The difference between HANA, S/4HANA, & ECC

S/4HANA was released in 2015, HANA was released 2011, and SAP ECC was released in 2006. So why, after all these years, am I writing this article? Because to this day, there’s still confusion between these three.

Case in point, in the last two weeks, I’ve had two separate conversations with different IT people running SAP explaining the differences. Truthfully SAP doesn’t make it any easier with their proliferation of acronyms either. 

 So here we are all these years later, still having similar conversations. First, let’s talk high level about the similarities.

S/4HANA, HANA, and ECC are all SAP products. Often when people think of SAP, they’re talking about ECC and/or S/4HANA.

Both are ERP platforms. HANA is a database. So if you’re looking for the most basic explanation:

·      ECC = SAP’s previous version of their ERP platform

·      S/4HANA = SAP’s current version of their ERP platform

·      HANA = SAP’s in-memory database

But of course, nothing is ever simple. Without diving too deep, let’s expand just a little bit on each of these to provide a bit more context. From the bottom up…

HANA

Simply put, HANA is a database. HANA is SAP’s in-memory database that they developed to help revolutionize and differentiate themselves in the database space in the early 2010s. The in-memory part allows for faster speed, flexibility, and data performance over traditional data store methods.

HANA is also much more than just an in-memory database; it’s a database management system. I like to say HANA is a data toolkit. In addition to the database storage components, there are several analytical engines for data processing as well as the incorporation of open-source statistical programming. HANA is also a web-based application server, which allows user-facing applications to be tightly integrated with the database and analytics engines. If you take one sentence from this, HANA is a better, faster database with a toolset of analytics and integration tools. It is also the foundational layer and database for S/4HANA.

S/4 HANA

S/4 HANA is SAP’s latest iteration of Enterprise Resource Planning software. Although calling it software is a misnomer and dated. S/4HANA is much more like the business tools we leverage today. It’s web-based, it’s device-agnostic, it’s customizable, and its design enables users to make better, smarter faster decisions. A new generation release to replace ECC with simplified business process design and database model exclusively leveraging SAP HANA data management platform for transactional and embedded analytics.

For the user at an organization, this means that they can perform their job on any device, anywhere there’s internet, in a simpler, faster way—no more filling in 25 different fields on a form to place an order. S/4HANA also leverages more real time and embedded analytics to help drive user’s actions.

ECC

ECC is an acronym for ERP Central Component. ECC is SAP’s previous generation of enterprise resource planning software and its core product. It is essentially what people think of when they think SAP. It includes business processes around operations (Sales & Distribution, Materials Management, Production Planning, Logistics Execution, and Quality Management), Finance (Financial Accounting, Management Accounting), etc.

ECC was released in 2004 or 2006 (depending on if you’re referring to ECC5 or the more ubiquitous ECC6) to replace SAP’s previous generation, R/3, which had been around since 1992. So, just as ECC replaced R/3, S/4HANA is to replace ECC over the next few years. The natural evolution of new products replacing old.

ECC, HANA, and S/4HANA have many more layers that would take longer than these pages allow. However, I hope this provides you with a little cheat-sheet next time someone confuses or misuses one of these terms.