Why the HANA Cloud Platform is Not a PaaS Platform
What This Article Covers
- SAP’s Statements on the HCP
- Is the HANA Cloud Platform an Actual Platform?
- Reviewing Throwaway Phrases from SAP on the HANA Cloud Platform
Introduction
In previous articles, I explained why the HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), is specifically designed to perform both cloud washing and HANA washing. However, something else that is misleading about the HANA Cloud Platform, is that it is not a PaaS. In this article, we will cover why.
SAP’s Statements on the HANA Cloud Platform
SAP HANA Cloud Platform, the in-memory Platform-as-a-Service offering from SAP, enables customers and developers to build, extend, and run applications on SAP HANA in the cloud.
Here is SAP’s video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfraEpb8DzA
Reviewing Throwaway Phrases from SAP on the HANA Cloud Platform
As you can see SAP is stating that the HANA Cloud Platform is easier and less expensive than the way things “used” to be done. The voiceover states that you can..
- Rapidly develop and deploy solutions for greater innovation
- Reduce total cost of development or ownership
- Scale applications to meet your changing needs
- Innovate quickly
- Leverage existing investments
- Out of the box integration*
- Reduct risks and costs while improving ROI
These are all really just throw away phrases. SAP declares the same thing on pretty much every product but never proves any of these statements. This is really just designed to fool the executives into thinking something special is going on with HANA Cloud Platform. If we look at one of the promises from the video, “out of the box integration” that is a routinely stated and false promise that not only SAP makes, but that most other vendors have also used. It is basically a throwaway sales line. It is very close in credibility to “the check is in the mail.”
And extra reason why it is not to be believed is because SAP does not offer any new technology with the HANA Cloud Platform. HANA Cloud Platform’s capabilities are replicated by any number of development environments. Almost all of the benefits declared in this video are illusions, because the HANA Cloud Platform has no advantage over other development environments. Secondly, SAP has no history creating development environments, so the HANA Cloud Platform’s likelihood of success is very low.
Is the HANA Cloud Platform an Actual Platform?
The last word in the product’s name is “platform.” However, is the HANA Cloud Platform a platform? Well, no because the HCP is a development environment. However, if you use SAP’s IaaS service called HANA Infrastructure Services, then you are using a platform.
