A few notes to remember about free tier instances:
If you are using a free tier instance, you will only be able to create one instance with a predefined size (16 GB of memory, 1 vCPU, and 80 GB of storage). However, the process to create the instance is very similar to production environments, the difference being that in a production environment you can further customize your instance. For example, you can change advanced settings for your SAP HANA Cloud instance.
Free tier instances will be stopped on a nightly basis. Each time you start working with your free tier instance, you need to restart it.
If you do not restart your free tier instance within 30 days, it will be deleted. Your BTP account, however, will continue to exist and you can easily provision an instance again, if you wish to do so.
The instance summary card for a free tier instance does not display a cost estimate. If you are using free tier, ensure you see the free tier indicator icon since paid tier (right) will show you a cost estimate meaning charges will be incurred if you create an instance.
Estimator for each tier
Step 1Start the Provisioning Wizard
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To create your first instance of SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA database, you need to follow these steps:
In SAP BTP cockpit, open SAP HANA Cloud Central by clicking on the subscription to SAP HANA Cloud in the Subscriptions tab. With a Free Tier Service Plan, you have the option to configure your instance manually or clone a SAP HANA Database. Select Configure manually as shown below.
HCC ME tooling
On the top-right corner of the screen, click on Create Instance.
Create instance in SAP HANA Cloud Central
Here you must choose the Type of instance to create. Select SAP HANA Database.
Note that if you have enabled only one type of service plan in your SAP HANA Cloud entitlement (e.g. free tier only), the License section does not appear, and that service plan type will be used automatically.
To create your first instance of SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA database, you need to follow these steps:
In SAP BTP cockpit, open SAP HANA Cloud Central by clicking on the subscription to SAP HANA Cloud in the Subscriptions tab.
HCC ME tooling
On the top-right corner of the screen, click on Create Instance.
Create instance in SAP HANA Cloud Central
Here you must choose the Type of instance to create.
A License section will appear. To use the free tier model, click on Free Tier so that it is highlighted as shown below. Select SAP HANA Database. You have multiple options to configure your instance. Select Configure manually.
Note that if you have enabled only one type of service plan in your SAP HANA Cloud entitlement (e.g. free tier only), the License section does not appear and that service plan type will be used automatically.
Step 2Choose your license, instance name, and password
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In the Basics section, enter a name for your instance in the field Instance Name, such as HC_HDB.
This field does not allow any spaces in the name. Keep in mind that you will not be able to change the name after the instance has been created.
Insert a password in the Administrator Password field.
Confirm it by typing it again in the Confirm Administrator Password field.
HANA step 1
This password is the admin password for this instance, so make sure to use a strong password. If needed, the password can be reset via the actions menu Reset DBADMIN Password in SAP HANA Cloud Central if your user has the role SAP HANA Cloud Security Administrator.
There are different instructions available to you depending on whether you are using a free tier instance versus a productive instance. Please make sure to select the one that applies to your situation to get the most out of this tutorial.
In this step of the provisioning wizard, you can set up the size of your SAP HANA database in SAP HANA Cloud.
For a free tier instance, the size allocation is predefined to 16 GB for memory, 80 GB for storage and 1 vCPU for computation.
SAP HANA Database Memory Allocation
Click on Next Step to continue.
In a production environment, you are able to select a performance class and choose the initial size of your instance.
Here, you can select how much Memory you wish to allocate to this instance.
HDB Memory
As you increase your memory requirements, the Compute and Storage values will be automatically adjusted as well.
One the right, the total estimate of how many capacity units the service will consume is provided.
Follow this link to learn more about the memory allocation.
Click on Next Step to continue.
Step 4Specify database availability zone and replicas
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There are different instructions available to you depending on whether you are using a free tier instance versus a productive instance. Please make sure to select the one that applies to your situation to get the most of this tutorial.
Here, you can select in this step if you want to create replicas of your instance to increase your system availability. These replicas are exact duplicates of your instance that will be managed in the background and automatically synchronized. In case of issues, you can take over a replica of your instance to ensure minimal interruption.
