As businesses strive to innovate faster and operate more efficiently, serverless computing has emerged as a powerful paradigm in cloud-native application development. Within the SAP ecosystem, especially when working with SAP Business Application Studio (BAS) on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), serverless computing unlocks new possibilities for scalable, event-driven, and cost-effective application architectures.
This article provides an introduction to serverless computing, explores its benefits and use cases, and explains how it integrates with SAP development workflows in SAP Business Application Studio.
Serverless computing is a cloud-native development model where you build and run applications without managing the underlying infrastructure. Despite the name, servers still exist—but they are abstracted away from the developer. Cloud providers handle provisioning, scaling, and managing the server resources.
In SAP BTP, serverless capabilities are provided through services like:
No Server Management
Developers focus solely on writing code. Infrastructure provisioning, patching, and scaling are handled automatically.
Event-Driven Execution
Functions are triggered by events such as HTTP requests, database changes, or business events (e.g., a new sales order in SAP S/4HANA).
Auto-Scaling
Serverless platforms scale up during high demand and scale down (even to zero) when idle, optimizing resource usage and cost.
Micro-Billing
You pay only for actual execution time and resources used, not for idle capacity.
SAP BAS offers a cloud-based, fully integrated development environment optimized for SAP-centric scenarios, making it ideal for building serverless applications on SAP BTP.
Here's a simple example using SAP BTP Functions within BAS:
module.exports = async function (event, context) {
const name = event.data.name || 'World';
return {
status: 200,
body: `Hello, ${name} from SAP serverless!`
};
};
This function could be deployed using the SAP BTP CLI and triggered by an HTTP request or event from SAP Event Mesh.
Serverless computing represents a shift in how applications are developed and deployed, offering agility, scalability, and operational efficiency. Within the SAP ecosystem, SAP Business Application Studio provides a streamlined environment for building serverless applications that extend and integrate with SAP solutions.
By embracing serverless in SAP BAS, developers can innovate faster, reduce infrastructure overhead, and build responsive, event-driven business applications aligned with modern enterprise needs.