What Is SAP BTP? All You Need To Know About SAP BTP

The cloud ecosystem has been quite popular in the business industry from the very beginning. And, why wouldn’t it be? After all, it can –

• Help improve the speed and agility of software development prominently.
• Implement an automatic software integration ecosystem.
• Boost data security and reduce the expense of purchasing or maintaining equipment.
• Increase the scalability of the IT sector and the business as a whole.

However, there’s a hitch. Even if organisations are spending a lot of money, they won’t be able to get all the aforementioned benefits without the right cloud platform.

And, honestly, choosing the best option isn’t really a walk in the park either.?

So, in this blog, we are focusing on a popular cloud platform known as SAP BTP. Apart from the usual information, we will find some more data regarding the system here, as well.?

So, please go through the article thoroughly and let us know what you think in the comments!

So SAP BTP – What Is It, Really?

SAP BTP, or business technology platform, is a one platform with comprehensive technology capabilities.

BTP is actually an “umbrella term” that encompasses several core technologies such as HANA, SAC and BI. But it is also a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to integrate tools and technologies. It incorporates the SCP and pushes the idea further. It can be used to integrate SAP and Non-SAP systems as well as on-prem and cloud systems (integration-scenario). It can be used to enhance the customer experience by extending systems (extension-scenario, side-by-side). The loosely coupled architecture (using APIs and events) will help organisation gain speed in innovation and development.

… Almost like a 'One-Stop-Shop' (but that's an over simplification.?

In SAP BTP, we will be able to choose between an alluring amalgamation of services that can help with –

• Cloud Hosting.
• Optimising the operational experience of our business and its users.
• Providing a solution to software-related problems.
• Curating an amazingly exclusive digital experience.
• Building or extending SAP applications.

Each of the aforesaid operations can be done fairly quickly. Therefore, there’s no need to hire many for the job. And, we don’t have to stop or change how our business’s ecosystem works in most respects (although changes may be beneficial to simplify and enhance the efficiency of the organisation as it modernises both technology and business processes).?

So what's the catch?

In simple terms it's as good (or as Bad) as the design and implementation. So a clear defined plan on what and how are key factors

What Is Included In SAP BTP?

So, now that we have a clearer idea about the fundamentals of SAP BTP, we should explore this in a little bit more detail. As we’ve mentioned before, this cloud platform is all about “picking and choosing.”?

Hence, it will be possible for you to take whatever you need and integrate it into your business. So, there’s no need to pay for something that you’re not using.

In any case, talking about all the offerings of the platform will be impossible in a single blog. Thus, instead of that, we’ll talk about four “pillars” of the same.?

The services of the platform will be included here accordingly, too. We will look at these 4 pillars in the next few chapters;

• Database And Data Management.
• Intelligent Technologies.
• SAP Analytics.
• Application Integration And Development.

So, we can get an idea about what SAP BTP has to offer for our business.

Pillar – 1: Database And Data Management.

As a solo business organisation, we will have to deal with a massive amount of data every single day. But, without a proper management service, it will be nearly impossible to maintain everything accordingly and utilise them when the time is right.

With SAP BTP, we can easily store whatever information we are getting from our customer base or anywhere else which helps reduces data redundancy, connect data across diverse landscapes. Besides the management and maintenance, we can also track the background efficiently. So, it will be easier to create various business strategies and all.

The Database and Data Management segment of SAP BTP include the following –

• SAP HANA.
• SAP Master Data Governance.
• SAP Data Intelligence.
• SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, and?
• SAP HANA Cloud.

Apart from this, more and more software programs are going to launch in the future. So, hopefully, SAP BTP will be able to cover even more operations in this aspect.

Pillar – 2: Intelligent Technologies.

The fundamental use of the Database and Management pillar is to boost our general business-based proceedings as a whole. And it does so by using technologies like –

• Artificial intelligence (to automate various repetitive business processes efficiently).
• Machine learning (to use preventative maintenance and increase profits).
• RPA (to improve your business’s efficiency, accuracy, and security).
• Chatbots (to offer vital information to people without human intervention).

Apart from all these, we can utilise some other applications to ensure that our corporation processes are running smoothly. These features can allow us to utilise our organisation’s drive towards innovation and perform various undiscovered process improvements thus adding value, efficiency and visibility for the business.

