SAP Cloud Platform Room for Improvement

Taiwo Babalola - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at Power International Holding

The main area that requires improvement in the SAP Cloud Platform, specifically within BTP, is cost management and application stability. We also face challenges with load balancing and other related issues. 

Currently, we leverage the review of business applications and data usage within our organization. CTI has proven to be an excellent choice for integration, making it seamless and reducing the complexity of various integration scenarios. However, the major area that needs improvement is the development model for custom applications on BTP. SAP has introduced a low-code model that enables application development with less coding and more focus on data and visual building. 

However, migrating existing applications from traditional coding methods, such as HTML or other programming languages, to the low-code model is not straightforward. It is time-consuming and involves reviewing the application model, which may discourage businesses from investing in this transition. Additionally, there are various requirements and layouts that need to be considered, which further complicates the process. 

Many businesses are hesitant to invest in this area as it involves significant effort and may result in data loss, especially when personnel change within the organization before requirements are provided. It's an area that requires attention.

It becomes challenging for developers to understand the business logic and requirements, making it difficult for the team to work on application migration and transition. Moreover, SAP has released a publication regarding the migration to VMware Cloud, and compatibility issues have arisen. This affects the seamless migration that SAP promotes, as there are thousands of objects that are not compatible with NetCloud. These objects are critical to the business, and without them, the transition cannot be successful. 

Technical complexities and the difficulty of migrating one application to another create significant obstacles. Businesses lose interest in such migrations due to the time and technicality involved. While the technical team understands the complexities, the business side is primarily concerned with using new features and staying up-to-date. This discrepancy becomes a major bottleneck, making the transition from one location to another extremely complex.

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Shylaraj AK - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Architect at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

The current pricing model is credit-based. We would like to have more information about the usage of the existing applications. That could improve.

Recently, SAP has introduced login, more of a free trial where you can trial and error, so you can try something without paying any subscriptions, so that's good. So similar, more applications can be hosted on free trial so that people can try them first, and then if they like it, then they can go for it.

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Deepak Madhavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivery Head- IT Shared Services at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

What I would like to see improved is the learning curve. It is not easy to train someone on SAP CPI. Also, when it comes to different partner systems, especially front-end customer experience systems or mobile apps, CPI doesn't seem to be the best fit, especially in the context of customer experience systems, content management, and mobile apps.

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Buyer's Guide
SAP Cloud Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP Cloud Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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Rajeev Dev - PeerSpot reviewer
Head - Digital ERP at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think the public cloud has a lot of room for improvement. The private cloud is working well, but the public cloud has room for improvement. Speaking about the public cloud, it's a very rigid system. So, there is not a lot of customization possible in a public cloud environment.

I think the current version of the system is very strong. I think it has pretty much all the features which were needed. So it is, and it's a very new one. So we'll have to really see how customers are able to use the solution.

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Pratibimb Dwivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at HumanAI

The tool's UI is not very intuitive for cloud integration, so it needs research to understand its options and how it may work. SAP Cloud Platform is built on a framework named Apache Camel, and they have continued with that to date, which may make it seem not the easiest version of the tool. As a user or a developer, Apache Camel framework in SAP Cloud Platform may not seem like the easiest tool to build as the process may not seem to be very intuitive. The UI of the tool is not intuitive. Right now, if I compare SAP Cloud Platform with Dell Boomi, I would say that the latter provides a far more beautiful and intuitive view compared to the former.

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LS
Process Integration Tech Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

I can’t speak to features that may be missing.

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GV
New Digital Applications Specialist at Alpina Sa

There is an issue with knowledge transfer. I feel that SAP provides the tools, but after that, you are left on your own. It would be better if they provided more support throughout the usage of their solutions.

We would like to have the ability to export data from the ERP and utilize it in Power BI, for example. It would be helpful to have a connector or a tool that could improve that process.

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EE
Chief Executive Officer at Asis

While it was good for a small entity, it was not ideal for a large enterprise. 

I don't recall dealing with a lack of features. 

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AF
Technical Writer at PlomX

The pricing for the SAP Cloud Platform has room for improvement because it's higher than the pricing for other applications.

I found AWS more scalable than the SAP Cloud Platform.

I want to see better pricing from the SAP Cloud Platform in the future. I also want more security and scalability from it.

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Sajith Paul - PeerSpot reviewer
Prime Associate Member at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

From what I understand, the SAP Cloud Platform is for implementation on AWS or Azure, and it's not meant to be a full-fledged cloud solution, so while using the platform, an area for improvement is that it has fewer offerings and is less flexible when compared to AWS. AWS has a lot more flexibility than the SAP Cloud Platform.

