Configuring Spring Boot with SAP HANA Express JDBC Driver

August 30, 2025

#1

This guide shows how to set up a Spring Boot project that connects to SAP HANA Express using the official JDBC driver. The steps are simple and can be followed directly.

1. Create a Spring Boot Project

You can generate a project using Spring Initializr :

• Project: Maven
• Language: Java
• Spring Boot: Latest stable version
• Dependencies: Spring Data JPA, Spring Web
• Download and extract the generated project.

2. Add SAP HANA JDBC Driver

SAP HANA JDBC driver is not available in Maven Central. You must download it manually.

• Go to SAP Development Tools.
• Download ngdbc.jar (SAP HANA JDBC driver).
• Install the JAR into your local Maven repository:

  mvn install:install-file \
    -Dfile=ngdbc.jar \
    -DgroupId=com.sap.cloud.db.jdbc \
    -DartifactId=ngdbc \
    -Dversion=2.18.14 \
    -Dpackaging=jar

3. Configure pom.xml

Add the dependency for the installed driver:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.sap.cloud.db.jdbc</groupId>
    <artifactId>ngdbc</artifactId>
    <version>2.18.14</version>
</dependency>

4. Configure application.properties

Add the SAP HANA database connection:

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:sap://localhost:39015/?databaseName=HXE
spring.datasource.username=SYSTEM
spring.datasource.password=YourPassword
spring.datasource.driver-class-name=com.sap.db.jdbc.Driver
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
spring.jpa.database-platform=org.hibernate.dialect.HANARowStoreDialect

⚠️ Replace localhost, 39015, and YourPassword with your actual SAP HANA Express connection details.

5. Create a Simple Entity

Example: User.java

import jakarta.persistence.Entity;
import jakarta.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import jakarta.persistence.GenerationType;
import jakarta.persistence.Id;

@Entity
public class User {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;
    private String name;
    // getters and setters
}

6. Create a Repository

import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User, Long> {
}

7. Test the Connection

In src/main/java/.../DemoApplication.java:

import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;

@SpringBootApplication
public class DemoApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    CommandLineRunner init(UserRepository repo) {
        return args -> {
            repo.save(new User("Alice"));
            repo.findAll().forEach(user -> System.out.println(user.getName()));
        };
    }
}

Run the app with:

mvn spring-boot:run

If the setup is correct, you will see Alice printed in the console