Episode 103: Exploring SAP BTP, ABAP environment
Jan 25, 2024
Show notes
In this episode, Niklas Siemer is joined by Frank Jentsch, the project lead for the SAP ABAP environment, to provide an in-depth look at the platform.
The discussion explores ABAP’s history, evolution, and role in the SAP ecosystem, with Frank explaining the “clean core” strategy and how the ABAP environment supports side-by-side development. He highlights key personas, available tools, and integration with BTP services, along with typical customer use cases and the premium engagement model. Looking ahead, Frank previews innovations like zero downtime management, installable products, and automatic scaling. He also shares resources for listeners to further explore and upskill on ABAP.
Also in this episode:
ABAP is a fundamental part of the SAP ecosystem, with around 80% of business transactions worldwide running on ABAP-based systems.
The “Steampunk” initiative aims to bring ABAP development to the cloud, enabling customers to build side-by-side extensions on the SAP BTP platform.
The ABAP environment provides a comprehensive set of tools and frameworks for developers, including the ABAP development tools in Eclipse, Fiori tools, and the ABAP application programming model.
The ABAP environment integrates with various BTP services, such as the identity service, destination service, and application logging, to provide a seamless cloud-native experience.
Customers can use the ABAP environment for side-by-side extensions to decouple their custom code from the core SAP applications, while partners can build multi-tenant SaaS applications.
Upcoming innovations in the ABAP environment include zero downtime management, installable products, and automatic scaling capabilities to improve the cloud experience.
SAP offers a premium engagement model, including common sessions and monthly roundtables, to support customers and partners in their journey with the ABAP environment.
Frank Jentsch is leading the product SAP BTP ABAP environment and is based in Walldorf. Frank has 25 years experiences in ABAP-related development of applications and technology components.
Episode 102: SAP Build Code, enhancing developer productivity.
Dec 21, 2023
Show notes
In this episode we talk about SAP Build Code, an application development solution that draws on the capabilities of SAP’s generative AI copilot Joule, by embedding AI-based code generation technologies.
In this episode of SAP BTP Talk, December’ 2023 we will talk about the new announcement ‘SAP Build Code’ that was made at TechEd 2023. We will discuss how SAP Build Code offers a turn-key environment for coding, testing, integrating, and managing Java and JavaScript application life cycles by bringing together key design and runtime services and tools in a single offering.
Links to the Resources that were discussed in the episode:
Episode 101: Discovering SAP BTP Guidance Framework
Nov 30, 2023
Show notes
In this new episode Niklas Siemer, Product Specialist for SAP BTP, is talking to Raphael Schmitz, Chief Development Architect in SAP BTP Engineering, and Konstantin Heine, Product Manager for SAP Business Technology Platform.
You will hear about the new released SAP BTP Guidance Framework: What it is, what the targeted personas are, the motivation for the creation and more. Konstantin and Raphael will give you a deep dive into the content for each persona including further details and recommendations. Don’t miss this episode when you want to use SAP BTP with more guidance and help!
Interview Guest:
Raphael Schmitz is Chief Development Architect. Raphael is based at SAP in Walldorf. Raphael started his professional career at SAP 12 years ago. Raphael had several roles and tasks related to software development across multiple units. Today he specifies the developer guidance that outlines how to implement business applications on SAP BTP.
Konstantin Heine is Product Manager for SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Konstantin is based at SAP in Walldorf. Konstantin started his professional career at SAP 14 years ago. Konstantin had several roles and tasks across SAP like Solution Architect, Enterprise Architect, and Product Manager for SAP Customer Experience Business Process Integration.
Episode 100: Anniversary Special with Juergen Mueller, CTO and Executive Board Member at SAP SE
Oct 17, 2023
Show notes
In this episode, Hanna Salamon, Niklas Siemer, and Gaurav Dey are joined by Juergen Mueller, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Board member at SAP to celebrate 100 episodes!
Jürgen discusses the importance of the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) for businesses, sharing success stories and key milestones in BTP’s evolution. Juergen also provides an exclusive look at the upcoming SAP TechEd 2023 conference, highlighting the focus on generative AI and the opportunities for attendees. He shares recommendations for the SAP community to stay up-to-date and engaged with the latest BTP developments.
Also in this episode:
The SAP BTP Talk podcast is celebrating its 100th episode, making it the longest-running SAP podcast since its launch in 2015.
The podcast hosts – Hannah Zalarmon, Niklas Zima, and Gaurav Day – shared personal highlights, favorite episodes, and excitement for the future of the podcast.
