HANA Multitenant Database Containers (MDC)

The new releases of HANA DB including HANA Express support Multitenant Database Containers (MDC). The concept of Multitenant Database Containers can be confusing for those coming from a background where a database server can host many databases such as MySQL. Why? Because you naturally expect a database server to be capable of hosting more than one database irrespective of database vendor. The idea that a database server could only host one database would raise an eyebrow for many developers.

Prior to Multitenant Database Containers, HANA DB, only supported a Single Database Container. That is, one HANA system, one database. To achieve multi tenancy, virtualization technology such as WM ware was required. With the release of SPS09, SAP introduced Multitenant Database Containers that allow multiple databases to reside in a single HANA system. Tenant databases in the same system, share the same resources (memory and CPU), however each tenant database is isolated with its own users, catalog, repositories, data files and services. It is now possible to run both SAP Business Suite and SAP Business Warehouse in the same HANA system using multiple tenants.

Tenant databases can also be spread across multiple nodes and can be allocated system resources independent of each other. All tenant databases are managed by the SystemDB.