Preparing your Development SDK and Environment

SAP provides a software development kit (SDK) called the SAP Cloud SDK to make developers' jobs easier.

The SDK contains a set of libraries that simplify interacting with APIs at a higher level by hiding technical communication details.

The SAP Cloud SDK was developed to reduce the effort of building extension applications for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. It provides Java and JavaScript libraries, as well as a set of tools for developers, such as fault tolerance, cache management, tutorials, and project templates.

The SAP Cloud SDK enables partners, customers, and SAP internal development teams to easily consume OData services from SAP S/4HANA Cloud, discover existing OData services, and use built-in developer tools such as cache management, API metering, latency and fault tolerance.

It also provides deliverables to improve developer productivity, such as project blueprints, example applications, and tutorials.

SAP Cloud SDK allows developers to connect to all types of SAP S/4HANA systems, both in the cloud and on-premises. It provides a type-safe Java and JavaScript representation of the SAP S/4HANA virtual data model, which frees developers from having to write boilerplate code to construct HTTP requests and handle responses. The Java and JavaScript APIs also make it easy to explore available SAP S/4HANA services directly in the IDE.

In addition, the SDK offers mechanisms for tenant- and user-isolated caching, as well as enterprise-specific adaptations of selected open-source frameworks for functionality such as multi-tenant-aware feature toggling.

SAP Cloud SDK is more than just a set of technical tools for effective extension development. It is an end-to-end development, continuous testing, and continuous delivery framework. The framework provides onboarding capabilities in the form of guidelines, training, project templates, extended documentation, and examples. To ensure high-quality standards, the SDK provides integration with a resilience and fault-tolerance framework, as well as code analysis and testing support.

You can use the SAP Cloud SDK in any development environment, such as Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, or Eclipse.

SAP also provides its own integrated development environment (IDE), SAP Business Application Studio (SAP BAS), which is available as a service on SAP Business Technology Platform.

SAP BAS is based on Eclipse Theia, a free and open-source IDE framework for desktop and web applications that is similar to Visual Studio Code, since it is based on the same source code.

SAP BAS provides a user experience that is very similar to Visual Studio Code and Theia.

In addition to the core Theia features, SAP BAS includes a complete set of ready-to-use extensions that support the needs of application development with SAP technologies and tools, such as SAP Fiori, SAP HANA, SAP CAP, SAP Workflow, and more.

You can find more information about SAP BAS in the SAP Discovery Center at https://discovery-center.cloud.sap/serviceCatalog/business-application-studio