I am thrilled to be starting my first ever blog series, where I hope to share my insights and experiences as an SAP Technical Consultant who worked both on On-Premise and Cloud Worlds. Throughout my career, I have had the privilege of witnessing the evolution of SAP technologies firsthand. From my early days as an ABAP developer to my current role in the realm of SAP Cloud offerings, it has been a remarkable journey of growth and transformation.
My SAP Background
I began my SAP journey as an ABAP developer, coding solutions to meet intricate business requirements and optimising processes within the SAP ecosystem. Those ten years in the ABAP landscape provided me with a solid foundation, allowing me to understand the core architecture and functionalities of SAP systems. It was during this time that I realized the power of SAP’s technology in revolutionising business operations.
However, the technology landscape was evolving, and so was SAP. The advent of SAP Cloud solutions and the s, such as S/4HANA Cloud, opened up a new realm of possibilities. Intrigued by the potential of cloud technologies, I decided to expand my horizons and nose dive right into it.
Motivation behind this blog
Having ventured into both the traditional ABAP domain and the dynamic landscape of cloud-based development, I’ve come to realize that transitioning to a cloud-native environment is no walk in the park. It’s a journey that demands poring over countless tutorials, hands-on experimentation, and the art of learning on the fly. I discovered that the online resources available often cover basic scenarios but fall short in providing a holistic grasp of the subject matter. The pivotal moment is when one attempts to translate these concepts into real-world applications, where many tend to hit a roadblock and disengage.
This realization served as a driving force for me to seek out practical use cases that could not only help my fellow developers but also simplify their learning curve.
The genesis of this blog can be traced back to my role as an Integration developer for a customer. A specific requirement led me to explore the topic we’re about to delve into. In the realm of Cloud Platform Integration (CPI), there’s an inbuilt message processing log that stores messages for a period of up to 30 days. However, our customer had a need for an extended retention period, propelling me to embark on this journey. The challenge was clear: create a message processing log with a persistence layer in ABAP that could house messages from all our integration middleware in one central repository for as long as required. Furthermore, it needed to offer a user interface resembling the familiarity of what we already had in CPI, ensuring integration developers and administrators could seamlessly adapt to it.
What to expect
This blog series aims to be a guide to traditional ABAP Developers to leverage the latest SAP cloud technology solutions to create a real world Application with minimal effort.
In the upcoming posts, we will dive into the solution in detail. You will learn how to use CPI’s Message Processing Log APIs to extract data, set up a BTP ABAP environment for storage, and design a responsive UI using CDS based RAP framework. This series isn’t just about theory; it’s hands-on development with code snippets and best practices.
Hopefully by the end of it you will have the confidence and know-how to build your own real world applications in ABAP BTP environment.