The Intelligent Technologies of SAP BTP may come with –

• SAP Conversational AI (for example – Chatbots).
• SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation. (for example – artificial intelligence).
• SAP Ruum.
• SAP Internet of Things (IoT).
• SAP AI Business Services.

As long as we are using these efficiently, the business can easily pace up with the changing market as well as meet consumer demands accordingly.

Pillar – 3: SAP Analytics.

Aside from helping us to manage and maintain business data, SAP BTP also enables us to provide embedded analytics. It, in turn, can ensure that we are getting real-time insights into data through different technologies, including –

• Artificial intelligence.
• Machine learning, and?
• Business intelligence.

Besides, this the business technology platform can also offer augmented analytics to evaluate the past situation of a business-related circumstance. And, once we get that, we can compare it to the present state of affairs as well. So, it will be easier for us to make better decisions in the future with greater clarity.

The analytics offering of the platform may feature –

• SAP Analytics Cloud.
• SAP BW/4HANA.
• SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.
• SAP Business Objects BI, and
• SAP Business Planning and Consolidation.

The analytics feature of the system can allow our organisation to streamline almost each and every procedure more efficiently. In addition, we will be able to do more detailed forecasting and planning depending on the information.

Pillar – 4: Application Integration And Development.

Depending on the ever-changing business market, we should endeavour to stay at the top and ensure that we are constantly evolving as well. And for that, we need to revamp administrative proceedings accordingly and see if something is working or not.

Ensure that we are constantly Evolving

With the SAP business technology platform, we can quickly build, improve, and extend the whole digital landscape efficiently and effectively. There is no need to worry about changing the core elements, as the changes can be made within simple app integration.

Such implementations will allow you to –

• Improve the consumer experience element of the organisation.
• Provide a ready-to-go business service to make things more convenient and improve efficiency.
• Integrate third-party vendors in our infrastructure for greater integration benefits.

The SAP BTP solution is highly relevant in today’s world since it can be integrated into a hybrid culture, an on-premise platform, and on the cloud efficiently.?

The tools available in the segment of Application Integration and Development are –

• SAP Extension Suite.
• SAP Integration Suite, and
• SAP Process Orchestration.

However, implementing the aforementioned in your business is going to be a huge step. So, if you’re unsure about something, please check out the Consulting Support offerings as a complement to your current management services.

SAP BTP Extension Suite

In all honesty, a standard SAP software program isn’t really capable of covering up each and every scope or procedure of our business. Aside from the usual, we will need to utilise new apps, unique functionality, and often brand-new reports.

This is where Extension Suite can help out.

It’s a central element of the BTP environment, which offers services to enable us to extend the core SAP system without changing the core functionality even more. And it does so by adding new applications. Here’s an example of how the whole thing works in an organizational setup.

Usually, our business will have five different scopes as a whole. These are –

• Delivered scope (it’s the SAP standard software program being used).
• Covered scope (it’s something that our consumer requires).
• Differentiating scope (finding the competitive advantage to gain more customers).
• Required scope (this is the requirement asked by our customer).
• Uncovered scope (required by our consumer base).

Now. amongst these, the covered scope and the delivered scope can be provided by the SAP standard software. But, the differentiating scope is something that can’t be taken care of by the same. And we can say the same against uncovered scope as well.

So, if we want to improve and fulfil these two segments, we must implement at least one or more new apps on your system. And that’s where the SAP BTP Extension Suite comes in.

The Importance Of SAP BTP Extension Suite

Using the SAP BTP Extension Suite can be beneficial for our organisation in more than one way. Keep reading this section till the end to know more about it.

Benefit – 1: Faster And Simpler Automation.

With the Extension Suite of SAP BTP, you can simplify your business process automation in a blink of an eye. The visual drag-and-drop tools make it even easier to change the location of something from one place to another quickly.

Benefit – 2: Improve Your Business’ Productivity.

It can also help you meet our customers’ needs today and improve our developmental productivity massively. And, we can do so with –

• Ready-to-use services.
• Specific tooling.
• Pre-built content.

… and much much more!

Benefit – 3: Increase Your Business’ Engagement Rating.

