
## Challenge: Developing in SAP is slow, expensive, and risky. 

Most SAP systems are used for critical business tasks, so any changes must be thoroughly tested before release. Creating replica environments for development and testing can also be costly, meaning multiple developers share a single system. Consequently, managing dependencies and version control between changes to the system poses a significant challenge.

In addition, introducing organizational changes can be challenging since workflows are typically well-established. Changing these workflows while maintaining high-release quality can seem daunting.

Interestingly, these are the same challenges developers at companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon faced almost two decades ago. However, they found some innovative solutions to overcome these obstacles.

### Status Quo

Waterfall development on a shared development environment with significant manual dependency management.

<img src="/images/case-studies/future-of-sap-development/status-quo-waterfall.png" alt="Status Quo Waterfall Methodology" />

## Solution: Apply Development Best Practices to SAP Systems

What if the development practices used by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon were available to SAP developers?

That seemed impossible a few years ago, but with the advent of infrastructure-as-code tools, it is now possible to:
<ul>
    <li>Set up an isolated SAP development system in less than 10 minutes</li>
    <li>Attach that system to anonymized data or a snap-shot of production data</li>
    <li>Make changes to that system via a modern version control system like GitHub or Bitbucket</li>
    <li>Create and run automated tests on those changes</li>
    <li>Merge into the main branch for release to QAS or PRD</li>
</ul>

All in parallel, with systems that cost less than a cup of coffee per hour. ☕️

### Now Possible

Each developer runs their own instance and can update their system with changes made by other developers.

<img src="/images/case-studies/future-of-sap-development/now-possible-modern-architecture.png" alt="Modern workflow with Nuve Platform" />

### Parallel Development

Each developer runs their own container. Git manages discrete changes with version control history.

### Deploys

The main code repo (with the latest changes) can be deployed to QA after automated tests pass and to PRD after UAT passes.

### Continuous Integration

Automated tests, static analysis, and code reviews can all be completed using the same techniques that modern tech companies employ.

## Results: Faster Deploys and Lower Risk

With Nuve Platform's automated development system setups and our modern git workflows, it's now possible to develop on top of SAP in the same ways that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon build their systems.

You can empower your developers to work in parallel, write their own tests to make code more robust, and manage dependencies between changes like the best software companies in the world do.

And we can help you roll it out in a way your organization can digest, generating quick wins and building buy-in along the way. There's no need to do everything at once.

We know how development should work, so let's make it happen together.

If you’d like to see how this can work for your team, [reach out to schedule a call](https://www.nuveplatform.com/learn-more-about-nuve-platform).

### Credits
Photo by [Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦](https://unsplash.com/photos/zoCDWPuiRuA) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com)

Photo by [Victor](https://unsplash.com/photos/nDK_3biAGHc) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com)


Leverage best practices of the last two decades

The Future of SAP Development


## Challenge: Demo Systems Are Expensive Or Messy

We hear the same thing from SAP Partners over and over again: They want to show S/4HANA to prospects with custom data that is relevant to the prospect’s business.

Unfortunately . . .

<ul>
    <li>Trying to run multiple demos on a single S/4HANA system leads to messy data</li>
    <li>Hosting S/4HANA systems long term, just for demos, is too expensive</li>
    <li>Basis resources are too scarce to manage demo systems</li>
</ul>

We understand these issues well, and there is a solution.

## Solution: On-Demand Custom Demo Systems

It turns out there’s now a way to customize demos for prospects while keeping costs low.

Here’s how the most innovative Partners do it with Nuve Platform.

**Start from a Blank Template**

Nuve can provide partners with a working S/4HANA system within a few days.

But this isn’t a normal stand-alone S/4HANA system. It’s more like a template. Users can start up as many replicas of this system as they like, and each one is isolated from the others. This means that teams can create one replica for Prospect A’s demo and a separate one for Prospect B’s. Changes to Prospect A’s demo system don’t affect Prospect B’s system, and visa versa. So data stays clean.

The best part: The start-up time for each system is less than 10 minutes.

**Save Backups of Customized Systems for Demo Day**

Nuve Platform allows Partners to save changes to systems as they go, then shut them down to save compute costs. This generally leads to savings of more than 66% over long-term hosted solutions.

The workflow is essentially:

<ul>
    <li>Start up the demo system for Prospect A at 9:00am</li>
    <li>The team makes customizations throughout the day</li>
    <li>Back up Prospect A’s system at 5:00pm and shut it down to save compute costs</li>
    <li>Re-start the system from the backup the next morning, picking up where they left off</li>
</ul>

Once the system is customized to spec, the team can create a final backup that is ready for demo day.

**Rehearse the Demo, Roll it Back, and Rehearse Again**

Once the final backup of the demo system is ready, the team can walk through the demo as many times as they like. When they’re done with the rehearsal, they can roll the system back to its pre-demo state. This enables a well rehearsed demo with no surprises on demo day.

**Run the Demo on Demo Day**

Fast forward to demo day. The team has rehearsed multiple times and they know it cold. A few hours before the presentation, the team can spin up a demo system from the final backup - with all the prospect’s customizations included - and they are ready to present.

Final checks can be done prior to the demo. If anybody makes a mistake or changes data in a way that can’t be reversed before the final demo, the team has confidence that they can start up a fresh demo instance in less than 10 minutes.

## Results: Custom Demos at Reasonable Costs

The workflow shared above provides an overview of how Partners can create custom S/4HANA demo systems for prospects at a very reasonable cost.

In summary, they:

<ul>
    <li>Start from a blank S/4HANA system</li>
    <li>Customize it for the prospect and save a backup that is ready for demo day</li>
    <li>Only run the system while customizing, rehearsing or demoing, to save costs</li>
    <li>Run a well-practiced demo on demo day based on a known backup of a system</li>
</ul>

If you’d like to see how this can work for your team, [reach out to schedule a call](https://www.nuveplatform.com/learn-more-about-nuve-platform).


Case Studies

The Future of SAP Development

Customized SAP Demos for Prospects