Extending with the SAP Business Technology Platform

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the Cloud Foundry environment in the SAP Business Technology Platform

Introducing the intelligent enterprise

We believe that the future belongs to intelligent enterprises, which use the latest technologies to constantly innovate and transform the way they do business. Organizations aim for integrated, end-to-end business processes, and not siloed systems. Intelligent enterprises are more profitable, they are able to run efficiently and drive long-term growth.

Key dimensions of intelligent enterprises include:

  • Assisted and automated business process execution
  • Actionable business insights
  • Innovative business models and practices
  • Collaborative networks
  • Experience management

Intelligent enterprises provide an overview of:

  • Lead to cash - including all aspects of the customer journey from the initial interaction, to order fulfillment, and service delivery.
  • Design to operate - capturing all processes in manufacturing and the supply chain.
  • Experience management - using the power of human insight to improve business processes.
  • Sustainability management - tracking your carbon footprint in all operations to ensure we leave a habitable planet for future generations.

Exploring SAP BTP

You are free to run extension applications on any platform of your choice, nevertheless SAP proposes and recommends to do it on the SAP Business Technology Platform. This way you can take advantage of the many high value services available in the platform itself.

You can find additional information about the services of the SAP BTP in the SAP Discovery Center at https://discovery-center.cloud.sap/viewServices.

Introducing Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry is an open source, multi-Cloud application platform, which is a service (PaaS) governed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation.

Cloud Foundry logo

It was originally developed by VMware, but was transferred to Pivotal Software in 2013. In 2019, VMware acquired Pivotal, bringing Cloud Foundry back under its control.

In SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform), the Cloud Foundry environment is used to host running applications. This environment can be administered through the SAP BTP Cockpit, the web-based administration interface.

Reference Cloud Foundry documentation can be found at https://www.cloudfoundry.org and .

Additional information about the Cloud Foundry runtime in the SAP BTP can be found at: https://discovery-center.cloud.sap/serviceCatalog/cloud-foundry-runtime

Introducing the SAP BTP Cockpit

The SAP BTP Cockpit is a Web-based administration interface, which provides access to a number of functions for configuring and managing applications, services, and subaccounts.

Screenshot of the SAP BTP Cockpit

You use the cockpit to manage resources, services, security, monitor application metrics, and perform actions on Cloud applications.

The cockpit provides an overview of the applications available in the different technologies supported by SAP BTP, and shows other key information about the subaccount. The tiles contain links for direct navigation to the relevant information.

Describing the Application Hierarchy

Cloud Foundry applications run within a two-level hierarchical structure of organizations and spaces.

Spplication Hierarchy in Cloud Foundry: Subaccounts contain Spaces that contain Applications

The Cloud Foundry organization corresponds to the SAP BTP subaccount. Running applications can be viewed and managed within the SAP BTP Cockpit.

Introducing the Cloud Foundry CLI

The Cloud Foundry CLI (command-line interface) is the official command line client for Cloud Foundry.

Screenshot of the Cloud Foundry CLI page in GitHub

In SAP BTP, you can use the Cloud Foundry CLI to manage apps, service instances, organizations, spaces, and users in your Cloud Foundry environment.

Detailed information about the Cloud Foundry CLI can be found at: https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cli.

Introducing Cloud Foundry Buildpacks

Cloud Foundry is designed to support Cloud-native application development using your choice of programming language. A Cloud Foundry language run-time environment is bundled as something called a buildpack.

Buildpacks provide framework and run-time support for apps. Buildpacks typically examine your apps to determine what dependencies to download and how to configure the apps to communicate with bound services.

Dedicated Buildpacks exist for the most common programming languages: Java, Node.js, Python, Php, R, Ruby, ...

Screenshot of a command prompt executing command 'cf buildpacks' to list the available Cloud Foundry buildpacks.

Applications are deployed to the target platform using the "push" operation of the platform API. This is why, in Cloud Foundry parlance, applications are "pushed" to the platform.

Pushing an application works as follows:

  1. The application is uploaded to the platform.
  2. Cloud Foundry automatically detects an appropriate buildpack for it.
  3. This buildpack is used to compile or prepare your app for launch.

Detailed information about the Cloud Foundry Buildpacks can be found within the official Cloud Foundry documentation at the relative wep site.

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