- SAP Managed Tags:
In this blog, I am going to share the list of common questions and answers on SAP BTP. To make it easy, I have categorized it in multiple volumes.
Part 1 — SAP BTP — General Topics
Part 2— SAP BTP — Application Development, Programming Models and Multitenancy
Part 5 — SAP BTP — Side by side Extensibility [Current Blog]
This is part 5, where we will explore questions on side-by-side extensibility topics in SAP BTP.
Q: Can you explain why SAP customers need to build extensions in S/4HANA? Why doesn’t SAP fill the technical gap for those use-cases?
Answer:
SAP customers need to build extensions in S/4HANA for several reasons, despite SAP's comprehensive suite of functionalities. Some of the reasons are:
Unique Business Requirements:
Customization
Every business has unique processes, requirements, and workflows that standard software cannot fully accommodate. Extensions allow businesses to tailor the software to their specific needs.
Competitive Advantage
Custom extensions can provide unique functionalities that offer a competitive edge in the market, enabling companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Industry-Specific Needs
Specialized Processes
Some industries have highly specialized processes and regulatory requirements that generic solutions cannot address comprehensively. Extensions can fill these gaps with industry-specific functionality.
Local Compliance
Different regions and countries have distinct regulatory and compliance requirements. Extensions help in adapting the core system to meet these local needs.
Innovation and Flexibility
Innovation Enablement
Building extensions allows companies to innovate rapidly by creating new features and functionalities that can be integrated seamlessly into their existing ERP system.
Flexibility
Extensions provide the flexibility to adapt quickly to changing business environments, new technologies, and emerging business opportunities.
Integration with Other Systems
Heterogeneous IT Landscapes
Many organizations use a variety of software solutions and need to integrate these systems with their ERP. Extensions facilitate seamless integration, ensuring that data flows smoothly across different systems.
Q: Why classic ABAP custom development (ABAP Add-on) are not recommended in S/4HANA?
Answer:
Traditionally, SAP partners and customers have been using classic ABAP extensibility to extend their ERP solution.
Although, being very powerful, flexible, and popular, classic extensibility has some major drawbacks.
One of them is High Upgrade Efforts!
The missing clear interface between SAP code and extensions might lead to issues in the extensions during upgrades. As a result, upgrades require high planning, regression test, and adaption efforts, which is one of the reasons why customers delay upgrades.
Example: You have used an SAP object that is not whitelisted by SAP in your extension. After an upgrade the used SAP Object has been changed or deleted. Now you will have to adjust the extension thus upgrade is delayed.
Q: Can you explain the idea behind clean core methodology?
Answer:
Clean core is an extension methodology in which
- Extensions are kept strictly separate from the SAP application.
- Extensions access SAP business objects only through well defined, upgrade-stable interfaces
By following clean core paradigm, you make sure that
- Extensions do not break an upgrade and upgrades do not break an extension.
- Extensions do not create a problem when you migrate from SAP S/4HANA on-Premise to SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP’s rationale behind the “clean core” paradigm is simple - Allow customers to extend their SAP S/4HANA software while making the software updates eventually non-events.
Q: Tell me some main benefits of following Clean Core.
Answer:
Benefits for customers:
- Ease of upgrade: Make upgrades non-events, from a custom code point of view.
- Fast consumption of innovation: Always on top of innovation technologies.
- E2E system security, continuity, and stability.
- TCO: efficient use of infrastructure and licenses.
- Permanent traceability in all areas of the core.
Benefits for partners:
- Future-proof and cloud-ready solutions.
- Promoting fit-to-standard compliance with clean core modular innovation.
- Reduction of complexity with simplified consumption of out-of-the-box SAP solutions.
Q: Explain Brownfield and Greenfield Approach.
Answer:
"Brownfield" and "Greenfield" refer to two different approaches for migrating from an existing ERP system to SAP S/4HANA. Each approach has its own advantages, challenges, and use cases.
Brownfield Approach
Brownfield is an upgrade and migration method where the existing SAP ERP system is converted to SAP S/4HANA. This approach preserves the existing processes, configurations, and customizations, minimizing disruption to the business. Key characteristics include:
- System Conversion:
- The existing SAP ERP system is converted to SAP S/4HANA without starting from scratch. The data, customizations, and configurations are carried over.
- Preservation of Investments:
- Existing investments in custom developments, integrations, and configurations are retained. This is particularly beneficial for companies with extensive customizations and integrations.
- Minimal Disruption:
- Because the core structure and processes remain largely unchanged, the transition is generally smoother with less impact on ongoing business operations.
- Phased Implementation:
- The migration can be performed in phases, allowing for incremental improvements and minimizing risk.
- Faster Implementation:
- Since it leverages the existing system, the brownfield approach can be quicker compared to re-implementing everything from scratch.
Greenfield Approach
Greenfield is a reimplementation method where a new SAP S/4HANA system is built from the ground up. This approach allows for a fresh start, enabling full adoption of SAP S/4HANA’s capabilities and best practices. Key characteristics include:
- Reimplementation:
- A completely new SAP S/4HANA system is implemented, independent of the existing ERP system. This allows for designing new processes and configurations from scratch.
- Process Optimization:
- This approach allows businesses to redesign their processes to align with current best practices and take full advantage of S/4HANA’s advanced features and functionalities.
- Data Migration:
- Only necessary data is migrated from the old system to the new one, often resulting in a cleaner and more streamlined system.
