With the new solution export wizard integrated in the latest version of SAP Cloud Platform cockpit, you can easily handle solutions and create Multi-Target Application (MTA) files also for your applications running in the Neo environment. The wizard allows to model solutions by selecting comprised components (with an automated resolution of interdependencies) and to either export the outcome (as MTA file or the generated descriptor files) or to directly handle the modeled solution via change management.
Multi-Target Applications (MTAs - for more information, see this blog post) are our recommended approach to handle interdependencies of SAP Cloud Platform applications. By describing the technical interdependencies as part of the MTA archive, the deployment infrastructure of SAP Cloud Platform is able to automate the deployment of comprised artifacts, considering those dependencies and modeled prerequisites. In addition, MTAs are the basis for several further lifecycle management approaches – for example, change management of SAP Cloud Platform development artifacts is handled by transporting MTA files (such as via CTS+ or our new cloud-based Transport Management service of SAP Cloud Platform, currently in beta).
With SAP Web IDE Full-Stack, it is very easy to model MTA files for your applications in the Cloud Foundry environment, by using the corresponding MTA template, where the descriptor file of the MTA is maintained automatically (for example, when you add modules to your MTA project in the SAP Web IDE).
For the Neo environment, although having the MTA archive builder tool, such an integration is not available, so the process of modeling MTA files has been more cumbersome there. Now, with the solution export wizard, we are happy to provide a much easier way to handle solutions as MTA archives.
When you enter your Solutions view in the SAP Cloud Platform cockpit for the Neo environment, you will remark a new Export button.
Pressing it will bring up the solution export wizard, which will guide you through the following steps:
End result would be an MTA archive comprising your solution (either built directly or by using the generated descriptor files) or even a triggered change management process to handle the distribution of the solution throughout your SAP Cloud Platform landscape.
Overall, we hope we have made MTA and solution handling much easier and could lower the entry barrier in the Neo environment for MTA usage, also for non-experienced developers.
Give it a try – and please provide feedback, in case you should have further ideas how we could improve the wizard and the overall MTA handling!
Thanks,
Boris
Background
Multi-Target Applications (MTAs - for more information, see this blog post) are our recommended approach to handle interdependencies of SAP Cloud Platform applications. By describing the technical interdependencies as part of the MTA archive, the deployment infrastructure of SAP Cloud Platform is able to automate the deployment of comprised artifacts, considering those dependencies and modeled prerequisites. In addition, MTAs are the basis for several further lifecycle management approaches – for example, change management of SAP Cloud Platform development artifacts is handled by transporting MTA files (such as via CTS+ or our new cloud-based Transport Management service of SAP Cloud Platform, currently in beta).
With SAP Web IDE Full-Stack, it is very easy to model MTA files for your applications in the Cloud Foundry environment, by using the corresponding MTA template, where the descriptor file of the MTA is maintained automatically (for example, when you add modules to your MTA project in the SAP Web IDE).
For the Neo environment, although having the MTA archive builder tool, such an integration is not available, so the process of modeling MTA files has been more cumbersome there. Now, with the solution export wizard, we are happy to provide a much easier way to handle solutions as MTA archives.
How does it work?
When you enter your Solutions view in the SAP Cloud Platform cockpit for the Neo environment, you will remark a new Export button.
Pressing it will bring up the solution export wizard, which will guide you through the following steps:
- First, the wizard will automatically analyze your sub-account to discover available components
- From the found components, you can select the ones you want to export – here, you can let the wizard select dependent components automatically
- Then, you see the corresponding sub-components that were selected by the wizard automatically and that you can optionally de-select, if not needed to be added to the archive
- After that, you specify meta-data (title, description, solution ID, version). For non-Java applications, you can specify export options: either download the MTA archive to your file system or directly attach the solution to a transport request (either to CTS+ or our cloud-based Transport Management Service, currently in beta)
For Java apps, we do not have access to the Java source archives, which would be required to directly generate the MTA archive file, so the export and with this the transport can not be offered directly for solutions with Java apps. Nevertheless, you can use the descriptor files for Java apps generated by the wizard, as described in the next step. - Finally, you can download descriptor files:
- To manually build an MTA archive file by combining the generated mtad.yaml file with already built application archives in an MTAR file
- As input for the MTA builder tool, such as by uploading the MTA source file mta.yaml to your development repository and automatically trigger the MTA build process as part of a CI/CD delivery pipeline
- To provide extension information for the deployment of the MTA file by using the generated extension descriptor template
End result would be an MTA archive comprising your solution (either built directly or by using the generated descriptor files) or even a triggered change management process to handle the distribution of the solution throughout your SAP Cloud Platform landscape.
Overall, we hope we have made MTA and solution handling much easier and could lower the entry barrier in the Neo environment for MTA usage, also for non-experienced developers.
Give it a try – and please provide feedback, in case you should have further ideas how we could improve the wizard and the overall MTA handling!
Thanks,
Boris
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