My open questions from SAP TechEd 2022

Also see My open questions from SAP TechEd 2020

A: ABAP public APIs

As an ABAP developer, I’d like to start moving my code in a direction where it is more compatible with the public APIs offered in Steampunk & S/4 HANA. To help the ecosystem move in this direction, I think it’s long overdue for SAP to publicly share the list of objects which are considered part of the public API.

Will SAP publicly share the ABAP public APIs?

Sure, there is api.sap.com, which shares CDS views, RAP facades and BAdIs for S/4 HANA Cloud. But there is no list for classic Steampunk. Also I expect the list of released objects to contain data elements + domains + more.

The first step will be sharing the list, then tooling can be built to help the developers.

In the meanwhile see Steampunk released ABAP API, first draft is up

B: ABAP/HANA trial versions

Trials have been an ongoing topic for some time, but only in relation to the cloud. I’m personally more interested in the future of the trials for the core offerings ABAP and HANA,

ABAP developer edition 1909 was made public in 2021, but has since been retracted. So now we are back to 7.52 from 2019.

Where will SAP be moving these in the future?

I do not see the Steampunk trial as a replacement for the ABAP Developer Edition, Steampunk is basically a different platform, with a limited(?) user/customer base compared to the more traditional ABAP AS.

C: ABAP Cloud is “Upgrade stable”

What is the exact promise regarding upgrade stability with ABAP Cloud?

With Steampunk there have been releases with non-stable changes, Thoughts on stable ABAP APIs, but anyhow,

api.sap.com links to the SAP CDS View Deprecation Policy which says

• SAP will provide a minimum lifespan of 24 months for CDS Views
• in the Deprecated state for a minimum of 12 months
• decommissioned elements of CDS Views are no longer supported by SAP and may be deleted from the API Hub at SAP’s discretion
• Decommissioned: A version of a CDS View that is no longer meant for productive use and is no longer supported by SAP

I.e. a released CDS view can be decommissioned by SAP given 36 months of calendar time. It is unclear if the decommissioned CDS views are deleted from the systems, if they are not deleted, then upgrade stable will move the customer into a “no longer supported by SAP” situation.

Alternatively, the customer must adjust code accordingly during each upgrade?

Personally, I think a deprecation/deletion strategy must be part of a API setup, if the number of public APIs only increases, it will lock SAP into a situation where a lot of legacy must be maintained.