As SAP HANA environments continue to grow and the demand for real-time data analytics increases, managing memory efficiently becomes critical. In the first part of this series, we explored strategies to handle database size challenges effectively. Now, let’s take it a step further by diving into SAP HANA’s Native Storage Extension (NSE) — a powerful, built-in solution that allows organizations to seamlessly offload less frequently accessed data to disk without sacrificing performance. Coupled with SAP HANA’s Fast Restart option, which leverages persistent memory techniques to speed up database reloads, these features can dramatically reduce downtime and optimize system responsiveness. With the support of modern storage platforms like Pure Storage FlashArray™, NSE and Fast Restart together offer a smart, flexible approach to extending memory capacity, accelerating restarts, and keeping your SAP HANA environment running at peak performance. In this post, I’ll share my hands-on experience testing both solutions, practical tips on data tiering, and the impressive results I’ve observed.

Is your SAP HANA database still rocking that summer “dad bod,” packed tight after months of unchecked growth – hoarding memory like it just discovered unlimited barbecue at a family party? You’re definitely not alone. With the end of summer snack season and the rush back to reality, it’s probably a good time for your database to shed a few gigabytes, tighten things up, and remember what it’s like to start up quickly for once.

Pure complements SAP’s new “RISE with SAP” subscription-based offering to help make your journey to the public cloud smoother and more cost-efficient.

Having run major SAP implementations and platforms in the past, I thought I’d share my perspective on how storage snapshots can help in an everyday SAP landscape.