Basic Platform Concepts of SAP BTP

SAP Business Technology Platform(SAP BTP) empowers businesses to unlock the full potential of their data and streamline their operations. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to help you:

• Turn data into actionable insights: Leverage data analytics and AI capabilities to gain valuable insights from your data and make informed business decisions.
• Automate and optimize processes: Design and build intelligent workflows to automate repetitive tasks and streamline end-to-end business processes.
• Extend and innovate with SAP applications: Easily extend and enhance existing SAP applications or build new ones quickly using a variety of programming     languages and runtimes.

Built for Flexibility and Choice

SAP BTP is built on a unique multi-cloud foundation, giving you unparalleled flexibility and control over your deployment strategy. This foundation allows you to:

• Choose your cloud infrastructure provider: Select the cloud provider that best  suits your specific needs and preferences.
• Select your preferred runtime: Choose from various runtimes like Cloud Foundry, ABAP, and Kyma, depending on     your application requirements.
• Deploy in different regions: Benefit from regional deployment options to ensure optimal performance and data     residency compliance.
• Leverage diverse programming languages: Utilize a wide range of programming languages to build and extend your     applications according to your development team's expertise.

This level of flexibility ensures that SAP BTP can seamlessly integrate into your existing IT landscape and adapt to your evolving business needs.

Overview of Global Accounts, Directories, and Subaccounts (Feature Set B)

For users with cloud management tools in Feature Set B, SAP BTP offers a more organized and scalable way to manage your account structure. This new feature set introduces directories, which act as folders to group subaccounts under your global account. This hierarchical structure allows for better organization and simplifies managing entitlements, quotas, and other aspects for different business units or projects within your organization.

The provided figure visually represents this relationship, illustrating how a global account can have directories, which in turn contain subaccounts. Each subaccount can be associated with specific run-time environments, regions, entitlements, and quotas, providing granular control and flexibility within your SAP BTP environment.

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Administrative Tasks

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Global Account

• Global Accounts: Flexible  Management: Global accounts offer a central hub for managing your SAP  BTP resources, independent of region and runtime environments. This allows  for centralized control and simplified oversight.
• Commercial Models: Depending on your  chosen license type, you may receive a separate global account for each  commercial model. However, combining two models within a single global  account is also possible. Refer to SAP's documentation for details on  available commercial models.
• Administrator Roles: Ensure at least one  individual is appointed as an administrator for your global account. This  role empowers them to manage key aspects, including adding new subaccounts,  inviting members, and handling entitlement allocation.
• Entitlements and Quotas: Entitlements are  purchased for each global account according to your specific commercial  model. The designated administrator then has the responsibility to distribute  quotas, specifying usage allowances, to individual subaccounts within the  global account.

Directory (optional, feature set B)

• Directories (Feature Set  B):  Introduced in Feature Set B, directories offer a way to organize and manage  subaccounts within your global account. Think of them as folders for grouping  subaccounts based on shared characteristics, such as project type,  department, or function. This allows for centralized management, easier  operation, and improved analysis of resources within each group. More  information on Feature Set B can be found in the documentation: [Cloud  Management Tools — Feature Set Overview].
• Administrator Roles: Assigning at least one  administrator is crucial for managing your global account effectively. This  role grants the administrator the essential permissions to add new  subaccounts, manage members (user access), and control entitlements (resource  allocation) within the entire global account, including any subaccounts and  directories present.

Subaccount

• Subaccount Management:  Region and Runtime Environments: Each subaccount operates within a specific  region, analogous to a data centre, ensuring optimal performance and data  residency compliance. However, within a single subaccount, you have the  flexibility to enable and manage multiple different runtime environments.  This allows you to choose the most suitable environment (e.g., Cloud Foundry,  ABAP) for each deployed application within the subaccount.
• Subaccount  Administration: Similar to the global account level, appointing at least one  administrator is essential for managing each subaccount effectively. This  administrator has the responsibility to add new members to the subaccount and  assign them appropriate business roles within the subaccount, controlling  their access and permissions.

Entitlements and Quotas

1. Services as Building Blocks: Within SAP BTP, all external dependencies powering your applications, such as databases, messaging systems, and file systems, are categorized as services. This includes multitenant applications and environments as well. These services form the foundation for building and running your solutions on the platform.
2. Service Plans: Choosing the Right Fit: Each service offered on SAP BTP comes with one or more available service plans. Think of these plans as different configurations or "tiers" of the same service, each offering varying levels of resources and capabilities. For example, a database service might offer plans with different storage capacities and processing power, analogous to different "T-shirt sizes." You can select the service plan that best suits your specific performance and cost requirements.
3. Entitlements: Permission to Use: Entitlements represent your authorized access to specific service plans within SAP BTP. In simpler terms, they define the service plans you are allowed to use. These entitlements are managed at either the global account level or the directory level (if applicable) and then distributed to your subaccounts.
4. Quotas: Setting Usage Limits: Quotas establish the numerical limitations for consuming specific service plans allocated to your global account and subaccounts. Think of them as usage ceilings for each service plan within your entitlements. This allows for controlled resource utilization and cost management within your organization.