The Extension Suite of an SAP BTP ecosystem can also empower employees to operate efficiently on each and every aspect out there. It can allow us to offer embedded application experiences that are personalised and integrated correctly.

Apart from these, we can also reduce our overall investment by leveraging various services to build solutions for your corporation. It, in turn, can solve industry and business needs accordingly without opting for other 3rd-party company software or services.

Where Do We Begin, Though?

As the name implies, we can create various extensions of the SAP BTP Extension Suite with the usage of different programming languages. And, it is possible due to the availability of –

• Kyma runtime.
• ABAP environment, and
• Cloud Foundry runtime.

?

One of the most important decisions that needs to be made when planning which SAP BTP environment we should choose?

Each environment comes equipped with different tools, technologies, and runtimes that to build applications. SAP BTP is available on different environments to allow for greater flexibility in the development process. Customers can even mix environments. SAP BTP enables the development and running of applications across multiple environments.

There are two “flavors” of SAP BTP. The first, called SAP BTP, Neo environment, is focused on cloud capabilities available from SAP‘s own data centers and allows users to connect to SAP ERP solutions. The second, SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment, is focused on any data center that meets a set of specific requirements and allows more extensibility options for developers and hyperscale’s such as hyperscale vendors, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.?

There are several different environments, and they differ by the supported engines and programming languages, which can be used. E.g., Neo supports only Java, HTML5 and XS, whereas Cloud Foundry supports many more languages, like Java or Ruby.

Within SAP BTP it’s possible to use a variety of different tool and programming languages. Which exactly are supported depends on the environment you are using. So: which environment you choose depends on your skills and the programming language of your choice.

Once the curation of the extension is done and dusted, its deployment will take place in a Cloud Foundry ecosystem. Taking the help of an expert might be viable in this aspect.

SAP BTP Integration Suite

The Integration Suite of SAP BTP, as the name implies, is an integration platform as a service (IPaaS). Hence, with it, you’ll be able to seamlessly integrate on-premise and cloud-based applications and processes with tools and pre-built content managed by SAP.

It comes with an out-of-the-box integration package, including –

• APIs.
• Events.
• Connectors, and
• Domain models.

All of these can help jumpstart any of our brand new integration projects right away. It’s a natural successor to the age-old SAP Pi/PO on-premise system. Thus, if we were using this one before, we could switch to SAP BTP Integration Suite today.

Integration Suite

Like the Extension Suite, the SAP BTP Integration Suite comes with a few unique features as well. Keep reading to know more about this context.

Feature – 1: Open Connector.

In the Integration Suite, we will find more than 160 different third-party SaaS applications. For example, there’s Salesforce available here that can improve the productivity of your company by a mile. We can also use SharePoint with it.

Feature – 2: API Management.

This feature will enable us to manage and publish the lifecycle of all of your APIs. And, if it is any of our concerns, the APIs can be accessed by your partners, employees, as well as our consumers too. There’s a feature available here to track them as well.

Feature – 3: Cloud Integration.

The cloud integration feature can help connect different processes as well as data easily. It also comes with more than one additional out-of-the-box feature and integration approach to make our job even more accessible.

Feature – 4: Integration Advisor.

It’s an AI-procured library that can speed up the process and development of content creation by 60%. Hence, if we are focusing on progressing our content line more than anything, it’s imperative for the Integration Advisor feature today.

Feature – 5: SAP API Business Hub.

Unlike the aforesaid, this one is a catalog of business events and regular SAP-based APIs. So, we can use it to keep track of the APIs we are using or the ones left behind.

The Benefits Of SAP BTP Integration Suite

If appropriately utilized, the SAP BTP Integration Suite can help business significantly.

Benefit – 1: Shorter And Simpler Path To Innovation.

With an SAP BTP Integration Suite, we can innovate your organisational operations pretty efficiently. Besides, it will also be a lot easier for us to adapt to market condition changes and keep up with various connected IT landscapes.

Benefit – 2: Offering A Connected Experience.

Apart from this an Integration Suite can also optimise our company’s usual proceedings quickly. Besides, we will be able to deliver a contextualised experiences to the user or consumer base as well. And, it’s possible to use the same in cloud and hybrid landscapes.

