Demystifying SOA in SAP NetWeaver

Upgrades are a fact of life in enterprise IT, but the benefits of SOA make a convincing case for NetWeaver adoption.

I like to say, with apologies to Mark Twain, that just as death and taxes are the two certainties of life, so are upgrades in the life of a software application. You can delay death and upgrades, but you cannot completely evade them.

In late 2002, SAP released SAP R/3 Enterprise (Version 4.7). Knowing they would have to upgrade to the latest version someday, many customers went ahead and did just that.

But before the dust settled on that Enterprise release, a new paradigm called SAP NetWeaver 2004 was introduced. While common sense dictates upgrading to the latest release, especially if that release has multiple value propositions as NetWeaver 2004s does, thousands of customers are not in a position to contemplate an upgrade from R/3 4.6C, R/3 Enterprise 4.7 or earlier releases. So, should you keep pushing off an upgrade, or should you bite the bullet and upgrade to NetWeaver 2004s soon in order to take advantage of its features?

If I had to recommend just one feature that is worth upgrading for, it would be the ability to build applications in the form of services that can be exposed to the external world and reused by adopting standard industry protocols -- service-oriented architecture (SOA).

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Enterprise Content Management

Overview
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) describes a broad set of activities that help manufacturers and other companies manage key areas of their businesses, including product planning and development, inventory management, parts purchasing, accounts receivable and payable, order tracking, and customer service. Software applications by leading vendors such as SAP and PeopleSoft have emerged to support these activities by providing a single interface to ERP data, often employing different modules for general aspects of the business to aid user in specific areas such as finance and engineering.

Increasingly, though, ERP application users require other critical supporting content to complete their work. Finance tasks require customer statements and invoices. Logistics tasks require facilities drawings. Production planning tasks require engineering drawings and parts lists. Integrating this supporting content helps companies realize the maximum benefit from an ERP investment. In some cases it is critical to realizing that benefit.

However, ERP applications are typically not adept at managing unstructured content; they don’t have the robust functionality required for handling the indexing, searching, storage, and security of huge volumes of information in multiple formats. For these functions, large companies invest in a content management solution, such as the Documentum enterprise content management platform.

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SAP skills of the past

Bread-and-butter ABAP is on the way out. Bread-and-butter batch data conversion/report generation ABAP is on the way out. Object-oriented ABAP, mixed with Java-flavored tools, is the SAP development skill set of the future.

"Goodbye to Basis." Basis is giving way to NetWeaver. The skills transition from Basis to NetWeaver is not as difficult as on the development side. EDI is out, XML is in. There's still some EDI (electronic data interface) work to be done for companies entrenched in the infrastructure, but for everyone else it's about SOA/XML/Internet-based B2B transactions. EDI skills are no longer a coveted part of the technical skill set for most consultants.

Business Suite products have a questionable future, especially APO. This may be the most controversial statement in this piece, given that the Business Suite is still a major part of what SAP is pushing. And we won't know the ultimate fate of the Business Suite for a few more years -- when the bulk of the core upgrades are done and companies look more closely at how they might want to "extend" their functionality.

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SAP Reveals Co-Innovation Lab And Envisions Web 3.0

Dan Farber (ZDNet) submits: SAP (SAP) held a dog and pony show, including a ribbon cutting ceremony, for the unveiling of its new Co-Innovation Lab in Palo Alto. “The intention is for this to be a working lab, not just a slick showcase for customers,” said Zia Yusef, executive vice president of the Global Ecosystem and Partner Group at SAP. SAP and partners, including Cisco (CSCO), HP (HPQ), Intel (INTC) and NetApp (NTAP) as well as ISVs and systems integrators, will work on joint projects and utilize a simulated, heterogeneous data center with hardware and software from participating vendors. The Co-Innovation Lab houses 1,600 SAP employees, including 1,000 engineers.It’s not exactly a keiretsu, but a compatible federation of companies that have a shared interest in building next-generation solutions, not just products, that integrate with SAP’s ERP and NetWeaver platform.

“There is a constant demand from ISV partners to sit down with our developers and engage and imagine the future. We should not forget the human collaboration necessary to make innovation happen,” Yusef said. For SAP, the Lab provides a showcase for its SOA-based platform and allows ISVs to test and demonstrate its products in a real world environment, and also highlight partner products.