In a free tier instance, availability zone and replicas are not supported.
HANA database replicas
To read more about increasing system availability, you can check this technical documentation.
Click on Next Step to continue.
Keep in mind that you cannot change the availability zone of the instance after it has been created. To update replicas, you need to delete and re-create them.
Select the availability zone for your instance and optionally, include a replica.
Availability Zone
To read more about increasing system availability, you can check this technical documentation.
Click on Next Step to continue.
Keep in mind that you cannot change the availability zone of the instance after it has been created. To update replicas, you need to delete and re-create the instance.
Step 5Check the advanced settings
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There are different instructions are available to you depending on whether you are using a free tier instance vs a productive instance. Please make sure to select the one that applies to your situation to get the most of this tutorial.
The Data Provisioning Server is not required in this tutorial mission.
You may manage the allowed connections for your SAP HANA database instance, i.e. allowing access to your SAP HANA database instance from outside of the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Selecting Allow only BTP IP addresses denies all IP addresses outside SAP BTP. You may choose to allow access to specific applications by inserting one or more specific IP addresses or you can allow connections from all IP addresses.
Next, you can also choose to enable the SAP Cloud Connector, which makes it easier to connect this SAP HANA database instance to an SAP HANA on-premises database. You can also set the connection preferences for your cloud connector under Allowed connections.
Keep in mind that you can still change your configurations here at a later point, if you decide to do so.
HDB advanced settings
Instance mapping enables an instance provisioned into the SAP BTP subaccount to be mapped into a runtime environment such as Cloud Foundry. Step-by-step instructions can be found in the Create a Development Project in SAP Business Application Studio tutorial.
Click on Next Step in the bottom left corner to continue.
Under Advanced Settings, you can choose to enable additional features such as the Script Server, Document Store, Triple Store, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Data Provisioning Server. If your database does not have the required vCPUs for either of the first two options, you can click on the link on the error message, which will change your original setup and add more vCPUs automatically.
Advanced Settings
You can now manage the allowed connections for your SAP HANA database instance, i.e., you can choose to allow access to your SAP HANA database instance from outside of the SAP Business Technology Platform. You can either limit it to SAP Business Technology Platform by denying all IP addresses or allow specific applications to access it by inserting one or more specific IP addresses. Finally, you can also allow all connections from all IP addresses.
Next, you can also choose to enable the SAP Cloud Connector, which makes it easier to connect this SAP HANA database instance to an SAP HANA on-premise database.
Select whether you want your SAP HANA database to connect to your on-premises remote sources through the cloud connector. For details, see the SAP HANA Database Connectivity Documentation.
Keep in mind that you can still change your configurations here at a later point, if you decide to do so.
Instance mapping enables an instance provisioned into the SAP BTP subaccount to be mapped into a runtime environment such as Cloud Foundry. Step-by-step instructions can be found in the Create a Development Project in SAP Business Application Studio tutorial.
Click on Next Step in the bottom left corner to continue.
Step 6Enable the SAP HANA Cloud, data lake (optional)
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In the last step of the provisioning wizard, you have the option of also provisioning a managed data lake. If you enable the data lake in this step, this data lake will have maximum compatibility with SAP HANA and a remote connection between your SAP HANA database and the data lake will be created automatically during provisioning.
If you do not wish to enable a data lake, you can skip this step by clicking on Review and Create in the bottom-right corner.
Once you select Create Data Lake option, two more menu options will appear in the wizard with additional steps. Note that a data lake Files instance is not included in the free tier plan.
Create Data Lake
Next, give your data lake instance a name under Instance Name.
When you add a managed data lake, the HDLADMIN user is automatically created and is given the same password as DBADMIN, which you set in the first step. If later you decide to change the password of one user, the password of the other user will not be automatically changed.
Name Data Lake
In production environment this is where you can adjust how many coordinators and workers you want for your data lake, as well the amount of storage you wish to allocate to this instance. But for a free tier instance, you can’t change these as they are predefined settings.
