SAP Build allows unified developer experience: Juergen Mueller, CTO

SAP recently hosted the SAP TechEd 2022 in Las Vegas, USA. The SAP TechEd Keynote was presented by Juergen Mueller, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Member of the SAP Executive Board, SAP.

Mueller talked about how you can thrive in times of global disruption and environmental challenges, and learn from SAP’s developer advocates how easy it is to succeed with SAP technology. You can also dive into topics that are of most interest to you. We are also celebrating SAP's 50th birthday in 2022.

First, all the guests were invited to collect their digital NFTs. You can collect some of SAP's most iconic moments with these NFTs. They celebrate SAP's innovation over the last 50 years over the beautiful digital assets. Kicking off the keynote, Mueller said we want to help the world run better and improve people's lives. Business processes are essential for that. We offer the world's best business processes for enterprises. They are available for different businesses, such as banking, railways, retail, private and public sector, etc. With SAP Signavio, we offer better business process transformation capabilities.

We have created the SAP BTP because all of us run into the same business and technical challenges. There are challenges with automation, integration, AI, data analytics, etc. He said over 15,000 customers are now live with SAP BTP or business technology platform. SAP had over 400,000 visitors on their company web page. In automation and app development, etc., there are low-code, pro-code, and several other elements.

The worldwide market for low-code tools ballooned almost 23% in the last year. Today, 41% of non-IT employees are building or customizing applications, according to Gartner.

App development and automation includes low code and pro code. Today, every company is becoming a tech company. He predicted that there could be a shortfall of 4 million developers by 2025. We have to unleash the expertise of those who know the business best! These are the business users themselves.

SAP Build is here!
Mueller announced that SAP is launching its low-code portfolio, SAP Build. It is the evolution of our low-code portfolio, which we started a few years ago with Build.me, and SAP App Gyver. SAP Build includes SAP Build Process Automation, SAP Build Apps, and SAP Build Work Zone. They have common project lifecycle, BTP destination, and in-app content store. You can build an app, an automated process, or a business site. You can get a unified developer experience.

Access to data is now very easy and secure. There is the world's largest domain of contents. Customers can select from 1,300+ workflows and automations, etc. With SAP Build, you can now collaborate seamlessly among business, development, and governance teams. SAP Build, low-code development solutions enable everyone to develop with drag-and-drop simplicity. SAP Build relies on existing SAP BTP services for security and compliance. IT teams can be secure that all apps developed are meeting the IT teams' governance and security requirements.

Drawing on the unique depth and breadth of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), SAP Build gives business users direct access to the end-to-end processes, data, and context they need to make smarter decisions and drive innovation quickly. With SAP Build, users can easily integrate systems, intelligently monitor, analyze, and automate processes, and build applications for the last mile of innovation – all without moving their data into an external system.

Sustainability at NHL
Omar Mitchell, VP, Sustainable Infrastructure and Growth Initiatives, National Hockey League (NHL) Green, said ice hockey relies on cold weather, fresh water, and healthy communities. Today, climate change has been impacting all of us. Professional ice hockey is played in a giant refrigerator. There are increasing resources constraint and rising energy costs that are also impacting us. We need to do our part to reduce environmental impact internally. The first part of our journey includes measuring our environment. We cannot have impact, if we do not measure!

In NHL, there are 32 ice hockey teams across North America. Managing the footprint of each one of our arenas is an incredible and most critical aspect of our sustainability programs. We have co-innovated with SAP HANA Cloud, etc. We are working with SAP to help track, measure, and have deeper insights into our innovations. Our teams also share best practices, and we can also continue to improve.

To achieve more visibility and innovativeness, we co-developed the NHL Venue Metrics with SAP. It specifically uses the SAP Hana Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud data collection app. It collects, processes, and reports on venue data collections from our clubs and the venues.

