The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is an open and business-centric platform designed to cater to the entire SAP ecosystem. This unified platform is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and allows users to seamlessly integrate and generate value from data while expanding their SAP and third-party solution landscapes to meet evolving business needs.
In this blog, we will highlight 7 key considerations that make running SAP BTP on AWS a smart choice for businesses. As an SAP customer, adopting this combination is sure to provide you with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the fastest time-to-value benefits.
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AWS has been the preferred and leading platform for launching new SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) cloud services offerings. In 2012, SAP introduced HANA Cloud Platform (also known as SAP NetWeaver Cloud) and SAP HANA One Portal, which was the first-ever public cloud solution for HANA One instances made available on AWS.
This revolutionary platform provided a web-based management console for managing SAP HANA instances deployed on AWS. It marked the beginning of making SAP BTP services available on the public cloud.
As of May 2023, the SAP Discovery Center lists over 90 services, out of which more than 80 are available on AWS. The latest additions to this list include new releases of SAP BTP services.
The AWS-exclusive subset of SAP BTP services as of May 2023 includes:
| SAP Build Apps | No-code development platform to create sophisticated web and native mobile apps. |
| ABAP Environment | Develop ABAP cloud apps and extensions leveraging innovations of SAP HANA. |
| SAP Build Process Automation | Design, configure, and execute automation projects. |
| SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite | Understand, improve, and transform your business processes—fast and at scale—with a cloud-based process management platform. |
| SAP Forms Service by Adobe | Generate print and interactive forms using Adobe Document Services. |
| Cloud Integration Automation | Plan and execute scenario integration easily. |
| Master Data Integration | Multi-tenant cloud service in the intelligent enterprise. |
| Conversational AI | Build powerful AI chatbots using a collaborative end-to-end platform. |
| SAP AI Core | Build a platform for your AI solutions. |
| SAP AI Launchpad | Manage your AI use cases across multiple AI runtimes. |
| Business Entity Recognition | Detect and highlight entities in unstructured text using machine learning. |
| Data Attribute Recommendation | Apply machine learning to predict and classify data records. |
| Document Attribute Recommendation | Use machine learning to automate your document information extraction processes. |
| SAP Analytics Cloud Embedded Edition | Analyze data via live connection to the business application s SAP HANA database. |
| SAP BW Bridge | SAP BW Bridge allows customers to reuse their existing models, transformations, and customizations in SAP Datasphere to accelerate time-to-value and capitalize on the existing experience with SAP BW. |
| SAP Sustainability Control Tower | Monitor progress and gain insights from enterprise-wide sustainability performance management. |
Source: AWS Blog
Reduce Custom Code in Core SAP ERP
Research from America SAP User Group (ASUG 2021) reveals that over 91% of customers rely on custom code for essential business processes, with more than half of critical processes dependent on custom SAP interfaces.
However, maintaining custom interfaces and code can be time-consuming and costly during SAP upgrades. Embracing the clean core methodology allows you to move custom codes outside of the core SAP ERP, resulting in reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
To simplify custom code, consider using the following tools:
- SAP Innovation and Optimization Pathfinder on Spotlight: Provides tailored recommendations for optimizing SAP solutions (ECC and S/4HANA) based on industry benchmarks. The “Optimize I.T > Custom Code” section offers insights into the CPU and database time utilized by custom code.
- SAP Readiness Check: Generates a custom code analysis report, highlighting compatibility with the target S/4HANA system.
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensibility Options: Offers key user extensibility with two options. On-stack developer extensibility (embedded steampunk) and side-by-side extensibility (utilizing SAP BTP ABAP Environment). Leveraging the SAP BTP ABAP Environment enables the development of loosely-coupled S/4HANA extensibility applications, reducing complexity in the core SAP ERP and TCO in the long run. Please note that side-by-side extensibility with SAP BTP ABAP Environment is only available on AWS.
Enhance Productivity for Business Experts and Key Users
To boost productivity among business experts and key users, SAP recommends leveraging the power of SAP Build Apps and SAP Build Process Automation, exclusively available on AWS. These tools empower citizen development, enabling organizations to federate custom development and unlock new business benefits.
