As a long-time SAP cus­tomer and, more recent­ly, as an ASUG employ­ee, I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend many big SAP events. On these occa­sions, I always look for­ward to new prod­uct and solu­tion announce­ments. Last week’s SAP TechEd did not dis­ap­point. Using a hybrid con­fer­ence for­mat, SAP lead­ers announced sev­er­al new or updat­ed solu­tions that promise to make it much eas­i­er for SAP cus­tomers to extend and man­age their SAP solu­tions effec­tive­ly and to inte­grate SAP and non-SAP environments. 

Three par­tic­u­lar areas excite me because, in alliance with the ASUG mis­sion, they aim to help mem­bers and cus­tomers get the most from their SAP tech­nol­o­gy investment.

Democ­ra­ti­za­tion of Exten­si­bil­i­ty: SAP Build

Tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ties in extend­ing SAP solu­tions’ core func­tion­al­i­ty tra­di­tion­al­ly require a team to build and main­tain pro­gram­ming skills to cre­ate those exten­sions. Whether the com­pa­ny uses ABAP or anoth­er pro­gram­ming frame­work, the devel­op­er role pro­vides these skills. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this chal­lenges SAP cus­tomers: how do we under­stand the need and pro­vide busi­ness-cen­tric exten­sions while man­ag­ing scarce devel­op­ment resources?

Instead, what if it could empow­er busi­ness users to cre­ate these exten­sions direct­ly while IT main­tains con­trol and gov­er­nance with­in exist­ing devel­op­ment frameworks?

Enter the low-code/no-code devel­op­ment mod­el. Clear­ly, low-code/no-code devel­op­ment has been intro­duced pre­vi­ous­ly. SAP talked it up at TechEd last year and before that. What’s new for SAP cus­tomers is a uni­fied solu­tion that com­bines devel­op­ment, process automa­tion, and user expe­ri­ence to enable busi­ness users to cre­ate solu­tions for the busi­ness inde­pen­dent­ly, with­out bot­tle­necks or oth­er delays caused by scarce pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­er resources. SAP Build brings togeth­er the SAP Build Apps Devel­op­ment Envi­ron­ment (for­mer­ly called App­Gyver), SAP Build Process Automa­tion, and the SAP Build Work Zone cen­tral launch pad. While these prod­ucts have been avail­able sep­a­rate­ly, SAP now deliv­ers a sim­pli­fied, uni­fied expe­ri­ence for cit­i­zen developers.

Devel­op­ment Evo­lu­tion: Pro-code Support

So does low-code/no-code mean the demise of, or at least devalu­ing, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ers? Absolute­ly not. There will always be use cas­es that cit­i­zen devel­op­er tools need help to meet. At TechEd, SAP described inno­va­tions that let pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ers con­tin­ue to use and evolve their skills, par­tic­u­lar­ly ABAP skills, in Cloud and hybrid envi­ron­ments that are stan­dard for IT land­scapes. By pro­vid­ing ways to inte­grate open stan­dards to sup­port lega­cy ABAP pro­gram­ming in pri­vate and pub­lic Cloud sce­nar­ios, the SAP approach deliv­ers options, so cus­tomers can pick the best tech­ni­cal solu­tions to meet their busi­ness needs.

Let’s dis­cuss one case in point: the SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form ABAP envi­ron­ment. This solu­tion has sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for cus­tomers because it lets them cus­tomers devel­op new or main­tain exist­ing ABAP-based solu­tions in a Cloud envi­ron­ment or on-premise. Because of this release, IT lead­ers can poten­tial­ly address sev­er­al big hur­dles relat­ed to Cloud migra­tion, tech­ni­cal team skills devel­op­ment, tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion, and time­line and project management.

Play Well With Oth­ers: Integration

All ASUG mem­bers run SAP soft­ware and, often, many SAP solu­tions. ASUG mem­bers also run non-SAP soft­ware. Inte­grat­ing var­i­ous SAP and non-SAP solu­tions to pro­vide a seam­less busi­ness solu­tion can be daunt­ing. What’s more, for most cus­tomers, these appli­ca­tions span on-premise and cloud envi­ron­ments, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the picture.

TechEd also fea­tured the intro­duc­tion of the SAP Edge Inte­gra­tion Cell as part of the SAP Inte­gra­tion Suite. SAP Edge Inte­gra­tion Cell is an on-premise run­time engine that deliv­ers an inte­gra­tion solu­tion across cloud and on-premise solu­tions with a com­mon inte­gra­tion plat­form. This should let SAP cus­tomers man­age all inte­gra­tions con­sis­tent­ly, regard­less of whether the appli­ca­tions live on-prem or in the cloud.

TechEd Threads

For me, a key TechEd 2022 take­away is this: SAP con­tin­ues to make tremen­dous strides, pro­vid­ing a more main­stream envi­ron­ment for extend­ing its solu­tions and inte­grat­ing increas­ing­ly well with oth­ers. SAP works to deliv­er the best of both worlds for cus­tomers. Orga­ni­za­tions have options that allow mak­ing the right choic­es for their tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness needs. That can mean devel­op­ment deployed in the busi­ness and per­formed by busi­ness users. It can mean sus­tain­ing exist­ing ABAP skills. Or teams can acquire and devel­op skills in oth­er languages. 

These and the many oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties SAP tout­ed at TechEd pro­vide SAP cus­tomers with the flex­i­bil­i­ty they haven’t pre­vi­ous­ly pos­sessed. Fur­ther, they focus on SAP users’ needs to get the most val­ue, and they should result in eas­i­er-to-oper­ate-and-main­tain SAP solu­tions as we advance.

David Was­com is ASUG Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Exec­u­tive Programs.