FAQ – Partner Edition
The following FAQ is for all partners using the SAP BTP ABAP environment. It highlights the benefits for partners and the possible scenarios they can implement.
Overview
With the SAP BTP ABAP environment, partners are operating in a modern and flexible cloud environment that offers various options for deploying solutions. The partners can offer their own solutions independently of SAP and thus serve their customer base. Partners can offer their customers a faster time to market by leveraging the SAP BTP ABAP environment. This means customers can benefit from new features and improvements more quickly. An additional advantage is the elimination of the need to maintain hardware and infrastructure, which can lead to significant savings. Furthermore, the SAP BTP ABAP environment is flexibly scalable, ensuring it can meet growing customer requirements at any time.
Licensing and Costs
The best starting point for this information is the Partner Portal.
The partner solutions are distributed through the SAP Store. There, customers can select the products and conclude the corresponding contract with the partner. The partner can design the marketing according to his preferences. Further information of the GTM strategy is defined in the partner track "Build" that can be found in the SAP Partner Portal.
The partner sets the prices for the solution. The contract for consuming the partner solutions is concluded solely between the partner and its customers; all content contained therein is independent of SAP's licenses.
If the offered solution is distributed through the SAP Store, the partner must pay a revenue share. Distribution through the SAP Store is mandatory for the add-on product, so the revenue share always applies there. The multitenancy SaaS solution can be listed through the SAP Store, but it is not mandatory with this option. The exact components of revenue that are relevant and how the revenue share is calculated can be viewed in the price list on the SAP Partner Portal.
Development and Administration
There are two scenarios that can be implemented so that the partner can offer the solution to his customers.
On the one hand, the partner can offer a cloud service to which the customer can subscribe, this is the multitenancy SaaS solution. This gives the customer their own tenant in the partner's central provider system. The service is therefore not installed on the customer's local system but is accessible on an external system. Application monitoring and the entire management of the infrastructure are handled by the partner, who also bears the system costs. Furthermore, the partner can determine the degree of extensibility and custom logic possible in the application.
The second option is the provisioning of an Add-On Product. In this case, the partner offers the customer an add-on. For this, the customer requires their own system in the SAP BTP ABAP environment in which the product can be installed. Sharing the partner's infrastructure is not possible; a separate instance must exist. Customers can add the Add-On Product to their systems via the Landscape Portal.
The partner needs an SAP PE Build contract for development and deployment. The SAP BTP ABAP environment is also required. All information regarding the Add-On Product is in this blog post in the SAP Community.
All Add-On Products offered by partners can be viewed and selected in the SAP Store. After purchase, installation takes place via the Landscape Portal.
There is an important limitation, that only one business configuration software component (swc) can be cloned to a system. That means that business configuration (bc) is available for one client and not cross-client (customers). To offer business configuration to all the customers of a multitenant SaaS solution the partner either 1) makes the bc part of a swc of type DEV and imports it via application job per customer or 2) exports the bc in an Excel-file and uploads the bc via the respective app per customer.
The product offering determines the scope of extensibility. For multitenancy SaaS solutions, the partner can provide key-user extensibility. With that option the customer can extend the data model as well as the business logic in a reduced way. However, the partner must have planned for this in the application and taken it into account during development.
With the add-on product, developer extensibility is also possible, as access to the backend is available and the customer can customize it. The customer has the opportunity to use all extensibility options that the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP) provides.
New releases are released quarterly and are scheduled at the beginning of each calendar year. They are released in February, May, August, and November. This eliminates the need to maintain the infrastructure yourself; SAP takes care of everything. The upgrade and maintenance window can be found in this blog post in the SAP Community.
The certification is optional and provides industry recognition, access to new markets, and assurances of quality and compatibility, making certification an intangible asset for SAP partners. To find out which certificate is the right one for your solution and how it works, please check out the SAP Integration and Certification Center.