SAP Platform and Technology

What is SAP Platform and Technology?

SAP Platform and Technology history started with mainframe-based applications, with the first official release being the SAP R/2 solution. This was eventually replaced by SAP R/3 which was the first application running a 3-tier client/server architecture. A client/server architecture continues to be the model for on-premise applications sold by SAP, even when those applications are often running on some form of cloud infrastructure. The newest SAP applications use a purely cloud-based infrastructure and are often software-as-a-service solutions.

What is SAP Platform and Technology?

While these represented the infrastructure on which SAP solutions were built, SAP customers also needed platforms on which to build and develop applications. The first solution that SAP released was the SAP NetWeaver platform which was a software stack for many of SAP’s applications. First released in 2004, SAP NetWeaver consisted of an ABAP software stack as well as a Java development stack. This allowed organizations to build and deploy applications using business APIs and integration capabilities to other SAP solutions.

Building on the success of SAP NetWeaver, SAP released the SAP Cloud Platform as a similar resource for organizations looking to build cloud-based applications. More recently, SAP brought the SAP Cloud Platform together with other services and technologies to release the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). Key capabilities of SAP BTP include database and data management, analytics, application development and integration, and intelligent technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

One of the most important capabilities of SAP solutions has been the ability to enhance them by creating customizations and extensions. Implementations of SAP ERP systems like SAP ECC frequently involved thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lines of customized code based on SAP ABAP and written using platforms like SAP NetWeaver. New solutions like SAP S/4HANA focus on extensions which provide additional functionality without requiring underlying code changes using SAP BTP as the means for achieving these extensions.

SAP BTP is also the technology solution that SAP organizations are looking to use to leverage to build on their investments in SAP S/4HANA.

From a technology and infrastructure perspective, nearly nine in ten SAP customers are now running at least some SAP workloads in the cloud. Underlying data repositories are also more likely to be moving to cloud-based infrastructure.

SAP has many implementation partners that will either provide a technology platform on which SAP solutions can run or will assist with the development of applications that leverage technologies like SAP BTP. Examples of partners providing infrastructure include Dell Technologies, HPE, and Intel. Cloud providers for SAP services include AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft. Implementation partners also assist organizations with building on this SAP Platform and Technology.