Benefit – 3: Greater Flexibility And Efficacy.

The SAP BTP Integration Suite can boost our organisational efficiency by empowering too. It can also offer various integration benefits alongside AI-based advisors. Thus, if we need any form of final decision-related suggestion, we know where to look for it.

Why Choose SAP BTP, And Is It Right For You?

SAP BTP is the platform for the Intelligent Enterprise. Customers can achieve agility, business value, and continual innovation through integration, data to value, and extensibility of all SAP and third-party applications and data asset SAP BTP is the platform for the Intelligent Enterprise. Customers can achieve agility, business value, and continual innovation through integration, data to value, and extensibility of all SAP and third-party applications and data assets.

The SAP BTP is the technological base of the Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise.?Three main scenarios in scope of the Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise:

• Integration?–??Complex IT landscapes include on-premise and cloud systems, SaaS applications and?hyperscaler?technology from SAP and third parties will be used in modern and digital enterprise.?
• Data to Value?–?It’s essential that organizations have a consolidated view across all their data assets and?are able to?achieve insight and make real time decisions, especially during times of rapid change. Good data quality and data handling is very important because the increasing amount of data will be the currency of the future.?To get value from your data, you must analyze and interpret it, not just collect it.
• Extensibility?–??Companies need to stay agile and adapt rapidly to new business conditions and changing customer demands. Extensibility allows companies to build and enhance all their application investments to meet their customer’s dynamic needs and provide continual value.?Caused by the rising amount of cloud solutions in IT landscapes we need to think about extensibility and not thinking in modifications like in the old on-premise world.

It will depend on the use case, budget, and the skill set of the team of our business.

Example – 1

In this example the organisation is using a brand new SAP S4HANA landscape. And they have selected FIORI as the UI strategy. Finally, the aim is to create a customised FIORI app.

In this case, they require the help of the Extension Suite of SAP BTP. With it, they can add whatever they need to the custom application and start using it.

And, if they wish to host the application on an on-premise launchpad, subscribe to SAP Business Application studio (BAS). It will help create new apps on the go.

Example – 2

Integration is yet another aspect where SAP BTP tends to excel the most. For instance, if this customer wants to implement the SAP system with another non-SAP system, the Integration Suite can be something worth checking out.

For example, here, they can use various APIs and connectors to kickstart the journey of integrating different stuff on their infrastructure.

Advantages Of SAP BTP

Whether we believe it or not, almost any large organisation will require something like SAP BTP in their support system landscape.

Advantage – 1: An All-In-One Solution.

Whether it’s about managing the business data or performing some other corporation task – SAP BTP can help with anything and everything.?

Besides giving the much-needed flexibility, it can help businesses to perform each and every task automatically. This, in turn, can improve agility as well.

Advantage – 2: Seamless Integration.

With the coveted SAP BTP Integration Suite, they can integrate nearly everything within the business’s core infrastructure eminently.

This way, it will be easier for them to increase the efficacy of their business management as well as ensure excellent flexibility. And, you can offer an utmost connected experience as well.

Advantage – 3: Extensibility.

As a part of the dynamic world of business, almost every corporation out there has to evolve or adapt to any impending change. Thanks to COVID-19, it became even more eminent.

In any case, this is yet another aspect where SAP BTP can help. With the Extension Suite of the platform, businesses can integrate pre-built extensions through a digital marketplace.

Let’s take the SAP Workflow Service as an example here.

As a part of the SAP BTP portfolio, it can allow a business to extend and enhance the core of its proceedings. So, with it, they can adapt to any change in a non-disruptive manner.

Advantage – 4: Cost-Saving.

Business probably have had to invest (and re-invest) quite a lot of money elsewhere. In that sense, if they need to put in even more cash again on equipment, it may disrupt the fiscal planning.

SAP BTP can help you out in this case as well.

With the aforesaid platform, businesses can select whatever tools they want to use for the business. And, then, just pay for whatever they are utilising and leave the others out. There’s no need to pay any additional money for anything at all.

Advantage – 5: Managing Your Data Flow.

As mentioned before, managing the monumental organizational data flow isn’t child’s play. It must be kept somewhere safe and secure so that you can utilize them later on.

