SAP Mobile Platform on HANA Cloud released!
**** NEWSFLASH: SMP3 was officially launched at SAP TechEd:http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/10/22/sap-mobile-platform-30-launches-at-teched-in-las-vegas****
**** NEWSFLASH: pricing for building custom apps on the SMP cloud has been approved – so start building apps using the free trial below *******
I’m very happy to announce that today we released the SAP Mobile Platform on HANA cloud (aka “SMP cloud” aka “Mobile-as-a-Service” aka “MaaS”): https://help.hana.ondemand.com/mobile/frameset.htm. The official SAP website is at Mobile Platform in the Cloud | SAP
Table of Contents
Back in June 2012, Stan Stadelman and I in product management brainstormed a “light weight” approach to configuring mobile apps in the cloud. In October 2012, we were invited on stage by Sanjay Poonen at the SAPinsider Enterprise Mobility conference to show the mobile platform in the cloud in his keynote (skip to min 44:01 to see the demo – login required) and to portray SAP’s “Apple of the Enterprise” vision. At SAPPHIRE in Madrid, we ran a User Experience lab to optimize the administrator user interface of the new mobile platform in the cloud and finally today on March 28, 2013 we released the mobile platform in the cloud to our customers – getting one step closer to making the mobile vision reality.
What is SMP cloud?
The mobile platform in the the cloud makes it simple to create, configure, and distribute mobile applications and to manage them end-to-end without having to install and maintain a platform server on premise. Mobile as a Service hosted in the SAP HANA Cloud (former NetWeaver Cloud aka Neo).
The HTTP REST interfaces for core services exposed by the mobile platform in the cloud are identical to the REST APIs in SAP Mobile Platform on-premise (aka SUP 2.2 and later releases) so apps using the REST API can run on cloud and on-premise deployments. The following graphic provides an overview of the SMP cloud features and benefits:
- Simple Administration of mobile apps
- Usage reporting and app analytics
- Integration with existing business applications via Secure Cloud Connector to connect securely to on-premise backends
- Multi-platform support (iOS, Windows 8, Android, BlackBerry)
- Standards-based protocols (HTTPs, OData)
- Native or HTML5 applications via Cordova
- Logging, tracing and error handling
- Near-zero footprint
- Security landscape integration (SAP portal, Siteminder, certificates)
Let¹s take a look at some of these items in more detail – starting with the new Admin UI that takes on role of the Sybase Control Center:
Also, we vastly improved the application usage reporting – telling you users, connected devices and server requests over time, by type of device, by app etc:
Also, we offer advanced debugging and tracing features to enable swift root cause analysis in case a mobile app runs into errors:
What standard SAP apps run on SMP cloud?
In short, the SMP cloud is focused on HTTP REST based online productivity apps.
Every HTTP REST based app that runs against SUP 2.2 (and higher) will also run against SMP cloud (and vice versa). In addition SAP will release standard
productivity apps that can be deployed using the cloud therefore giving you the benefit of the SAP Mobile Platform, without the need to install one yourself on premise. Here is the full list:
See this how-to guide by Martin Grasshoff for details on deploying SAP standard apps on top of SMP cloud: https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-42315
SMP Cloud Trial and custom app development
The new SMP SDKs are leveraging the HTTP REST services. This SDK can be used for the SMP cloud as well as for SUP 2.2. You can develop against the REST services today without the SDK (for example our Win8 apps listed above are developed directly against the REST APIs).
Leveraging existing HANA cloud services such as Persistence as a service, you can build a fully cloud based app, or you can leverage the Secure Cloud Connector to connect to on-premise systems in a secure fashion.
You can download the SDK and get a free trial of SMP cloud here: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/mobility-platform
Check out this cool video by Matthias Steiner: he built an HTML5 app using SAP AppDesigner (see screenshot below) and deployed it via SMP cloud to a mobile device.
For more info check out his blog.
Another great development example is the blog by Njål Stabell from Neptune:
Using Neptune as a third-party development tool for the SMP Cloud Edition
Also, check out Jin Shin‘s guide: How To… Enable End-to-End Push Notifications using SAP Mobile Platform at: https://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-42914
Cloud vs. on-premise
It should be pretty clear by now, but just in case you are wondering, how the SMP cloud aligns with the mobile platform on premise. SMP cloud is an alternative deployment method of the mobile platform: the HTTP REST interfaces for core services exposed by the mobile platform in the cloud are identical to the REST APIs in SAP Mobile Platform on-premise (aka SUP 2.2 and later releases) so apps using the REST API can run on cloud and on-premise deployments.
