2020 Technical challenges in the lights of SAP TechEd 2019

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I know it has been quite some time after SAP TechEd 2019 This blog was originally an internal communication  prepared for my colleagues after attending SAP TechEd 2019, but after some positive feedback I thought it might make sense  publishing it here after some fine tuning. I hope it is not too late.

There are many different subjects for many different professions in SAP TechEd, so in three days you can only pick enough sessions for the areas you are interested ( mostly it is also not possible to join everything you like because of conflicts in session schedule ) , so this preview/highlights will be inevitably subjective and will reflect my choices.

New products tools announced in SAP TechEd

 

SAP HANA Cloud and DATA Warehouse cloud two new services announced right at the beginning of SAP TechEd in keynote , especially name is very confusing for SAP HANA Cloud but it probably worth to follow since they will offer new capabilities. Since the beginning of HANA journey,  changes in names of products services might be especially confusing for the clients but we do not fully know the reason but probably it is somehow necessary.

Native development: SAP Business Application Studio, seems to be successor of Webide, I had chance to use it in a hand on session. Beta release is available at the moment.

ABAP On cloud

I joined both lecture and hands on sessions, this is interesting to experience and now also public cloud access and exercises are available,

ABAP in SAP Cloud Platform is SAP's new Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering for ABAP. ABAP on cloud ( SAP internal name Steampunk ) and Restful ABAP programming model was on the spotlights of SAP TechEd this year and there were too many sessions about both subjects.

Tools to examine and transfer legacy ABAP code is developed  , basically it is possible to examine an ABAP source (  >= 700 ) code using ATC variant if applicable transferring into cloud using Github and using there after small adjustments.

This adjustments are removing GUI and Local data related codes function modules etc( some redesign, redevelopment may be probably necessary ) , In the session it was possible to use transformed code as a base to a FIORI application.

ABAP On cloud development is done using ADT in eclipse by connecting ABAP cloud instance,  GUI relevant tcodes like SE80, SE38 are not available first time in the history, since the source will run in cloud.

Some people might be confused,  one important thing to understand ABAP on cloud, it is not using ABAP in a S4/HANA cloud instance and as it was said before it is PaaS offering to use ABAP in cloud developments.

It is possible to use trial version in developers.sap.com

It is not planned to extend WebIde in the way to support ABAP On Cloud 

And finally you can watch one of the session to learn more about ABAP On Cloud using below link. 

CAA101 - Overview SAP Cloud Platform, ABAP Environment, Las Vegas 2019

RESTFul ABAP Programming model and ABAP Strategy

This is continuation transformation for ABAP Programming model for SAP FIORI

Starting with 7.40 for ABAP, CDS was available but more for reporting purpose. ABAP Programming model for SAP FIORI also made Fiori development including data update, but CDS-Based BOPF  not to be seen as a good method since BOPF’s were strong but too complex development objects. With restful programming model BOPF’s will be replaced with Behavior Definition and Implementation which is actually some classes with DB update and can be triggered by help of annotations which can be used in CDS’s to make also update possible and much easier to use comparing to previous method. This will make transactional FIORI applications easier to develop and we may assume SAP will continue to invest to make this model work for more complex use cases and also standard classes can be used in custom CDS’s in transactional application will be possible.

One other main point to understand here, this model is mainly for UI part and If we are on S4 especially for the developments with user-interaction ABAP Programming model for SAP Fiori and when it is fully ready Restful ABAP programming model is/will be the best option but this model is not all ABAP wide and main aim is only UI .

To learn more about the subject recording for two important session is also available now.

CAA103 - Get the Big Picture of the ABAP RESTful Programming Model, Barcelona 2019

CAA100 - ABAP Strategy, Las Vegas 2019

Conclusions

If we need to pick one most important development object for SAP development it is CDS, It is available both for native and ABAP development, It is an important base for developments in both environments, it is continuously improved and a strong base, Other tools, models are built around it, It has many use cases with different aim ( Analyics,UI, reusable data sources, transactional UI apps ) So learning and applying  more about it, is very important for any SAP developer, also depending on the systems we work we should keep searching ways of using CDS.

A stable development environment probably will never be the case anymore, tools and products will continue to evolve, which makes following and adapting to trends and changes more and more important, we also need to accept and make this adaptation routine of our life evaluate what we can use in each project we start. This is also not new for us and it is at least the situation for last few years, On the other hand, already, good base is built and this transformation may continue in slower pace.

After cloud and native developments for some years there was a question “If business logic in SAP especially in ERP systems will also be transformed/redeveloped again using this tools”,  with ABAP on cloud and new models for ABAP at least for some more time this will not be the case for complex processes or it may not happen as quickly as we expect, Instead ABAP is being transformed to adapt new environment which is already a challenge and will continue to be a challenge in coming years.