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Author's profile photo Stanimir Ivanov

SAP C/4HANA Extensibility 101: SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory, Kyma, Price and Support

July/08/2019 Update:

We have released support for Azure as infrastructure provider for the SAP Cloud Platform Kubernetes-based runtime in a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model.


Intro

As announced in May, we launched the SAP C/4HANA Foundation. One of the key capabilities it brings is the approach for the side-by-side extensibility for the SAP C/4HANA portfolio. This approach is based on the SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory.

The SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory is the go-to cloud-native extensibility framework for the Intelligent Enterprise (see Pic 1). It streamlines the way extensions are built, by providing out-of-the-box integration to applications with a secured and managed connectivity, a Central Management Plane with registry for all applications’ APIs and events, and runtime options to host your extensions on.

Customers and partners can use the SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory today, fully integrated with SAP Cloud Platform and as part of the SAP C/4HANA Foundation for SAP C/4HANA extension use cases.

Get more information about the SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory and how it is embedded into the SAP Cloud Platform and the SAP C/4HANA Foundation in this blog post.

Pic 1: SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory Vision

SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory – What is Available Today within SAP C/4HANA Foundation?

Now, let us focus on what is already available from the above vision in the context of SAP C/4HANA. There are two aspects to look at: functional and commercial.

SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory is a new approach to extend SAP applications, which is included in customers’ subscription for respective SAP products (e.g. SAP C/4HANA Foundation).  

Functional Overview

Functionality, available with the SAP C/4HANA Foundation launch, is comprised of three areas of components: Application Connectivity Integration, Central Management Plane and Administration UI, Runtimes and Infrastructure (see Pic 2).

  • Application Connectivity Integration

This is one of the major differentiators that SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory provides. It simplifies and automate the configuration of the integration between the SAP applications and SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory to ensure secured and managed connectivity. Through this operation the application’s APIs and events are registered in the central Management Plane. From there the APIs and events definition can be used in runtimes to improve the developer experience during the development phase but also for smarter operational aspects.

Currently, customers and partners can integrate with SAP Commerce Cloud (from 1811 release on) to build productive extension scenarios. In addition to that, you can explore a Preview of the integration with SAP Cloud for Customer (SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud) and SAP Marketing Cloud. These are meant to support early PoC customer projects and prepare for the GA releases of these integrations.

You can find a step-by-step description on how to set up Application Connectivity Integration with SAP Commerce Cloud in this blog post.

  • Central Management Plane and Administration UI

The central Management Plane orchestrates the configuration of the Application Connectivity Integration and the setup of the Runtimes. All this orchestration is performed via the Administration UIs.

Currently, there is a support for setting up of a Kubernetes-based runtime in a Bring Your Own License model and installation of open-source project Kyma. As mentioned above, you can connect SAP Commerce Cloud productively to the Kubernetes runtime to build extensions and customizations for production-ready scenarios. All this can be done via the “Extensibility” view in the SAP C/4HANA Cockpit.

This blog post provides step-by-step guide how to setup a Kubernetes-based runtime from the SAP C/4HANA Cockpit.

  • Runtimes and Infrastructure

Runtimes are the environment, where your extensions are hosted. This is where the workload (events and data) between the applications, being extended, and the extensions is flowing through, and extension’s business logic is executed.

Currently, the supported runtime is Kubernetes-based one. It is available on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Azure infrastructure. Kubernetes-based runtime comprises of a Kubernetes cluster provisioned, leveraging the managed Kubernetes offerings from GCP (Google Kubernetes Engine) or Azure (Azure Kubernetes Service) and the open-source project Kyma installed and configured in it. Kyma simplifies and improves the developer experience using Kubernetes to extend enterprise applications in state-of-the-art and cloud-based approach.

Pic 2: Components overview

Now, let us focus on the commercial and support aspects for the functionality we offer today.

Commercial Overview

As mentioned above, SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory is not a separate product, rather it is a framework, delivered as part of other SAP products.

The different commercial aspects get visible when splitting the SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory components, described in the Functional Overview above, in two groups: one – comprised of Application Connectivity Integration, Central Management Plane and Administration UI – and second – comprised of Runtimes and Infrastructure (see Pic 3).

The first group of components is delivered as part of the SAP C/4HANA Foundation since May 7th, 2019. SAP C/4HANA Foundation is included in customers’ and partners’ subscription for SAP C/4HANA cloud products. As part of it, customers and partners get the standard SAP support and SAP Service Level Agreement. The support covers the Application Connectivity Integration with SAP Commerce Cloud (version 1811 or later), the Administration UI via the “Extensibility” view in the SAP C/4HANA Cockpit and the provisioning and setup of the Kubernetes runtime (Kubernetes cluster and Kyma).

The second group covers the Runtimes and the Infrastructure. As mentioned already, the Kubernetes runtime is supported in a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model.

This means that customers and partners need to have a license for Google Cloud Platform or Azure (in other words – having a direct contractual agreement with them without SAP involvement). Therefore, customers and partners are directly paying to the cloud providers for the Kubernetes compute and hence receive support for it as per their direct contract agreements.

If you do not already have a license from any of the cloud providers – check this blog post about the Google Cloud Platform campaign for a free starter package for the SAP C/4HANA customers.

