The SAP HANA database extends the scope of traditional database engines as it supports data models beyond regular tables, e.g. text, graphs or hierarchies. Moreover, SAP HANA also provides developers with a more fine-grained control to define their database application logic, e.g. exposing specific operators which are difficult to express in SQL. Finally, the SAP HANA database implements efficient communication to dedicated client applications using more effective communication mechanisms than available with standard interfaces like JDBC or ODBC. These features of the HANA database are complemented by the extended scripting engine–an application server for server-side JavaScript applications–that is tightly integrated into the query processing and application lifecycle management. As a result, the HANA platform offers more concise models and code for working with the HANA platform and provides superior runtime performance. This paper describes how these specific capabilities of the HANA platform can be consumed and gives a holistic overview of the HANA platform starting from query modeling, to the deployment, and efficient execution. As a distinctive feature, the HANA platform integrates most steps of the application lifecycle, and thus makes sure that all relevant artifacts stay consistent whenever they are modified. The HANA platform also covers transport facilities to deploy and undeploy applications in a complex system landscape.