Great times for EiGHT. As the youngest INNOV8 member on board, he got to go straight to one of the best events of the year: SAP TechEd. After nervously spinning in circles a few times on his tracks, he was able to board the plane after a short delay.
Once I arrived in Barcelona, I headed straight to the venue, picked up my badges, and “devoured” one session after another. Curious about the highlights of SAP TechEd? You can read all about them in this blog.
1. Multi-cloud
SAP has a compelling offering with its Cloud Platform, which SAP positions primarily as an extension and integration platform. The SAP Cloud Platform offers a wide range of services and technical capabilities. SAP is now truly phasing out the Neo Platform, which served as the starting point for the SAP Cloud Platform. Services are being migrated to the standards-based Cloud Foundry Stack. Cloud Foundry aligns seamlessly with industry standards.
Over the years, SAP has added more and more services to its Cloud Platform. These services are primarily deployed in the systems or innovation layer—ranging from machine learning to mobile services, from API management to cloud portals, and so on. SAP’s focus has always been: SAP Cloud Platform is the way to go. It covers all innovative IT solutions. This has changed. In recent years, SAP has been looking more and more toward other hyperledgers. SAP has ensured that services from its Cloud Platform also run on other cloud solutions, such as those from Google, Amazon, and so on. That’s great—and it’s also what the market and customers expect.
Take the next step
SAP is now taking this a step further. SAP is taking an increasingly critical look at its own services on SCP and focusing on what sets it apart. For example, you can no longer purchase the PostgreSQL database through SCP; instead, you’ll need to purchase it through other hyperscalers. These are the first steps toward the hyperscaler strategy. SAP is increasingly leveraging the capabilities of other hyperscalers—such as Google Cloud, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba—and is thereby embracing the multi-cloud concept. With multi-cloud, you combine the strengths of other cloud solutions with SAP solutions. One thing stood out particularly during TechEd: the “SAP Leonardo umbrella” was mentioned less frequently. In particular, the Internet of Things (IoT) component, which was clearly present last year, was less prominent. Back then, there was a lot of focus on IoT Service 4.0 rather than the 2.0 service. This year, there were virtually no sessions on the topic. This, too, is a result of SAP’s focus on differentiated services. One example is the power of Azure IoT services, which offer a more powerful, simpler, and also more cost-effective solution. SAP is clearly shifting toward a multi-cloud strategy and is increasingly entering into collaborations and partnerships with major hyperscalers such as Google and Microsoft.
2. Cloud Application Programming Model / Cloud SDK
As mentioned above, SAP focuses on areas where it stands out. With the SAP Application Programming Model, you can develop front-end, back-end, and services in a structured way. You also structure your data modeling in the Cloud Stack.
We previously wrote about this in the blog post “SAP Application Programming Model.” DJ Adams also told us all about it during the SAP Codejam.
The Cloud SDK is available for extending an S/4HANA system. It is available for both Node.js and Java. The Cloud SDK and the Cloud Application Programming Model are two areas where SAP is investing heavily. A great deal of documentation is available on CAP. Initially, the Cloud SDK was only available as a “Java version.” However, the Cloud SDK has now been available as a Node.js variant for some time. Both are great developments, and SAP definitely views this as the framework for developing cloud apps or extending S/4HANA within the SDK. The way I see it: the SDK is a great evolution—from what was initially a well-stocked LEGO box with all kinds of blocks to a framework with many standard building blocks and a clear structure, which you can use to build cloud solutions.
During TechEd, SAP also positioned this effectively, clearly highlighting the Cloud SDK, CAP, and ABAP in the cloud
3. Project Piper
Cloud development (but why not on-premises as well?) involves continuous integration and continuous delivery. In other words, you deploy an app quickly, frequently, and preferably in a fully or highly automated manner to the test, acceptance, or production environment. Several years ago, SAP published a best practice guide on how to set up various CI/CD tools. For example, it covered how to combine them and what steps are required, such as setting up Jenkins, Gerrit, linting, etc. This best practice was focused more on on-premises CI/CD environments. Project Piper is a broad initiative by SAP to make all kinds of ready-to-use pipelines available. For example, SAP now offers a Docker image that includes a preconfigured Jenkins environment. You can use this to test a Node.js app.
With a Docker image, you can set up a CI/CD pipeline very easily. You connect the Docker image to GitHub and the SAP Cloud Platform so you can deploy to it. That’s all there is to it! Within this pipeline, you can easily check the code for Lint (coding) errors, run integration tests, bundle the code, and deploy it to Cloud Foundry. environment.
There are efforts underway to reconnect these pipelines to a type of Solution Manager in the cloud. This allows you to deploy applications in a structured manner within the cloud landscape.