This is a place where SAP HANA can be beneficial. It can help in keeping quite a lot of data as a whole and ensure that we are making the most out of them quickly.

SAP BTP Cockpit

The SAP BTP Cockpit, in essence, is a web-based administration interface that can provide an access to various functions, including –

• Managing and configuring sub-accounts?
• Managing and configuring applications.
• ?Managing and configuring services

Apart from these, we can also use the Cockpit to manage various services, resources, as well as security too. Besides, it’ll also be possible to monitor application metrics and do an action or two on the cloud applications.

How Do You Access The SAP BTP Cockpit?

Accessing SAP BTP Cockpit dashboard is pretty straightforward. Here are a few steps that can help you out with it –

• Create an account on SAP, to get a welcome link on the registered email address. Use it to log into the account again.
• After this an “Overview” page will open. This, in turn, will showcase various information like global account data, sub-accounts, etc.
• Then, select the global account link that’s available in the welcome email. Now, it’ll be possible for to enter the Cockpit and create new sub-accounts there.

How Do You Use SAP BTP Cockpit?

As mentioned before, the SAP BTP Cockpit feature can be used for more than one instance. But how are we going to do the same? Let’s find out more about it.

• Enter the SAP BTP Cockpit and navigate to the Cloud Foundry Space.
• Now, get to the navigation area and select Services. Then, click on Service Instances.
• Choose the service instance you’re considering using on SAP HANA.

After that, all you need to do is enter the password and the name of the account. And, that’s that. Then, we can use the Cockpit wherever and however we want.

SAP BTP API Management

The SAP BTP API Management is essentially a tool that allows us to promote, publish, and oversee all of our APIs. And, each and everything is going to be done in a secure place.?

So, we don’t really have to worry about losing our data or anything as such.

If we want to subscribe to SAP BTP’s API Management service, we will need to do it through the Cloud Foundry ecosystem. However, if we want to run the same, we may have to go for public infrastructures, like – Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.

Features Of SAP BTP API Management

Unlike the SAP BTP Cockpit, the working procedure or segment of API management is quite different. For example, it can help with –

• Creating an omnichannel mobile experience by using Open APIs and API Designer. It can be done on more than one device without making any essential changes.
• Protecting digital assets and data within the hyper-connected world through two or more encryption elements. They’re in-built. So, there’s no need to integrate them.
• API Business Hub can simplify the task of sharing managed APIs to some extent. It’ll also aid in collaborating with consumers, developers, and partners seamlessly.
• Scaling numerous API calls to unlock various business-related opportunities and potential and add a little bit of additional value. So, managing the end-to-end lifecycle of APIs will be much easier with it.
• Monetising the available data and information of our business and other assets with the assistance of the API Portal. It can help cross-sell and up-sell through the system or infrastructure of our business.

Finally, we can use SAP BTP API Management to extend a software solution with an extra benefit to improve our business proceedings. We can also add some additional capabilities here for offline, mobile, and integration as a whole.

Use Cases Of SAP BTP API Management

The SAP BTP API Management tool is only used on the technical side of our business. For example –

• We can use it to share a digital asset and allow the developer community to consume it in new devices, channels, and user interfaces.
• As it’s available in the cloud, the technology can also help to instil a sense of co-innovation amongst the developer community, partners, and employees.
• It can also offer access to critical information that can be used to empower employees even more. This way, they can get more and more data on our consumer community and create a perfect strategy to woo them.

Besides, API Management can facilitate consumer engagement almost anytime, anywhere. It, in turn, can lower the overall complexity by using a single API platform. This way, we will get unified access as well as governance of the APIs available in a heterogeneous place.

SAP BTP Administration

The administration procedure of an SAP BTP environment can be done in around three ways. Keep reading to know more about this aspect.

• Administration Of A Global Account. A Subaccount, Or A Directory.

As an administrator of the SAP Business Technology Platform, we must maintain both our global accounts and directories. And, if it’s available, the same must be done for each of our sub-accounts as well. To do so, you can utilize the following –

• The SAP BTP command line interface.
• The SAP BTP Cockpit, and?
• The APIs.

Each of these processes is quite different from the others. Therefore, opting for the assistance of an expert will be the ideal option for us going forward.

