The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) is a framework of languages, libraries, and tools for building enterprise-grade services and applications. It guides developers along a ‘golden path’ of proven best practices and a great wealth of out-of-the-box solutions to recurring tasks.
Use Core Data & Services (CDS) to build data models and service definitions on a conceptual level. These CDS models are used as inputs for the data, service, and UI layers. They're then translated to native artifacts, for example SQL database schemas, and interpreted to automatically serve requests at runtime.
In summary, CDS is used as a business level data definition source, and to generate the artifacts at the persistence layer. It’s used to define visual aspects relating to the data, with those definitions (annotations) defining the UI layer. And it's used to generate the application service layer.
We provide seamless integration with the Cloud Foundry environment on SAP Business Technology Platform. This makes it easier for you to deploy your application and consume platform services.
The programming model is compatible with any development environment, but we recommend using the SAP Business Application Studio.
The following graphic shows the relationship between CAP, SAP Business Technology Platform, platform services, and development tools:
Overview of the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model
