DSAG Technology Days 2021

This year's version of the DSAG technology days is already over. In this article we want to dwell a little on the content and topics of the completely digital event. What's new from customers and SAP, how has the relationship between both parties changed.

 

Keynotes

The keynotes were again divided into a part from DSAG and a part from SAP. New this year was a customer session by Munich RE on the development of the cloud landscape in the Data-Warehouse.

 

DSAG

The focus was once again on the change process that companies have to go through today in order to remain competitive in the market. Even small startups can have billions in value after a short time, simply through innovations and fast processes, compared to older companies.

The shelf life of companies has also decreased in recent years. In 1964, for example, a company lived an average of 33 years, in 2017 it was only 24 years. And it is forecast for 2027 that companies there will only exist for 12 years. The competition will therefore continue to increase over the next few years, which is not only negative, but also positive for innovations in the various industries.

A key point was also the resilience a company needs to have during a crisis (DotCom bubble, financial crisis or COVID-19) in order to reappear just as strongly after the crisis. This was described as "bounce back", back to the current state. The DSAG and SAP would like to help, however, that it may also be a "bounce forward", that you use the time and emerge even stronger. The following key issues play an important role:

• Analysis
• Cloud
• Development

 

Created by DSAG

 

ABAP is not enough. As a SAP developer, you have to let this statement take effect. What exactly does that mean for the future? What is meant is a multi-layered landscape in which the most varied of systems interact with each other, which are not necessarily from SAP. Furthermore, the technologies for the future that should be understood and perhaps also developed. ABAP for the backend and the extension, communication via the web (REST) and Javascript for the frontend. If you take a look at gCTS, you will also have to deal with Git and Jenkins in order to implement proper CI/CD processes.

 

SAP

An important point for SAP is the Business Technology Platform (BTP), which brings together all of SAP's technologies under one umbrella and is intended to create broad added value for the customer for processes, technologies and networking. This also includes the new technology platforms that we have already reported on.

• ABAP Environment (Steampunk)
• Business Application Studio (BAS)
• gCTS (git-based CTS)

 

Another topic was the dissolution of the term SAP Cloud Platform (SCP) in order to reduce the confusion with the BTP. The technologies and services were grouped under the items "SAP Extension Suite" and "SAP Integration Suite", for example. If you want to find out more, we have a link for you here.

The last point was the new RISE with SAP program that was launched by SAP. With this, SAP would like to support customers in transforming the company into an intelligent enterprise, based on the best technologies the company currently has (cloud and on-premise solutions).

 

Embedded Steampunk

What is embedded steampunk and what can you use it for? Unfortunately, there is no proper documentation on this yet, but something about the content was revealed a few times during the technology days. This is about an ABAP environment that is connected to the corresponding system and is therefore not completely alone, as is currently the case.

The first version for S/4 Cloud should be available this year so that customers can expand their systems directly side-by-side. Next year (2022) this should also be available for on-premise so that you can integrate and expand it in your local network.

However, it is important that all previous extensions and dependencies continue to exist. This includes:

• Development with Eclipse
• Using released APIs (released objects)
• Programming model RAP
• Data model with Core-Data-Services (CDS) and Virtual-Data-Model (VDM)

 

Discovery Center

The new Discovery Center was recently launched by SAP. Here you get an overview of the services that SAP offers in the various areas, but also the numerous missions that are still being pursued. It is definitely worth taking a look at the page, as good documentation and explanations are also available in writing or video.

Created by SAP

 

Customer presentations

The main focus of the presentations was on the platforms of the future and new technologies. But you can also tell that the switch to S/4 HANA has now arrived at many companies and that the initial pessimism is slowly giving way to openness to the new technologies. Many companies also use a hybrid strategy with on-premise systems and cloud systems.

Other interesting topics from the presentations:

• Focused Run - Extension of the Solution Manager to monitor many systems and a complex landscape. In the presentation, 350+ systems were monitored in the landscape.
• Principal Propagation - Authentication and authorization of SaaS applications on the SAP backend, with the help of a dedicated proxy (similar to the SAP Cloud Connector). With a focus on the problems with the mapping of the certificate, the token and user verification.
• Integration of new technologies - a lecture for companies that still have their way ahead of them and still want to start with the migration to S/4. Which new technologies are coming and which of them can perhaps be implemented today.

 

Conclusion

This year, too, there were many interesting topics and lectures about SAP and the new technology platform. ABAP will continue to play an important role in technology, but that's not all you should keep in mind.