Is Partitioning available in Hana 2 Express Edition?

[Former Member]

Is Partitioning available in Hana 2 Express Edition? Could anybody please provide a link to a web-page which contains that information?

When I try to create a very simple table like this: CREATE COLUMN TABLE MY_TABLE (a INT, b INT, PRIMARY KEY (a,b)) PARTITION BY RANGE (a) (PARTITION 1 <= VALUES < 5, PARTITION OTHERS); I'm getting an error like "SAP DBTech JDBC: [2048]: column store error: inactive server;newIndexWithParts(MY_DB:MY_TABLE),object=SYSTEMDB::MY_DB:MY_TABLEen" which I can neither understand nor find any meaningful information about it. Any other DDL & DML work fine.

[lsubatin]

I just tried that same example on my HXE VM and it works, is there any more information in the indexserver trace file?

[Former Member]

Hi Lucia,
The Express edition's limitations to 1 host and 32GB do not bother me, since I'm a Java developer doing a kind of preliminary evaluation - if Hana can work with some applications. I'm doing that with HXE instance installed in August 2017 by a sysadmin person who is not here anymore. When we did some research this morning with a new sysadmin we've found, that all the times when we restarted Hana the indexserver did not start automatically, and so there is no any such log file. Now when we tried to stat indexserver manually we've got an error:
"TREXIndexServer.cpp(04085) : Unable to obtain Service Database Name via environment variable $DBNAME!if started by hand use: DBNAME=XXX hdbindexserver"
Since I'm doing my evaluation in SYSTEMDB, we exported:
DBNAME=SYSTEMDB; export DBNAME
and then tried to start:
/usr/sap/HXE/HDB90/hxehost/trace> /usr/sap/HXE/HDB90/exe/hdbindexserver&
However if gave an error:
"service startup...
accepting requests at 127.0.0.1:39003
assigning to volume 2 ...
run as transaction master
[1]+ Segmentation fault /usr/sap/HXE/HDB90/exe/hdbindexserver"
The memory on that VM with Hana is 20GB. When sysadmin was trying to find around any relevant info, we've seen this:
"TNSInfo.cpp(00466) : sendRequest setinactive to hxehost:39001 failed with NetException. data=(S)databaseid=3|host=hxehost|port=39003|(I)daemon=2|type=1|(B)watchdog=0|"
BTW it's not clear - what is "hxehost:39001"? May be something else is missing? What is a bit strange, all the time before, I was able to create tables with Primary Key and then adding indexes - all that worked fine without indexserver... So it would be nice if you could give me advice how to start the indexserver correctly?
Thank you.

[lsubatin]

Hi, Vladimir, the systemdb does not have (and is not meant to have) an indexserver (some of its functions are covered by the name server), so if you are running this on the systemdb and not the tenant, you may need to look into other logs on why the partitioning is failing.

[lsubatin]

BTW, this is not an HXE system installed recently? What version/environment is this?

[Former Member]

Hi Lucia,
Soon after you posted a picture about your successful testing, another person - Ayman Salem left a comment stating the partitioning worked fine for his HXE in both SYSTEMDB & tenant DB, and so having in mind your hint "more information in the indexserver trace file" we were focused on finding especially index-server logs, expecting to find there some clues for the issue, and so we did not search around for "partition"-like occurrences.
When collecting per your request the info for versions, I got really surprised - I was thinking since that instance was installed in Aug-2017 then it should also be the same-dated version, however it turned out of 2016:

hxeadm@hxehost:/usr/sap/HXE/HDB90/hxehost/trace> HDB version
HDB version info:
version: 2.00.000.00.1479874437
branch: fa/hana2sp00
git hash: 2a3d5a559e1134fece774a8e60c6237ac1112d1f
git merge time: 2016-11-23 05:13:57
compile date: 2016-11-23 05:23:56
compile host: ld7272
hxeadm@hxehost:/usr/sap/HXE/HDB90> cat /etc/os-release
NAME="SLES_SAP"
VERSION="12-SP1"
VERSION_ID="12.1.0.1"
PRETTY_NAME="SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP1"
ID="sles_sap"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:suse:sles_sap:12:sp1"

Taking into account your recent comments about SYSTEMDB not having indexserver, we decided to correct our plans: 1) We've downloaded and are going to install the most recent version of HXE; 2) Upon installation we'll create a tenant DB and will do all our work there; 3) Check if indexserver is working, and start in manually otherwise. And regarding your explanations, it seems the Partitioning should start working.
One question: When we initially tried to deploy that recent OVA version on our VMWare VSphere 6.5, it turned out it can work only on VMWare Player. Would it be possible to convert that HXE-for-Player to VSphere one using the tool "vCenter Converter 6.2"? If "yes" then we'll need about couple of days for that replacement and I will be back soon after that with new results.

[lsubatin]

Hi, Vladimir,

Going for the latest version is always desirable and starting the indexserver manually should not be necessary. Looking at logs when you encounter errors is standard practice (in HXE, command cdtrace will take you to the directory with many relevant logs), not everything will be on the indexserver log anyways. You can find all of the documented installation options here: https://sap.com/developer/topics/sap-hana-express.html#flowchart

As for the conversion, I understand it is technically possible but never tried it. Please open a new question for this topic as it sounds this should be closed.

Take luck,

Lucia.

[Former Member]

Lucia, thank you for your help with this issue. We've just deployed the most recent HXE, created a tenant DB, and partitioning works!