SAP TechEd Bangalore – Next stop: cloud services
A few weeks ago, our technical leads attended SAP Teched Bangalore, that took place from 13th to 15th Nov 2019. It was an eye-opening experience, giving the possibility to learn more about SAP roadmap as well as the latest developments in Digital Transformation.
SAP Cloud Platform was a big word in this year’s edition. In this post, TJC technical teams share their takeaways of the session “Unboxing SAP Cloud Platform”, which focused on 2 programming models:
- CAP – Cloud application programming model. For e.g.: Nodejs or JavaScript
- RAP – Restful application programming model. For e.g.: ABAP
A variety of Cloud service options
SAP HANA can be deployed on-premises for maximum control, in the cloud for fast time to value, or through a hybrid model that supports a variety of deployment scenarios – from on-premises to any public or private cloud. This session delved into the range of cloud options:
Private Cloud:
- IBM and SAP will deliver SAP Cloud Platform, a private edition on IBM Cloud Datacentres providing additional value-added capabilities like SAP S/4HANA extensions, data-driven SAP HANA apps, and integration with IBM Watson services. This will also address regulated industries, and both SAP and IBM are collaborating to enable U.S. FedRAMP certification.
- Atos and SAP will deliver SAP Cloud Platform, a private edition together with Atos Codex data and analytics service portfolio, which enables businesses to build analytic accelerators and offer new differentiating customer experiences and services. Atos will provide the capacity in Europe, specifically in Germany.
SAP Business Hub: SAP Business Hub is the central catalogue of SAP and selected APIs partner for application developers to search, discover, test and consume these APIs to build extensions or integrations using the HANA Cloud Platform.
SAP Business Application Studio:
- SAP Business Application Studio is now available for Beta on SAP’s Multi-Cloud environment (Cloud Foundry)! It can be enabled in a Cloud Foundry sub account that has the “Beta features” check box enabled.
- SAP Business Application Studio is an evolution of the current development environment SAP Web IDE by providing an improved development experience which is consistent with leading IDEs in the market.
- It is planned to be generally available in the first half of 2020 as per SAP blog. Here’s additional information from SAP Blogs: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/10/15/showcasing-sap-business-application-studio-the-next-generation-of-sap-web-ide/
Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba and SAP announced to offer SAP S/4HANA Cloudand SAP Cloud Platform on Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in China to help customers transition to the cloud and build intelligent enterprises.
Application and content transport in SAP Cloud Platform: SAP Cloud Platform Transport Management is a purely cloud-based solution for transporting development artifacts or application configuration content between SAP Cloud Platform subaccounts (respectively Cloud Foundry spaces).
- Transport management service is useful to transport cloud centric solution.
- Transport of development and application content (such as from SAP Cloud Platform integration).
- Transport management service is available in cloud foundry environment and it is paid service.
- We can integrate transport management into CI/CD pipeline. Here’s a related blog article for further detail: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/08/20/how-to-integrate-sap-cloud-platform-transport-management-into-your-cicd-pipeline/.
SAP Cloud Platform Portal (User-friendly single-entry point): SAP Cloud Platform Portal (on multi-cloud environment) is evolving to provide users a secure, central entry point to easily access applications, information, and tasks from on-premise and cloud.
- Modernize user experience with latest SAP Fiori 3 design
- Extend regional availability through additional data centres on multi-cloud environment
- Enhance capabilities to consume remote content from SAP on-premise systems (such as SAP S/4HANA) and cloud solutions (such as SAP SuccessFactors solutions)
- Support integration of multiple SAP S/4HANA systems
- Integrate central services such as inbox, notifications, search
- Support transition from SAP Enterprise Portal to the cloud
- Enable customers to build digital workplaces
Monitoring and logging an application in SAP Cloud Platform:
1. Monitoring
- Dynatrace tool – needs to be used for application monitoring. We can monitor CPU usage, memory usage, DB usage, custom metrics.
- Application-log service – to be implemented for logging purpose. We can log the custom messages based on business requirement.
2. Alert Notification Service.
If application is down, then we can use alert notification service in SCP to send the notification (slack, email etc). We will get the exception management dashboard to view the log
3. Automation pilot service.
This service is under lab preview and not available for customer use.Example: If application is down with status 401 and as a solution if we re-stage and re-start the application then application will be built and deployed in working condition.
So, this scenario can be automated with automation pilot service. This can be implemented in future based on our analysis of common issues and its resolution.
TJC Group has implemented application-log service to log application standard and custom log. We are also using Dynatrace tool to monitor an application deployed in cloud foundry environment.
An intelligent Enterprise
The new SAP Intelligent enterprise framework will provide all the solutions you need to bring operations and experience together. A great experience is nothing without operational excellence behind it and vice versa; great operations are nothing without a great experience.
SAP is evolving the digital platform into a business technology platform, ensuring out-of-the-box integration, modularity, ease of extension.
The business technology platform unites SAP Cloud Platform, HANA, Analytics and business services with one commercial model around it. It’s a cultural shift to make everyone’s life better.
Note: all images are authored by SAP and were shared at SAP TechEd Bangalore educational sessions.
