Advanced busi­ness appli­ca­tion pro­gram­ming, com­mon­ly abbre­vi­at­ed at ABAP, has long been a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of the SAP ecosys­tem. Today, users often lever­age the code lan­guage to extend SAP pro­grams. How­ev­er, since last year’s release of SAP ABAP Cloud, a new cloud-ready ABAP devel­op­ment mod­el, com­pa­nies can uti­lize ABAP more com­plete­ly, to ​“build cloud-ready busi­ness apps, ser­vices, and exten­sions,” accord­ing to SAP.

Dur­ing a July 12 ASUG web­cast focused on dis­cussing SAP ABAP Cloud capa­bil­i­ties, Boris Geb­hardt, Chief Prod­uct Own­er of ABAP Plat­form, SAP SE, described the solu­tion as ​“a sum­ma­ry of all the ABAP inno­va­tions from the last ten years.” 

Through­out the hour­long, well-attend­ed web­cast, Geb­hardt walked an audi­ence of ASUG mem­bers, SAP users, and tech­nol­o­gists through cur­rent issues with the clas­sic cus­tomer ABAP code, the cloud exten­si­bil­i­ty mod­els used in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pub­lic edi­tion, the basics of SAP ABAP, and the exten­si­bil­i­ty mod­els for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pri­vate and on-premis­es editions.

Here are some key takeaways:

Draw­backs of cus­tom ABAP code

Through­out the webi­nar, Geb­hardt under­lined the most com­mon­ly encoun­tered set­backs with cus­tom ABAP code, encour­ag­ing atten­dees to update. While cus­tom ABAP code is a ​“pow­er­ful” tool accord­ing to Geb­hardt, allow­ing users to learn and copy SAP code into their own code and mod­i­fy SAP objects, it does pose sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles to orga­ni­za­tions lever­ag­ing SAP S/4HANA and updat­ing their SAP ecosystem. 

One on-going issue is the lack of inter­face between SAP code and exten­sion soft­ware. When orga­ni­za­tions try to change objects, as often occurs dur­ing an SAP upgrade imple­men­ta­tion, doing so may dis­rupt solu­tion exten­sions, result­ing in low and slow upgrade projects. SAP does not pri­or­i­tize cus­tomer-spe­cif­ic upgrade projects, leav­ing cus­tom code fix­es to the customers.

Addi­tion­al­ly, in order to sup­port smooth SAP soft­ware updates, cus­tom code can­not be lever­aged in SAP S/4HANA Pub­lic Cloud with Geb­hardt rec­om­mend­ing the same steps be tak­en with users lever­ag­ing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pri­vate and on-premis­es editions. 

Specifics of cod­ing cloud extensions

Geb­hardt also detailed con­nec­tiv­i­ty specifics for the var­i­ous forms of SAP S/4HANA with SAP ABAP Cloud, and broke down the three-tier exten­si­bil­i­ty mod­el orga­ni­za­tions should use. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, pub­lic edi­tion, he walked audi­ences through spe­cif­ic exam­ples of appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment, includ­ing both those loose­ly and tight­ly cou­pled to SAP data, and both on-stack and side-by-side, along with exten­si­bil­i­ty user per­sonas for busi­ness experts and devel­op­ers. With those specifics defined, Geb­hardt mapped out how each per­sona could use ABAP to code spe­cif­ic exten­sions between SAP S/4HANA and SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP).

With SAP S/4HANA, pri­vate cloud and on-premis­es edi­tions, Geb­hardt walked audi­ences through a sim­i­lar path, touch­ing on some of the key rules and con­di­tions that dif­fer­en­ti­ate those solu­tions. For exam­ple, he encour­aged users to use pub­lic APIs, lever­age a ​“clean core” approach for smooth upgrade projects, and even­tu­al­ly retire all cus­tom ABAP code. 

Atten­dees were also encour­aged to lever­age a three-tiered exten­si­bil­i­ty mod­el when cod­ing exten­sions with ABAP. The first tier, known as the cloud exten­si­bil­i­ty tier, is cloud-ready and upgrade-sta­ble devel­op­ment of new appli­ca­tions. For this tier, SAP ABAP Cloud is a necessity. 

The sec­ond tier, Cloud API enable­ment, extends and enables tier one for pri­vate cloud and on-premis­es instances of SAP S/4HANA. This tier helps over­come miss­ing SAP APIs and exten­sion points. The third tier, of clas­sic ABAP exten­sions, is used for lega­cy cus­tom ABAP code and can­not fol­low any of the rules from the first tier. Geb­hardt encour­aged cus­tomers lever­ag­ing this tier to avoid and reduce the con­tent they use. 

Inside SAP ABAP Cloud 

The webi­nar also gave atten­dees a deep dive into SAP ABAP Cloud. Geb­hardt described the solu­tion as the ​“new way to devel­op ABAP,” giv­ing cus­tomers the abil­i­ty to build cloud-ready busi­ness appli­ca­tions, ser­vices, and exten­sions. The solu­tion comes with SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form and SAP S/4HANA (work­ing with pub­lic cloud, pri­vate cloud, and on-premis­es editions). 

SAP ABAP Cloud can con­nect SAP BTP and SAP S/4HANA with direct exten­sions. How­ev­er, Geb­hardt laid out some cru­cial rules. Users must lever­age pub­lic SAP APIs and exten­sion points and they must use cloud opti­miza­tion ABAP language. 

The webi­nar also fea­tured Geb­hardt going over the SAP ABAP roadmap and answer­ing spe­cif­ic ques­tions from attendees. 

You can watch the entire webi­nar and hear all of Gebhardt’s insights by reg­is­ter­ing to watch on-demand here. Don’t miss anoth­er event again, just like Geb­hardt’s pre­sen­ta­tion. Reg­is­ter today to join in and attend our many events.