SAP Hana Express Edition On Premise - sufiyan63/SAP-Hana-Cloud GitHub Wiki
SAP Hana Express Edition On Premise
Installation
When you download SAPHANA Express Edition from the SAP Download Manager, it is typically provided as a preconfigured virtual machine image.
.ova file (for VirtualBox or VMware) – This is an "Open Virtual Appliance" format that contains the entire virtual machine setup, including the operating system, SAPHANA software, and preconfigured settings
PDF document for configuring in VMware. passwords, steps
Why can't you directly run it without VirtualBox or VMware?
The .ova file is designed to run inside a virtualized environment that mimics the hardware and software configuration required by SAPHANA. It already includes a Linux-based OS (SLES or RHEL) and all necessary dependencies.
Without a hypervisor like VMware or VirtualBox, you would have to manually install and configure SAPHANA on a bare-metal server running a compatible OS, which is complex and time-consuming.