Earlier, data collection used to be manual and time consuming. There were many required fields. We took the information captured. Once the information has been submitted, it needs to be reviewed and approved. We needed to create an approvals process. The approval process has been composed within the SAP Build Process Automation. After the data is approved, all data points within the NHL Venue Metrics will get populated. This also cuts down lot of manual process for the teams. Time means everything in our business. Our clubs are geared toward operational efficiency. We have all the information that a team needs in one place. Everyone can easily access that. There are also energy conservation arenas, ranked from 1 to 32.

This is an important part of the sustainability platform. Sustainability is all about continuous business improvement and optimization, often by using advanced technology. Technology in the hands of business experts helps drive cost and innovation, receive buy-ins from the ultimate stakeholders, and ultimately, helps us achieve our sustainability goals.

NHL Venue Metrics has now been built using the SAP Build Work Zone. This has been an important part of our sustainability program. Eg., the use of LED lights in the sports arenas for playing our games. Environmentally-friendly LED lights also save energy and reduce resource consumption, approximately 20-30%. It also improves the broadcast products. Eg., in ice hockey, ice continues to pops off the TV screen from time to time, and you can also follow the puck better. These types of innovations are a win-win for the environment, and also for the business perspective.

SAP Lobby
Mueller also mentioned the Visual Cloud Functions. Visual Cloud Functions is a way to build your entire cloud logic that happens in the background without writing any code. We are also integration SAP Signavio with SAP Build. SAP Signavio can now recommend over 135 pre-built automations. We can have trigger-based innovation. SAP Build Work Zone brings together the environment.

The SAP Lobby was demonstrated by Daniel Wroblewski, Developer Advocate. He added that people having all types of skills can now work together. All of the apps are available here for collaborating with team-mates. We can see all BTP destinations. We can build SAP TechEd Las Vegas activities using this. If you use any activity from NHL, that can be approved, as you can now watch the San Jose Sharks game. Triggering is extremely simple. We have quickly created a workflow and checked its status.

Mueller said people of all skills are working together. Building things are part of the DNA. We have an intrinsic motivation to take building blocks and build something. Dak, 12, a junior app developer, Massachusetts, stated that coding for app development is his passion. Publishing apps for the world has been a great experience for him, and especially, getting them downloaded from all across the world. He has to refer to the map for countries he has no idea about! Feedback is always appreciated. You can create whatever you want. He now knows how to solve problems if they may come up again. He can learn about other skills. He added that you can do anything once you put your mind to it!

Ahoy, ABAP Cloud!
Mueller noted that SAP is also developing certain other things. One such thing is composability. Our goal has been to allow developers to solve problems. SAP has ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming). There are also Restful Application Programming (RAP) model, and Cloud Application Programming (CAP) model, respectively.

Professional developers focus on low- and pro-codes. SAP has RAP and CAP. That is, RAP is the preferred model for 'ABAP in the Cloud' and S/4 HANA environments. The programming language of RAP is proprietary SAP language ABAP, and runs on a proprietary NetWeaver ABAP stack called Steampunk. CAP is the opposite of RAP in most cases. CAP applications are written in the open-source languages like Java and Javascript/TypeScript, and run on open-source runtimes like JVM or Node.js. The decision to use open-source languages and runtimes for CAP brings the environment a lot of advantages.

ABAP is the primary programming language supported on the SAP NetWeaver ABAP application server platform and applications that run on it, such as SAP ERP (formerly R/3), S/4HANA and CRM. SAP ABAP is an object-oriented programming language that SAP developed in 1983 for use within SAP's enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.

With Steampunk (official brand: SAP BTP ABAP Environment), customers and partners have built cloud applications and loosely coupled side-by-side extensions for SAP’s flagship solutions S/4HANA and S/4HANA Cloud.

Mueller said that ABAP is key success factor for SAP ERP. We need to turn modifications into ABAP code, allowing for SAP S/4 HANA applets. We are introducing ABAP Cloud for S/4 HANA Cloud and S/4 HANA Premise. You can take all steps from Steampunk into S/4 HANA. ABAP Cloud includes public SAP APIs, Public SAP Extension Points, and ABAP Development Tools. It also means that you can continue using RAP.

