Boosting the Low-code experience in SAP Business Application Studio into multiple regions

Although the Low-code Tools extension has been available in SAP Business Application Studio for a while now, there were some limitations regarding the data center where this was available (only eu10, which is AWS Frankfurt). We have recently rolled out the extension to more regions and introduced a free-tier plan.

In my previous blog post Exploring SAP Business Application Studio for low-code development and deploying a multichannel sample app to mobile, I have used a booster called “Prepare an Account for Low-Code / No-Code App Development”. We are in the process of splitting up this booster.

To make it easier to set up a low-code development environment in your SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) global account, we are now introducing a dedicated booster: Get Started with SAP Business Application Studio.

You can find this booster in the cockpit of your global account. Take note that your user needs to be assigned to the Global Account Administrator role collection to use this booster.

This booster helps you to create a new subaccount, or modify an existing subaccount and perform the following steps for you through an automated process:

• Enable Cloud Foundry, create Organization and Space and assign users
• Add the required entitlements to the subaccount (note: these entitlements must be available on the global account) and assign service quota.
• Subscribe to SaaS Application and services, such as SAP Business Application Studio and (optionally) SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery.
• Create Role Collections and assign them to the specified users.

You can obviously perform these steps manually as administrator as well by using the BTP cockpit. However, this will take longer, and there is a chance that you miss a step. A booster makes things repeatable and consistent.

When you start the booster, it will first check whether you have the required entitlements in your global account. If the entitlements are insufficient, you will see an error or warning and you are advised to use the BTP Control Center to add entitlements to your BTP global account.

After selecting the scenario to create a new subaccount or use an existing one, you can configure the subaccount.

For the entitlements, the booster will select the free plan services by default (if available in your BTP global account).

You can now select from multiple cloud providers: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, and depending on this selection, you can pick a data center close to you. In the screenshot below, I am selecting the ap11 region, which is AWS in Singapore. As I am based in Singapore, I can significantly reduce latencies by selecting this region.

The next steps in the Booster will ask you to provide users (administrators and developers), followed by a review of the selected options, before finally running the booster.

Once the booster is finished, you can open the subaccount’s BTP cockpit.

In this subaccount cockpit, on the Instances and Subscriptions tab, you will find SAP Business Application Studio. Clicking on the hyperlink will bring you to the welcome page.

You can now create your own “virtual machine” in the cloud by hitting the Create Dev Space button. Besides the usual options to create a Dev Space for creating SAP Fiori or SAP Mobile Applications, you can select Low-Code-Base Full-Stack Cloud Application. The predefined extensions in this extension pack offers you the low-code experience.

After hitting the Create Dev Space button, a new Dev Space is created and started, and you will navigate to the Dev Space Manager where you can see all your Dev Spaces and their status.

Once your Dev Space is running, the name of it will change into a hyperlink that will bring you into SAP Business Application Studio. A popup dialog is presented, where you can provide the name and description of your new low-code project.

Once you hit the Create button, a new project will be created and soon after it is opened. To help you get started quickly, we offer you Guided Development: an interactive guide that instructs you step-by-step on how to use the tools and create a full-stack application. You can start from a spreadsheet or create your own data model for developing your CAP based application.

Application Development

The above described way to get into the low-code experience in SAP Business Application Studio is different from using the booster called “Prepare an Account for Low-Code / No-Code App Development”. Let me clarify the differences with the table below:

Booster	Prepare an Account for Low-Code / No-Code App Development	Get started with SAP Business Application Studio
Region	Only eu10 (AWS Frankfurt)	Multiple regions and providers
SaaS apps and services involved	SAP AppGyver, SAP Business Application Studio	SAP Business Application Studio, optional: SAP Continuous Integration and Delivery
Scope	Design-time and partly runtime environment	Design-time environment only
Application Development	Included	Only available when also subscribed to SAP AppGyver or SAP Process Automation (which is available on the regions eu10, us10, jp10 and ap10)

The new booster “Get started with SAP Business Application Studio” will only prepare a subaccount for development. For deployment of your apps, you will need to use or set up a separate environment (which is usually shared across your organization).

Application Development is available on a limited set of regions, and available when you have subscribed to SAP AppGyver or SAP Process Automation.

Below is a visualisation of what is available in which region.

Conclusion

As you can see, the Low-Code experience in SAP Business Application Studio is now available in more regions, and can be provided independently of other low-code / no-code offerings. The service is also available in free-tier.

The new booster will make it easier for you to set up a development environment in the cloud.

Happy (low-) coding !

Ludo Noens – SAP Labs Singapore