CompriseIT

We attended SAP TechEd a few weeks ago in Munich and have now had chance to reflect on what we saw and consider what it means for SAP customer during 07/08.

The theme of the event was “enterprise SOA - Put the power to work”.

The underlying message here, we believe, is that until the 7.1 release of some of the NetWeaver Composition tooling and the Enterprise Service Repository with in Netweaver PI it was possible to create applications built on enterprise SOA but it was a bit clunky. The new tooling enables access to the Enterprise Services in a much more streamlined way…which should lead to more organisations picking up the tools and creating applications on top of SAP. Some of the highlights are given below :-

Galaxy : This is a new Business Process Management tool from SAP that finally brings together system and human workflow. The bad news is that the tool does not go into ramp up until mid 2008 and will not GA until 2009.

Visual Composer : The next release to be included in the GA version of the Composition Environment allows direct access to the ESR to find the Enterprise Services. The VC model now generates a WebDynpro model and Flex so you can choose to have the user inferface (UI) look the same as code developed with WebDynpro. This means combining the two technologies in one application is easier.

WebDynpro : The eclipse plugin for WebDynpro in the 7.1 environment makes the anatomy of the application you are developing more obvious to a new user. This together with an easy to install download should make the tool more accessible to the general developer community.

Enterprise Services Repository (ESR) : Finally the ESR is here as both a Repository (description of services) and a Registry (pointer to physical services). Although the services have been with us for just over a year now, the ESR will make them easier to find and manage in a landscape. This coupled with the integration of the development tooling will make consumption by SAP and non-SAP tools much easier.

Enterprise Services Workplace : This hosted environment accessed via the SDN site is a great resource for prototyping and testing enterprise services. This combined with the Composition Environment download means that a much wider eco system will be able to test drive the technology. This should lead to greater levels of innovation and adoption.

Other things of note included:-
• Composition Environment almost ready for release (Q1/08).
• Lots of usage ofAdobe Forms, Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR.
• Interesting architectures to allow co-existence between 7.1 and 7.0 Netweaver
• Some interesting usage of Wii remotes.

Contact us for more details.