SAP Hana is a columnar, in-memory database from SAP with support for NoSQL features. Hana supports multicore parallel operations, multi-tenancy, and is fully ACID compliant and can handle a diverse range of analytical workloads including predictive modelling, streaming analytics, time series analysis, and spatial, text, and graph-based analysis. You can also manage JSON based unstructured data within an SAP Hana system.

Hana also works natively with other SAP products such as SAP Fiori, which includes a wide range of SAP UX applications used in HR, finance, accounting, and other departments.

Business use cases: SAP has been a mainstay for enterprise organizations for several decades and is used for a wide range of applications, most notably perhaps for manufacturing and financial/accounting requirements. SAP Hana adds a formidable high-performance database to existing SAP installations. In general, due to the high cost involved with enterprise-grade deployments, SAP is used mainly for business-critical needs. The benefits of Hana for large organizations that are dependent on SAP may outweigh the costs. Furthermore, while Hana can deliver a wide range of NoSQL capabilities, companies may find that they will end up with two or more different solutions based on budget, performance needs, and other factors.