SAP Netweaver - Introduction

In the present era, where companies are struggling to unite various heterogeneous environments in their organizations and maintain a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) NetWeaver comes as a solution to all their problems. SAP NetWeaver is the latest advancement in the mySAP Technology, which was developed as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) shell that accepts standard comments, literally as they are spoken, by domain experts.

Another unique feature of NetWeaver™ that makes it stand out amongst other software technologies is its modularity. The knowledge engineer can more easily create "digestible chunks" of modules or sub-dependency networks, which help to keep the overarching dependency network from becoming potentially incomprehensible because of apparent complexity. This text is aimed at explaining SAP NetWeaver architecture and its interoperability with Microsoft.NET and IBM WebSphere. In addition it aims at bringing out all the advantages that are associated with SAP NetWeaver.

Net Weaver in simple words is an application and Integration platform in which Web Services play a major role and which is open for Non-SAP applications and platform. It is used by organizations to improve productivity and enhance efficiency by making all the resources that are available in an enterprise to work collectively. The SAP customers to bring heterogeneous environments at one platform use SAP NetWeaver. In addition, it enables customers to use the already existing systems without putting in much investment. Further in the near future, the various corporate sectors and Organizations have to take a decision for some common platform; could be Microsoft .NET, IBM Websphere or SAP NetWeaver. Irrespective of the choice that they make, SAP NetWeaver is the one that integrates with all the three technologies.

SAP NetWeaver attains the process of integration by integrating all the available heterogeneous resources of the existing system and unifying them into a homogeneous form. This integrated information forms the basis of total, comprehendible, focused solution as desired in an enterprise.

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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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How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system?

Original Message-----
Subject: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

Hi all

Could someone tell me how can I find the Kernel version of a SAP R3 system ?
example, for those releases
SAP R3 4.0B, 4.5B, 4.6B, 4.6D and so on ....

Thanks for your help

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

From any screen choose System-->Status then click the 'other kernel info' icon (between Navigate and Cancel).
The same information can be found at OS level in the dispatcher trace file: /usr/sap///work/dev_disp.
Regards,

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

Hi,

Goto transaction sm51, and click (not double click) on the the Database
server and then click on release notes. there you will see the SAP R/3
kernel and patch level etc.

Regards

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

You can use the System ==> Status and then Other
Kernel Info button to get the details about the Kernel
Release, Patch levels etc.

Regards,

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

I think an even more convenient way to do this is to use SM51. Highlight
the server you are interested in and click on "Release Information". This
provides you a location to view all servers with out logging on to each
one. The answer below will give you information about the server you are
connected to only.

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

Also try "disp+work -v" on server.

-----Reply Message-----
Subject: RE: How to know the kernel version of a SAP R3 system

go to transaction SM51 -->release information

-----End of Message----

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SPAU and SPDD

When you apply a package, a large number of objects are changed.

If you have applied any OSS notes to objects in your system, the hot package may overwrite these objects.

SPDD is used to identify dictionary objects

and

SPAU (repository objects), will identify any objects where the hot package is overwriting changes you have made through OSS notes.


You must check all objects identified in SPAU and decide whether you need to reapply the OSS note or reset the code to the original SAP Code.

If, for instance, you are applying hot package 34, SPAU identifies an object where you have applied an OSS note. You must check the OSSs note and see if SAP have fixed that note in a hot package.

If the OSS note has been fixed in hot package 34, then you should reset the object to its original source code. This means that there is no repair flag set against this object again and it is now SAP standard code.

If, however, the object is not fixed until hot package 38, or there is no fix available you have to reapply the OSS note, otherwise users will encounter the problems they had before the note was applied.

You must transport all reapplied notes and Reset to SAP Standard objects after you apply your hot package to your QAS and PRD systems.

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Applying SP4 to Windows 2000 Server

You need to download a newer SAP kernel. You will need an OSS ID and password to access http://service.sap.com/patches. And you will need to know what R/3 version, database, and OS you currently use.

Once you are at the patches website, you will need to click in the navigation tree:
R/3 -> R/3 + ?Release number? -> Binary patches ->
SAP Kernel + ?Release number? + 32-Bit -> NT/I386.

Download everything from the database section and everything from the database independent section.

One of the files you downloaded should start with SAPCAR and end with a *.exe.


Rename this file to SAPCAR.EXE and place it in the c:\winnt\system32 directory.
Go to \usr\sap\\SYS\exe\run and backup the entire directory to some other directory -
I usually create a \usr\sap\\SYS\exe\backup_run directory. Make sure SAP is down, the database is down, the TNS listener is down, and the SAPOSCOL is down before you do this.

Uncompress all the files you downloaded by opening a DOS box and typing:

SAPCAR -xvf .CAR

All files ending with .SAR or .CAR must be uncompressed. All the extracted files need to be moved to the \usr\sap\\SYS\exe\run AFTER that directory has been completely backed up.

Once everything has been downloaded, uncompressed, and moved into the exe\run directory, you can start the SAPOSCOL, the listener and the database services again. And then you should be able to start SAP. If there are any application servers for this database instance, the SAP software will update those kernels on startup.

If the SAP instance STILL does not come back up, you can take down everything again and restore the exe\run directory with your backup copy. Nothing will have been damaged.

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