Hello friends, welcome to my blog.
In this post, we are going to discuss the SAP Business Technology Platform or also known as SAP BTP.
Previously, it used to be called SAP Cloud Platform. As of March 2021, SAP changed its name to SAP BTP.
Introduction:
SAP BTP is a platform that offers a variety of solutions such as database, data warehouse, analytics, integration and programming tools. The customers can make use of this platform to satisfy their business requirements without the complexity of building & maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching these applications.
It is basically a Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Let’s take a quick look at the difference between PaaS, SaaS, IaaS and On-premise.
In Platform as a Service, the applications and data are managed by the user whereas everything else that lies underneath is managed by the service provider.
For example, let’s say that you would like to build your own web application that is integrated with SAP S/4HANA. When you use middleware such as SAP BTP, all you need to do is just write the code to build your application. Other things that are required to build and run your code such as development tools, database, integration APIs, network, user management, server, OS, storage are managed by SAP. The advantage of this model is you can spend your time effectively concentrating on building the application rather than managing the software and hardware that lies underneath.
Some examples of PaaS are SAP BTP, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, OpenShift.
Software as a Service:
When it comes to Software as a Service, everything is managed by the service provider including the application. The user just consumes the functionalities to perform their day-to-day operations.
Examples of SaaS are Dropbox, Google Drive, Gmail, Salesforce, SAP SuccessFactors, etc.
Infrastructure as a Service:
They are cloud-based services where the user pay as they go for services such as storage, networking and virtualisation but other things such as the OS, middleware, data and application are managed by the user.
Examples of IaaS are Amazon AWS, Rackspace, Google Computing Engine, etc.
On-premise:
In the on-premise model, the user manages everything. The software is installed on a server that is hosted in the same building as the business.
Now let’s a look at what SAP BTP has got to offer.
- Database & Data Management
- Analytics
- Application Development & Integration
- Intelligent Technologies
Database & Data Management
As the name implies, this category contains database and data management solutions. As you may know, SAP offers different types of Databases such as SAP HANA, SAP HANA Cloud (cloud version of the HANA DB) and SAP IQ. It also offers solutions to manage master data across the entire organisation.
The above picture shows the solutions that are offered as part of the Database & Data Management solution under BTP. You can find more info regarding this project in the following link https://www.sap.com/australia/products/database-data-management.html
Analytics
Analytics is really important to any organisation. Because Analytics is what helps you to get transparency behind what is going on in the organisation. Whether it is finance, procurement, employee information, demand, supply chain etc. all those business-critical KPIs can be hooked on to any of these analytics tools and it will present you with information in a readable way and let you know what exactly is happening in your organisation.
You can receive more information regarding the solutions that are offered as part of the analytics in the following link https://www.sap.com/australia/products/analytics.html
Application Development & Integration
A lot of customers use SAP BTP mainly for the purpose of integration and application development. When it comes to integration, BTP offers pre-built integration libraries and APIs that enable the customers to easily integrate their SAP systems with other SAP systems, as well as with third-party applications.
You can get more information regarding SAP Integration Suite using the following link https://www.sap.com/australia/products/integration-suite.html
Extension Suite
An extension is nothing but a standalone web application that can integrate with any SAP product to enhance its functionality and serve an end-to-end business process requirement.
Say, for example, my organisation has a requirement for a special tool that is required for recruiting new employees. I can write code and develop that new tool on SAP BTP and integrate it with SAP S/4HANA or SAP SuccessFactors to provide the users with a seamless end-to-end business process execution.
SAP BTP offers tools & services to develop & integrate extension tools with other SAP products.
More information about SAP’s extension suite is available in the following link https://www.sap.com/australia/products/extension-suite.html
Intelligent Technologies
Intelligent Technologies contain solutions like the Internet of Things, Edge Services, Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, conversational AI and AI Business Services.
Customers can make use of these functionalities and integrate them with their SAP products.
Okay, what are some of the use cases of intelligent technologies?
If you take the Internet of Things, for example, it can be used for a variety of purposes. Like logistics companies can monitor all their trucks and collect data like their speed, braking pattern, how much break does a driver take, what route is economical, what parts of the trucks must be changed and when they must be changed, when must a truck be serviced and so much more.
Robotic process automation technology helps you identify repeatable tasks and enables you to automate them.
Conversational AI technologies are useful for building intelligent chatbots. I mentioned intelligent chatbots because they use Artificial Intelligence technology and hence they are capable of learning and adjusting their responses over a period of time.
Now using BTP, you can subscribe to any of these services instead of building those applications by yourself from scratch.
So are there any free trials available for SAP BTP?
The answer is yes, SAP offers a free tier model with limited access to BTP services. A credit card is required to create a pay-as-you-go account. But the credit card will not be charged. Once you reach the limit of a free tier service plan, you will be notified. At that time, you can choose to update from a free tier to a paid service plan. Only after you update to a paid service plan will you be charged for additional usage. The cost will depend on the type of service you subscribe to.
You can find that information in the following link https://store.sap.com/dcp/en/product/display-9999951781_live_v1/SAP Business Technology Platform#pricing
How can you learn SAP BTP?
YouTube channel – SAP HANA Academy – Developer Onboarding
SAP Community – https://community.sap.com/topics/business-technology-platform
OpenSAP – https://open.sap.com/courses/btp1
SAp training & certification – https://training.sap.com/content/sap-training-technology
Other useful links
https://www.sap.com/australia/products/business-technology-platform.html
https://community.sap.com/topics/business-technology-platform
https://developers.sap.com/topics/business-technology-platform.html
Hope you got some useful information from this blog. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment here in the blog or on the YouTube video. I try my best to answer all the comments. Thank you.
P.S. Check out my course on Udemy – “Introduction to SAP – The Complete Package for Beginners“
A blog about SAP 