Once you switch the ABAP Objects to the ABAP Cloud, the ABAP Compiler makes sure that you stick to the roots of the ABAP Cloud. You can now get to the clean core in a much simpler way! The ABAP Cloud is available for all S/4 HANA editions, including public and private editions, from 2022 onwards. He advised to kickstart the ABAP training immediately.

Mueller noted that ABAP has been running very successfully for many years. He introduced ABAP Cloud. SAP S/4HANA Cloud ABAP Environment offers SAP customers and partners the opportunity to build tightly-coupled extensions running directly on the S/4HANA Cloud technology stack. This extensibility option complements existing key user extensibility and side-by side extensibility options. It also means using public SAP APIs, strong tooling support, and continuing using RAP.

CAP is another area. CAP includes libraries and tools for building enterprise apps. Born Digital, Melbourne, Australia, is an app house. It has been using SAP for a long time. Mueller said CAP and ABAP can be easily connected. Nicolai Schoenteich, Developer Advocate, SAP, and Ms. Mamikee Kanneh, Developer Advocate, SAP, demonstrated on CAP and ABAP. Mueller said that CAP also allows you to code with little coding experience. You can discover business apps on SAP.

SAP and Apple
Mobile devices can find your way to the work site. You can get up-to-date data to your fingertips. We have also partnered with Apple -- the folks who know enterprise mobility best. We can take advantage of Apple's powerful software and hardware to build powerful and compelling business apps that people love. Our long-standing association with Apple goes well beyond apps. We also enable our joint customers to decide their users. Today, customers are already using BTP and Apple to transform customer experiences.

SAP's own team has fully embraced mobile. At SAP, we are also adopting the latest Macs powered by Apple. We are seeing 52% performance improvement over previous devices. We are excited to know how Apple is using BTP.

Scott Hawks, Senior Director of Enterprise Systems, Apple, said SAP has been an essential part of Apple's business infrastructure for many years. Today, BTP is powering many of the mobile apps that our teams are using, from supply chains to operations. Our own retail teams use apps from BTP for various aspects, such as pickup and delivery, backhouse operations, inventory management, etc.

Apple is also building apps for its own employees using BTP and iOS. BTP SDK for iOS also makes it possible to tap into powerful iPhone and iPad hardware features, such as cameras, sensors, on-device ML, etc. We can get critical baseline features like secure transactions, offline data synchronization, role-based data access, and other advanced BTP services. Teams have gained incredible efficiency in terms of app performance, BTP, etc. We can also build apps 40% faster than before, and can develop and deploy apps in less than six weeks. We can ensure privacy and security at every point with a single app.

The combination of BTP services and HANA Cloud has enabled teams to go ahead with build iOS apps with best possible performance, scale, and very tight integration. We can serve customers in entirely new ways. BTP enables access to latest innovations from SAP and Apple.

Juergen Mueller, SAP, noted that it is remarkable to see such scale of development. We are learning every day from Apple. We are introducing even more capabilities for BTP SDK for iOS. These include concurrency support for Swift, new APIs for Apple Watch and AR, filming capabilities, accessibility capabilities, etc.

Building integration
SAP has made great improvements. We have the SAP Build, along with SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Work Zone, and SAP Buid Process Automation. We have over 1,300 use-cases specific workflows. ABAP Cloud is now available with all SAP S/4 HANA editions. We also have AI capabilities. SAP Business App Studio now runs on VS Code. We have the SAP BTP iOS SDK. We also have the SAP Signavio integration and SAP S/4 HANA and other SAP and non-SAP application data access.

We also need to look at integrations. SAP systems also need to be integrated with the other systems. You need a powerful and versatile solution to handle that complexity. That is, the SAP Integration Suite, as part of SAP BTP. Its main capabilities are process integration, event mesh, cloud integration, API management, etc. We support every type of integration.

Ben Walker, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Barclays Payments, said payments processes are becoming seamless and frictionless as far as possible. Barclays Card utilizes SAP Integration Suite. By doing so, we have allowed more integration. We have created a seamless payment mechanism. We are now providing an integrated solution for all the merchants in the market. We have integrated that with their finance processes.

