SAP HANA Predictive Analysis Library (PAL)

1 What is PAL?
SAP HANA’s SQLScript is an extension of SQL. It includes enhanced control-flow capabilities and lets
developers define complex application logic inside database procedures. However, it is difficult to describe
predictive analysis logic with procedures.
For example, an application may need to perform a cluster analysis in a huge customer table with 1T records. It
is impossible to implement the analysis in a procedure using the simple classic K-means algorithms, or with
more complicated algorithms in the data-mining area. Transferring large tables to the application server to
perform the K-means calculation is also costly.
The Predictive Analysis Library (PAL) defines functions that can be called from within SQLScript procedures to
perform analytic algorithms. This release of PAL includes classic and universal predictive analysis algorithms
in nine data-mining categories:
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Clustering
Classification
Regression
Association
Time Series
Preprocessing
Statistics
Social Network Analysis
Miscellaneous
The algorithms in PAL were carefully selected based on the following criteria:
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The algorithms are needed for SAP HANA applications.
The algorithms are the most commonly used based on market surveys.
The algorithms are generally available in other database products.
PAL on SAP HANA Smart Data Streaming
PAL also provides several incremental machine learning algorithms that learn and update a model on the fly,
so that predictions are based on a dynamic model.
For detailed information, see the "Machine Learning with Streaming" section in the SAP HANA Smart Data
Streaming: Developer Guide.
Note
SAP HANA Smart Data Streaming is only supported on Intel-based hardware platforms.
SAP HANA Predictive Analysis Library (PAL)
What is PAL? P U B L I C 5