4. Experience data
At SAP TechEd, there was also a lot of focus on Qualtrics, both in the keynote and in various other sessions. Qualtrics is SAP’s most recent major acquisition. Qualtrics provides insight into the emotional aspect of a solution and combines this with operational data. In other words, it combines X = eXperience data with OData, the operational data.
Qualtrics offers various products focused on user experience. These include creating surveys, tracking user actions, and collecting user reviews within, for example, an online store. This provides insight into how the online store is used and perceived, and how satisfied customers are with a product. By combining this experience data (XData) with operational data, you gain a crystal-clear picture of what customers actually want and enjoy. With Qualtrics, you can better tailor the customer experience. And a satisfied customer is a returning customer. However, we haven’t seen many concrete examples. It’s clear that this technology still needs to be fully integrated into the SAP portfolio.
5. Chatbots – SAP Conversational AI
Last year, SAP clearly embraced chatbot technology with its acquisition of recast.ai. Recast.ai is a platform for developing chatbots. This appears to be at odds with SAP’s own project, called Co-Pilot. However, SAP plans to fully integrate this functionality into recast.ai.
A chatbot can provide significant added value during customer interactions, using multiple channels to reach customers. Web chat, voice, or Skype for Business, for example.
The key developments announced by SAP at the ” ” are:
- Introduction of Single Sign-On, which allows you to easily connect various SAP systems to this platform.
- The OData generator is a great development. It allows you to generate a chatbot from services (the data containing entities). The chatbot can then be further customized.
- SAP Conversational AI trial environment; For now, this is the cai.tools.sap.com site. Unfortunately, the service on the Cloud Platform is currently only available to production users and is not yet available for trial. The Product Owner indicated that he is working to make it available on the Cloud Foundry trial account as well.
To learn more about chatbots, read this blog post, “Talk to Me, Baby!“
6. Extension Factory
The topic of Extension Factory is taking on an increasingly prominent role in SAP communications and, for example, during keynotes. Extension Factory is a set of tools and services that allows you to perform custom development through a well-designed framework applies to standard SAP applications in the cloud.
With SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory, developers can extend standard SAP solutions more quickly and create event-driven extensions for other SAP Cloud applications more quickly. For example, S/4HANA in the cloud or SuccessFactors.
For example, you can use events. Events from, say, S/4HANA can trigger a custom app. You can also execute something else (via code—it could be anything) in response to a change. An action can launch a custom application, initiate communication, or, for example, save something back to SuccessFactors.
Many components of the Extension Factory are serverless. As a user, it doesn’t matter to you where it runs—what matters is that it runs.
7. Fiori
SAP has adopted Fiori as the standard SAP user interface. However, this has been largely unnoticeable in the products SAP has acquired in recent years. If you were to compare the various SAP products—such as Fieldglass, SuccessFactors, Hybris, etc.—each product still has its own layout, color scheme, and design patterns. There is no consistency (yet).
With the arrival of SAP Fiori, version 3.0, this will become a thing of the past. Users will soon have a uniform user interface, regardless of the application and/or SAP product.
This unified user interface gains even more power with the introduction of “My Tasks” in Fiori 3.0. From Fiori 3.0, you can perform all of the user’s tasks, regardless of which SAP product you’re using to perform them. It is now even possible to display tasks from non-SAP products in this inbox.
“My Tasks” will become the central entry point for end users. Because Fiori 3.0 is being adopted across all SAP products, users will enjoy a consistent user experience. This will make the interface very familiar to users and simplify their use of SAP.
There are several options when it comes to Fiori Development; read more about them in this blog post titled “Fiori Development.”
8. Data Focus
The focus on data was particularly striking this year. Many new developments fall under SAP’s Analytics umbrella. Perhaps the acquisition of Qualtrics is the reason for this. The terms XData and OData came up frequently and were touted as the new gold. Combining transaction data with experience data provides a complete end-to-end view.
Another trend we observed was the increasingly close integration of machine learning and artificial intelligence into SAP applications. It’s clear from everything SAP does that the company is strongly committed to the Intelligent Enterprise. In this context, end users receive guidance from SAP, and processes are being automated to an ever-greater extent using RPA (Robotic Process Automation).
Conclusion
It was an educational adventure for us and our EIGHT. Its motors were red-hot from racing between the different sessions.
We at believe that SAP is on the right track with its new Fiori strategy, which offers an attractive and consistent user interface across its entire product portfolio. In addition, SAP also provides the right tools for developers.
In addition, SAP is clearly committed to the Intelligent Enterprise, leveraging technologies such as machine learning, AI, and RPA. These tools allow you to replace and automate simple, repetitive user actions, freeing up the user’s time so they can focus on the activities within the process that really matter.
As for us… We’ve had some wonderful days and are continuing to explore certain innovations.
