SAP NetWeaver Application Server - In Deep Part2

List the key capabilities of SAP NetWeaver

SAP NetWeaver Technology Map – Capability View

SAP NetWeaver provides the following benefits:

• As the technical foundation for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), SAP NetWeaver delivers a comprehensive set of middleware functions in a modular software environment. These functions help reduce IT complexity and increase business flexibility across heterogeneous IT landscapes.
• SAP NetWeaver provides IT organizations with the lowest cost of operation and best business availability for SAP applications across heterogeneous IT landscapes. Low-cost operations and business availability are made possible through unified lifecycle management, identity management, secure communications, and end-to-end monitoring in SAP NetWeaver.
• SAP NetWeaver provides the flexibility to integrate and extend the business processes that run across SAP, SAP-certified partners, and custom-built applications. This flexibility comes from the prebuilt integration content and enterprise services and the model-driven tools that support rapid deployment in SAP NetWeaver.
• SAP NetWeaver supports business process management, which helps monitor the efficiency, integrity, and security of mission-critical business processes. Business users can also use SAP NetWeaver to define business rules to ensure consistency across a business network.
• SAP NetWeaver integrates and connects people, information, and business processes across technologies and companies. It enables companies to adjust to changes quickly. SAP NetWeaver ensures that a company’s crucial business processes are reliable, safe, and scalable. In addition, SAP NetWeaver enables companies to maximize the benefits from their current software and systems.
• SAP NetWeaver consolidates nonuniform technologies and provides predefined business content, which reduces the manual effort involved in maintaining this content. SAP NetWeaver is based on a technology that uses industry standards and can be enhanced using popular development tools.

Capability-Based Technology Map of SAP NetWeaver

The technology map of SAP NetWeaver has a simplified structure, as shown in the figure. The structure makes it easy to reference SAP NetWeaver capabilities by using application scenarios while supporting a more intuitive drilldown procedure for the components of SAP NetWeaver.

The technology map is not linked to a specific SAP NetWeaver product or release but contains all the capabilities provided by the SAP NetWeaver platform. SAP NetWeaver has various capabilities, such as user productivity, business intelligence (BI), and business process composition, as shown in the figure.

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SAP NetWeaver Capabilities - User Productivity, BI, Business Process Composition, and EIM

SAP NetWeaver can provide personalized access to mission-critical applications and data by using portals, desktop clients, and mobile interfaces. The flexible UI technology of SAP NetWeaver enables IT organizations and partners to build their own state-of-the-art applications.

By managing information assets effectively, organizations can minimize data integration efforts, streamline end-to-end business process execution, and gain well-founded business insight.

User Productivity

SAP NetWeaver can help users and groups improve their productivity by providing enhanced collaboration, optimized knowledge management, and intuitive search in business objects and unstructured content.

Business Intelligence

The BI solutions provide access to information to all users, from the high-end analyst to the casual business user.These solutions require minimal dependence on IT resources and developers and enable users to access, format, analyze, navigate, and share information across an organization.

Business Process Composition

Customers who use SAP NetWeaver can focus on the model-driven development of composite applications instead of the traditional code-based approach to developing these applications.

Enterprise Information Management

Enterprise information management (EIM) is the business activity of creating, cleansing, integrating, managing, governing, and archiving the structured and unstructured data used by an organization.

The EIM activities are supported by the SAP product families: 

• Enterprise data warehouse (EDW) management
• Master data management
• Data integration and data quality management
• Metadata management
• Information lifecycle management
• Enterprise content management

SAP NetWeaver Capabilities – SOA Middleware, Custom Development, Security and Identity Management, and Application Lifecycle Management

SAP NetWeaver enables IT organizations to use standards-based web services for forming new, innovative business solutions that meet changing business needs. In particular, SAP NetWeaver provides SOA middleware that facilitates communication between disparate applications. From a technical view, SOA middleware consists of an enterprise services repository and registry, an Enterprise Services Bus, and SOA management tools.

Using SAP NetWeaver, IT professionals can extend or enhance existing applications. Organizations face a difficult challenge in the security-conscious world today. They have to support transparent enterprise boundaries, location-independent users, and the growing demands for regulatory compliance.

Instead of just focusing on individual phases, SAP provides a holistic approach. Results of a specific phase can be leveraged by other phases due to the integration provided by SAP Solution Manager. This type of integration helps implement and operate IT solutions more quickly and at lower costs.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Middleware

With SOA middleware, IT professionals can rely on an open and standards-based platform to accelerate business integration.

Custom Development

The professionals can create custom applications using ABAP or Java programming languages.

Security and Identity Management​

With SAP NetWeaver, IT organizations can introduce safeguards that protect their business, while helping users and allowing business processes to proceed unhindered by security operations.

Application Lifecycle Management​

Application lifecycle management provides processes, tools, services, and an organizational model to manage SAP and non-SAP solutions throughout the complete application life cycle.

SAP NetWeaver Application Server

Together with a database, SAP NetWeaver AS is the application platform of SAP NetWeaver. Many SAP systems (including SAP ERP Central Component, SAP NetWeaver Portal, SAP CRM, and SAP SRM) are based on SAP NetWeaver AS and use it as a runtime environment.

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Properties of SAP NetWeaver Application Server

SAP NetWeaver AS is the result of the logical development of the technology of the SAP Application Server (previously known as SAP Basis), where special attention is paid to web-based applications.

The applications delivered by SAP do not always require both the ABAP and Java runtime environments. There are different installation options for SAP NetWeaver AS.

SAP NetWeaver AS offers the following features:

• A reliable and extensively tested runtime environment, which has been developed over a period of 10 years
• A framework for executing complex business processes that meet high security standards
• A reliable and user-friendly development environment
• Support for open standards, such as HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, WebDAV, SOAP, SSL, SSO, X.509, Unicode, HTML, XML and WML, WS Policy, SOAP, WS Trust, Java SE, JSR, WSRP, and SAML
• High scalability
• Support for different operating system and database platforms

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Installation Options for SAP NetWeaver Application Server

The following installation options are available for SAP NetWeaver AS:

• SAP NetWeaver AS ABAPComplete infrastructure in which ABAP-based applications can be developed and used.
• SAP NetWeaver AS JavaComplete infrastructure in which Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-compliant applications can be developed and used.
• SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP + Java (dual stack)Complete infrastructure in which ABAP-based and J2EE-based applications can be developed and used.

SAP NetWeaver – Use Cases and Capabilities

The following table provides the main use cases for SAP NetWeaver 7.3x and the capabilities of the application that map to the use cases:

The use cases illustrate how you can use your SAP NetWeaver implementation.

SAP NetWeaver Functionality

SAP NetWeaver provides the following functionality, as shown in the figure:

• Composition environment
• Process integration
• Application lifecycle management
• Security and identity management
• Application platform
• ABAP Server
• Java Server

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