that takes you from the very beginning (i.e. before installation) to actually writing your first SQL query to retrieve data from at table on your very own local HANA database. And if you sit down now with your coffee or alternate drink ready to go you can probably have it up and running within the hour.. maybe even 30 mins excluding download times. So what are we waiting for let's get started...

Part 1 - Install your own virtual machine player

Step 1 is to install a Virtual Machine player such as VMware Workstation or Oracle VirtualBox. This is just a bit of software that runs a virtual machine (.ova file) such as the HANA Express virtual instance/machine that we will download later in the guide. Don't worry too much about this at the moment it will all become very clear as you follow the guide. For info, this guide will use VMware Workstation player 12.5.

Right lets get started installing the virtual machine player


Part 2 - Download HANA express virtual machine file

Once the VM player has been installed you need to use it to open a virtual machine... but first, we need to download the HANA express virtual machine file from SAP. We will then be able to use this file to execute/play the virtual machine.

Right lets get it downloaded Downloading the HANA express virtual machine file


Part 3 - Run the virtual machine

Now you can run the virtual machine, which basically means returning to the VMware workstation player and opening the virtual machine file(.ova)

Running the HANA express virtual machine


Part 4 - Login to the HANA express virtual machine

Now its time to login to your newly installed SAP HANA express virtual machine

How to Login to the HANA express virtual machine


Part 5 - Download the eclipse based IDE for SAP ABAP development

Once you have got your SAP HANA express virtual machine up and running and have logged into it you need to download the eclipse based SAP development environment to be able to access the data and perform HANA database queries on it.

Downloading the eclipse based IDE for SAP development


Part 6 - Install SAP Development eclipse tools including SAP cloud platform and HANA studio

You are ready to install the SAP Development tools for eclipse. These include a whole host of tools such as HANA studio and the SAP cloud platform which we can use to connect to our HANA express edition database.

Downloading the eclipse based IDE for SAP development


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