DSAG Technology Days 2022
The DSAG Technology Days 2022 are over, what was there to see and what were the new announcements this year?
Table of contents
The Technology Days took place again on site, this time in Düsseldorf and under the appropriate hygiene rules. In this article you will find out what we have heard and what news there is from SAP. We will go through the two days and look at the session of our choice.
Day 1
Keynotes
As always, the technology days began with the keynotes from DSAG and SAP, this time under the motto of Star Wars. Looking back at the last virtual technology days showed that not much has actually happened. Cloud has slowly arrived in the "New Normal" and is on the to-do list of many companies, whether as IaaS, PaaS or SaaS. It was also found that many companies are moving their SAP systems to the cloud, but then primarily as a private cloud. The "hybrid cloud" model has arrived at many companies.
However, an important component is also the issue of security, after all 80% of the companies surveyed want to put more money into the issue of security this year. Especially from the point of view of hybrid cloud, you should think more about the security of the systems when the firewall on the Internet is getting narrower and narrower.
Another topic was "RISE with SAP", although according to the survey, only a few companies want to go down this path at the moment. If you take a closer look at the topic, you will quickly find that there are also some disadvantages. After all, you give up your own infrastructure and basis, do without the full degree of customization of the SAP system and start the fixed upgrade cycles. A company should give some thought to this before taking this step.
UI Components
The new UI Web Components for Fiori are here and promise a look and feel across all systems and browsers at the same scale. However, the conversion will not work overnight; the components first have to be used in new projects. The existing components will continue to run in old applications until they are replaced. As always, the components have been available as open source for some time and can already be tested by the community.
SAP Mobile Services
Quickly create smaller applications for iOS or Android, that's what the mobile services from SAP promise. However, one should not forget that the basis is always an OData service and with APIs SAP still has a long way to go before all customers have enough interfaces available. But if you want to bring the first native applications to mobile devices, then it's worth taking a look at mobile services.
One Launchpad
The term One Launchpad hides the desire for access to all SAP applications without media disruption and without having to remember links to different Fiori Launchpads. Everything still works best via SSO and saves the user from having to enter their access data umpteen times. SAP currently offers two concepts that can be used here.
On the one hand, you can start with the work zone, here you will find a slimmed-down Fiori launchpad in your stomach, and the user can also configure his start page as he likes and what he needs in terms of key figures and widgets. On the other hand, various services, for example from Microsoft, can be integrated and you get resources for working with colleagues, similar to how teams provide chats and channels.
The second option is the Central Fiori Launchpad (formerly Portal Service), which gives you the option of making all launchpads and various applications available in one launchpad in the cloud. The structuring and authorization comes from the connected backend in the first step, but can be restructured again in the cloud.
AppGyver
Low-code and no-code can currently be heard on every corner, but what is actually behind it. One would like to enable the "key users" to click together a few apps and thus quickly create productive scenarios. However, it should be noted that the basis is always an OData service, which the user needs first of all so that he can start. AppGyver is such a tool, but it can also be used for quick prototyping. Furthermore, one should keep in mind that an experienced developer can also use it to quickly create apps without having to do great development.
Day 2
The way to the cloud
We looked at two companies that describe their journey to the cloud and how they went about it. Neither of the two companies relies on a solution as SaaS, but use the cloud as IaaS. They use the resources of SAP and go to the Clean Core Pattern to implement the extensions in the BTP. This procedure will probably become established in the next few years at many companies that have the money for such solutions. An S/4 system will suffice for small and medium-sized companies, which they can adapt to their own requirements.
A company uses a bare S/4 stack to "simulate" an ABAP environment. This gives you a lot more freedom to implement your own developments and to migrate old applications, but then you don't use the advantages of SaaS and three-month upgrades by SAP to benefit from improvements and new features.
Developer Extensibility
This term covers the expandability of the core system via Embedded Steampunk, as well as the use of RAP standard objects and the expansion of these business objects. Whereby no ABAP environment is placed next to the actual S/4 system, but you implement your extensions directly in the system. As usual, you can only access and use released objects. However, the type of objects will increase, so you can also use classes, core data services, BADIs and other local objects, but you do not need an OData service for this.
However, this scenario should only be used with tightly coupled applications or if the applications are data-hungry. Side-by-side extension should still be used for decoupled applications.
RAP
Of course, the current development in the RAP environment should not be missing, as well as the further roadmap for the new programming model. In the future there will be a wizard for creating business objects so that the developer does not always have to create the same objects. The developer can then start implementing the actual functions that the application requires.
Hybride Cloud Architektur
An important part of building your cloud landscape is still the architecture of the landscape and the sensible use of resources. You should think about how to connect your 3 or 5 system landscapes to the cloud and structure the individual sub-accounts accordingly. If you as an architect are not careful, the cloud landscape can quickly become uncontrolled and you spend too much money on services that you may only need once.
Conclusion
The Technology Days 2022 are over and the "ABAP Development Days 2022" are just around the corner. This month is packed with events on SAP topics and innovations from the SAP and ABAP world. We are excited about the next few years and how SAP cloud technology will continue to develop.
