Handling of UI5 Mimes in the ABAP stack will change in 2018
Update April 2018
In the meantime, the topic how to handle UI5 Mimes in ABAP systems was discussed intensively with the consuming SAP products like S/4HANA and the performance experts inside SAP. We also looked into the feedback we got from customers and the community.
As a result, we will continue to deliver UI5 via the ABAP Mime repository as part of the Frontend Server 5.0 / SAP_UI 7.53 into onPremise systems, ABAP onPremise systems should thus not be changed to consume SAPUI5 via SAP CP as this approach will not be supported in the future.
Instead we will enable a customer specific CDN solution which offers also significant benefits for classic UI technologies like Web GUI and Web Dynpro, additional information will be communicated soon as part of the product documentation of the delivery of SAP_UI NW 7.53.
As there were many tweets regarding my UI5con announcement to remove SAPUI5 from the ABAP Mime repository in 2018, I’d like to clarify the proposal in more detail. Let me start with the reasons why we think the proposal is better for at least 90% of the current UI5 customers:
Good reasons to remove UI5 Mimes from the standard SAP_UI delivery
- The UI5 sources are served via the Akamai network that provides 260 000+ access points all over the world. Hence the performance will be better for people not sitting close to the frontend server (FES). For the people sitting close, they will not notice anything as the delta is neglectable
- The installation of SAP_UI SPs will be much faster
- The installation time of UI5 notes will be much shorter
- The ABAP transports in the customer landscape will be faster
- The system downtimes will be reduced for planned maintenance steps
- UI5 via Akamai CDN has a 100% availability over the last 8 months and is expected to remain that good. As a result customers will get high availability at lower costs
- The UI5 patch production will be accelerated as the mime repository upload is the most time-consuming part
- Reduced data base consumption
The list is even longer, but these are the main arguments.
How will the recommended solution look like
After describing why this solution is superior for most customers, I’d like to share some more details how the solution is going to be realized:
- There will be a configuration in the ABAP system that points to UI5 including the concrete patch level (e.g. https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/1.44.11 )
- The configuration is used for standalone UI5 apps as well as the Fiori Launchpad (FLP)
- The configuration can be changed only via applying a note so that the consistency with the FLP ABAP parts is guaranteed (the current FLP approach is subject to be aligned with that)
Variant of the recommended solution
- We currently consider to allow the modification of the configuration so that the URL can also point to any server in the customers network.
Advantage of the modification approach: in case a patch or SP is applied, the SPAU will make the admins aware of the modification and the need to potentially adapt the UI5 version on his server
SAP will offer an option to restore the current approach
- For customers that do not have any open internet connection or do not want to use the approach described in the previous chapter, SAP will provide an ABAP compatibility patch that installs the Mimes and brings the system back into the current state
- The small drawback is that this patch must be manually applied after each release or SP upgrade containing a new UI5 version.
For a UI5 patch though, it is just the same process as today
Planned timelines:
- Mime removal for S/4 HANA Cloud planned for end of 1711 release
- Option to configure Akamai for stand-alone UI5 apps (still with UI5 Mimes in ABAP) with SAP_UI 7.52 SP1
- Removal of UI5 Mimes with SAP_UI 7.53 SP0 (in parallel the compatibility patch will be provided)
I hope this post contributes to a better understanding of the announcement made at UI5con. Please provide us your feedback and we’re obviously open for improvement proposals.
Best regards
Stefan
test
Hi Stefan,
thanks for clarification (I've seen already the panic in the eyes of some).
Are there any plans to downport the option to configure Akamai for stand-alone UI5 apps to lower releases? I don't think that 7.52 will be part of any ERP system in the near future.
Cheers, Uwe
Hi Uwe,
you can install "NW SAP_UI 7.52" also on NW AS ABAP 7.40 and higher. Best is to install the corresponding Fiori Frontendserver 4.0 to have other involved components like Gateway in sync. Please check dependencies to ERP, I'm not aware of issues but also I'm not in all the details.
Best regards
Stefan
Hi Uwe,
please check the Blog post: Fiori for S/4HANA – What the #@¢% is CDN? where the required configuration that can also be applied to SAP_UI 751 SP01 (equivalent: SAP_UI 740 SP17, SAP_UI 750 SP06) is described. I've followed it already and had a not so convincing test result (See my comment). Hope that perhaps Stefan has some answers to the problem I'm facing.
Best regards
Gregor
I guess that will be important for a lot of customers!
What is the note number for applying the configuration ?
Hello Rasmus,
as we talk about something to happen Mid 2018, we do not yet have a note number. We'll communicate accordingly in time.
Best regards
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
Let's assume we are running on ABAP SAPUI5 1.44.14 and we have created a custom theme using the ABAP Theme Designer. Now we want to switch to UI5 1.46.12 on CDN. I assume we cannot just use the same ABAP Theme Designer to rebuild the themes. Is that assumption correct?
I'm afraid that our ABAP Theme Designer might not do the job as expected, i.e. because the less css params etc. have changed in the meanwhile or so...
I assume that switching to the CDN version of UI5 means we would have to use a corresponding Theme Designer, most probably the one SAPCP. In that case, what do clients do if they don't have a SAPCP account? Maybe using the Trial Theme Designer???
Best,
Nabi
Hi Nabi,
Thank’s for raising that point. For SAP_UI 7.53 we plan* for a solution that works seamlessly with the UI theme designer.
As an intermediate solution, that also works for SAP_UI 7.52 SP01, you can already export a theme from Theme Designer on SAP Cloud Platform. The required UI5 version can be selected by tweaking the URL. See: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2306045
It is ok to use the UI theme designer on the trial account (https://themedesigner-themedesigner.dispatcher.hanatrial.ondemand.com) if you don’t have an own. Although, we encourage to get your own account.
If you also need to theme the SAP Business Client with the same theme, that will not work currently. And also there might be a version issue with Unified Rendering based technologies (such as Web Dynpro ABAP and SAP GUI for HTML). We also going to address these issues as soon as possible*.
Best regards,
Uwe Klinger
Product Owner for UI Theme Designer
SAP SE
*: Please note that this means we intend to do this. This is not an official SAP development commitment.
Hi Uwe,
I’ve already used the trial Theme Designer in the past to do the job. However, I don’t feel very confident using it as it’s just a “trial” + I can’t tell my clients “hey, just use the trial in future for your prod environment”. Some of my clients have no need to switch to SAPCP, they don’t even have an SAPCP account, and thus they have no “paid” Theme Designer although they pay a whole lot of money for all kinds of “non-cloud” SAP products/licences (and there is not even a plan to switch to SAPCP in the near future).
If it's ok to use the trial version of the Theme Designer in prod and thus in "commercial" environments then I guess the policies for the trial account need to be changed (but that's another topic).
It’s kinda hard to suggest my clients to get an SAPCP account only because of the Theme Designer. Furthermore, convincing people to use the CDN version of UI5 in mission critical environments is really hard as long as some major disadvantages exist. You have exactly named the challenges that I have experienced after switching to the CDN version of UI5:
Unless there is not a workaround to solve the challenges (some would call them issues) clients must exactly know what “side effects” occur when switching to the CDN version of UI5.
What workaround would you suggest for SAP Business Client and Unified Rendering?
I have something in my mind which I still have to verify (creating different themes for UI5 and “non-UI5” + using params to apply a different theme for the “non-UI5” stuff…).
Best, Nabi