• Administration In The Cloud Foundry Ecosystem.

If we are administrating the Cloud Foundry ecosystem, it’ll be possible for us to manage or maintain spaces, orgs, and space quota plans. And each of these proceedings can be done by using the SAP BTP command line interface or the Cockpit.

• Administration In The ABAP Environment.

If we are working on the ABAP environment, the process of account administration is going to be done in a Cloud Foundry ecosystem. The operations will be particular to the core ABAP environment. So, it might be best to use SAP Fiori apps to complete them.

They can assist with the following –

• Maintaining the certificate trust list.
• Managing lifecycle maintenance of the consumer base of a business.
• Following through with the software components in our system landscape.
• Implementing our system in the ABAP ecosystem to allow seamless data exchange.

However, if we want to use the apps available in the SAP Fiori launchpad, we will need to get a specific business role. For that, we can either use a role already available in our company or create something else on our own.

SAP BTP Applications

In this article we have offered some key insights on the applications available on SAP BTP. However, in this section, highlight some again;

1. Application Development

In this section, we will find the following options –

• SAP AppGyver (allows us to create applications for web and mobile).
• SAP Mobile Technology (helps develop mobile applications only).
• SAP Intelligent RPA (enables us to build intelligent bots to automate processes).
• SAP Business Application Studio (creates tailor-made business applications).
• SAP Task Center (offers insights on notifications, approval processes, and tasks).

2. Integration

The Integration segment of SAP BTP comes with the following –

• SAP Integration Suite (A set of modular and open iPaaS integration scenarios).
• SAP Internet of Things (Everything related to SAP-based Internet of Things).
• SAP Event Mesh (A cloud-based eventing and messaging service).

3. Data And Analytics

The Data and Analytics section of SAP BTP features –

• SAP Analytics Cloud (cloud solution for enterprise planning, business intelligence, and predictive analysis)
• SAP HANA Cloud (a one-stop solution for all of our data management- as well as maintenance-related issues).
• ?SAP Data Intelligence Cloud (a comprehensive data management solution, it transforms distributed data sprawls into vital data insights, supporting innovation and business growth)
• SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (a multi-cloud solution that comes with data warehouse, database, and analytics capabilities).
• SAP Master Data Governance (enables you to define, monitor, enforce, and improve master data throughout various domains as a whole).

4. Artificial Intelligence

Finally, here’s what SAP BTP can offer in the artificial intelligence department –

• AI and Machine Learning (can help build sustainable and intelligent enterprises).
• SAP Conversational AI (a low-code, end-to-end chatbot designed to answer each and every basic query of your business’s consumer base).
• SAP AI Business Services (provides strategic applications and services to automate or optimise the corporate processes accordingly).

The next step is the most critical and this is defining what when and how to implement and integrate

SAP BTP Best Practices

Working with SAP BTP at the beginning can be pretty difficult, especially for a single person. However, embarking on this journey, can be extremely beneficial

Here are some tips that can help –

• Establish A Plan Beforehand: When it comes to working with SAP BTP, it’ll be a must to create a plan at the beginning. This way, building a team effectively and efficiently will be clear. Accordingly, setting up a security model, and going through key task in a structured and methodical manner will reap greater rewards.
• Build And Develop: Learn about the programming languages and tools used in BTP as early as possible. Apart from this, also gather knowledge regarding multi-target applications for more convenience.
• Integrate And Test: No matter how sure of the integration, don’t forget to test each and everything at each stage. When creating an application, integrate it into another app and check how it works.?

Finally, focus on making improvements to applications and consider the time when they should be retired. It will be significant for the development and integration tasks.

The Bottom Line

In all honesty, the topic of SAP BTP is extremely broad, to say the least. So, even if it seems like this article is the ultimate solution explanation, it’s not.

This article barely scratches the surface of this 'War and Peace' sized topic.?

So, if you want to learn more in this regard, we would humbly suggest setting up a professional services call.

To do so please reach out. We have been working on SAP based services for over 30 years and, thus, can offer the right suggestion or make a professional connection that can be of support. I the first instance, drop us a DM, connect or use our webpage Contact Us and let us know a bit more about how we can engage and help.