SAP NetWeaver: The Foundation of SAP Solutions - The Power to Create

By Sarah Kellman, SAP AG

SAP NetWeaver is the technology platform that underlies the new generation of SAP applications, such as SAP ERP 2005. Enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) is the framework that supports SAP NetWeaver and permits the construction of composite applications built from the small units of enterprise services. Together, they deliver speed and flexibility in creating company-specific business processes.

The goal at SAP is not to just build technology for technology's sake, but to build it to the specific requirements of today's businesses and industries to create flexible processes now and in the future. SAP's strategy is based on supporting customers' needs for continuous change and leading-edge technology. ¨SAP NetWeaver, the technology foundation that powers all SAP solutions, embodies this ideology. Since its launch in early 2003, SAP NetWeaver has gone live with thousands of customers and become a business process mainstay.¨SAP NetWeaver combines application functionality and rich integration technologies (such as the SAP NetWeaver Process Integration* and Application Server components) on a single platform. By uniting these capabilities, SAP NetWeaver enables companies to rapidly deploy innovative business processes while making use of their existing IT systems.

From SAP R/3 to SAP ERP

When SAP R/3 was launched in 1997, great focus was placed on internal efficiency within organizations. This prevailing ethos was reflected in SAP's offering, which was essentially a one-size-fits-all solution that provided cost savings through standardization. Organizations automated the maximum amount of internal standard processes on top of SAP R/3 to increase efficiency and minimize costs.

What a difference a decade makes

The business landscape has changed dramatically in the intervening 10 years. Aside from new areas of innovation, there is much more collaboration between companies - a natural byproduct of standardized industry processes. In today's business environment, customers need to interact with their ecosystem of end users, partners, independent software vendors, and others as quickly, efficiently, and transparently as possible. ¨Then SAP ERP entered the scene, and the focus shifted to business performance and growth. This environment includes numerous casual users involved in industry-specific processes, such as order-to-cash and supply-chain scenarios. SAP ERP fully leverages SAP NetWeaver technology for a broad variety of scenarios to make it as easy as possible for the user. ¨Companies must seamlessly integrate vendors into their supply chains, while still meeting customers' needs. And to remain competitive, they must accomplish this in real time. So if an automotive manufacturer needs to change a customer's order as the vehicle enters the production line, this action would demand a highly interactive and integrated ERP solution. Basically, it would require process efficiency, quality, flexibility, and the ability to interact with the entire ecosystem - all of which SAP NetWeaver can provide.

Enabling innovative processes

It soon became abundantly clear: Disparate technologies simply do not support process innovation. In a fast-changing business environment, process change has to be achieved in a matter of days or weeks - not months or years. Business users demand a competitive edge, and importantly, ease for the end user. In short, there was a pressing need for convergence of applications and technology to deliver flexibility.¨SAP NetWeaver delivers a service-enabled, customer-driven central hub that connects people, information, and processes. At its core, it is a pre-integrated, process-centric technology that leverages existing assets, supports rapid process recomposition, and - of critical importance - is easy to use.

Enterprise SOA and SAP NetWeaver

Enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) is the blueprint for flexible business applications. With it, organizations can compile the enterprise services that comprise a particular business transaction - such as order cancellation or a simple credit check - to compose applications and rapidly enable business processes. Enterprise SOA can improve the reuse of software and help organizations become more agile in responding to change. ¨SAP NetWeaver is the platform that enables this architecture. It composes applications on top of enterprise services and includes capabilities for performing real-time analytics or harmonizing master data. SAP NetWeaver provides the basis for SAP to offer the composite applications, commonly referred to as SAP xApps, that will be built and managed with SAP NetWeaver tools. They will use the existing functionality of such SAP applications as SAP R/3, SAP Supply Chain Management, SAP Customer Relationship Management, and SAP ERP to build new functionality or extensions, according to the needs of our customers. SAP ERP 2005 fully supports this architecture, whereas SAP R/3 did not.¨By enabling all users, SAP NetWeaver is poised to make a significant impact on the way people perform business processes. For example, users can drive any process from their favorite user interface, whether it is a portal, a PDA, SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe software, Microsoft Outlook, or telephone. They can also access SAP NetWeaver's information management capabilities through business intelligence, which delivers actionable insights to every business process. ¨SAP's out-of-the-box composite applications can meet various business challenges. And by using the tools provided in the SAP NetWeaver platform (such as SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer), organizations can easily compose individual applications on top of that platform without writing a single line of code.

Accelerating change

So what does it all boil down to? In essence, SAP NetWeaver accelerates change by increasing speed and flexibility for business innovation; reducing total cost of ownership through consolidation and control of applications and technology within one central, consolidated platform; and improving user productivity and insight through new capabilities such as the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator software, embedded analytics, SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe, Duet software, and SAP xApps. ¨Ultimately, by unifying technology components on a single, standardized platform, what SAP NetWeaver brings to the organizational landscape is strategic alignment between IT and business. This, in turn, enables organizations to reduce IT complexity and extract more business value from their IT investments.

Source: SAP INFO