Introduction
At Microsoft, we’re one of the largest SAP customers in the world. For years, we’ve combined SAP’s robust capabilities with a wide array of non-SAP tools to optimize our development and operational processes. While SAP’s transport mechanism is well-established and reliable, it was originally designed for more traditional, linear development cycles.
In contrast, today’s digital enterprises thrive on agility. Modern development methodologies demand faster iteration, better collaboration, seamless integration, and real-time visibility — areas where traditional SAP tooling can fall short.
Historically, we relied on third-party tools for SAP change and release management. These tools served us for a while, but over time their limitations became apparent. In Fiscal Year 2020 alone, we saw nearly 450 support tickets raised due to tool instability and usability issues. With the platform approaching end-of-life and growing dissatisfaction among users, it was clear that a change was needed.
Moreover, the lack of integration with key platforms such as Azure DevOps, Compliance Security Questionnaire, and Virtual Forge created manual overhead and fragmented workflows. Performance decline in release cycles began to impact our ability to deliver with speed and confidence — putting our commitment to 100% on-time deployments at risk.
The Ideation: Why Azure DevOps for SAP?
Azure DevOps (ADO) is a cloud-based platform that enables agile project management, version control, CI/CD, and collaborative software development. Across Microsoft, our non-SAP teams were already reaping the benefits of Azure DevOps throughout the entire software development lifecycle. In contrast, SAP teams were using ADO only for planning, while the actual transport and deployment remained siloed.
That’s when the lightbulb moment occurred:
Why not extend Azure DevOps into the SAP landscape?
We envisioned a single, unified toolchain — where SAP developers could not only plan and track changes but also create, manage, and propagate transports directly from Azure DevOps. This would ensure a consistent experience across all engineering teams, increase transparency, and accelerate delivery.
Bringing the Vision to Life
This blog marks the beginning of a series where we share our journey of transforming SAP change management by integrating it with Azure DevOps. In this initial post, we’ve set the stage by describing the challenges, motivations, and the opportunity we identified.
What we have built at Microsoft today is a production-ready internal solution that automates and governs SAP transports via Azure DevOps — bringing SAP change management into the modern DevOps era. It’s already driving higher productivity, greater control, and a more seamless user experience for our internal teams.
Though this solution is currently tailored for our internal use, we believe it offers a blueprint for other SAP customers looking to modernize their development and deployment practices.
Let’s bring SAP into the DevOps era — together.
We’d love to hear your thoughts!
IntroductionAt Microsoft, we’re one of the largest SAP customers in the world. For years, we’ve combined SAP’s robust capabilities with a wide array of non-SAP tools to optimize our development and operational processes. While SAP’s transport mechanism is well-established and reliable, it was originally designed for more traditional, linear development cycles.In contrast, today’s digital enterprises thrive on agility. Modern development methodologies demand faster iteration, better collaboration, seamless integration, and real-time visibility — areas where traditional SAP tooling can fall short.Historically, we relied on third-party tools for SAP change and release management. These tools served us for a while, but over time their limitations became apparent. In Fiscal Year 2020 alone, we saw nearly 450 support tickets raised due to tool instability and usability issues. With the platform approaching end-of-life and growing dissatisfaction among users, it was clear that a change was needed.Moreover, the lack of integration with key platforms such as Azure DevOps, Compliance Security Questionnaire, and Virtual Forge created manual overhead and fragmented workflows. Performance decline in release cycles began to impact our ability to deliver with speed and confidence — putting our commitment to 100% on-time deployments at risk. The Ideation: Why Azure DevOps for SAP?Azure DevOps (ADO) is a cloud-based platform that enables agile project management, version control, CI/CD, and collaborative software development. Across Microsoft, our non-SAP teams were already reaping the benefits of Azure DevOps throughout the entire software development lifecycle. In contrast, SAP teams were using ADO only for planning, while the actual transport and deployment remained siloed.That’s when the lightbulb moment occurred:Why not extend Azure DevOps into the SAP landscape?We envisioned a single, unified toolchain — where SAP developers could not only plan and track changes but also create, manage, and propagate transports directly from Azure DevOps. This would ensure a consistent experience across all engineering teams, increase transparency, and accelerate delivery.Bringing the Vision to LifeThis blog marks the beginning of a series where we share our journey of transforming SAP change management by integrating it with Azure DevOps. In this initial post, we’ve set the stage by describing the challenges, motivations, and the opportunity we identified.What we have built at Microsoft today is a production-ready internal solution that automates and governs SAP transports via Azure DevOps — bringing SAP change management into the modern DevOps era. It’s already driving higher productivity, greater control, and a more seamless user experience for our internal teams.Though this solution is currently tailored for our internal use, we believe it offers a blueprint for other SAP customers looking to modernize their development and deployment practices.Let’s bring SAP into the DevOps era — together.We’d love to hear your thoughts! Read More Technology Blog Posts by Members articles
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