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Questra Among First Software Vendors to Participate in New SAP Co-Innovation Lab

Leader in Intelligent Device Management Will Collaborate With SAP, Partners, And Device Manufacturers On Enterprise SOA-Enabled IDM Solutions To Transform Key Business Processes

website

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Questra Corporation, the leader in Intelligent Device Management (IDM), has announced that it is among the first Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to sign on to initiate projects in the SAP Co-Innovation Lab announced by SAP AG yesterday. Questra will collaborate with SAP, other SAP partners, and equipment manufacturers on enterprise solutions built upon Service-Oriented Architecture (Enterprise SOA) to transform four key business processes: service handling, software management, pricing and ordering, and content delivery. The company also will test and demonstrate joint solutions in the Lab's heterogeneous, open IT systems environment, which simulates real-world enterprise data centers, including performance and security requirements for web-based applications.

"The SAP Co-Innovation Lab demonstrates the power of the SAP ecosystem to engage customers and partners -- such as Questra -- in joint collaboration," said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP. "We look forward to fostering this laboratory as a trail-blazing experiment in the exchange of ideas and the joint development of the next generation of innovations that customers need to run their businesses successfully."

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Top Three Technologies

Technologies that matter

ERP, desktops and servers are the top three technologies mong large businesses. By Akhtar asha

When we started analysing the large enterprise IT infrastructure survey findings, we knew for a fact that enterprise application software (ERP) and servers would be the top two technology areas where IT investments are happening and that things will continue in the same direction. What emerged that was of interest is the fact that the third technology that these enterprises favour is none other than desktop and notebook PCs. This could be due to the fact that many large enterprises are growing and expanding their production capacity. The report was repared with inputs from 163 respondents in seven industry verticals with a turnover in excess of Rs 300 crores.

Let us go step by step in understanding how important these three technologies are for large businesses.

Micro-verticalisation and the expanding business

The survey indicates that for 20 percent of 163 respondents, enterprise application software (EAS) such as ERP, CRM, SCM and BI was their most significant IT deployment in the past year. Manufacturing/engineering, FMCG/consumer durables, Oil/energy verticals have taken a lead in driving the implementation of enterprise applications. Vertical-wise it is manufacturing/engineering that has set the tone for EAS spending. About 30 percent of these companies have already invested in EAS. After manufacturing, FMCG/consumer durables and oil/energy with 25 and 20 percent cite EAS as the most significant IT deployment of the past year.

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ABAP coding is out!

Wait a minute -- isn't Java in? Isn't ABAP out? Well, in the SAP of the future, all coding is out. Chairman Hasso Plattner's main point of emphasis in his keynote was "no more coding." Of course, what he really meant was that once companies upgrade to mySAP ERP, they won't have to code in order to customize and upgrade their core functionality.

The message is still the same: Coding is for the team holed up in Waldorf, not for SAP customers. SAP users will get the functionality they need through service-enabled "plug and play." Is this a fantasy? Perhaps to a degree, but SAP is making strides. At this year's conference, SAP could point to actual customer examples where SOA was used to build new apps and fill functionality gaps.

Yes, Java will still come into play with SAP development. The latest example is a press release on the NetWeaver Composition Environment (CE), which emphasized that the whole platform is Java EE 5-based. But that's less about Java and more about SAP opening up its architecture and adhering to open standards.

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SAP now with RadRails and Eclipse

SAP's now feature RadRails, Eclipse, PHP/Ruby/Python code generators. There are growing trend in large scale software companies of using free open sourse frameworks and ideas. Eclipse is a project aiming to provide open development platform of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. This is will make life easier for developers as this tools are freely available to them. Sun, Microsoft, IBM, and others have also started embracing open-source tools, however its going to take some time before they are offered in full potential.

Culture clash at SAP

"Americanization" may spell trouble for German software giant's global designs

Will greater speed jeopardize quality? Will SAP abandon its tried-and-true proprietary ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) language? Do customers even want all the new stuff?

SAP announced it was acquiring a couple of small software companies this week: CRM vendor Wicom and identity management solution provider MaXware. But the big SAP news is that details of the company’s recent turbulence and Shai Agassi’s departure are finally starting to come to light.

Just as Daimler-Benz recently decided it had overreached with its Chrysler acquisition, it seems the SAP home office in Walldorf, Germany, is grappling with backlash from its recent aggressive workforce globalization. A deep dive by The Wall Street Journal last week revealed the cultural and business tensions that have played out behind the scenes.