Juergen Mueller, SAP’s Chief Technology Officer, discussed the importance of the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) in enabling business transformation through integration, extensions, data management, planning, analytics, and AI.
BTP is aligned with SAP’s broader vision of helping organizations become more intelligent and sustainable enterprises through agility and resilience.
Juergen Mueller highlighted key BTP milestones, including the launch at SAP Sapphire in 2019, the introduction of commercial packaging (CPA), and recent announcements like SAP Build and SAP Data Sphere.
Generative AI is a major focus area for SAP, with plans to integrate it into SAP applications and enhance BTP capabilities in this domain.
Juergen Mueller encouraged the community to engage with the SAP ecosystem, provide feedback, and attend the upcoming SAP TechEd 2023 conference, both in-person and virtually, to learn about the latest BTP advancements.
Juergen Mueller is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, leading the Technology and Innovation board area. As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), he oversees SAP’s platform and technology development. He is responsible for innovation efforts related to SAP BTP as well as new technologies.
Juergen contributes to SAP’s vision of enabling every company to become a resilient, sustainable, and intelligent enterprise by providing its technological foundation, SAP BTP. The platform brings together application development, data management, analytics and planning, integration, and artificial intelligence capabilities into one unified environment optimized for SAP applications.
Since joining SAP in 2013, Juergen has held distinct leadership roles, serving as the Head of the Innovation Center Network, Managing Director of SAP Labs Berlin, and SAP’s Chief Innovation Officer. In 2019, Juergen was appointed to the Executive Board of SAP SE as CTO, taking on responsibilities for SAP’s platform and development unit.
Juergen has a diploma in business informatics from the University of Goettingen, Germany, and holds a PhD with emphasis on new applications optimized for in-memory databases from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany.
In 2020, Juergen was included on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 and joined the World Economic Forum’s Community of Chief Digital Officers.
Episode 99 – CapGPT, your prompt-based coding companion for developing business apps
Sep 28, 2023
Show notes
In this episode of SAP BTP Talk, September’ 2023 we will talk about how SAP is leveraging generative AI technologies into developing code and writing CAP applications.
This conversation will highlight how SAP is integrating Large Language Models (LLM) into developer tools to generate CDS models for the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model. You will hear how developers are enabled to generate new code using CapGPT, whereby giving prompts they can Generate a CDS model and data for authors and books with the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model in less than a minute.
Interview Guest:
David Kunz works as an architect for the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP). Originally, he is a theoretical physicist, but always been obsessed with computers, so it was clear that he wanted to become a software engineer, so after he got his PhD where he calculated the Higgs Boson mass in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.
He joined SAP in 2015 where he first developed applications for S/4HANA Master Data Governance, using ABAP. Later joined the CAP team, where he is now working as an architect.
He also has a YouTube Channel @devonduty where he talks about software engineering, Neovim and other tools he likes.
Episode 98 - End-of-life for SAP BTP Neo environment
Aug 31, 2023
Show notes
In the new episode Niklas Siemer, Product Specialist for SAP BTP, is talking to Christian Fecht, Chief Product Owner of SAP BTP, Neo Environment.
You will hear about the end-of-life announcement from SAP BTP Neo Environment, the impact on customers and SAP BTP itself. We will also make a small “time warp” into the history and evolution of SAP BTP. Christian will also explain what the motivation for sunsetting SAP BTP Neo environment was. We will sum up the interview with concrete action items for customers which implemented SAP BTP Neo environment.
Interview Guest:
Christian Fecht is a Chief Product Owner of SAP BTP, Neo Environment. Christian joined SAP in 1998 and is responsible for Neo Core, the core platform services in the SAP BTP, Neo Environment. Christian is based at SAP in Walldorf
Christian started his professional career at SAP 25 years ago. Christian had several roles and tasks across SAP like developer and architect in the ABAP language team (implementing ABAP Objects), architect for the SAP NetWeaver AS Java, chief-architect and since 2013 chief product owner for Neo Core.
Episode 97 – Accelerate your digital transformation to the Intelligent Enterprise with SAP & Google Cloud.
Jul 28, 2023
Show notes
In this episode of SAP BTP Talk, July’ 2023 we will talk about Bringing together SAP systems and data with Google Cloud. This partnership unlocks entirely new opportunities for enterprises to derive more value from their full data footprints.
