SAP HANA Certifications
There are currently six certification examinations available for SAP HANA, as listed in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1 SAP HANA Certifications
In Table 1.1, you will see that the certifications have different prefixes. The C prefix indicates full, core exams for SAP HANA data modeling, the E prefix indicates certification exams for specialists, and the P prefix denotes a professional-level certification exam.
Table 1.1 also lists the main SAP training courses available for each certification, how many questions will be asked in each certification exam, and how much time is available when taking the examination.
While not shown here, the exams for all certifications have a unique number at the end of their names (e.g., C_HANATEC_11 is the technical certification exam for SAP HANA SPS 11). We’ll discuss these different numbers in Table 1.2.
We can divide these different certifications into three categories: associate, professional, and specialist (as shown in the Type of Certification column in Table 1.1). Let’s walk through these different categories.
Associate-Level Certification
The associate-level certification proves that you understand SAP HANA concepts and can apply them in projects. The associate-level certifications are based in theory and are meant for people who are new to SAP HANA.
The question we ask project members when setting up these certifications is: "What would you want candidates to be able to do and understand when they join your project immediately after passing the certification exam?" Understanding the different concepts in SAP HANA and when to use them is important.
There are two types of SAP HANA certifications that fall under the associate-level: C_HANAIMP (modeling) and C_HANATEC (technical).
C_HANAIMP Modeling Certification
As previous discussed, the C prefix indicates the full, core exams for SAP HANA data modeling. IMP refers to the implementation of SAP HANA applications. This examination consists of 80 questions, and you are given three hours to complete the exam.
The certification does not have any prerequisites. The main SAP training courses that help you prepare for this certification exam are HA100 and HA300. This book and this certification exam is intended for information modelers, database administrators, architects, developers of SAP HANA applications, ABAP and Java developers, people who perform data integration and reporting, those who are interested in technical performance tuning, SAP BW information modelers, data scientists, and/or anyone who wants to understand basic SAP HANA modeling concepts.
This certification exam tests your knowledge in SAP HANA subjects such as architecture, deployment, information modeling, data provisioning (i.e., how to get data into SAP HANA), using information models (e.g., through reporting), security, optimization, administration, and SAP HANA Live.
C_HANATEC Technical Certification
The C_HANATEC certification exam is meant for technical people such as system administrators, database administrators, SAP Basis people, technical support personnel, and hardware vendors. This certification does not have any prerequisites. The main training course for this exam is HA200.
This certification exam tests your knowledge of SAP HANA installations, updates, upgrades, migrations, system monitoring, administration, configuration, performance tuning, high availability, troubleshooting, backups, and security.
Professional-Level Certification
The professional certification (P_HANAIMP) proves that you are truly an SAP HANA expert. For the professional exam, there are no official training materials. This exam is more practical and assumes that you have a wealth of experience working with SAP HANA. SAP recommends that you have worked with SAP HANA and information modeling for at least three years prior to taking this exam. Even though there are no training materials, reading this book and the official documentation at http://help.sap.com/hana, going through the materials at the links provided in this book, and helping other people solve problems will certainly help you with this type of certification exam.
The latest version of the professional certification exam is P_HANAIMP142, which came out in the second half of 2014. It focuses on SAP HANA SPS 8 and earlier and is a professional version of P_HANAIMP, so the intended audience is roughly the same as that of this book. This will be retired as of June 30th. The P_HANAIMP exam has not been renewed to the latest releases of SAP HANA, and is getting a bit outdated now.
This certification also does not have any prerequisites, so you don’t have to take the associate-level certification exam before you take this one. However, we encourage you to take the associate-level exam first as preparation for the professional-level examination. The areas tested in the professional exam are similar to those tested in the associate-level exam. However, where the associate-level examination bases all the questions and answers on the SAP training course materials, the professional certification is more based on practical and real-life experience.
Specialist-Level Certification
The specialist exams prove that you can apply SAP HANA concepts in your current specialist area. These are for people who are already certified in other areas outside of SAP HANA and want to gain additional knowledge of SAP HANA and how to apply it to their specialties. Such people might have backgrounds in SAP BW or ABAP, for example.
Each specialist exam includes 40 questions, and you have an hour an a half to complete the exam. They all have prerequisites (i.e., you have to be certified in a specialist area before you are allowed to take these SAP HANA certification exams). There are three specialist exams:
- E_HANAINS Installation Certification
This exam is for technical people who perform installations of SAP HANA and for hardware vendors. This exam requires that you are certified with C_HANATEC. The main training course for this exam is HA200. - E_HANAAW ABAP Certification
This is a specialist exam for ABAP developers. It requires that you are certified with ABAP. The main training course for this exam is HA400, in which you learn how ABAP development is different in SAP HANA systems than in older SAP NetWeaver systems. - E_HANABW SAP BW on SAP HANA Certification
This is an exam for people specializing in SAP BW. It requires that you are certified with SAP BW. The main training course for this exam is BW362.