Mueller said SAP Integration Suite is open, and provides over 200 connectors. There are 2,600 pre-packaged integration flows, and 3,400 APIs. These are available in SAP API Business Hub. We are also providing Community Content on GitHub. Antonio Maradiga, Developer Advocate, SAP, gave a demonstration about the Integration Suite.

Mueller noted that we are also helping you to get into the cloud even smoother. We have three offerings. These are: Migration factory program, asset assessment and migration tools, and free regression test partner tools. You can modernize your integration solutions with SAP Integration Suite. We are also having SAP Integration Suite for Edge Integration Cell Beta. It should be available in the next year. It enables you to run process integration, event integration, and API scenarios in premise and on private cloud. SAP Integration Suite is a market leader having some integration scenarios as community content, secure APIs via API management, and edge integration cell beta.

Data and analytics
Finally, data and analytics! Data should be behind every single decision in enterprise planning. Companies need to take data-driven decisions. Every organization needs to be data-driven. We can help you with data and analytics solutions.

Paul Bray, Finance and Tax Platform Technology Leader, Maersk, said they have been SAP for several years. Data is key to achieve our strategy. Our journey started with SAP from late 2020. We have managed to standardize an error-prone process, with over 1,000 leaders from across the globe. We have stepped up to predictive analytics. We have now become a data-driven company.

Mueller said that SAP HANA Cloud has doubled to +100% for year-on-year of data volume. It supports all security standards, such as encryption, user management, authentication, and data masking. We have double growth of active customers.

Henkel has also benefitted from SAP. SAP HANA Cloud now supports Mongo DB. Imagine the reduction of complexity and improvement of data strategy! Intelligent data apps are being developed by many, using SAP HANA. Team Liquid, for instance, has 5K data points for every match, and 6 million sports matches are imported. There are 30 billion rows of data in SAP HANA Cloud. You can also use this data strategically to analyze any game situation. Witalij Rudnicki, Developer Advocate, SAP, presented on the intelligent data strategy.

Mueller said SAP HANA Cloud now supports Mongo DB Wire Protocol. We are also announcing Flexible Core Memory Ratio. It helps you get more memory. We have also seen 60% growth of active users for analytics.

In SAP Analytics Cloud, we have added an undo/redo button. It was one of the most requested features. We have also added Unified Story into Analytics. It brings together data visualization and app creation. There can be seamless transition to analytical app development. You can easily extend your dashboards with no-code features. Red Bull is very excited with this. They are using it for many mission-critical use cases.

We are looking to be a market leader in extended planning and analysis. FTX liquidity planning is very important. You can connect external data sources. We have content for you! You can also do augmented extended planning and analysis. SAP Data Warehouse Cloud has also seen 110% growth in customers. AI is another area we are looking at. We are looking to be the best when we embed AI into our apps.

Partnership with Coursera
Use cases are real-life examples on SAP. You can take advantage of learning offerings. SAP BTP is critical for every SAP customer. We are redoubling to address the needs for knowledge. We are looking to upskill 2 million people worldwide by 2025. We are also partnering with Coursera.

Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera, said SAP is launching certificates for all backgrounds on Coursera. We prepare students for entry-level jobs in all fields. I’m happy to announce that SAP is launching an entry-level professional certificate on Coursera. This certificate is designed for learners of all backgrounds, with no college degree or industry experience required. It will prepare learners for entry-level job roles and in some of the most in-demand fields. We are honored to partner with SAP to increase access to job-related skills and to expand economic opportunity for everyone.

Ms. Michelle Moudy, Developer Advocate, SAP, talked about SAP being the one destination for learning. You can build knowledge in any speed. Also, hands-on developer tutorial is provided. You can get started with SAP BTP for free.

Juergen Mueller concluded that SAP founders have been all at work from the beginning. They understood the ethos element. We are trying to improve ourselves, and we are helping you to build your future.