With SAP Build Apps, creating custom user interface (UI) applications or mobile apps becomes effortless. Its intuitive visual development environment allows for the seamless creation of applications that can be utilized on web, iOS, or Android platforms without requiring any redesign.
Additionally, SAP Build Process Automation enables the automation of repetitive manual processes. By easily creating, scheduling, managing, and monitoring intelligent bots, organizations can streamline operations and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks.
By embracing these tools, business experts and key users can enhance productivity, foster innovation, and drive meaningful business outcomes. Explore the possibilities and unleash the potential of your organization with SAP Build Apps and SAP Build Process Automation on AWS.
Optimize End-to-End Business Processes
An upgrade or migration to S/4HANA presents an excellent opportunity to assess and improve the efficiency and compliance of business processes within your company. Simply performing a technical upgrade may mean that existing bottlenecks in order to cash, procure to pay, or accounting processes persist in the new system.
SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite, exclusively available on AWS, provides powerful modeling capabilities to map process flows and integrate business processes with pre-built content. Real-time monitoring enables visualization of bottlenecks and their impact, while simulations and impact assessments can be conducted on the process landscape using remodeled process flows. Feedback and approvals can be obtained from various stakeholders throughout the new process lifecycle.
Unlock the potential of your business processes and drive efficiency with the help of SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite on AWS.
Amazon EC2 Graviton for HANA Cloud and Datasphere
SAP Datasphere, a persona-driven, fully-managed data warehouse solution, integrates with various SAP BTP services and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC). Datasphere Cloud utilizes SAP HANA Cloud, a fully managed in-memory cloud database-as-a-service, offering multi-temperature data storage and access without the need for replication through data virtualization.
SAP has announced a strategic initiative to port SAP HANA Cloud onto ARM-based AWS Graviton processors, which provide exceptional price performance for cloud workloads in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
Take advantage of the power and cost-effectiveness of Amazon EC2 Graviton for HANA Cloud and Datasphere to enhance your data management and analytics capabilities.
Embedded Analytics for Real-Time Analytics and Planning
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) offers three variants: SAP Analytics Cloud, Embedded Edition; SAP Analytics Cloud; and SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning.
SAP Analytics Cloud Embedded Edition provides real-time analytics by accessing ABAP CDS views within SAP S/4HANA through live connections. It leverages transient analytical queries automatically generated for ABAP CDS views. The Virtual Data Model built with ABAP CDS allows for view reuse, reducing effort and improving performance. This eliminates the need for data extraction and replication.
Embedded SAP Analytics Cloud UIs are seamlessly embedded in iFrames and published on the Fiori Launchpad, providing a user-friendly experience for SAP business users without relying on external analytical applications. Experience the power of SAP Analytics Cloud, Embedded Edition, available exclusively on AWS.
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SAP Roadmaps Recommend Exclusively AWS Cloud Service Provider Solutions
When it comes to SAP’s public cloud and BTP services, AWS stands out as the preferred choice recommended in the product roadmaps. With the broadest coverage, AWS makes the transition from an on-premises landscape to the cloud simpler and more manageable for SAP customers.
To provide clarity, the following table outlines the SAP product roadmap naming that is fully supported on AWS:
- S/4HANA
- SAP BTP (Identity Authentication Service)
- SAP BTP (Identity Provisioning Service)
- SAP BTP (Integration Suite)
- SAP BTP (Datasphere)
- SAP BTP (Analytics Cloud)
- SAP BTP (Cloud ALM)
- SAP BTP (Analytics Cloud for Planning)
- SAP Forms Service by Adobe
Take the next step towards unleashing the full potential of your SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) by running it on AWS with Altivate. With our diverse industry knowledge, best practices, the powerful combination of SAP’s cutting-edge technology and AWS’s robust cloud infrastructure, you can supercharge your business operations, enhance scalability, and drive innovation. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to elevate your digital transformation journey. Explore the seamless integration and unparalleled capabilities of running SAP BTP on AWS today. Contact us to learn more and embark on your path to success.