This discussion will highlight how SAP enables enterprises to build an end-to-end data cloud that brings data from across the heterogenous data landscape using the SAP Datasphere together with Google’s data cloud, so they can view their entire data in real time and maximize value from their SAP software and Google Cloud investments.
Interview Guests:
Sangeetha Krishnamoorthy is a Senior Development architect in the Strategic Customer Engagements team of Platform Adoption and Advisory in the T&I board area. As part of her role, Sangeetha helps customers by architecting and building innovative solutions that helps solve their challenging business problems, while helping with the SAP Business Technology Platform adoption. Sangeetha, with her team, also publishes validated reference architectures for Data and Analytics pillar specializing in hyperscaler data integrations for Analytics and machine learning use cases.
She has over 20 years of experience in the Enterprise Software development industry designing and developing production grade software and features, working in 4 different fortune-100 companies before joining SAP in 2017.
Rahul Tiwari is a Product Expert in the HANA Database & Analytics Cross Product Management Team. He has 18+ years of industry experience in business intelligence, data platforms, analytics and specialized applications including 12+ years at SAP.
In his current role, Rahul is responsible for driving the collaboration with marquee partners & hyperscalers and champion their requirements internally to be incorporated into the portfolio. For Google Analytics Partnership, Rahul is the engineering lead driving the collaboration on product integration topics.
Links to the Resources that were discussed in the episode:
Episode 96: Recap of SAP Sapphire Orlando and Barcelona and it's momentum for SAP BTP
Jun 19, 2023
Show notes
In this episode, host Niklas Siemer is joined by Steffen Pietsch, the Vice President and Head of SAP BTP Product Management, to discuss the latest updates and announcements from the recent SAP Sapphire events.
They cover key SAP BTP roadmap updates, including improvements in SAP Build Apps and SAP Task Center integration. Siemer highlights announcements from Sapphire, such as SAP’s expanded partnership with Google Cloud and AI advancements in SAP Analytics Cloud. A customer success story features Frucor Suntory, who used SAP BTP to develop My Sales Hub, boosting productivity and revenue. Steffen Pietsch shares insights from Sapphire events in Orlando and Barcelona, discussing AI integration, SAP Build adoption, and the importance of SAP Integration Suite.
Also in this episode:
SAP BTP is a foundational platform that enables seamless integration, innovation, and business transformation for SAP customers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI technologies are a major focus area for SAP, with new capabilities being integrated across the portfolio to enhance user experiences and developer productivity.
The partnership between SAP and Google Cloud has been significantly expanded, allowing customers to better leverage data across their enterprise landscape through tighter integration between SAP Data Sphere and Google Cloud.
SAP Build, the low-code/no-code development platform, is seeing strong adoption and interest from both technical and business users, empowering them to build applications and automate processes without extensive coding.
Integration remains a key priority for SAP, with enhancements to SAP Integration Suite, including the upcoming Edge Integration Cell that provides more flexibility and control for customers.
Customers and partners expressed a positive sentiment towards SAP BTP at the Sapphire events, recognizing its importance in helping organizations adapt and innovate in a rapidly changing business environment.
Steffen Pietsch recommends the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen as it provides valuable insights into the challenges successful companies face when trying to innovate, which relates to the transformative capabilities of SAP BTP.
Steffen Pietsch is the Vice President, Head of SAP BTP Product Management. Steffen joined SAP in 2021 and is globally responsible for the SAP BTP Product Management. Together with his teams, he drives innovation, further development, enablement, and adoption of the SAP BTP. Steffen is based at SAP in Walldorf
Before he joined SAP, he gained more than 18 years of experience in various customer and partner roles. In addition to that Steffen was a board member and CTO of DSAG (German speaking SAP user group) registered association (e.V.).
Episode 95: Introduction to SAP Business Application Studio – SAP’s integrated development environment (IDE) in the cloud.
Jun 01, 2023
Show notes
In this episode of the SAP BTP Talk, host Niklas Siemer is joined by Yuval Anafi, the lead product owner of SAP Business Application Studio, to discuss capabilities and features of SAP Business Application Studio, the next-generation development environment from SAP.
Yuval shares his experience at SAP and the principles behind SAP Business Application Studio, emphasizing standards, openness, flexibility, and guided developer experiences. He discusses how developers can get started, its support for various programming languages, low-code/no-code capabilities, and its connection with SAP Build. The conversation also covers its open-source foundations, compatibility with Visual Studio Code, upcoming roadmap items, and the integration of AI to enhance developer productivity.
