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TammyPowlas
Active Contributor

Mastering SAP is a wrap for 2021, and it was a great experience.  It started for me by attending thomas.jung 's session.



Source: SAP


Where it fits in modern structure, applications


Expand technical knowledge


Look at SAP technologies


As move to S/4HANA



Source: SAP


Andre Fischer is pictured above


15 years ago, the thought was Java was to replace ABAP


Product is still being developed on ABAP platform, which has evolved


Backward compatibility is reason it is not dead



Source: SAP


Programs that ran 25 years ago may still run today (Unicode changes)


Strength and weakness of ABAP ecosystems


Great for customers/partners - invest in intellectual property


Long lifespan


Long stability


Down side, may lead to ABAP developers becoming stagnant


May not bring innovation; look to SAP


Topic of extensibility


Old days focus on bubble on the left


New Z program, class, new ALV, new program within S/4HANA


See opportunity to do extensions in cloud, using BTP, formerly known as SAP Cloud Platform


Opportunity to do extensions in different way, side by side extensions


Find API's to expose from S/4HANA, call separately from S/4HANA


Freedom to upgrade extensions at a faster pace than update S/4HANA


Better security with separation


Better speed to update S/4HANA by keeping core clean


Right side has new topics - data science, process innovation, don't have in ABAP runtime


Event mesh, alternative run times to ABAP, bring innovation from open source world and IT industry, additional tools, standard functionality to broaden technology landscape



Source: SAP


Do not have to abandon ABAP skill set


Can do it in the cloud


Will feel different; need to find the API's


Survive upgrades better


Always on latest version with ABAP in cloud (4 times a year)


On premise gets only 1 release a year


SAP takes care of upgrade in cloud


Tuning, monitoring is taken care of by SAP for you



Source: SAP


Before, Gateway, expose Odata services, annotations in CDS, decoupled from Gateway, different frameworks, provide one new end to end programming model - Fiori apps, do it in a single programming model, used at SAP


Replaced Gateway functionality


Used CDS as definition and model, annotations


Service enablement


Bring latest functionality, draft support, latest Fiori annotation support in single programming model


S/4HANA 1909 has unmanaged model


S/4HANA 2020 - use RAP for new Fiori model and retrofit basic Gateway services to RAP


Coding exits for ABAP logic



Source: SAP


SAPLink, ABAGGit, open up ABAP ecosystem to exchange ideas and innovation


Take ideas of open source of problems being shared by the community


Growing community


ABAP in VS Code, not something SAP does, offering syntax highlighting in VS Code, an example that the community is doing


Check the ABAPGit site, where the community is exchanging ideas and technological solutions



Source: SAP


Whole other technology in addition to ABAP run time


Cloud Foundry, Kyma, allowing multiple languages


Choice of programming models


Other is SAP CAP, similar in scope to RAP, both accomplish many of the same things, using a different underlying technology - node.js or Java - deploy to Cloud Foundry or Kyma Kubernetes



Source: SAP


Above shows a screen shot from SAP TechEd Developer Keynote


Typical development team - long time ABAP developer, brought ABAP skillset


Another developer transitioned to CAPM


Third developer - cloud native developer


Extend sales order process by combining CAPM, Google Go, and ABAP RAP to extend business objects, using Fiori interface, using message bus (BTP Event Mesh, new name) - technology layer


Deployed to ABAP run time, S/4HANA system backend, deployed to Kubernetes (Kyma run time)



Source: SAP


Full lifecycle management


Best practices


Golden path, but not lock into single technology


Plug open sources


Open architecturally



Source: SAP


Full development experience


Similar scope to RAP


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I'm glad I was able to attend this session live; it helped put in perspective where ABAP fits.
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