Please remember that you can enable or disable the data lake later as well if you prefer.
The coordinator and worker size, as well as the number of workers will affect instance pricing. For details, see SAP HANA Cloud Capacity Unit Estimator.
Data lake size
Click on Next Step to continue.
Now you can set up the Advanced Settings for the data lake instance. Here you can manage the allowed connections and chose - just like for your SAP HANA database in SAP HANA Cloud - if you want to allow only BTP IP addresses, all IP addresses or specific IP addresses.
Note that backups are not available for free tier instances.
Data lake advanced
Lastly, click on Review and Create to finish the provisioning process and Create Instance.
Data Lake Create Instances
If you click on Create data lake, a managed SAP HANA Cloud, data lake will be provisioned alongside your SAP HANA database in SAP HANA Cloud and will include a data lake Files instance.
Data Lake Enabled
Next, give your data lake instance a name under Instance Name.
Data lake name
When you add a managed data lake, the HDLADMIN user is automatically created and is given the same password as DBADMIN, which you set in the first step. If later you decide to change the password of one user, the password of the other user will not be automatically changed.
Click on Next Step to continue.
This is where you can adjust how many coordinators and workers you want for your data lake, as well the amount of storage you wish to allocate to this instance.
Data Lake IQ
The coordinator and worker size, as well as the number of workers will affect instance pricing. For details, see SAP HANA Cloud Capacity Unit Estimator.
Click on Next Step to continue.
Now you can set up the Advanced Settings for the data lake. Here you can manage the allowed connections and choose - just like you did for your SAP HANA database in SAP HANA Cloud - if you want to allow only BTP IP addresses, all IP addresses or, specific IP addresses. The last option also gives you the option to Copy IP addresses from the SAP HANA database choosing again, who can have access to your data lake instance.
HDL Connections
Lastly, click on Review and Create to finish the provisioning process.
You are done! Your first SAP HANA Cloud, SAP HANA database and data lake instances will be created, and you can monitor their status to see when they will be ready to be used. This process usually takes a few minutes.
Step 7Start and stop your instance
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The final step is learning how to stop and start your instance.
A free tier instance will be automatically stopped on a nightly basis, according to the server region time zone. That means you need to restart your instance before you start working with your instance every day.
To stop an instance, just click on Stop in the three dots menu next to the SAP HANA Cloud instance line in SAP HANA Cloud Central. Once your instance is stopped, the menu item will be updated to Start.
Three Dots
To restart the instance, simply click on the Start menu item. Once it’s ready to be used, it will show a green Created status on SAP BTP Cockpit, and a Running status on the SAP HANA Cloud Central.
Note that all these processes take a few minutes to be completed and to show an updated status. You can use the auto-refresh button to select how often you would like your instances list to periodically refresh.
Refresh Instances
Step 8Upgrade to Paid Tier
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When you are ready to upgrade your free tier instance running in a productive SAP BTP account to a Paid Tier, you can choose the three dots menu (under Actions) next to the SAP HANA Cloud instance line in SAP HANA Cloud Central. From here, click on Upgrade to Paid Tier. Note that paid tier plans must be enabled in your SAP HANA Cloud entitlement for the Upgrade to Paid Tier menu item to appear.
upgrade to paid tier
A dialog box will appear indicating that there will be costs associated with the Paid Tier instance – an estimate is also included. Click on Upgrade to Paid Tier to complete the process.
upgrade to paid tier
Now you know how to provision an instance of SAP HANA Cloud using SAP BTP Cockpit and SAP HANA Cloud Central. In the next tutorial, learn about the tools that help to manage and access your database instance.
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Steps
Step 1 of 9
1. Start the Provisioning Wizard2. Choose your license, instance name, and password3. Set up the size of your database4. Specify database availability zone and replicas5. Check the advanced settings6. Enable the SAP HANA Cloud, data lake (optional)7. Start and stop your instance8. Upgrade to Paid Tier9. Knowledge Check
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