User and Member Management

Distinct User Types:

‍SAP BTP differentiates between two user types:

• Platform Users: These are typically developers, administrators, or operators responsible for deploying, managing, and troubleshooting applications and services within the platform.
• Business Users: These are individuals who utilize applications deployed on SAP BTP, such as end users of SaaS applications, SAP services like Workflow or Cloud Integration, or custom applications developed by your organization.

Member Management for Platform Users:

Member management focuses on controlling access and permissions for platform users. Essentially, a member is any user assigned to a global account or subaccount within SAP BTP. Administrators have the authority to add users to these accounts and assign them relevant roles, potentially including pre-defined roles like "administrator" for managing other subaccount members.

User Management for Business Users:

User management, on the other hand, deals with authentication and authorization mechanisms for your business users. This process ensures that the appropriate users have access to the correct applications and functionalities within your deployed SAP BTP environment, aligning with their specific business needs and security policies.

Hierarchical Management:

It's important to note that member management for platform users takes place across various levels, starting from the global account and extending down to individual environments. This hierarchical structure allows for granular control based on user roles and responsibilities.

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Account Model

A global account serves as the foundation for managing your resources within the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). It stems from a contract you or your company establishes with SAP and acts as a central hub for organizing and administering your SAP BTP environment. This central account allows you to create and manage subaccounts, which are specific to individual regions within the platform.

This two-tiered structure offers a crucial advantage: regional control and flexibility. Each subaccount operates within a designated region, ensuring optimal performance and data residency compliance. Meanwhile, the global account acts as an umbrella, providing centralized oversight and management of your entitlements and quotas. These entitlements, essentially permissions to use specific service plans, and quotas, which define usage limits for those entitlements, are allocated at the global account level and then distributed to individual subaccounts. This enables you to control resource allocation and manage costs effectively throughout your SAP BTP landscape.

Directories

1. Structured Management: SAP BTP offers directories as a powerful tool for organizing and managing your subaccounts. This feature allows you to group subaccounts based on various criteria, such as technical requirements, business functions, or project needs. This can significantly enhance the organization and clarity of your SAP BTP environment, especially when managing a large number of subaccounts.
2. Hierarchical Flexibility: Directories offer the ability to create a hierarchical structure, allowing you to nest directories within other directories and subaccounts. This provides flexibility and granularity in your organizational approach. While utilizing this feature is optional, you can create a structure with up to five levels of directories between your global account and the lowest-level subaccount, enabling you to tailor the structure to your specific needs. Remember, the maximum depth of your hierarchy is seven levels, including the global account as the starting point and subaccounts as the lowest level.

Managing and Organizing Your Resources with Directories:

1. Enhanced Organization and Visibility:     Directories empower you to group and filter your subaccounts based     on relevant criteria, bringing structure and clarity to your SAP BTP     environment. This simplified view is especially beneficial when managing a     large number of subaccounts, allowing you to easily locate and manage     specific resources.
2. Cost Monitoring (Consumption Model): In     conjunction with the consumption-based commercial model, directories     enable you to monitor resource usage and associated costs for all     subaccounts grouped within a directory. This provides valuable insights     into your resource consumption patterns and helps you optimize costs     effectively.

Optional Advanced Features:

• Manage Entitlements: This     optional feature allows you to pre-allocate quotas (usage limits) for     services and applications from your global account quota to specific     directories. These quotas can then be further distributed to individual     subaccounts within the directory. Additionally, you can choose to     automatically assign a set quota to new subaccounts added to the     directory.
• Manage Authorizations: This     advanced feature, usable only in combination with "Manage     Entitlements," enables you to control access and permissions for     managing directory entitlements. This allows you to grant specific users     the ability to manage entitlements assigned to the directory.

SAP BTP Pricing - Commercial Models

Consumption-Based

This model offers flexibility and pay-as-you-go convenience. You gain access to all eligible services and have the freedom to turn them on or off, or switch between services, as your needs evolve. This model comes in two options: CloudPlatform Enterprise Agreement (CPEA) and Pay-As-You-Go for SAP BTP.

Subscription-Based

This model provides predictable costs by requiring you to subscribe only to the specific services you plan to use throughout the contract period. You pay a fixed cost for these pre-selected services, regardless of your actual usage.

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Environments

Cloud Foundry

This environment empowers you to build and deploy modern applications using various runtimes, programming languages, libraries, and services. It offers flexibility with its support for multiple options and allows you to leverage pre-built build packs or create your own.

ABAP (within Cloud Foundry)

Nestled within the CloudFoundry environment, the ABAP environment allows you to extend SAP solutions based on ABAP(a widely used programming language in SAP systems). This includes creating extensions for products like SAP S/4HANA Cloud and developing new cloud-based ABAP applications. Additionally, you can seamlessly migrate existing ABAP code and extensions to the cloud using this environment.

Kyma

This environment offers a fully managed Kubernetes runtime based on the open-source project "Kyma." It empowers developers to extend SAP solutions using serverless functions and seamlessly combine them with containerized microservices. This approach enables building modern and scalable applications with greater flexibility.

Neo (Sunsetted)

While no longer offered for new deployments, the Neo environment (previously known as SAPBTP Neo) was an option for developing applications using HTML5, Java, and SAP HANA extended application services (SAP HANA XS). It also provided tools like the UI Development Toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5) for building user interfaces for web applications. For ongoing development, it's recommended to explore the capabilities offered by the other available environments.

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