How to backup HANA system?

Requirement : You want to perform ad hoc HANA database backup.
Prerequisite : You need a HANA database user with BACKUP OPERATOR or BACKUP ADMIN role assigned.
Step
  • Launch HANA studio and Open Administration perspective,  You can open it from Window > Open > Perspective > Administration Console.
  • Connect to your HANA system. In our case its K2K system.
  • Now select "Backup up system" from the context menu of backup node(shown below).
HANA Database backup
It will launch the backup wizard and will use the default Backup destination and Backup prefix parameter. The default backup destination path can be changed by changing following parameters in global.ini >persistence.
basepath_databackup = $(DIR_INSTANCE)/backup/data (default value)
  • Make changes to these default values if required and press next.
SAP HANA database backup parameters
  • Review the information in next screen and press 'Finish'.
SAP HANA backup review parameters
  • Now the backup is started and wizard will show you the progress for each service backup.
SAP HANA service backup status
  • Once the backup is finished , it will create following files at OS level. Note the number of files generated.
SAP HANA backup files


One can also trigger backup by executing the following SQL in SQL console.

BACKUP DATA USING FILE ('/usr/sap/K2K/HDB00/backup/data');

Note : Backup using SQL statements is only recommended for batch mode.

Reference : http://help.sap.com

Related Wiki:

HANA backup size/space estimation
We are planning HANA backup strategy and we need estimate of disk requirement. We can use HANA standard view M_CONVERTER_STATISTICS to estimate the backup requirement.