- Innovation and Standardization:
- Greenfield projects provide an opportunity to standardize processes and eliminate outdated customizations, fostering innovation and efficiency.
- Future-Proofing:
- By starting fresh, businesses can better future-proof their systems, ensuring they are well-positioned to adopt future SAP innovations and enhancements.
Q: How customers can choose Brownfield or Greenfield?
Answer:
The choice between brownfield and greenfield depends on several factors:
Current System Complexity
Businesses with highly customized and complex systems may prefer brownfield to retain their existing investments.
Process Maturity
Organizations looking to overhaul their processes and adopt best practices may lean towards greenfield.
Budget and Time Constraints
Brownfield may be more cost-effective and faster for businesses looking to minimize initial costs and disruption.
Strategic Goals
Long-term strategic goals, such as digital transformation and innovation, may influence the decision towards a greenfield approach.
Q: How Steampunk is different from Embedded Steampunk?
Answer:
Steampunk is the ABAP Environment on SAP BTP. ABAP-minded customers and partners can reuse their ABAP skillset to build new cloud solutions or transform already existing on-premise ABAP assets to the cloud.
Embedded Steampunk is the ABAP development environment of SAP S/4HANA. It enables developers to develop and run S/4HANA extension on same software stack as the underlying SAP S/4HANA system.
Embedded Steampunk is based on the same language version (ABAP for Cloud Development) as Steampunk, but in the embedded option.
Q: In which SAP platforms/solutions ABAP Cloud is available?
Answer:
ABAP Cloud is available as the default (and only) option in both SAP BTP, ABAP environment and also SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. For both SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and also SAP S/4HANA, ABAP Cloud coexists along with ABAP Classic and customers can choose when to use which model.
Q: What is SAP Business Accelerator Hub?
Answer:
SAP Business Accelerator Hub, which was earlier known as API Hub, is a centralized online repository provided by SAP that offers a wide range of pre-built integrations, APIs, events, and business services. It offers a wide range of sandbox APIs for several SAP products like SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP SucessFactors, SAP Concur, and more.
Q: Explain the major differences between SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud and Private Cloud offering.
Answer:
SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition allows customers and partners to use S/4HANA without the need to take responsibility for the cloud infrastructure and operations.
SAP manages all operation and lifecycle management tasks such as continuous feature delivery or providing hotfixes and regular upgrades to new software versions.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public offering):
- Runs on SAP Data Center
- Governed and operated by SAP
- 100% managed by SAP as the “cloud provider” with updates automatically pushed to the systems on a timeline defined by SAP
SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a SaaS product from SAP.
The major difference between S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition and S/4HANA Cloud is the ownership of operating the solution.
- With S/4HANA Cloud (public cloud), SAP takes care of operating the solution including the quarterly upgrades.
- With S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition, the operation of the solution is governed by customer (but can of course be handed over or supported by 3rd party (including SAP)).
SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition is:
- Single tenant S/4HANA solution
- Preferably for customers who want to do conversion (Brownfield) of their existing SAP ERP System to Cloud-based architecture.
- Customers can choose their infrastructure provider.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition is NOT a SaaS product from SAP.
Q: What is Key user extensibility in SAP S/4HANA and in which scenario it is helpful?
Answer:
Key user extensibility empowers business experts to build extensions to SAP S/4HANA Cloud mostly without a single line of code.
Target Persona is key Users. Key users typically have deep knowledge of SAP business and process but no or only limited coding skills.
The main reason for using key user extensibility is that simple extensions can be realized quicker than with developer extensibility, because the communication overhead between the business expert (responsible for specification of the extension, and later for testing and approval) and the developer (responsible for development and developer test) is avoided.
For example, adapting the screen layout such as moving fields and field groups, hiding fields, changing labels etc. OR adding custom fields to business objects.
Q: What is Developer extensibility in SAP S/4HANA?
Answer:
Some business requirements lead to extensions that are
- Too complex to be built with the in-app extensibility
- Too tightly connected to core S/4HANA data/apps to be built with side-by-side extensibility
That’s where developer extensibility come in. Developer Extensibility is intended for those extensions,
- which requires proximity to or coupling with SAP S/4HANA data, transactions, or apps
- Which require full access to development capabilities like debugging, refactoring support, version control etc., thus cannot be built using key user extensibility
On-stack extensions are developed and run on the same software stack as the underlying SAP S/4HANA Cloud system. This allows extensions to access SAP S/4HANA logic and data via SAP extension points, local SAP APIs or via SQL queries..
Q: What is Side-By-Side Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA?
Answer:
Side-by-Side Extensibility allows you to build extensions on SAP BTP. True decoupling between your extensions and SAP S/4HANA enables an independent lifecycle and allows you to build and evolve applications much faster.
Major difference compared to the on-stack extensibility model is that - In side-by-side extension, accessing SAP S/4HANA Cloud data is only possible using remote APIs which are published in the SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
Q: What is ABAP RESTful application programming model (RAP)?
Answer:
RAP is a set of concepts, tools, languages, frameworks, and best practices provided on the ABAP Platform.
- It is the recommended programming model for customers and partners to build ABAP based S/4HANA extensions.
- RAP is available for
- SAP BTP ABAP environment (aka Steampunk)
- SAP S/4HANA ABAP Environment (aka Embedded Steampunk)
- It supports the development of all types of Fiori applications as well as publishing Web APIs.
If I have missed any important question, please let me know in comment.
Happy Learning!
