Cloud Foundry is the runtime environment inside SAP BTP where applications actually run.
Think of SAP BTP as the "city," subaccounts as "neighborhoods," and Cloud Foundry as the construction site where the buildings (apps + services) are assembled, deployed, and operated.
When Cloud Foundry is enabled in a subaccount, it gives SAP and customers access to:
Spaces where apps run
Service instances apps depend on
Role assignments for developers/operators
Resources (memory, routes, backing services, etc.)
Without Cloud Foundry, many next-gen SAP apps cannot run because they rely on Cloud Foundry services and runtimes.
Cloud Foundry
The SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment is a service that manages one or more spaces.
The Cloud Foundry environment is where many critical next-generation Ariba applications actually run—including Category Management, Intake Management, and future BTP-native procurement capabilities. Understanding Cloud Foundry is not about becoming a developer; it is about knowing where your customer’s applications live, how they are provisioned, and how to troubleshoot when something goes wrong.
Space
A Space is the operational workspace inside the Cloud Foundry environment where applications actually run. Each space contains the compute resources, configurations, and deployed services your applications need.
In next-generation Ariba solutions (Category Management, Intake, Spend Control Tower), technical components such as HTML5 UI modules, integration services, and extension applications are deployed into a space.
Service Instance
A Service Instance is a provisioned, runnable "copy" of a BTP service used by an application. Service instances allow apps to use capabilities such as HTML5 hosting, destinations, workflow, integration, or data storage.
Next-gen Ariba apps depend on several BTP services.
Examples:
- HTML5 Application Repository → hosts the UI next-generation Ariba applications
- Destination Service → enables connectivity to ERP, MDI, and other Ariba services
- SAP Cloud Identity Services → secures authentication and user onboarding
If a required service instance is missing, misnamed, in the wrong space, or unbound to the application, customers may see symptoms like:
- Tiles not loading
- "Service not found" errors
- Integration failures
Space Quota
A Space Quota defines how much memory, number of applications, and number of service instances a space is allowed to consume. It prevents spaces from exceeding the entitlements assigned to the subaccount.
The SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment may define space quotas for spaces based on the quota of its entitlement.
A space is a runtime of SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment. The Cloud Foundry environment manages these spaces and defines quotas to size them. Service instances run in a space. A Cloud Foundry environment contains what is referred to as an org.
Note
In Cloud Foundry, an org is a development account that an individual or multiple collaborators can own and use. There's a one-to-one relationship between org and SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment.
From the Overview of a subaccount, the SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment can be easily enabled by choosing Enable Cloud Foundry. There can be only one environment per subaccount, but this environment can have many spaces.
Hint
The proposed Org Name includes the global account name. This may lead to a very long name with special characters like spaces. Other services refer to the name like destinations used for the SAP Cloud Transport Management Service (cTMS). Therefore, the org name shouldn't be too complicated.
After enabling the Cloud Foundry environment in a subaccount, the Cloud Foundry menu on the left in the SAP BTP cockpit can be expanded showing Spaces, Space Quotas, and Org Members.
Spaces can be created in the Overview or by choosing Cloud Foundry→Spaces on the left. Choosing the Create Space button opens a popup asking for a space name and space roles, which should be assigned to the user creating the space.
The first space created in a Cloud Foundry environment gets the whole org quota assigned. If additional spaces should be created, this quota must be reduced to free quota for the other spaces.
A space quota defines the amount of memory and the number of routes, service, and app instances for a space. It can be created and assigned to spaces in Cloud Foundry→Space Quotas. The popup for creating a space quota provides the org quota underneath every input field as assistance.
Entering -1 in an input field assigns an "unlimited" quota for the resource. This means that the org quota is used.
Hint
The only true unlimited resource is the number of app instances.
