# SAP North Star Architecture — Questions & Discussion

[smarchesini-avvale]

Opening this thread to go through the North Star Architecture document together. Page references below are to the PDF version — if you're reading this without it, grab the download first since some of these questions depend on the diagrams/layout on those pages.

Posting a set of questions/comments as I work through it. Happy to have others add theirs inline or as replies.

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1. User Experience Layer (p. 17)

The way Discover, Conversation, Spaces, Jobs, and Develop are described reads more like a product page than an architecture to me. How do these map back to an actual architecture?

2. Physical AI (p. 17)

Physical AI shows up almost as a buzzword with no real explanation, and I'm not sure how to read it. Is it a philosophy? A framework? An actual part of the architecture? It's not clear.

3. Process Layer, AI-first to AI-native (p. 18)

One of the shifts described is going from "process logic embedded in apps" to "apps becoming capability providers for agents." How does that get built technically, and how should we be reading it?

4. Building an Agent (p. 19)

The document states that "for production solutions, the flow progresses from business intent through a product requirements document, specification, and code generation to deployment, with process knowledge (SAP Signavio), landscape data (SAP LeanIX), and domain models (SAP Knowledge Graph) from SAP informing each stage."

Do we actually need all of those to ship a production agent? What would you prioritize first, and what's each one really responsible for? Could we use just some of them, or none?

5. Foundation Layer (p. 20)

"SAP BDC and SAP KG [...] store and compound enterprise knowledge that grows with each interaction." Can you clarify this?

6. Foundation Layer (p. 22)

"To help ensure agents have data access immediately, major SAP application tenants are provisioned with an embedded data foundation that provides auto-generated data products." What do you mean by "embedded data foundation," and how can they auto-generate data products?

7. Platform Layer (p. 25)

Here we mention BTP — is it not BAIP now? When does the Business AI Platform come into play, and when are we talking about BTP specifically?

8. Security and Agent Identity (p. 28)

Personally, this is one of the topics I'm most interested in. Can we get more details about the tiers and what SAP's vision is regarding the security aspect?

9. Closing Note (p. 35)

The document mentions Context Engineering, Harness Engineering, and Specification Engineering to keep up with innovation. Can you clarify the concepts of Harness Engineering and Specification Engineering specifically?

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Would appreciate any input from folks who've dug into this doc already, or from SAP if anyone here has a direct line.