This is about the SAP NetWeaver.
The SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation and solution stack for almost all SAP on-premise applications.
The cloud counterpart of SAP NetWeaver is SAP BTP (SAP Business Technology Platform), formerly known as SCP (SAP Cloud Platform).
Let’s get started!
Understand SAP NetWeaver and Its
SAP NetWeaver is a development and runtime environment that serves as a platform for applications. So to speak, it’s the technical underpinning to run and develop SAP applications.
Imagine SAP NetWeaver as SAP’s operating system. Just like Windows. You can run apps on Windows and build apps for Windows.
SAP NetWeaver forms the technical infrastructure for SAP’s on-premise applications. The cloud counterpart to SAP NetWeaver is SAP BTP (SAP Business Technology Platform), formerly known as SCP (SAP Cloud Platform).
SAP NetWeaver sits between an application and the database it uses. It’s the mechanism that makes on-premise magic happen.
Thinking in cloud terms, SAP NetWeaver is PaaS (Platform as a Service). The database is the IaaS (infrastructure as a service). The applications are SaaS (Software as a Service).
SAP NetWeaver is an open, web-based platform that uses SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture). SOA means that an application is made up of modules. Each module provides services to other modules so that they can take advantage of each other.
A major advantage of SOA is that developers can integrate different technologies. In the case of SAP NetWeaver:
- .NET (Microsoft)
- WebSphere (IBM)
- Java (Oracle)
Using SAP NetWeaver you can create pure SAP applications as well as applications that use third-party systems.
SAP NetWeaver has multiple components:
- SAP NetWeaver Application Server
- SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence
- SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment
- SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal
- SAP NetWeaver Identity Management
- SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management
- SAP NetWeaver Mobile
- SAP NetWeaver Process Integration
The SAP NetWeaver Application Server is the main SAP NetWeaver component and divides into two parts:
- ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) application server
- Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) application server
Each of these parts has its own stack, and they can be installed either separately or together.
The SAP JCo (Java Connector) is used to communicate between the two stacks. The library connects a Java application to a SAP application via SAP’s RFC (Remote Function Call) protocol.
SAP applications don’t always need both runtime environments (ABAP, Java). Therefore, SAP NetWeaver Application Server offers different installation options:
- SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP: Infrastructure to develop and use ABAP applications.
- SAP NetWeaver Application Server Java: Infrastructure to develop and use Java EE applications.
- SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP & Java: Infrastructure to develop and use ABAP and Java applications.
Most on-premise SAP systems (SAP R/3, SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA) use the SAP NetWeaver Application Server as the runtime environment.
The SAP NetWeaver Application Server, together with the database, makes up the application platform of SAP NetWeaver itself.
The SAP NetWeaver Application server provides:
- A framework to run business processes in compliance with security standards.
- A runtime environment that has been reliable and tested for more than 20 years.
- A reliable, efficient, and developer-friendly development environment.
- Supporting open standards like:
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- SSL
- SMTP
- WebDAV
- SOAP
- SSO
- X.509
- HTML
- XML
- WML
- JSON
- Support for different operating systems and databases.
- High scalability.
SAP NetWeaver’s history started in the early 90s when SAP acquired Israeli company TopTier Software. SAP adapted TopTier’s portal technology and used it for SAP NetWeaver.
The first version, SAP NetWeaver 2004, was released on March 31, 2003. Version 7.0 came out in October 2005. The most recent release is SAP NetWeaver 7.5.