This article is an introduction of how SAP supports DevOps.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is a practice that integrates various processes of Software Development and Operations. It brings a collaborative approach wherein multiple teams like Development, QA, Operations and Business work together with high levels of constant communication. It follows Agile principles and is focused on delivery of expected functionality in short and frequent cycles which provides business with frequent updates, faster testing and feedback.
Main Goal of DevOps:
The main idea is to achieve continuous integration, continuous delivery, continuous deployment and continuous improvement.
Some Benefits of DevOps:
- Improved time to market.
- Frequent delivery and feedback leads to quicker business realizations and better business solutions.
- Improved productivity, quality and efficiency.
What is gCTS?
gCTS stands for Git-enabled Change and Transport System that enables management of ABAP change and transport management processes using Git as an external version management system.
Basic Idea of gCTS
Source objects created in an ABAP development environment can be handled in Git. gCTS enables storage of ABAP source objects and their versions in a Git repository thus setting up environment for supporting Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) in the DevOps practice.
Main idea is that objects can be transferred to a Git repository and deployed to any environment such as another development environment, test or a production environment.
Architecture of gCTS
- Git server as a central repository (cloud storage)
- Common 3-system landscape with Dev, QA and Prod systems. Each system is subscribed to related branch.
- When a change is committed to the local repository in Dev system, it is pushed to Dev branch in the remote repository.
- CI server observes the project repository for any new changes (pull requests)
- Developer merges Dev branch into QA branch.
- CI server is triggered and it pulls and imports changes from QA branch to QA system.
Prerequisites
- SAP FIORI App for Git-Enabled Change and Transport System
- ABAP System
- JAVA runtime
- Git Server
Process flow
Developers continue to work in SE80 (ABAP Workbench) or ADT (ABAP Development Tools). Changes are recorded in standard CTS in “tasks”. Developers continue to release transport requests, however these TRs are not added to the import queues of follow-on systems instead a Commit is created in Git. The changed objects are added as files to Git repository.
The objects in the remote repository can then be transferred into local repository on any target system and from there these can also be imported to ABAP again.
Follow below links to learn more about gCTS and DevOps:
