DevOps not only for the SAP Cloud Platform

In the meantime, the SAP Cloud Platform is used practically every day for the development of a wide variety of application apps.

From partners who, for example, develop supplementary solutions or add-ons, but also from SAP customers who launch their own SAP apps. The range of functions that such cloud-native enterprise apps offer varies.

These are various microservices, such as a mobile app for a payment release for an order. Or complete special solutions that support the business in new or different ways, such as a new type of sales information system.

What they all have in common is the goal of being able to use such applications together with SAP Classic (Business Suite) or also with S/4 as quickly as possible. Agile application development cannot do without the use of the DevOps model.

Here, application development and IT operations are intelligently interwoven, with the aim of developing and making available new applications faster than before.

One necessity here is to be able to use a dynamic and highly flexible IT infrastructure. Technologies based on the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) are used here. Open source solutions and services for enterprise use come into play here.

There are quite a few cloud-ready open source technologies and solutions:

Linux as the Hana operating system. OpenStack as an IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) component for the orchestration of cloud infrastructures including the use of containers together with Docker or Kubernetes in the virtualization area.

And also Cloud Foundry as a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) development platform and Software Defined Storage based on open source Ceph.

An important aspect related to OpenStack and Cloud Foundry is that Suse and SAP are pushing the integration of OpenStack and Cloud Foundry in the Cloud Foundry Dojo (SAP Cloud Lab).

The result

An OpenStack cloud provider interface (CPI) for the interaction of Cloud Foundry and the underlying OpenStack infrastructure involving containers.

This makes it easier to test application apps and quickly roll them out and deploy them in private or public clouds. This Cloud Foundry OpenStack integration developed by SAP and Suse also benefits user companies that develop cloud-native apps based on open source technologies and use them in mission-critical enterprise operations.

This is similar to what was the case with Linux (Linux model), when Linux was first used internally at SAP, then by SAP enterprise users. Here, the topic of containers in DevOps deployment is underpinned by a new offering from Suse, with the Suse CaaS Platform (Container-as-a-Service).

The core focus

Provide flexible, simplified and automated ways to deliver small-scale services (microservices) using containers - including the use of Docker or Kubernetes.

Kubernetes in particular can efficiently support container apps in cluster environments (physical or virtual machines). Kubernetes is also preferred to advantageously put the goal of a container-centric infrastructure into practice (instead of a rather rigid host-centric one).

Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) also plays a role here as a container host OS in a specialized version (SLES Micro OS).

The benefit

A small footprint with optimal use of resources. The use of DevOps with open source solutions in the SAP Cloud Platform is already a matter of course today for developing and managing applications - including complete life cycle management.

This also paves the way for SAP user companies to implement and operate new apps in accordance with business requirements.