SAP confirms ERP on HANA database scheduled by year-end

Sikka first made the claim in a January interview with IDG News Service, and repeated it during another conversation this week on the eve of HANA's one-year anniversary since becoming generally available.

The port to SAP Business Suite's core ERP modules is "on track" with an RTC (release to customers) planned to arrive this year, Sikka said. RTC is a stage short of general availability, however, with a controlled group of initial customers.

Eventually, SAP hopes to lure customers now running Oracle's database over to HANA.

SAP's ERP software "is deliberately not optimized for a particular data store and makes little use of stored procedures, according to a FAQ document written by HANA expert John Appleby head of business analytics and technology at SAP consulting firm Bluefin Solutions. "However, to optimise ERP on HANA it is necessary to push the logic down into the database and make use of the SAP HANA stored procedure language SQLScript," he wrote.

Although the technical hurdles for the HANA-Business Suite port don't seem insurmountable, any effort by SAP to poach Oracle database customers will no doubt result in fierce tactical resistance and counter-marketing from Oracle. It also could take years for SAP to build a critical mass of high-profile reference customers who make the switch, something crucial to selling the idea of HANA to the bulk of its user base.

In the meantime, the company is planning to tout HANA's initial success during an event on Monday, where Sikka will appear.

HANA now has more than 350 customers, according to Sikka. Among those customers, about 150 have completed implementations with the rest undergoing pilot projects and other earlier-stage activities, he said.

Some 2,000 people around the world have also been trained on HANA, Sikka said.