I've also used Azure in college and AWS in between, and I prefer AWS over the SAP Cloud Platform. The only reason I would ever stick with the SAP Cloud Platform is to create applications integrated with SAP or with other companies within SAP, such as SuccessFactors.

When you go into the SAP Cloud Platform web page, it's a bit bland and has relatively limited offerings. For example, there doesn't seem to be in-house MongoDB support, but I realize there's in-house support for the PostgreSQL database, so there are fewer offerings in the SAP Cloud Platform. Yes, you can always go for a database on the actual MongoDB server rather than depending on the offerings of the SAP Cloud Platform. However, it's still better to support MongoDB from the platform, so payment is consolidated, rather than going to a different location to make a payment.

Another room for improvement in the SAP Cloud Platform is the need to create an SAP subaccount if you need to use the platform unless you have an SSO login by Google or if you're using a different identity provider such as Microsoft or Google. Instead of requiring dependency on SAP, it would be good if users could use the SAP Cloud Platform even without a subaccount on SAP. For example, when hosting an application on AWS or Azure, you don't have to create an account in Amazon or Microsoft. You can still do it using Google. You can use almost anything, so I'd like SAP to improve by removing the dependency, particularly the requirement to create an SAP account to use the SAP Cloud Platform.

In the next release of the SAP Cloud Platform, it would be exciting to see more in-house support for many new features, similar to what AWS or Azure offers. It could be different types of systems instances, though that could already be there, so I'm unsure about that. Including MongoDB support on the platform similar to what's offered on AWS would be great because I use MongoDB a lot, and I've even used it for personal tasks, so I'm a bit biased. For example, in AWS, you can have a MongoDB system with 750GB and limits and calls per month. It would be nice if MongoDB support is available in the SAP Cloud Platform.

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DS
Associate Director- People Analytics at NielsenIQ

In person, when the development happens, we were told that it's flexible and customizable. However, sometimes, it's challenging to customize. Maybe this is how the feature works. That's the only thing I have noticed that’s a problem for us.

When we try to implement it, we realized that "Hey, this feature is not working or is not here.” We thought some were basic features. However, if you don't see the features you were expecting, you get disappointed. Some features are still under development even though we've been told they are available. When we implemented it, we realized they were still not there.

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AhmedHaridy - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Omnitelltech

SAP Cloud Platform's installation is not straightforward. You need a person with knowledge to handle it. 

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Deepankar Bbhowmick - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Architect at Aarini Consulting

The price of the solution could improve.

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Chakrapani  Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Practice Head at Arete Global

Planning features are limited to the finance module. Planning features for other modules must be improved. We have to purchase separate components to cover the production, procurement, and pay cycles. Ideally, everything should come into one bucket. We should not have to buy two products to plan for production and finance.

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YJ
Finance and Marketing Manager at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees

The solution’s pricing could be improved.

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AK
SAP Operations Manager at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The areas I think this solution should improve are monitoring and adapting.

In the next release, I'd like to see features like alerting.

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IE
Responsible for SAP at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees

For our organization, the price is the main downside. They should work to reduce the cost. This specifically affects small companies who would like to use it.

The solution should work to simplify its offering to make it more consumable for users, especially new users.

The solution requires more flexibility overall.

I understand that in the future, they will be offering open source ERP, which will be quite useful.

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VR
Senior Technical Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It would be helpful to have additional samples for SoapUI that include interface methodologies and templates.

New developers might have some difficulty with the platform. 

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Andres_Giraldo - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

When I started looking at the client's IT architecture, I started by doing a study of their services, DVM, data volume, and management services. According to the results, they could be a lot better at this.

We’d like the product to be like a web service and allow us to download an application on the computer to operate the systems.

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RR
Consultant at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

This product needs a lot of improvement and should be simplified. It is really clumsy. You need a lot of connections running just to get it working. Even though it is a private cloud, we need a lot of connection speed and resources. I would have preferred something on-premises which would have been very simple. But that is our use case: programming and hosting it on our web solution. And that is all.  

I would personally like to see a lot of examples of how to do things with the solution. This is a scalar platform and they are providing some solutions. There are some applications available that you can activate from cloud connectors, et cetera. That is good. But I need to see examples of what some use cases are and I need to be able to build some applications. It is not just about how can I utilize this platform, but there should be step-by-steps. For example, in step one, I need all my connections in place. Well, I also need to know also what kind of connections. Second, I need to know what my data should be. Third, I want to know how I can use a simple auditor. These can be very simple examples for different features. It would be helpful.  

If you go to some other platform tool sites, they are loaded with examples and templates, et cetera. I think that part of the presentation of this solution is missing here. It is as if they are saying that even from the start I had to know everything about how the product works before I ever used it. That is frustrating at times. Instead, it is always like a game of trial and error to see if something is working or not. That is time-consuming and very frustrating.   

