How to integrate SAP with your CI/CD pipeline

A Best Practices Guide: How to integrate SAP with

your CI/CD pipeline

Today’s Presenter

Chief Technology Officer

linkedin.com/company/basistechnologies

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James Roberts

About Basis Technologies

• Software automation that changes the way our customers run SAP

• Bringing DevOps & Continuous Delivery to SAP environments

• The most complete DevOps and test automation platform engineered for SAP

• Global offices serving customer base of multi-national brands

basistechnologies.com

Agile

✔Short & frequent releases

✔More responsive

✔Business gets new features faster

✔Testing, risk, impact and recovery time are low

Evolution from Waterfall to DevOps

Waterfall

🗶 Long pre-planned release cycles

🗶 Difficult to change direction

🗶 Business waits a long time

DevOps

✔Continuous delivery to business

✔Highly responsive

✔Automation reduce risks and improves quality

✔Greater business alignment & satisfaction

✔Improved productivity & efficiency

Our solutions enable the journey from slow, unresponsive processes to agile and DevOps


DevOps and CI/CD need the right foundations

Agile

Methodology(process)

Integrated

Tooling(technology)

Collaborative

Culture(people)


SAP CI/CD Case Study

Innovation driving continuous integration &

delivery at a major Telecomms provider


Why Change IT Methodology?

Respond Quickly to Market Pressures

Sharpen the Competitive Edge

Continuous Customer

Satisfaction

OBJECTIVES

DevOps Objectives

• Deliver measurable business value quickly

• Eliminate redundant manual effort

• Automate everything!

Increase velocity of end-to-end delivery lifecycle

• More code

• Faster feedback; First time right!

• Component re-use

• Eliminate Environment Configuration Issues

Increase productivity

• Cost of poor quality

• Cost of human error and manual processes

• Cost of missing SLAsReduce cost

• Software delivery

• Release managementImprove quality

Challenges in DevOps Transformation

Solution Architecture

• 15+ different systems...

• SAP

• Oracle

• Proprietary

• Middleware

• …

Cross-team Alignment

• Team Silos

• Different ways of working

• Different tools

• Different delivery processes

Ops-Enabled Delivery

• Manual environment management

• Manual deployment

• Errors from manual processes

Human Dynamics

• Focused on Deliver, Deliver, Deliver

• Stretched thin

• Myopic view of delivery process (not E2E)

• Threatened by DevOps

• Build a CI/CD pipeline to automate build and deployment

• Implement a microservices strategyPhase I

• Containerize Apps

• Use App Containers to Build Environments

• Deploy to Containers as though they were serversPhase II

• Build Containers within the CI/CD Pipeline

• Deploy Containers to Environments through an Orchestrated Delivery Platform

Phase III

DevOps Technical Strategy

Continuous Integration build process

Integration

Test

Application

TestBuild

Deploy to

Customer

Environment

Multi-App Domain Delivery (SAP disconnected)

Multi-domain

QA

environment

(all apps)

Single-domain

QA environment

Create

business

requirement

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Customer

Production

environment

(all apps)

ERP

Application 1

Application 2

Application 3

Application N

SAP = Black Box

Code DevSource Control

Testing Deployment

Closed System

Merge Quality

Code Quality

Test Results

Deployment

Manual Effort

Environment Orchestration

Deployment

Non Standard

No Real Branching Strategy

DevOps Technical Strategy: SAP Challenges

SAP Landscape (Complex multi-track up to N+10)


Delivery speed was too slow without SAP in the integrated CI/CD pipeline

Automatic

build, test,

deploy

Application 1

Application 2 Application 3

Application N


ActiveControl solved the CI/CD challenge

Automatic

build, test,

deploy

Application 1

Application 2 Application 3

Application N

SAP DevOps Ecosystem

Build DeployManage & Collaborate Test Run

Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery

Robotic testing

ITSM & Agile Source Code & Version

ControlConfiguration Management

Requirements & Backlog

Environments & Cloud

CI pipelineCreate business

task

Check in SAP info (incl. Task ID)

Commit trigger

Validate Task ID

Deployment trigger

Trigger deployment

Deploy to single env.

Return deployment status


Trigger single domain tests

Return test results

Trigger deployment

Deploy to multi-domain env.



Trigger multi-domain tests

Return test results

Create business

requirementTransfer business requirement details

Integration test

environment

(all apps)

Application QA

environment

(e.g. SAP)

Continuous Integration build process

Integration

Test

Application

TestBuild

Deploy to

Customer

Environment

Achieving Multi-App Domain Delivery (with SAP)

Multi-domain

QA

environment

(all apps)

Single-domain

QA environment

Create

business

requirement

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

QA environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Single-domain

Dev environment

Customer

Production

environment

(all apps)

ERP

Application 1

Application 2

Application 3

Application N

Co-ordinated, automated

deployments across 15 IT

applications, including an

N+10 SAP landscapeContinuous,

on-demand delivery of

up to 2,500 SAP

transports in a 2-week

period

Seamless management

of change across a

dynamic SAP

landscape

Major telecomms

provider

Continuous Delivery in Action…

• Automatic, coordinated build, test and deployment of change (SAP and non-SAP)

• SAP development is integrated into wider application delivery process

• Faster business response and product rollout via daily deployment of integrated, cross-application change

Benefits of ActiveControl

Fast, flexible, safe change and

release automation

Adopt DevOps foron-demand SAP

delivery; integrate into IT tool chain.

S/4HANA transition support &

synchronization

Fast implementation;

rapid ROI


Benefits of SAP Orchestration & Automation

Lower

Costs

More

EfficiencyFaster

Innovation

Reduction in the

cost of change

Less error-prone

manual effort

Faster delivery of

new features &

enhancements

Reduction in

system downtime

Less

Risk


• DevOps is a powerful enabler for SAP

• Delivers faster business response and innovation

• SAP development must be fully integrated into wider application delivery processes

• SAP can move at the same speed with the right tools and approach

• Adoption CI / CD approach is already delivering competitive agility for SAP users

Final thoughts

Thank youAny questions?

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www.basistechnologies.com/contact

[email protected]

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@BasisTechLtd

Documents

How to integrate SAP with your CI/CD pipeline