Rewind to 2001. SAP acquires Agassi’s company, TopTier Software, just as it’s becoming clear that the Internet will threaten SAP’s proprietary, self-contained software suite business model. Agassi convinces then-CEO Hasso Plattner to pour resources into NetWeaver and to start investing in lighter-weight Web-based software products with faster product cycles.

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Data 'Switzerland' Stretches Out

Orlando can seduce you. Informatica World, held the week of April 30 � May 3 at Marriott's huge World Center Resort, had to compete with unwavering sunshine, swimming pools, cocoa-butter smells and the patter of vacationing families as they flip-flopped their way down the long corridors with pool toys dangling from childrens' hands. The flight from San Francisco via Denver to Orlando can deposit you at the front desk feeling haggard and grumpy, but it's hard to maintain that sort of edge after a few hours on the grounds of one of these resort hotels amid such carefree folk.

True, nearly all my time was spent in the ballrooms and salons of the convention center. Food and drinks were plentiful, although I had my hand slapped for mistakenly lifting a muffin from a continental breakfast spread that it turned out belonged to a Lenovo sales meeting. Once I found the Informatica coffee and munchies, I settled in for keynotes and track sessions that painted seductive visions of their own. The subject was enterprise data integration; Informatica's goal is to be the hub that brings together structured and unstructured data and lets it flow easily across enterprise boundaries.

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RWD Technologies Releases RWD uPerform(TM) to European and UK Markets

LONDON, May 8 /PRNewswire/ --
- New Enterprise Performance Support Solution Enables Worker Collaboration, eLearning and Knowledge Sharing
RWD Technologies, Inc. (RWD), a company that develops, implements, and supports products and services in the areas of training, consulting, and organisational performance improvement announced today the release of RWD uPerform(TM) to markets in Europe and the United Kingdom. RWD uPerform is a comprehensive human performance support tool kit for businesses seeking to improve business results and return on investment (ROI) from their enterprise solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force training programs.
SAP, the world's largest business software solutions provider, sells RWD uPerform under the name SAP(R) Productivity Pak powered by RWD.
In the ERP space alone, companies will invest upwards of US$39 billion per year by 2009 (IDC, "Worldwide ERP Applications 2005-2009 Forecast and 2004 Vendor Shares," August 2005). Yet despite such massive investments, many organisations are ill equipped to educate their employees on (or retain employee insight into how they use) these solutions.
"Our customers are telling us they need solutions that can help them maximise their investment in their technology solutions," said Mike Bray, executive vice president, Strategic Business Initiatives, RWD. "Rolling out complex systems across expanding geographies to workers with varying skill sets is a growing challenge as workforce demographics change and businesses operate in an increasingly global environment. RWD uPerform is an enterprise-level solution to help them succeed in today's marketplace."
RWD uPerform addresses workforce and technological challenges by enabling the creation, storage, management, and distribution of learning content.

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Close Control of Opportunities

When Tallard Technologies Inc. outgrew its legacy CRM application, it chose SAP Customer Relationship Management for a centralized repository of customer information, formal sales-tracking tools, and business-partner collaboration capabilities. Tallard now has a clear view of its sales and prospects and a platform for future efficiencies.

“Of course all our customers are important for us, that´s why each requires different strategies for attracting sales”, says Chris S. Meiser, executive vice president of operations at Tallard Technologies Inc. “All of the people who make up our multi-tiered business model – we sell to large enterprise IT buyers, systems integrators, large retail electronics chains, and small storefront shops throughout the Caribbean and Latin America – need to communicate about each opportunity, and we needed a vehicle for making that happen efficiently.”

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SAP Drives Growth at MRF...

SAP India today announced that MRF Limited, India's leading tyre manufacturing company, has selected SAP for Automotive solutions to support efforts to drive operational excellence across its global organization. Following a detailed evaluation process, MRF opted to replace existing applications from Oracle in favour of SAP’s leading SAP ERP and SAP CRM solutions, based on the SAP NetWeaver platform. With global operations manufacturing and distributing tyres to more than 75 countries, MRF was faced with the need to improve visibility throughout its entire value chain from raw materials to finished-goods partners in order to better plan for and adapt to fluctuations in global supply and demand. With SAP the company will be able to seamlessly integrate data between logistics and finance, eliminating redundant work and saving time and operational costs. With this, all major tyre companies in India run SAP solutions. MRF has selected Siemens Information Systems (SIS) as the partner for implementation, HP Integrity servers and IBM DB2 as the database, on which this SAP deployment will happen.

