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SAP BTP ABAP Environment (Detailed Guide)

In general, SAP BTP, or Business Technology Platform, serves as a cornerstone for whatever SAP’s cloud-based operating system you’re using. Through the aforesaid component, SAP can deliver various services to boost your development productivity efficiently. 

In short, it’s equivalent to the services provided on the previous SAP Cloud Platform. These services can support a developer by enabling them to – 

  • Perform analytics, 
  • Create an excellent user experience,  
  • Integrate new services in and beyond the boundaries of the platform, 
  • Leverage various transformational technologies (such as IoT, machine learning, etc.) 
  • Maintain security. 

So, in this article, we’re going to talk about one of the SAP BTP services, which can offer you a few of the benefits above. It’s known as the ABAP environment. 

SAP BTP ABAP Ecosystem – A General Overview

SAP ABAP is a type of PaaS (platform-as-a-service) that allows a developer to create and develop an application. And to do so, it uses a cloud-optimised version of the ABAP programming language. But before we learn more about it, we should know its history. 

The History 

In 2017, SAP introduced Cloud Foundry on its ‘services’ list. It’s an open-source environment that can be hosted on an on-premise platform, an organisational infrastructure, or within a cloud environment. Furthermore, it also offered support for various programming languages available on the Cloud Foundry. In 2018, ABAP was included in enlisting languages supported by the Cloud Foundry. Due to its positioning within the SAP BTP, the Cloud Foundry can enable close integration with other abilities and services of the platform. 

Additional Information

The ABAP environment of SAP BTP runs on the exclusive SAP HANA database alongside ABAP-managed access to the launched or released objects.  

Its connectivity options tend to cover both on-premise and cloud-based scenarios and are also capable of exposing web APIs (application programming interfaces). 

However, when managing an ABAP environment, it’s important to consider using a tool or two frequently. For example – 

  • The SAP BTP cockpit can be used for maintaining and creating the ABAP ecosystem. 
  • The ADT (ABAP Development Tools) can be used for Eclipse to complete all of your development-related tasks and opportunities. 
  • GitHub can be used to take care of code exchanging and versioning. You can employ it via the abapGit plugin. It’s readily available for ADT on SAP BTP. 

The Use Cases

Regarding use cases, the ABAP environment can fall under two different options. It’ll include the following – 

  • Side-by-side extensions are generally used for creating brand-new extensions. It’s also used to migrate an existing extension decoupled from S/4HANA’s core. 
  • A new application development system is added in SAP BTP to create an app or tool from scratch. It supports the integration of the backend system. 

You may use it for leveraging the SAP BTP services as well. 

Finally, the SAP ABAP environment shares a similar form of foundation as the SAP HANA Cloud. The programming model available in it is known as ABAP RESTful.  

And the language used in this case is a restricted variant of ABAP that’s primarily used in an on-premise system. These limitations can include features like – 

  • File access,  
  • System calls, and  
  • The other unsupported features like lists, dynpros, etc. 

 

None of these elements are applied in a cloud environment. 

ABAP is a key contributor to an SAP-based solution. Since the creation of ABAP to the Cloud Foundry, developers have been leveraging their existing knowledge and building applications on it. 

The Bottom Line 

When it comes to creating and developing an SAP-based application, it’s important to go for an ABAP-based environment. Apart from this, it can also help you with exposing – 

  • HTTP services, 
  • OData services, 
  • SQL services, and 
  • RFC function modules. 

On the other hand, the tool can be used to consume the following – 

  • HTTP clients or services, 
  • OData services (the service consumption model) 
  • An on-premise system via the Cloud Connector, 
  • Remote Function Calls (also known as RFC), and 
  • SOAP-based Web services. 

Therefore, it’s best to use it as frequently and proficiently as you can. Good luck! 

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