Also in this episode:
SAP Business Application Studio is SAP’s next-generation development environment, focused on providing the best productivity tools for building enterprise-ready SAP applications.
The tool is based on open standards, offering flexibility and the ability to integrate with a wide range of community-driven tools and extensions.
SAP Business Application Studio provides guided experiences to help developers, especially those new to SAP technologies, be more productive.
The tool supports a variety of programming languages and frameworks, including ABAP, Java, Node.js, and more, making it a versatile development environment.
While ABAP coding is not currently supported within SAP Business Application Studio, the team is working closely with the ABAP tooling team to explore ways to extend the tool’s capabilities in this area.
SAP Business Application Studio is closely integrated with SAP Build, allowing for collaboration and reuse of building blocks across different tools and personas within an organization.
The open-source foundation of the tool, based on Microsoft VS Code OSS, ensures compatibility with the latest innovations from the Microsoft developer community and access to a vast marketplace of extensions.
Upcoming roadmap items include simplifying SaaS development on BTP, enhancing the consumption of SAP Business Events, and introducing visual storyboarding and graphical tools for Fiori UI development.
SAP is exploring the integration of AI and generative AI models within SAP Business Application Studio to assist developers in writing code more efficiently and with higher productivity.
Yuval Anafi is the Lead Product Owner of the SAP Business Application Studio and the former SAP WebIDE. He and his team are working closely with SAP technology teams, SAP LOBs and SAP developer community, on defining the right solution roadmap.
Yuval is based at SAP in Raanana, Israel and he joined SAP at 2004 and had several roles and tasks across SAP, mainly around the SAP developer tools area, starting with SAP Visual composer, continue with SAP Gateway Eclipse tools, SAP Web IDE and SAP Business Application Studio.
Episode 94 – Unleash the power of business data with SAP Datasphere.
May 02, 2023
Show notes
In this episode, Guarav Dey chats with Karsten Ruf, senior director in the Marketing and Solutions team for Data and Analytics at SAP, about how the SAP Datasphere builds upon the capabilities of the previous SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, adding new features like data integration, data cataloging, and semantic modeling to deliver a comprehensive data service for data professionals.
Karsten also discusses how Data Sphere integrates with other SAP solutions, such as Data Intelligence Cloud and Analytics Cloud, enabling a unified experience across data integration, warehousing, and analytics. He shares a success story of Messer Gases, a customer that leveraged Data Sphere to harmonize data across their SAP and non-SAP systems, reducing costs, mitigating risks, and improving scalability. Additionally, Karsten emphasizes the importance of an open data ecosystem, highlighting SAP’s partnerships with leading technology vendors like Colibri, Confluent, Databricks, and DataRobot. These integrations allow customers to access business data across various cloud deployments and infrastructures.
Also in this episode:
Existing SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customers can seamlessly transition to Data Sphere, as all current installations were automatically renamed and rebranded. Partners and customers can continue to leverage their previous investments in Data Warehouse Cloud under the new Data Sphere platform.
Datasphere is designed to coexist with SAP Data Intelligence Cloud, at least in the near term. While Data Sphere will eventually cover all the capabilities of Data Intelligence Cloud, for now, Data Intelligence Cloud remains the more feature-rich solution for certain use cases. SAP will provide tools to facilitate a smooth transition between the two platforms over time.
The integration between SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud has been strengthened, with Datasphere offering a multi-dimensional modeling experience with new features like calculated and restricted measures. This allows Datasphere models to serve as a core data foundation for extended planning and analytics use cases.
The concept of Business Data Fabric is central to SAP’s approach with Datasphere. It aims to deliver an integrated and semantically rich data layer across various data sources, both SAP and non-SAP, helping customers avoid the complexities and costs associated with data movement, especially in scenarios like mergers and acquisitions.
SAP is partnering with leading technology vendors, such as Colibri, Confluent, Databricks, and DataRobot, to build an open data ecosystem around Data Sphere. These integrations enable customers to access business data across multiple cloud deployments and infrastructures.
To get started with SAP Data Sphere, Karsten recommends first exploring the guided tour experience to understand the platform’s features and capabilities. This is followed by the option to sign up for the free 90-day trial, which allows users to import data and connect to additional data sources to set up a pilot project.
Karsten Ruf, is a senior director in the Marketing and Solutions team for Data and Analytics at SAP. He has been with SAP since 2008 and has held a variety of product and solution management positions.
In his current role he focusses on SAP Datasphere with a special focus on supporting SAP partners and the BW move.
Links to the Resources that were discussed in the episode:
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