Jun 25, 20234 min read

SAP Business Technology Platform

What is SAP BTP?

SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is a platform focused on turning data into actionable business plans, by leveraging tools found in an intelligent enterprise.
SAP BTP contains many solutions and tools, and products.

Environments of SAP BTP

SAP BTP has two environments
The 1st one called Neo environment is focused on cloud capabilities available from SAP’s own data centers and allows users to connect SAP ERP solutions. Development languages available in the Neo runtime are limited to Java, HTML5, and SAP HANA XS.
2nd environment is the SAP BTP Cloud Foundry Environment. This allows users to utilize any data center, not just SAP’s centers, and allows more extensibility options for developers and hyper scale vendors such as AMAZON Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Developers can bring their own programming language to this environment, and multiple runtimes exist, including one for ABAP and Kyma.

SAP BTP Pillars

SAP BTP is built upon four pillars

1) Analytics

2) Application Development Integration

3) Database and Data Management

4) Intelligent Technologies

Analytics

Analytics focuses on exploring data, looking for trends, and making action plans with the information you bring into system.
SAP BTP allows users to perform both simple and advanced analytics with tool like SAP Analytics Cloud. SAP Business Objects BI, SAP Crystal Solutions, SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP BW/4HANA. With the data trends uncovered (often in real time), business operations can be better tailored to meet demand and run efficiently.

Application Development and Integration

Application development and integration focuses on the creation of custom apps and extensions of specific business purposes, as well as the integration with other SAP solutions which is known as SAP Cloud Platform.
SAP BTP provides a set of both business and platform services that accelerate the development and innovation of cloud apps. As a language-agnostic platform, developers can utilize any one programming language including ABAP, Java, Nod.js, Ruby, Go, Python, PHP, and Groovy. DevOps are available to developers looking to improve the relationship and cooperation between developers and operations staff.
SAP BTP apps and services can be run alongside existing on premise solutions by utilizing the SAP Integration suite to facilitate information exchange.

Database and Data Management

Data management focuses on keeping track of segmenting data so it’s accessible and usable by users. This includes storage access, processing, integration and more.
Data management and storage with SAP BTP can be accomplished using databases such as SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), SAP IQ, SAP HANA, and SAP HANA Cloud, and SAP SQL anywhere. Data can be cleansed, managed and modeled with solutions such as SAP Data Intelligence, SAP Information Steward, SAP Data Quality Management, SAP Power Designer, SAP Information Lifecycle Management, SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server, SAP Data Services and SAP Master Data Governance.

Intelligent Technologies

Intelligent technologies are tools that focus on digging deep into existing pools of data for analysis and business insight, and streamlining business processes to free up time to work on other projects.
SAP BTP provides customers with a robust set of intelligent technologies, including SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, SAP Conversational AI, SAP AI Business Services, SAP Edge Services, SAP Internet of Things, and Askdata. With these options, specific, lower-level business services such as tax assignment and collection can be automated, and chatbots can be developed to interact with those looking for assistance, freeing up employees to perform other tasks. This automation increases efficiency and can provide stronger database and solution security.

SAP BTP Services

There are 97 services available as part of SAP BTP. Some are such as

ABAP environment: Used for creating ABAP cloud applications and extensions
SAP Analytics Cloud, embedded edition: Used for analyzing data from source systems
SAP Build Apps: Used for low-code/no-code application development
SAP Business Application Studio: Used for developing applications
SAP Cloud ALM: Used for managing implementations of cloud solutions
SAP Conversational AI: Used for creating chatbots
SAP Data Intelligence: Used for parsing data with AI and machine learning
SAP Data Warehouse Cloud: Used for storing and accessing data from source systems
SAP Graph: Used for combining multiple SAP APIs into one layer
SAP HANA Cloud: Used for in-memory database management and application development
SAP Intelligent RPA: Used for automating repetitive, rule-based tasks with machine learning

Getting Started With SAP BTP

SAP BTP Free Tier

Those looking to trial SAP BTP can utilize a free tier that provides instant access to a production environment. While limitations exist in terms of what services you can use (currently, more than 30 services are available in the free tier) and how much capacity you can take up, this is a good way to get started with SAP BTP to see if it can help your business. If you decide to start paying for the platform, you can easily move the things you’ve already done into the paid option.

Pay-As-You-Go for SAP BTP

Those who are looking to try out new business processes with SAP BTP or are constrained by a budget can purchase access to the services that they need with the pay-as-you-go model. Using this option helps users by not having to commit a lot of money up front or meet minimum usage requirements.

Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement

The Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement (CPEA) provides users with cloud credits that can be used to access any of the different services available with SAP BTP. Using the CPEA model is beneficial for those who need to use many different services, but who don’t necessarily need to use them all at the same time.

Subscription

The SAP BTP subscription provides access to specific SAP BTP services (defined by a contract) for a fixed cost. Subscriptions range from one year to three years. Using the subscription model is good for those who have specific use cases and a specific budget in mind. If additional services are needed during the course of the subscription, they can be added on for an additional fee.

Additional SAP BTP definition

In addition to the information laid out above, there are a handful of important SAP BTP terms you should also be familiar with. Here they are in list form:

Cloud connector: A connection used between SAP BTP applications and on-premise solutions to talk to one another
OData: A REST-based protocol for opening up data silos
SAP Cloud Application Programming Model: A specialized programming model used to create cloud apps
SAP Fiori: A user experience built around business applications rather than transaction codes
SAP Workflow Management: A solution that helps adjust and extend business processes
SAP Work Zone: A portal for one-stop access to all relevant business information and applications