SAP TechEd, the highly anticipated event of the year for tech enthusiasts, once again lived up to its reputation as the go-to place for technical insights. As part of the INNOV8iON team, we immersed ourselves in the event, both figuratively and literally. While enjoying a delightful Indian buffet, we explored the latest developments. At the same time, we gathered in our office to absorb the insights shared in the keynotes and attended numerous virtual lectures individually. The event’s central focus this year was undeniably on Artificial Intelligence and the Business Technology Platform.
Business Technology Platform (BTP)
SAP emphasized the importance of the Business Technology Platform, underscoring its commitment to the “clean core” principle. This principle, while no longer explicitly reiterated, is now deeply ingrained in SAP’s approach. During the keynote sessions, several customers were invited to briefly share their experiences with BTP, highlighting the specific ways it has empowered them. The flexibility of BTP in terms of options was clearly evident, and SAP has recently and thoughtfully provided a comprehensive BTP developer guide to streamline the process. https://help.sap.com/docs/btp/btp-developers-guide/what-is-btp-developers-guide
An exciting addition to BTP was announced even before TechEd—the inclusion of Terraform as another provider. Terraform brings the power of Infrastructure as Code (IAC), enabling the creation of descriptive models for your BTP landscape, roles, assignments, and more, thereby promoting repeatability.
Artificial Intelligence
The past year has seen significant investments in AI, large language models, and generative AI across the IT industry, and SAP has been no exception. SAP has worked tirelessly to integrate AI capabilities into its products and developer suites, with the latter promising a significant improvement in the overall developer experience.
Developer Experience
SAP’s introduction of SAP Build Code, alongside SAP Build for low-code and automation, has piqued our curiosity. SAP Build Code is designed for pro-code solutions, such as building applications with CAP (Cloud Application Programming Model), UI5, and Fiori Elements. It will offer additional features compared to Business Application Studio. Ahead of TechEd, a tantalizing preview was shared of CAPGPT, a prompt-driven CAP app generator.
At TechEd, everything became clearer. SAP will soon release a BTP-wide AI “assistant” called Joule. SAP Build Code will also leverage this additional feature called Joule, which in this case allows developers to describe applications in natural language and generate fully functional CAP applications, along with the ability to generate unit tests. Joule, however, is not yet available, and we anticipate its general release in Q1 2024.
ABAP Cloud, an area of pro-code development, also saw an improvement in its developer experience thanks to AI capabilities. Although still in its early stages, a demo showcased the ability to capture an image of a hand-drawn diagram depicting a domain model and automatically generate the necessary ABAP artifacts, including a complete RAP class structure—a promising time-saving tool for developers.
Business AI
SAP has integrated AI capabilities into SuccessFactors and various other scenarios, making its mark on the business AI landscape. Data scientists and engineers have a lot to look forward to, with features like “JustAsk” that answer questions about your dataset in SAP Analytics Cloud.
Notably, AI can be applied not only to ABAP (RAP) and CAP coding but also to SQL statement generation when building complex SQL queries. With the ability to connect to external large language models (LLMs), including GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and others, SAP has taken steps to facilitate this AI orchestration and seamless integration with various LLM providers.
Partnerships
In this era heavily influenced by AI, SAP has formed partnerships with leading companies such as Microsoft (OpenAI), Databricks, DataRobot, IBM, and others to expand and diversify its offerings.
On-Premise
SAP’s commitment to a “clean core” strategy is commendable, with an emphasis on making upgrades smoother. However, it’s worth noting that groundbreaking innovations—such as leveraging large language models (LLMs)—may be primarily focused on cloud offerings, with no integration yet into on-premise S/4 or ECC stacks. While the genAI capabilities for ABAP/RAP will be exclusive to the cloud, on-premise Fiori/Fiori Elements apps have yet to fully harness the potential of genAI.
Business AI shows promise for various processes, particularly in SuccessFactors, S/4HANA Cloud, and similar platforms, although the extent of integration in on-premises S/4HANA environments remains uncertain.
Nevertheless, there is some news regarding on-premises solutions: the Edge Integration Cell, now generally available, offers an on-premises integration option for customers who prefer not to rely solely on the SAP Integration Suite in the cloud, enabling integration between on-premises systems.
The Future Is Bright
We eagerly look forward to further developments and the future integration of genAI and LLM capabilities into on-premises and private cloud environments. As technology continues to evolve, SAP remains at the forefront, promising innovative solutions for the ever-changing world of business technology.
For a more in-depth look at the latest announcements from SAP TechEd, you can refer to the comprehensive news guide here: SAP TechEd News Guide.