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NA
BI & EIS Manager at Almarai Company Limited

I would like to see more and better support for data transformations. A transformation is able to change data from one format to another format. In the current solution, pivoting data or dealing with multiple levels of transformation is not supported. Those options are missing.

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SN
Senior Integration Engeneer at ATOS

Because we have been mostly testing the product and still have limited production implementation experience with it over the past six months, we have not been so heavily involved with Cloud Platform Integration because we mostly continue to use other solutions for current business projects. For that reason, we may not have a complete view of the product as to what needs to be included or improved. However, I am aware that one area that needs to be improved still is business tools integration. Another is the area of product data inserts.  

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YH
Associate Software Enginner at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

I've observed a few bugs in SAP. One recent bug I found in Content Modifier is that when using a predefined header to call the current date, it prints the previous date. These are small bugs I found.

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Kumar Saurav - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - SAP BTP at Incture

For some of our customers, the product is too costly to purchase all the components or services. The logging aspect is difficult, the errors are there but there's no analysis. It would be helpful to have that. We sometimes get the standard text error but without any indication of where to look for it which means that an error takes longer to resolve. 

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SM
SAP Solution Lead for US,Canada and Latam at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

In the planning area, IBP is there, however, with IBP still, there are a lot of customizations we need to do. There are integration areas we need to improve, and IBP processes also. IBP is a little bit of a closed process.

If you see the SAP product span, there are so many cloud versions. It is good as an add-on, or to plug in all of them. If that was possible, to plug them all together, that would be good. When it comes to giving a license BOM, there is so much confusion about that. For example, why there are so many items added to that? They could simplify it a bit, or create one cloud product instead of three or four different licenses. They can eliminate more than 20% or 30% of the BOM component, which currently SAP is doing as a separate line item.

Reporting is confusing. There are three or four areas. One is the 4HANA SAP, then BPC reporting. It's too much. The customers do not have that much knowledge in order to choose for themselves the best way to approach reports and so they are getting confused. At least in the near future, they have to start standardizing the way S4 is standardized now. 

When they innovate too fast, they end up confusing their customers.

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DG
Senior Associate Consultant at a tech services company

We would like the ability to create our own flexible data type, directly in the system. This is functionality that is available in the older, on-premises version, but not available on the cloud platform. Our current workaround is to create the definition and import those features. If this functionality were available directly then it would be a big plus because as it is now, it requires a lot of effort.

Better connectivity to on-premise systems would help us to support older systems that are migrating to the cloud. This would give us more confidence in telling clients with old legacy systems that SAP has the capability to handle their landscape.

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AshishMittal - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President of technologies at Celebal Technologies

The product needs improvement for serverless native integrations. They should opt for serverless features as all the customers worldwide choose cloud-based products.

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YC
CMO at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I'd like to see more local integration.

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RG
Lead Engineer at EPAM Systems

The addition of more industry use cases would be an improvement. SAP could also try to make it more open-source, which would encourage community growth among developers, product owners, and the support team.

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AV
Technological Partner at Code-10 IT Consultants SL

The main problem is that there aren't any easy migrations from SAP PO to SAP CPI, so from process orchestration to cloud platform integration. The connectivity requirements, not only with the SAP environment but also with third party systems, are not fully fulfilled. The re-uses of the know-how from the process orchestration can be used but aren't fully used.

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MC
Senior Services Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

SAP offers very little flexibility in its licensing structure. That said, most of our customers are okay with the price points and we have closed about 50 mid-sized customers with SAP Cloud Platform.

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PC
Senior Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

One thing that can be improved is the way the license is set up. If it could be defined by specific types of users then it would be better. For example, if it could be divided into three different sections, one for management who don't require the analytic work, it could be more for viewing. Another could be for the design department, which would require more specific tools, and finally, developers for the architecture. Different types of licenses would be very good. 

In the next release, I would like to see improvements with the price and the licensing. We are struggling with our vendors to find out who did the tool implementation.

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AB
Project Manager at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

The functionality of the interface can be difficult. Usability is a challenge most of the time and not being able to get all of the information.

Security, authentification, and logs need to be improved.

In the next release, I would like to see better navigation, better usability, clearness, and better integration with new technologies.

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MK
Divisional Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

We need to connect our ERP solution via the VPN. We need to make sure our ERP solutions aren't exposed to the outside world. Our teams really struggle with this.

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it_user797031 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT operations Manager at a manufacturing company

The product could be improved for consistent user interfaces. Although it is one platform, the user interface logic (e.g., where buttons are defined on the screen) differs from service to service.

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MM
Integration Architect

The source controller needs improvement. There are some disadvantages to it. Versioning also needs improvement. 

I would like for it to have integration to GitHub. 

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Buyer's Guide
SAP Cloud Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP Cloud Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.