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SAP Aspirants beware!

SAP has only two authorized providers in India - Genovate (Affiliated to SAP Singapore) and Siemens (Affiliated to SAP Germany) . No other institute can claim to provide authorized training other than these two. Some private institutes claiming to be authorized training centers can dope aspirants of their money still not provide the training as promised during admission. The SAP course from a genuine institute in India costs near about 3 lacs including the consultant exam fees. The course duration is 25 days and SAP has made it compulsory for the certification exam to be held on the last day of the course, if slots are not vacant then they will fix a date as per availability. Unauthorized institutes can also provide you the same course at a cheaper price, but for certification at least 2 years work experience in SAP required.

Its best to stick to authorized centers or else you could end up like this guy on Pune Diary forums
http://www.punediary.com/forum/TopicDetails.asp?Id=322&ForumId=11

SAP unveils on-demand ERP apps for small, midsize firms

SAP this week unveiled a set of integrated on-demand ERP applications, code-named A1S, for midsize companies that is due to ship next year.

Executives at the company's Sapphire 2007 user conference in Atlanta this week said the as-yet-unnamed service will be offered as an integrated suite of tools for running various business processes, such as order to cash. The tools for the hosted service set have been in development for three years so far, executives noted.

The service will target small and midsize firms that shy away from packaged ERP systems because of cost, complexity and other issues.

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SAP CEO: We are not arrogant, we are the market leader

"SAP CEO Henning Kagermann's Sapphire keynote (see ZDNet coverage of the event) didn't reveal any surprises. SAP is riding high after a good quarter and feeling confident in its ability to deliver on its ambitious strategy to establish enterprise SOA across its product line and enter the on demand application with a new business suite aimed at the lower mid-market.Kagermann dismissed competitors with a wave of the hand."We are not arrogant, we are the market leader. We cannot learn from the competition, but we watch them. If you look at who is running the backbone of largest companies, it is us, so we are learning from customers. They give us best the possible knowledge of what is going on in the market," Kagermann said during an interview I attended with a group of fellow bloggers.“We believe we are in the lead,” he continued. “It’s not so much about how many clients we can take over from the competition. Enterprise software is pretty sticky. We have a clear indication of where we are heading.” Most SAP customers exist in heterogeneous environments, and have multiple, overlapping enterprise software providers. “Our first objective is to convince customers that SAP is the strategic vendor of choice,” he said. Without mentioning Oracle by name, he said, “SAP co-innovates the future while our competition consolidates the past.”“We know there are companies out there innovating faster than us. It’s OK with me. Over time we will enter these spaces, articularly with A1S we will have an entire on demand suite.” He noted that 65 percent of SAP's revenue ($12.8 billion US in 2006) comes from small- and medium-

sized businesses, what SAP calls SME (E for Enterprise)......"

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ABAP!

ABAP (Application Business Application Programming) is language developed by SAP to cater to the needs of business entities. Several Highly Scalable applications can be developed using ABAP Workbench and custom developed SAP standard applications can be "Modified'' and "Enhanced". SAP Web Application Server ABAP provides runtime environment for running ABAP programs and also support for Java programs are provided by SAP Application Server 6.20 SAP.The integrated Java Web Application Server is Java application server (J2EE) called SAP Web AS Java.

Client/Server Configuration for SAP Systems :

SAP runs on a three-tier configuration - with atleast three servers and each layer runs on its own host - Database, Application and Presentation. There can be only one Database server but multiple presentation and application servers are possible. atabase server stores data accessed by programs running on application server which are made available to users by Presentation Server with the help of GUI screens etc..

SAP Netweaver!

Netweaver can be considered a central tool for reducing the total cost of ownership(TCO) of complex system infrastructures. SAP Netweaver is the technical foundation on which almost all current mySAP solutions are based. An enhanced version of the SAP application platform and also fulfils flexibility and integration between systems, interfaces, users and processes requirement. One of the main aims of developing Netweaver was to facilitate connecting information, business processes and people without system and organisational boundaries. cross-application software, composite applications are also supported by SAP Netweaver.