On top of the Kubernetes, you have the open-source project Kyma installed, which of course is free of charge. The support for it is provided via the open-source Kyma community channels (GitHub and Slack).

Pic 3: Commercial and Support overview

What is next in the SAP C/4HANA extensibility space?

Well, now it is simple to explain it – next steps are focused on continuously delivering on the SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory vision described in the begging of the blog post – from enabling the Application Connectivity Integration for all SAP and third-party applications via a Central Management Plane, through enabling the multiple runtime options, in fully managed by SAP model from commercial and support perspective, on all the big cloud providers’ infrastructure.

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      12 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Sascha Federau
      Sascha Federau

      Hi Stanimir,

      thanks a lot for this very interesting blog. Nice to see how SAP evolves in this area. You wrote that there is a possibility to "...explore a Preview of the integration with SAP Cloud for Customer...". But i'm missing the information HOW i can do that 😉 Do you have any further link?

      Best regards,

      Sascha

      Author's profile photo Stanimir Ivanov
      Stanimir Ivanov
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sascha,

       

      You can find a link with a documentation, outlining how to go through the steps, as part of the K8s-based runtime.

      Please follow the steps to provision a K8s-based runtime via the SAP C/4HANA Cockpit described in this blog post. Then open the Kyma Console as outlined in the referred blog post, select a namespace and then open the Catalog view [1]. Then click on either of the Preview connectors and there is a documentation link [2].

      Hope this helps.

      Best regards,

      Stani

      [1]

      [2]

       

       

      Author's profile photo Usman Kamal
      Usman Kamal

      I'm in the process of designing a POC, by any chance can you share the link present for [Preview] SAP Marketing Cloud - Connector.

      Author's profile photo Marc Cawood
      Marc Cawood

      The title mentions "price" but this is not elaborated in the post. What does BYOL mean in practice?

      Author's profile photo Stanimir Ivanov
      Stanimir Ivanov
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Marc,

       

      BYOL is described here:

      The second group covers the Runtimes and the Infrastructure. As mentioned already, the Kubernetes runtime is supported in a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model.

      This means that customers and partners need to have a license for Google Cloud Platform or Azure (in other words – having a direct contractual agreement with them without SAP involvement). Therefore, customers and partners are directly paying to the cloud providers for the Kubernetes compute and hence receive support for it as per their direct contract agreements.

      As the customer or partner has a direct contractual agreement with the corresponding Cloud Provider  - the price is regulated in them. There is no additional cost charged on top from SAP.

      Hope this clarifies your question.

      Best regards,

      Stani

      Author's profile photo KARADAHALLI RAMEGOWDA SATYENDRA
      KARADAHALLI RAMEGOWDA SATYENDRA

      hi Stani,

      Can we use on-premise Hybris commerce Licence that we have (Hosted on say AWS or Azure) to connect extension factory ? or is it mandatory to have it hosted on CCV1 (SAP Hana Cloud)

      Regards

      Satyendra KR

      Author's profile photo Marco Dorn
      Marco Dorn

      Hello KARADAHALLI RAMEGOWDA SATYENDRA ,

      I am just seeing your unanswered question from last year. Let me still reply as I assume it is still relevant.

      With SAP Commerce On-Premise, you won't have access to SAP C/4HANA Foundation. But you can still use Kyma Open Source, install it yourself on a Hyperscaler (documentation), and connect it to SAP Commerce On-Premise. You need version 1808 (better 1811+) to install the "Extension Factory Integration Module" and then you can connect the two systems and still extend SAP Commerce via the cloud using Kyma Open Source.

      Best regards,
      Marco.

      Author's profile photo Florian Pflueger
      Florian Pflueger

      Hi Marco,

      I just read your reply. Regarding "With SAP Commerce On-Premise, you won’t have access to SAP C/4HANA Foundation." what does it mean? For a small POC I have successfully connected my local SAP Commerce to the SAP CP XF and were able to sende the Events/APIs to it. So technically it seems possible to connect the systems. Or is it more a "unsupported" scenario?

      Best Regards,

      Florian

       

      Author's profile photo Marco Dorn
      Marco Dorn

      Hey Florian Pflueger,

       

      SAP C/4HANA Foundation is a piece of software which makes it easier to deploy and configure Kyma Open Source to e.g. SAP Commerce Cloud (here are more details).

      But you are right: you can install SAP Commerce On-Premise and connect it to Kyma Open Source on your own. You don't have access to SAP C/4HANA Foundation in that case, but it doesn't matter if you got it running. You can use it as is.

       

      Best regards,
      Marco.

      Author's profile photo Sergey Zaytsev
      Sergey Zaytsev

      Thanks for the article !

      So there is no difference in costs for customers between using Kyma and SAP CX XF (only costs for the GCP/Azure subscription), right ?

      Author's profile photo Marco Dorn
      Marco Dorn

      Hello Sergey Zaytsev,

      Correct. Right now in the context of SAP C/4HANA and SAP C/4HANA Foundation, there is no additional cost for using SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory to deploy and configure Kyma Open Source in a customer's subscription of Google or Microsoft. The customer pays for the consumed resources in GCP / AKS, but nothing towards SAP. SAP C/4HANA Foundation and its usage of SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory is covered by the SAP C/4HANA subscription.

      Best regards,
      Marco.

      Author's profile photo Sergey Zaytsev
      Sergey Zaytsev

      Thanks a lot, Marco !