<<This blog post is outdated, please visit developers.sap.com/mobile for any latest information>>

We have been asked so many times on what are difference among different SAP Cloud Platform Mobile services productive and preview editions (users, preview & consumers) , how to get access to it, when one should be used, what are advantages of preview over productive and so on. this blog answers all these queries.

Let me first brief you on SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services (SCPms) ,

The SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services (SCPms) is a full-featured open, standard-based mobile app platform delivered as-a-service that allows you to quickly create and operate mobile apps with full offline support, notification services, superior back-end integration and enterprise-grade security.

SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services delivers key capabilities such as

• multiple authentication methods,
• secure access to on-premises and cloud-based systems,
• offline synchronization,
• remote logging control and retrieval,
• automatic app updates for hybrid apps,
• one to one and one to many push notifications and much more.

You may have seen this service in these 3 different subscriptions

Mobile Services, users (part of SAP Cloud Platform Trial)
Mobile Services, users
Mobile Services, consumers
Mobile Services, preview

(cons:Consumer, pre:Preview, std:Standard)

But wait, what are difference among them?

Mobile Services, users (part of SAP Cloud Platform Trial)

• Release version of this *trial* is same as Preview one (always latest version)
• There is limit of maximum 5 applications creation
• Functionality is not limited (e.g. offline, push, SAP Content to Go,…) but SAP Cloud Platform trial limitation apply

Mobile Services, users (product SCP account)

• As name suggests, recommended to run productive level mobile apps only for B2E & B2B use cases
• One release version behind than Preview version and Trial
• No limit of apps creation
• Usage Metric: Users Per Month
• Detailed info can be found here

Mobile Services, consumers

• As name suggests, recommended to run productive level mobile apps only for B2C use cases
• One release version behind than Preview version and Trial
• Usage Metric: Active Users Per Month
• Detailed info can be found here

Mobile Services, preview

• Available as part of productive license subscription of SAP Cloud Platform Mobile services
• Not recommend to run productive level mobile apps on preview landscape
• Release version for preview is also one version ahead than production landscape
  • below is illustrated as SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services release roll out strategy

   **Cst.> Customer

• You can always learn about latest enhancements, upcoming changes
• You can test* existing application running on mobile services (assuming production landscape i.e. 1708) with mobile preview (i.e.1709) and prepare if any change is required before 1709 release available to production landscape subscribers.
  • *Testing means, we encourage and advise our customers to run their own AUTOMATED regression tested against preview edition
• Minimising the adoption curve latencies

• Official release to customer (RTC) happens into preview, this means that tickets against preview landscape are eligible for full SAP Cloud Enterprise support

• If you don’t see “Preview” in your productive account – please open BCP ticket on component MOB-CLD-OPS

To find more information:

• Always look at official documentation
• Check out what’s new video series

Note: You can always check release version by logging to Mobile services Cockpit > Click on User right hand side > About

Hope this helps.

Jitendra Kansal

Product Management, SAP Cloud Platform User Experience
SAP SE