Netweaver has Four Integration Levels :

• People Integration
• Information Integration
• Process Integration
• Application Platform

SAP!

SAP is the worlds leading provider of business software.SAP applications are today run by more than 120 countries with over 38000 customers.To map business processeses not only SAP systems used are but also other providers as well as business applications that have been developed internally.Solutions provided by SAP are nowadays not only implemented by big infrastructure companies but also mid size to small companies are finding them suitable for their organisations.SAP systems find its uses in high tech, retail, financial services, healthcare and the public sector.

SAP Training in India

India has only two institutes affiliated to provide SAP training - Seimens and Genovate . Seimens is afiliated to SAP Germany and Genovate to SAP Singapore . Genovate has its main branch in Mumbai which is 5 years old and opened alongwith the Singapore branch.I took my training from Genovate Pune (6 months old) . Whichever city has a Genovate center is not allowed to open a Seimens center and vice versa .

SAP India Pvt Ltd
Victoria Layo
30, Vaswani Victoria ,Victoria Road,
Bangalore 560 025
India
Tel: (91) 80 4136 5555
Fax: (91) 80 4136 5550
E-mail: education.india@sap.com

Genovate :-

India Office (Mumbai)
Genovate Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd.
A Wing, 1st Floor, Phoenix House,
462 Senapati Bapat Marg., Lower Parel,
Mumbai 400 013
Tel: (91)-22- 2490 1839 / 3042 1840
TeleFax: (91)-22- 3042 1844
Email: krishnan@genovate.com / fabian@genovate.com

India Office (Ahmedabad)
Unit No. 308, 3rd Floor,
"Aatish", Near Samarpan Flats, Off C.G. Road,
Gulbai Thekra, Ahmedabad. 380006
Tel: (91)-79- 6631 5706 / 6631 5707

TeleFax: (91)-79-66315708
Email: rogers@genovate.com

India Office (Cochin)
Genovate (Cochin) Pvt Ltd
1st Floor, E M Commercial Centre,
(M.C.C.) N.H. 47, Edappally, Cochin.
Tel: (91)-484- 320 1837 / 320 1838
TeleFax: (91)-22- 30421844
Email: mathews.c@genovate.com

India Office (Pune)
Nuclues Mall
5th Floor, 501/502,
Church Road, Camp,
Opp Police Commissioner Office,
Pune 411001
Tel: 020-30520219 / 30520220
Email: anuraag@genovate.com /mailto:satish.s@genovate.com

India Office (Mangalore)
4-1-145/6,IInd Floor,
Punja Bldg,
M.G.Road,Lalbagh,
Mangalore,
Tel: 08244270532

Cell no: (91)-9342674313

Email: kushalata@genovate.com /naveen.s@genovate.com /girish@genovate.com

India Office (Trichi)
V.V.R.Complex,
IInd Floor,Opp Mega Star Theatre,
Karur Bypass Road,
Annamalai Nagar Road,
Trichy : 620018
Tel: 0431 4024246/48
Email: girish@genovate.com /senthil@genovate.com

Siemens :-

Siemens Information Systems Limited
1st Floor, VIPPS Centre
2, Local Commercial Complex, Masjid Moth
Greater Kailash - 2 New Delhi - 110048
Tel: (91) 11 299220694/29220695/29220696/ 29220697/29221248/29216047/292...
Fax: (91) 11 29214685
Contact Person: Ms.Rochika Bhatia
E-mail: mailto:rochika.bhatia@siemens.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
5th Floor, 144, Mahatma Gandhi Road
Nungambakkam Chennai - 600034
Tel: (91) 44 28334360/28334361/28334362
Fax: (91) 44 28331844
Contact Person: Ms.Sangeeta Arora
E-mail: mailto:Sangeeta.arora@siemens.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
43, Shantipally
E.M. Bypass. Rash Behari Connector
Kolkata - 700 042
Tel : (91) 33 24428641-49
Fax: (91) 33 24429930
Contact person : Ms.Debomitra Bose
E-mail: mailto:Debomitra.bose@siemens.com

Siemens Information Systems Limited
206, LOGOS , Ground Floor
The Bible Society Building
M.G Road
Bangalore - 560 001
Tel : (91) 80- 57700001 / 2
Contact persons : Ms. Shubha Ghargi / Prachi Garg
E-mail: mailto:sapatcblr.in@siemens.com
E-mail: mailto:prachi.garg@siemens.com