Let’s look at the 2 options side by side – in a scenario where we are running against and SAP backend with NW Gateway on top:
Keep in mind thought that – as of now – SMP cloud delivers only a subset of the functionality (namely the REST APIs) that we have on premise:
One common question about cloud is the question of performance. SAP went thru extensive performance and scaleability testing and published the results Read the white paper ›
More Mobile info
For live updates on all things SAP Mobile, follow me on Twitter @jenskoerner
SAP Mobile Platform “Apple of the Enterprise” blog
Key Offerings of SAP Mobile Platform Cloud by Sankeerthana Pasupathi
SAP Mobile Developer Center on SDN
Carolyn Fitton‘s blog Put Mobility to Work by Unleashing the Cloud
Ramp-Up knowledge transfer for the SMP cloud can be found at http://service.sap.com/rkt-mobile (S-user required)
Thank you Jens for sharing with community very helpfull blog.
Thanks Jens. This is very helpful. Cloud option simplifies a lot of infrastructure effort required for mobile app.
Good to hear about SMP on cloud. Thanks for sharing this update. Will wait for the SDK.
Cheers,
Murali
Hi Jen
Kudos for the amount of information in your blogs as they should be used as a model internally at SAP. Few quick questions.
1. Is the new Cloud Mobile Platform released for ramp-up or is it general availablity (GA)?
2. Where are the data center/s?
3. Will all the existing SAP HCM Apps delivered by SAP that run on SUP automatically work on the new cloud mobile platform?
4. How will this offering be priced?
Thanks as always.
Jarret
Hi Jarret some good questions !
It raises the interesting possibility of us a customer using the mobile platform on the cloud for integrating HCM apps into our environment ?
Which would be a massive step forward, negating the need for customers to have SUP On Premise ?
Hi Jarret,
here are the answers I owe you:
1. SMP cloud is in "restricted shipment" (SAP does not require ramp-up for cloud products). That means that all customers can get SMP cloud - without having to sign up for ramp-up, but that we limited the use case to standard app deployment only.
2. Germany and US is coming up shortly.
3. We are in the process of enabling our apps to run on SMP cloud. Which HCM apps are you specifically interested in? I'm happy to follow up with the relevant solution management to get specific timelines for you.
4. As we are in restricted shipment and only sell the cloud bundled with SAP Standard Apps in that phase, the stand alone pricing is not public yet.
But, the pricing is finalized and it is super simple - and rest asured that I will add it to the blog as soon as we leave the restricted shipment phase.
Cheers,
Jens
Appreciate the detailed response Jen and a few follow ups:
1. What quarter is this expected to be off 'restricted shipment"
2. Will any official SAP HCM Apps built by SAP and listed in the App Store (~10-12) work on the SMP Cloud.
On a side it is great to hear that the pricing model will be public which I am sure you know the current SUP/Individual Mobile App model at least for HR customers given the competitive landscape (ie Workday) as well as SuccessFactors (Mobile included in subscription) make it expensive for SAP On Prem customers especially for very basic mobile apps (ie Employee Lookup, Approvals, Time Sheet)
Hi Jarret,
I expect restricted shipment to end in about 3 months.
Re HCM apps - I reached out to the apps teams, will let you know what i hear back. I'm on vacation starting today, though, so give me a couple of weeks. Also, we should sync at SAPPHIRE in Orlando
Jens
Hi Jens,
Thanks for sharing this update on the availability of this new offering. What is the support channel for this? I tried creating an account - per the instructions - but couldn't get past Step 1. I have the pre-requisite HANA Cloud Developer trial account, but when attempting to access SMP on the cloud, I get stuck. It doesn't come up in the popup as one of the options and when trying the URL https://smp-<account_name>.staging.nw.ondemand.com/Admin, where <account_name> is my HANA cloud account (sNNNNNNNNNNtrial), I get an error message.
Would appreciate your pointing me to the right method to seek help.
Thanks,
Prashant
I had the same problem too.
Cheers,
Murali
Hi Prashant,
Trial accounts are hosted on hanatrial.ondemand.com (not sure why you are trying with staging.nw.ondemand.com?).
So you should use: https://smp-sNNNNNNNtrial.hanatrial.ondemand.com/Admin
Regards,
Ilian
Hi All,
The above link mentioned in documentation is incorrect, we are patching it with the correct link as mentioned by Ilian.
Also Trial enabling for SMP Cloud is in progress, not yet there completely which will be done at the earliest this week itself positively.
Regards,
Liji
Thanks, Liji.
I took the link to that part of the documentation off until it's fixed.
Thanks for fixing the documentation. Would appreciate a notification - maybe on this thread itself - when the SMP Cloud Trial is ready and accessible (currently, it isn't - even the new link mentioned by IIian)
Prashant
Hi Prashant,
SMP Cloud Trial is up today. It should work for you now on as per documentation.
Thanks,
Liji
Liji,
Any updates on the trial enabling?
Prashant
yes, I'm working with legal on a little detail, but will go on vacation tomorrow afternoon.
Hopefully it gets fixed while i'm gone. I will post the trial info to this blog as soon as it's available.
Hello Jens, it appears there is an incomplete sentence:
What apps run on SMP cloud?
In short, the SMP cloud is focused o <- what's supposed to be here?
can you complete this please?
