To setup MTA, we will initially need access of SAP Web IDE. Once you have access of the SAP Web IDE, follow the given steps to configure an MTA application:

Step 01: Open your web IDE and right click on your workspace and click Project from Template under New as shown below:

Step 03: Select Multi-Target Application and click Next. Give a project name and its description in upcoming screens and also check mark “Use HTML5 Application Repository” as shown below and click Finish:

This project will be empty as of now with only one .yaml file.

Step 04: For our UI5 App, we will need an HTML5 Module. Right click on your project and select HTML5 Module under New, as shown below:

Select Category as SAP Fiori Application and search UI5. Select SAPUI5 Application as shown below:

Step 05: For our Node.js App, we will need a Node.js Module. Right click on your project and select Node.js Module under New, as shown below:

Give a module name (xs.js, in our case), a description, and check mark “Enable XSJS support” as shown below, and click finish:

Step 06: Now, we are ready to push our App to Cloud Foundry so that the API that we are going to make is always up and accessible worldwide. For this, we will change the Project Settings so that our project points to the correct cloud foundry settings.

Right click on your project and click Project Settings under Project as shown below:

Here, you need to click on Cloud Foundry under Project section and just select the available API Endpoint. It will bring all other data as shown below [This will be prefilled unlike the image shown below]:

Now, we are ready to deploy/build our project. For that just click Build as shown below, it will take care of everything by itself.

That’s it. Now, we are ready to work on our coding part of the API.

In this blog, we will try to cover SAP MTA, i.e., Multi Target Application.

A Multi-Target Application (SAP MTA) is a package comprised of multiple libraries, application, and resource modules. These have been created using different technologies and deployed to different runtimes but have a common life cycle. You can bundle different modules together, describe them along with their inter-dependencies to other modules, services, and interfaces, and package them in an Multi-Target Application (MTA).

A Multi-Target Application can have both UI5 and other open-source app implementation. We can deploy Java, Node.js and all other SAP cloud platform services.

SAP Multi Target Application Architecture

It is clear from the architecture flow diagram above that using our UI5 App, we will be calling a Node.js API which in return will be calling a Blockchain Application Enablement Service. This Enablement Service will help us to communicate with the Multichain environment. Both this UI5 App and Node.js files will co-exist under MTA Application that we will discuss in upcoming sections.

Prerequisites and Restrictions

We need to consider the following limits for the SAP MTA deployment on SAP Cloud Foundry deploy service:

Maximum size of the MTA archive: 4 GB
Maximum size of MTA module content: 4 GB
Maximum size of MTA resource content: 1 GB
Maximum size of MTA descriptors (mtad.yaml and MANIFEST.MF): 1 MB

 Now, let’s summarize MTA, in short, An MTA is an SAP construct that allows you to combine modules into a single deployable unit for lifecycle maintenance. These modules could potentially use different runtimes (one on Node.js, one on Python, etc.)

One of the primary features of using the SAP WebIDE for Cloud Foundry (CF) application development is the ability to create a multi-target application (MTA) easily. Hence, in the next blog, I will try to cover setting up SAP Web IDE for MTA.

In this blog we will get to know more about this new platform to develop Applications, i.e. SAP Bussiness Application Studio.

SAP has come up with new cloud-based development environment i.e. SAP Business Application Studio, for multi-cloud environment. SAP Business Application Studio is a very powerful development environment, tightly integrated with the SAP Cloud Platform and well suited for developing business applications.

It provides you desktop-like experience in the cloud. Design of this studio is influenced by Microsoft Visual Studio code, making the developer productive. This is suitable from basic level developer to Full-Stack developer with full control development environment from back-end to front-end.

This would be the only environment for all kind of applications, by replacing all below tools into one tool SAP BAS.

• SAP UI5 / FIORI apps using templates and elements – webIDE Full-Stack
• HANA Native – XS & XSJS – HANA webIDE & HANA Studio
• ABAP on Cloud – RESTful Application Programming – Eclipse with cloud system connectivity
• Cloud Application Programming (CAP), Node.js & Java apps – Eclipse, Atom

Key benefits:

• Single environment for all kind of applications.
• No local installation & setup required
• No JRE dependency
• Industry best practices for developers without switching to multiple applications
• Integration with API HUB, on-premise, on-cloud.
• Provide the flexibility for all the developers, for e.g. templates, Git, Mock servers, OPA5 testing for FIORI apps, etc.
• Enhances the productivity with direct command execution through integrated command line.
• Run configuration feature makes it an easy option and offer single click to simulate the test in locally or deploy your app on cloud directly

Target Audience:

• UI5/Fiori developer
• ABAP developer (Planed in future version)
• Native HANA developer (Planed in future version)
• Node.js (in future version) developer
• Java application developer
• RESTful Application programming (RAP) dev
• Cloud Application programming (CAP) dev

Hope this short intro to SAP BAS was helpful. Check my next blog where I will show how to setup SAP BAS, create a UI5 application, add a launchpad module for SAP UI5 application and deploy to Cloud foundry from SAP Bussiness Application Studio.