SAP has long been a cornerstone in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business technology solutions. As digital transformation accelerates, SAP continues to evolve its development environments and technologies to meet the growing demands for agility, cloud integration, and innovation. The latest advancements in SAP’s development tools provide developers with more flexibility, scalability, and capabilities to build next-generation applications. Here’s a closer look at the new SAP development environments and technologies that are reshaping the SAP ecosystem.
1. SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)
The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a foundational element in SAP’s modern development landscape. It acts as a unified platform for data management, analytics, application development, and integration services. BTP combines database and data management, analytics, application development, and integration, which helps businesses run intelligent enterprises by connecting all their business processes.
BTP includes services like SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Integration Suite, and SAP Extension Suite, which enable developers to build, deploy, and integrate applications using a variety of tools and environments. Key highlights of SAP BTP include:
- Cloud-native development: BTP offers support for cloud-native applications, ensuring that developers can build scalable and resilient solutions.
- Integration capabilities: Through tools like SAP Integration Suite, developers can connect SAP applications with third-party systems effortlessly.
- AI and machine learning: Leveraging the power of SAP’s embedded AI and machine learning capabilities, developers can integrate advanced analytics and automation within their applications.
2. SAP Fiori and UI5 Development
SAP Fiori has revolutionized the user experience (UX) by bringing a more intuitive, user-friendly interface to SAP applications. SAP Fiori is based on modern UX design principles and offers responsive, role-based, and easy-to-use interfaces for end-users. Developers can create Fiori apps using SAP UI5, an HTML5-based development framework.
- SAP Fiori Elements: This low-code development approach provides pre-built templates and patterns, reducing development time and allowing developers to focus on customizations.
- SAP Fiori Tools: The development environment includes powerful tools for Fiori development, such as SAP Fiori Tools for rapid prototyping, development, and deployment of Fiori apps within a visual programming environment.
3. SAP ABAP Environment (Steampunk)
SAP’s legacy ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) language remains at the core of SAP development, but the ABAP Cloud environment (also known as Steampunk) introduces a modernized approach to ABAP development. ABAP Cloud enables developers to build cloud-ready extensions and services, combining the strength of traditional ABAP development with modern cloud-native capabilities.
- Cloud-native ABAP: Steampunk provides a managed ABAP environment on SAP BTP, allowing developers to build and run applications in the cloud.
- Side-by-Side Extension: Developers can extend core SAP systems without modifying the standard SAP code, preserving clean core practices and enabling seamless updates.
4. Low-Code/No-Code Development
In an effort to democratize SAP development and make it accessible to non-developers, SAP is focusing on low-code/no-code environments. These platforms allow users with minimal coding knowledge to create applications using drag-and-drop interfaces.
- SAP Business Application Studio: SAP’s Business Application Studio offers a cloud-based, integrated development environment (IDE) that supports full-stack development, low-code, and traditional programming approaches. It helps developers and non-developers alike to quickly prototype and deploy applications.
- SAP AppGyver: This no-code development platform lets users build enterprise-grade applications without writing any code, offering a rich set of components and tools for building mobile and web apps.
5. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensions
As enterprises adopt SAP S/4HANA Cloud, they require flexible ways to extend and customize their cloud ERP systems. SAP provides several options for developers to build extensions that integrate seamlessly with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
- In-App Extensions: Developers can use built-in tools to enhance and extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud functionalities directly within the system.
- Side-by-Side Extensions: Using SAP BTP, developers can build applications and extensions outside of the core ERP system to maintain the integrity of standard processes and ensure flexibility for future upgrades.
- Key user tools: SAP’s extensibility concept allows business users (key users) to make specific adjustments, such as adding custom fields or creating new workflows, without requiring deep technical expertise.
6. SAP HANA Cloud
At the heart of many SAP applications is SAP HANA Cloud, a database platform that combines real-time data processing and advanced analytics capabilities. HANA Cloud provides high-performance, in-memory data management, which is essential for building applications that need to process vast amounts of data at high speed.
- Multimodal processing: SAP HANA Cloud supports various types of data processing, including transactional, analytical, and graph-based data processing, allowing for more complex and dynamic applications.
- Data Lake integration: HANA Cloud includes data lake capabilities, making it easier to handle unstructured and semi-structured data in large volumes.
7. SAP Graph and API Hub
To simplify the integration of SAP and third-party systems, SAP has introduced SAP Graph and SAP API Hub. These tools provide developers with an intuitive, API-first approach to integrating SAP systems with other enterprise software and services.
- SAP Graph: SAP Graph is a unified API that connects different SAP systems through a simplified data model, allowing developers to access and manage data across various SAP applications without having to deal with individual system APIs.
- SAP API Hub: This centralized repository contains thousands of pre-built APIs for SAP and third-party applications, streamlining the integration process and enabling faster development cycles.
Conclusion
The advancements in SAP’s development environments and technologies reflect a strong commitment to innovation, cloud scalability, and flexibility. Whether you’re building low-code applications with AppGyver, extending SAP S/4HANA with side-by-side extensions, or integrating systems via SAP Graph, the tools available in the SAP ecosystem provide unmatched versatility. For businesses looking to modernize their operations or scale their digital strategies, these new SAP development environments open the door to faster, smarter, and more agile application development.
By embracing these tools and platforms, developers can create more efficient, innovative solutions tailored to the evolving needs of enterprises in today’s digital economy.