Good spot, Greg. I fixed it. Thanks
Hello again Jens,
one of the statements in your blog says:
" without having to install and maintain a platform server on premise"
how is this possible? the link that explains this takes me to a generic HANA site, but doesn't explain how it's possible to serve up data from an OnPremise application WITHOUT installing a piece of software on the client site.
any help is appreciated.
Thanks Greg.
You don't need to install or maintain the platform on premise since SAP hosts the mobile platform for you in our HANA cloiud.
If you build your app in HANA cloud then you don't have any on-prem footprint at all.
If you need a connection to on-premise systems then this can be done via the secure cloud connector which you have to install on premise (pretty light touch). You are correct that the links were broken and I fixed them. Here is the link for you convenience.
https://help.hana.ondemand.com/help/frameset.htm?e54cc8fbbb571014beb5caaf6aa31280.html
Hi Team,
I'm still having problem accessing the SMP Cloud. It returns a Service Unavailable message. Is this the correct link? My account is i018551trial.
https://smp-i018551trial.hanatrial.ondemand.com/Admin
My hana cloud is working perfectly. Testing deploying helloworld app and accessing the database.
Hi Jui,
The trial is not enabled yet and that is the problem. I jumped the gun, when I added the link already. Trial will be there soon and then I'll add the link back in.
Sorry about that.
Jens
Hi Jui,
Trial is up today. Could you please try following the steps in documentation again.
Thanks,
Liji
Hi jens,
Thanks Jens. This is very helpful. Cloud option simplifies a lot of infrastructure effort required for mobile app.it is very good tool.
Pretty psyched to have this out in the wild now... great blog Jens!
yeah, me too... and the free trial is available too now: https://help.hana.ondemand.com/mobile/frameset.htm?doc/html/mdw1361529553461.html
Dear All,
SMP Cloud is available for Trial users now.
Documentation link : https://help.hana.ondemand.com/mobile/frameset.htm
Getting started : https://help.hana.ondemand.com/mobile/frameset.htm?doc/html/soo1349339151497.html
Regards,
Liji
🙁 Still not working for me. Tried with https://smp-sNNNNNNNNNtrial.hanatrial.ondemand.com/Admin and I get an error "No Data Received".
No data received
Unable to load the webpage because the server sent no data.
Here are some suggestions:
Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data.
Help???!!!
Is this also available for HANA on AWS ? If yes, are there any steps to follow to use that ?
Hi Jens,
Very good article, but i try the trial version with a ESW gateway service and that don't work.
I have the error http Status 403 Application connection id is not provided.
Do you have a example for a simple application ?
Thanks
Nico
HI Nico,
There are links to sample applications/tutorials now available. Here is a tutorial on how to build an IOS application with onboarding and request-response using basic authentication: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-40948.
If you are looking for different native/web/hybrid application tutorials you can find the links listed here: http://scn.sap.com/blogs/sankeerthana/2013/05/06/sap-mobile-platform-cloud-what-is-it
Hope this helps.
Sankeerthana
Thanks a lot for sharing this information Jens Koerner. As mentioned in the SMP pipeline SAP is recommending Odata based apps. So in near future will MBO ( Mobile Business Object ) concept in SUP vanish ?
- Midhun VP
No, the MBO will not vanish. We will continue to support MBOs in future versions of the on-premise platform.
Hi Jens,
Good to hear that. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by support? Bugfix? Feature enhancement?
Thanks.
I really appreciated it. I asked David_Brandow regarding this he only referred your name.
One more question, in the SMP pipeline it is mentioned that the data modelling for Mobiliser, Syclo, SUP and NW Gateway is going to be based on Odata. In that case what would be the change in the SUP development from the current steps?
Thanks in advance.
- Midhun VP
HI Midhun,
what is the "SMP pipeline" you are referring to and where you get all these statements from?
Cheers
Jens
I mean SMP roadmap, https://websmp201.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000259962013E/12032013_18_Jagdish.htm
Hi Midhun,
the SAP Mobile platform roadmap was updated: https://websmp203.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000791112012E.pdf
Check it out.
Cheers
Jens
Thanks Jens.
Midhun, My sources say that MBO will be only supported with no further developments. As seen on the latest roadmap, focus will be on OData.
You may be wrong Murali. I have confirmed with the SAP that MBO will be supported in the future too. In the last webinar happened on "Windows 8 and SMP" I have confirmed it.
SAP recommends Odata approach but the MBO will also supported in the future.
- Midhun VP
I meant the same too.
Great that the custom development pricing is now official!
yeah i'm pretty excited about that as well... and the free trial now includes the SDK download as well... so nothing stops you anymore 🙂
Hi Jens, do you you where we can find some pricing details for using SMP as runtime for your apps? I looked at https://www54.sap.com/pc/tech/cloud/software/hana-cloud-platform-as-a-service/pricing.html but there it's not mentioned which versions support the use of SMP cloud (i know you probably need a SAP backend user as well but for now i'm interested in the SMP cloud runtime part)
you have to speak to your account executive for now. plan is to make pricing public in 2014.
You will be surprised how simple it is, though...
Thanks this is a good blog.