Modern business landscapes demand unprecedented speed, compliance, and data-driven decision-making. Agility is a necessity rather than a ‘nice to have’. Roughly five years ago, there was a big surge of interest in how DevOps can support businesses that run SAP… but the excitement died down again, as the theory never became practice. With development methodologies like CI/CD and version control solutions like Git in non-SAP technology...
Modern business landscapes demand unprecedented speed, compliance, and data-driven decision-making. Agility is a necessity rather than a ‘nice to have’.
But accelerating SAP development processes present numerous challenges. Given the critical role SAP plays in most organisations, even small disruptions can have a significant impact on business operations. Organisations need to look at how to develop faster, and also how to speed up testing in this new world, without jeopardising the stability of the Production environment.
Roughly five years ago, there was a big surge of interest in how DevOps can support businesses that run SAP… but the excitement died down again, as the theory never became practice. With development methodologies like CI/CD and version control solutions like Git in non-SAP technology, teams can manage and merge code faster by allowing multiple developers to develop at the same time. This is different to SAP's traditional methodologies that capture changes in transports instead. Changing mindsets, skills and technology to apply these methodologies made it tough to embrace DevOps in SAP landscapes.
We have been able to implement Agile for non-SAP projects, but there is a general perception that Agile is not compatible or not easy for SAP.
S V Prasad Gandhikota, Senior Systems Analyst and Delivery Leader, Conagra Brands (Source: SAPinsider research paper "Cloud and SAP S/4HANA DevOps" 2022)
So, what has changed in SAP DevOps?
In the last couple of years, AI and LLMs have exploded onto the scene, transforming how we interact with technology. Using AI to automate testing and analyse code can help us achieve new levels in SAP processes.
Open-source systems like abapGit have gained more traction, and the move to the cloud with hyperscalers like AWS, Azure and Google has brought innovation to the space, reigniting the potential of DevOps in SAP. It couldn't be more timely; SAP customers are facing an unprecedented amount of change.
SAP S/4HANA adoption is also driving the need to have processes in place to improve how you develop in your systems. With many organisations moving to the cloud, adopting cloud thinking and development methods is on the RISE (pun intended).
What are the main fears for SAP professionals when considering DevOps?
In a study carried out by SAPinsider in 2022, the reasons people struggle to implement DevOps include:
- challenges with limited collaboration;
- clunky change processes, and
- poorly planned testing leading to lower application quality and business value, compliance issues, business disruption, project delays, and budget overruns.
And we have several high-profile deployment failures that continue to make the news.
©SAPinsider report
The top three challenges highlighted in the study were:
- poor requirements planning and roadmaps
- lack of appropriate tools for change management
- testing and delays in the provisioning of test data.
Where can you start with SAP Agile/DevOps?
With SAP S/4HANA in the picture, there’s no better time to develop an enterprise-wide Agile/DevOps and testing strategy that reduces risk and delivers high-impact applications faster.
According to SAPinsider, the most common impact that SAP S/4HANA migration is having is in increased use of test automation (50% of those surveyed), integration testing (47%), and end-to-end process testing (45%). 28% of respondents are implementing Agile or DevOps before or during the SAP S/4HANA move.
The benefits of implementing DevOps before or during the move include:
- Accelerated time to market: By automating manual tasks and streamlining the deployment process, DevOps significantly reduces the time it takes to deliver new features and updates.
- Improved code quality and reliability: Automated testing and continuous integration ensure that code changes are thoroughly tested and deployed with minimal risk of introducing defects.
- Collaboration: DevOps fosters collaboration between development, operations, and other teams, breaking down silos and promoting a culture of shared responsibility. The rate of change of technology is now so swift that the business process experts may not even be aware of the new ‘art of the possible’.
- Security: DevOps practices can help identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the risk of breaches. The faster you innovate, the more attention must be paid to security and ensuring compliance.
LLMs deployed without correct thought and funding could lead to data being undervalued and mishandled.
To successfully implement DevOps in SAP, organisations should focus on the following practices:
- Planning: With CD/CI methodology, change your planning to focus on smaller developments more frequently. Have a clear plan in place and visible to all stakeholders to improve communications and set expectations.
- Automation: Automation is the rocket that allows you to speed up the processes. You should look at automating as much as possible. Look into automating testing, test data provisioning, and transports.
- Tools: You need the right tools to make this process work. From task tracking solutions to abapGit, to automated testing solutions and test data management software. You can’t do this alone.
- Shift-left testing: Empower development teams to have appropriate data to perform early testing. Testing more quickly and accurately drives the process of becoming more agile in your processes.
- Monitoring and logging: Implement robust monitoring and logging solutions to proactively identify and resolve issues. You want your feedback loop to be quick and transparent.
- Defining a build process: Ultimately, your changes need to be distributed to other systems. The latest SAP development in this space is gCTS (Git-enabled Change and Transport System).
- Change management: Moving beyond just transport management to a process where you track your changes – and having a mechanism that can manage these – is important when adhering to a CI/CD methodology. Having a solution that manages your changes will enable you to move developments more quickly through the landscape, and also with more traceability.
- Collaboration and communication: Foster collaboration between development, operations, and other teams through effective communication and shared tools.
- Test data management: Having up-to-date, accurate data underpins the whole process in DevOps. Having a solution that enables you to have accurate data in Development with the option to scramble it for security is an important building block for DevOps.
In conclusion, DevOps is worth reconsidering: it can significantly improve software delivery processes, enhance system reliability, and drive innovation. And the capability it might help to unlock is now more appealing than ever before.
It might be time to break free from traditional methodologies and embrace the power of DevOps to unlock the full potential of your SAP systems.
