Preface

The SAP PRESS Certification Series is designed to provide anyone who is preparing to take an SAP certified exam with all of the review, insight, and practice they need to pass the exam. The series is written in practical, easy-to-follow language that provides targeted content that is focused on what you need to know to successfully take your exam.

This book is specifically written for those preparing to take the SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP HANA C_HANAIMP_11 exam, so if you’ve purchased this book, you’re obviously interested in learning how to successfully pass the certification exam. This book will also be helpful to those of you taking the SPS 09 exam (C_HANAIMP151) and SPS 10 delta exam (D_HANAIMP_10). The SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP HANA exam tests the taker in the areas of data modeling. It focuses on core SAP HANA skills, as opposed to skills that are specific to a particular implementation type (e.g., SAP BW on SAP HANA or SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA). The Application Associate test can be taken by anyone who signs up.

Using this book, you will walk away with a thorough understanding of the exam structure and what to expect in taking it. You will receive a refresher on key concepts covered on the exam, and will be able to test your skills via sample practice questions and answers. The book is closely aligned with the course syllabus and the exam structure, so all of the information provided is relevant and applicable to what you need to know to prepare. We explain the SAP products and features using practical examples and straightforward language, so you can prepare for the exam and improve your skills in your day-to-day work as an SAP HANA data modeler. Each book in the series has been structured and designed to highlight what you really need to know.

Structure of This Book

Each chapter begins with a clear list of the learning objectives, such as:

Techniques You’ll Master

• How to prepare for the exam
• Understanding the general exam structure
• Practice questions and preparation

From there, you’ll dive into the chapter and get right into the test objective coverage.

Throughout the book, we’ve also provided several elements that will help you access useful information:

• [+] Tips call out useful information about related ideas and provide practical suggestions for how to use a particular function.
• [»] Notes provide other resources to explore or special tools or services from SAP that will help you with the topic under discussion. The following boxes are examples of these elements:

[»] Note

This certification guide covers all topics you need to successfully pass the exam. It provides sample questions similar to those found on the actual exam.

[+] Tip

This book contains screenshots and diagrams to help your understanding of the many information modeling concepts.

Each chapter that covers an exam topic is organized in a similar fashion so you can become familiar with the structure and easily find the information you need. Here’s an example of a typical chapter structure:

• Introductory bullets
  The beginning of each chapter discusses the techniques you must master to be considered proficient in the topic for the certification examination.
• Topic introduction
  This section provides you with a general idea of the topic at hand to frame future sections. It also includes objectives for the exam topic covered.
• Real-world scenario
  This part shows a scenario that provides you with a case where these skills would be beneficial to you or your company.
• Objectives
  This section provides you with the necessary information to successfully pass this portion of the test.
• Key concept refresher
  This section outlines the major concepts of the chapter. It identifies the tasks you will need to be able to understand or perform properly to answer the questions on the certification examination.
• Important terminology
  Just prior to the practice examination questions, we provide a section to review important terminology. This may be followed by definitions of various terms from the chapter.
• Practice questions
  The chapter then provides a series of practice questions related to the topic of the chapter. The questions are structured in a similar way to the actual questions on the certification examination.
• Practice question answers and explanations
  Following the practice exercise are the solutions to the practice exercise questions. As part of the answer, we discuss why an answer is considered correct or incorrect.
• Takeaway
  This section provides a takeaway or reviews the areas you should now under-stand. The refresher section identifies the key concepts in the chapter. We also provide some tips related to the chapter.
• Summary
  Finally, we conclude with a summary of the chapter.

Now that you have an idea of how the book is structured, the following list will dive into the individual topics covered in each chapter of the exam:

• Chapter 1, SAP HANA Certification Track—Overview, provides a look at the different certifications for SAP HANA: associate, professional, and specialist. It then looks at the general exam objectives, structure, and scoring.
• Chapter 2, SAP HANA Training, discusses the available training and training material other there for test takers, so you know where to look for answers beyond the book. We identify the SAP Education training courses available for classroom, virtual, and e-learning, in addition to SAP Learning Hub offerings. We then look into additional resources, including official SAP documentation, SAP HANA Academy video tutorials, and more.
• Chapter 3, Architecture and Deployment Scenarios, walks through the evolution of SAP HANA’s in-memory technology and how it addresses the problems of the past, such as slow disk. From there, you are given an overview of the persistence layer, before looking at the different deployment options including cloud deployments.
• Chapter 4, Information Modeling Concepts, discusses general modeling concepts such as cubes, fact tables, the difference between attributes and measures, in addition to covering general modeling best practices.
• Chapter 5, Information Modeling Tools, you’ll get to know SAP HANA’s primary modeling tools, including SAP HANA studio and the SAP HANA web-based development workbench. In addition, you’ll learn how to create new information models, tables, and data.
• Chapter 6, Information Views, looks in depth at the three primary information views in SAP HANA, as well as the tools for migrating old information views, such as analytic and attribute views, to the new standard.
• Chapter 7, Advanced Information Modeling, takes what we’ve learned one step further. In this chapter, you’ll learn to enhance information views with calculated columns, filter expressions, and more.
• Chapter 8, SQL and SQLScript, reviews how to enhance SAP HANA models using SQL and SQLScript to create tables, read and filter data, create calculated columns, implement procedures, use user-defined functions, and more.
• Chapter 9, Text, Spatial, and Predictive Modeling, looks at more advanced topics, such as creating a text search index, implementing fuzzy search and text analysis, using the key components of spatial processing, and creating predictive analysis models.
• Chapter 10, Optimization of Information Models, reviews how to monitor, investigate, and optimize data models in SAP HANA. We’ll look at how optimization effects architecture, performance, and information modeling techniques. We’ll then dive into the different tools used for optimization including the Explain Plan, Visualize Plan, Administration console, and the Performance Analysis Mode.
• Chapter 11, Administration of Information Models, teaches the finer points of data model administration. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to validate information models, the difference between design-time and runtime objects, the transport process, the refactoring process, and much more.
• Chapter 12, SAP HANA Live, looks at how to adapt pre-delivered content to your own business solutions using SAP HANA Live. You’ll learn about SAP HANA Live’s different views, and its two primary tools: SAP HANA Live Browser and the SAP HANA Live Extension Assistant.
• Chapter 13, Security, discusses how users, roles, and privileges work together. We’ll look at the different types of users, template roles, and privileges that are available in the SAP HANA system.
• Chapter 14, Data Provisioning, introduces the concepts, tools, and methods for data provisioning in SAP HANA. From SAP Data Services to SAP HANA smart data streaming (SDS).
• Chapter 15, Utilization of Information Models, concludes our book with details on basic business intelligence concepts and technologies. We’ll look at business intelligence tools for Microsoft Office integration, applications and dashboards, data discovery, and reporting.