Features of SAP Web Application Server

Provides highly expandable and robust Web Infrastructure

The SAP Web Application Server is the natural choice for customers seeking to combine high expandability and flexibility with
in a diverse environment. It has a highly efficient caching mechanism for user access and database access with an optimized lock management and multiple distributed processes.


Compatibility with Internet standards

SAP Web Application Server supports HTTP, HTTPS and other Internet Standards. It also allows a user, the desired flexibility to be in sync with changing technologies. It can also act as a server for bringing applications to the user via a Web browser or for communicating with other applications in XML or HTML either directly or via a standard Web server. It can also function as a client to access other Web applications for collecting information and data.

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Understanding Web Application Server Architecture

SAP integrates a J2EE environment into the Web Application Server and supports Java and ABAP in parallel within one server using a common database. The functions of a SAP Web Application Server consists of four major building blocks:

The Internet Communication Manager (ICM)

It is an independent process responsible for communications between the Web Application Server and external supporters over intranets or the Internet using standard protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The communication is carried out using a high-performance, memory-based communication channel named memory pipe. ICM also significantly improves Web site performance and scalability using dynamic and active content caching technology.

Business Environment

The environment is the component responsible for the business content and underlying logic of the enterprise that is published using the BSP/JSP.

ABAP Environment is based on SAP’s application server development and deployment environment. All existing components, such as business objects, can be used for the business logic.

J2EE Environment consists of a full-featured, J2EE-certified runtime environment that processes the request passed from the ICM and dynamically generates the response. This enables Web application developers to create Web applications that include the presentation and the business logic by using standard Java or J2EE technology. The SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo) enables method calls between Java applications and ABAP applications (and vice versa). The SAP Java Connector also meets the J2EE standard specification for the integration of enterprise information systems i.e., the J2EE Connector Architecture.

The connectivity hiccups between different application servers and Enterprise Information Systems can be solved by the J2EE Connector. The J2EE Connector architecture is part of the J2EE 1.3 platform, which is based on the standardized technology of the J2EE.

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Overview of Business Server Pages (BSP)

SAP Web Application Server enables new Internet paradigms to be combined with the transactional operations of ERP. SAP supports the development and operation of both Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and ABAP-based Web applications and services.

The custom development of such applications start with the creation of an environment, which provides a set of carefully matched tools to support various applications, known as Web Applications Builder. It is an object-oriented, repository-based development environment using ABAP and/or JavaScript.

It supports the complete development and lifecycle of enterprise applications, and allows a user to develop new kind of enterprise web applications
known as BSP applications. The core parts of these applications are the Business Server Pages (acronym BSP) and MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) objects. The concept behind BSP is similar to that of ASP (Active Server Pages) or JSP (Java Server Pages) documents that can contain code and HTML, all of which is compiled by the server upon request. You have the choice whether to use ABAP or JavaScript in your BSP documents.

SAP’s Web application Server assimilates conventional Web technologies with new ones like Web Dynpro for the presentation logic of professional business web
applications. In order to implement BSP Applications, it is important to gain an understanding of the SAP Web Application Server.

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