Bringing vision and reality together: Review of the DSAG Technology Days 2024 in Hamburg

One of the topics dealt with the hype surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems. SAP's announcement in summer 2023 that future innovations such as AI would only be made available via a Rise-with-SAP premium offering unsettled many customers who had relied on S/4 Hana Private Cloud or on-premises.

At the SAP Annual Press Conference on July 20, 2023, Christian Klein, CEO and member of the Executive Board, announced that SAP's latest innovations will only be available in the cloud. Specifically, they will only be accessible to customers who use S/4 Cloud, Public Edition or S/4 Cloud, Private Edition via Grow-with-SAP or Rise-with-SAP contracts. This does not mean that on-prem solutions will generally not be functionally developed further. But existing on-prem customers can
z. For example, they do not benefit from major innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) and green ledgers. This also applies to larger function modules and enhancements based on the Business Technology Platform (BTP). At the same time, SAP wants to increase maintenance fees. From the perspective of the German-speaking SAP user group, SAP is letting many loyal customer companies down with this approach.

However, making the technical integration of AI models dependent on a provider's contractual construct is hardly feasible in the context of an overall IT architecture. "Offering AI only in a single cloud contract and operating model is also technically untenable, as large-language models can be implemented independently of this at any time," criticizes Sebastian Westphal, Chief Technology Officer of the German-speaking SAP User Group.

Security Dashboard

The topic of security also plays an important role in connection with AI. AI not only supports the use of various functionalities. It also helps attackers to act faster, more efficiently and more automatically. The fact that SAP is now planning to provide a security dashboard for the SAP Analytics Cloud for SME customers in parallel with the interfaces (API) and corresponding partner solutions is very welcome.

"SAP is thus fulfilling a long-standing DSAG requirement and supporting customers who do not already have an implemented, comprehensive monitoring infrastructure," says a satisfied Sebastian Westphal. What is still missing, however, is a clear answer from SAP regarding the provision of Solution Manager security tools beyond 2027. With ConfigValidation for checking the consistency of systems and system recommendations, there are initial signals from SAP that these functionalities will be provided in SAP Cloud ALM in the future.

The end of maintenance for some central SAP solutions is clearly defined as 2027 and is therefore foreseeable. Many questions remain unanswered as to how future services and solutions will actually be implemented - and companies need functioning solutions before they can migrate. Even today, many products have not yet been fully developed and the roadmaps are full to bursting. Consequently, a clear statement is needed as to which target solution SAP will support with corresponding migration scenarios and services and whether there will be preferred partners for whom corresponding migration scenarios will be offered.

With BTP, user companies are still missing a cross-service strategy and consistency across all BTP services and their interaction - in order to be able to integrate BTP even more clearly both as a platform in company-wide, multi-level architectures and with the associated business services.

Consistency for BTP services

For example, the monitoring and logging of individual services is not yet standardized and a consistent cloud identity management strategy is not yet a reality. In addition, a standardized access strategy from SAP support to the lines-of-business (LoB) services, a standardized overview of BTP services including their availability in the price lists and the rapid integration of solutions such as Signavio as a genuine, fully integrated BTP service would be a major step forward.
service facilitate the operational use of BTP. In summary, a uniform strategy must be developed, implemented and communicated for the interaction of LoB and BTP services. DSAG sees this as an important approach that needs to be expanded.

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