Last week, SAP enthusiasts around the world were able to enjoy the latest technology announcements during the digital SAP TechEd. We’ve highlighted a few of the highlights and their associated benefits below.
SAP Low-Code / No-Code
Business Application Studio
With SAP Business Application Studio (BAS), SAP has launched a very powerful tool. BAS can be used to develop free-style SAPUI5 applications and low-code applications using Fiori Elements. For more information about BAS, see also“Unboxing SAP BAS.”
AppGyver
While Low Code is a laudable goal, it is not yet No Code. Last year, SAP made significant strides in the area of No Code with the acquisition of AppGyver. SAP has put in a tremendous amount of work to integrate AppGyver into the SAP ecosystem.
Shortly after acquiring AppGyver, we hosted a webinar; at that time, the integration with SAP still left something to be desired. This was mainly due to the very limited OData integration. Since then, a number of shortcomings have been resolved, and developing apps has become almost child’s play. Curious about app development in AppGyver? Then check out these videos: How to Build an App in AppGyver and Building an App with AppGyver.
One of the biggest eye-openers at TechEd in this regard is that OData integration is now fully supported. The look and feel has also been aligned with SAP Fiori, ensuring a uniform user interface. Many more improvements are on the horizon. With the improvements that have been implemented and those that have been announced, AppGyver deserves a follow-up in our webinar series.
SAP Fiori’s new Horizon theme
SAP’s next step in the area of user experience is focused on enabling people to work even faster and more intuitively, and to make business decisions based on better data than ever before. The first pillar of this journey is aesthetics, in the form of their new Horizon theme. Horizon can be seen as an evolution of SAP Fiori. It is more modern, even more user-friendly, and based on an accessible, modular design system. The key features of Horizon are:
- An attractive and fresh color palette in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines;
- A sense of focus achieved through contrast, white space, and bold typography to fit within a natural information hierarchy;
- Rounded corners for a friendly, more approachable modern look;
- A mobile-first approach to accelerate the learning curve across different devices;
- A new icon set that communicates clearly and has a modern feel.
Horizon represents more than just a theme; it represents a new way of building products. For example, Horizon has its own set of design principles and also comes with a sleek Dark Theme.
SAP BTP Command Line Interface
For experts, the Developer Keynote is often the icing on the cake at TechEd. The BTP Command Line Interface (CLI) took center stage in this session. Our favorite tech guru, DJ Adams, demonstrated that the BTP CLI is the most efficient way to interact with SAP BTP. In a flash, he created a subaccount and then configured it as a messaging service. You’ll never be able to do this as quickly and easily using the standard GUI. DJ’s closing remark was, therefore: “The future is terminal.”
Free tier
The SAP Business Technology Platform offers many subscription options, and for some time now, in addition to the “BTP Free Trial,” there has been a “Free Tier” option available to partners and customers. “Free” means you can test services in SAP BTP for free and without limits. This doesn’t include all services, but it does include many. At TechEd, the Free Tier was also released for individual developers. In other words, the Free Tier is now available to everyone. So what’s the difference between this and the long-standing BTP Trial? First of all, the availability of services may differ between the Free Tier and the BTP Trial. More importantly, when using the Free Tier, you can transition directly to production use. This isn’t possible in the BTP Trial environment, and the entire setup—including apps and the like—will need to be migrated to a production environment. So, if a service is available in the Free Tier, it’s generally better to use it because it makes going live much easier.
Kubernetes / Kyma
Finally, here’s the last highlight for now: Kubernetes/Kyma. SAP is increasingly relying on Kubernetes to run BTP services. We saw this, among other things, during TechEd. Kubernetes and Kyma are taking center stage within SAP BTP, giving your organization much greater flexibility in running services: Unified Runtime. The Unified Runtime is based on Kyma technology. With Kyma, it’s now possible to run Cloud Foundry functionality using compatibility tools. Another advantage of the Unified Runtime is that, as early adopters, you can now much more easily migrate functionalities you’re currently using in the NEO environment. Previously, you had to migrate these from NEO to Cloud Foundry, which was a full migration. Finally, with the Unified Runtime, you once again have the choice to run services via a hyperscaler or in an SAP-owned data center. With Cloud Foundry, this was purely hyperscaler-focused. In short, as SAP increasingly embraces Kubernetes, there is greater freedom of choice when deploying various functionalities.
Did you miss TechEd? You can watch all the sessions on SAPTechEd.com.
