NetWeaver Gains Improved Development Tools In SAP Update

SAP unveiled its updated SAP NetWeaver platform at the company’s TechEd event in Berlin.

The new release updated all major product components, including modules for composing new business applications, creating mobile applications and integrating data processes, SAP said. NetWeaver’s new capabilities can be used to manage cloud operations and shared tools for building and deploying applications on premises, on demand or on device.

“With SAP NetWeaver 7.3, we have a technology platform for our customers and their ecosystems that enables fantastic innovations to be delivered without disruption,” Vishal Sikka, executive board member of SAP’s Technology and Innovation Platform, said in a statement.

Cloud And Mobile Management

SAP said it expects enterprises to use NetWeaver to manage the dispersed environments associated with cloud infrastructure and mobile devices and the processing requirements needed for sophisticated analytics.

The company also said, “Customers will be able to… provide real-time analytics on SAP Business Suite, accelerate the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, and develop and deploy entirely new types of applications.”

The SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA) announced at the Sapphire Now show in May, will speed up existing applications and “support mixed workloads – meaning analytic, performance management and transactional applications will be able to run in a single environment… The core in-memory computing engine powering the SAP HANA appliance software will also power SAP NetWeaver,” the company said.

NetWeaver 7.3 hooks into other applications for “individual and team productivity enhancements,” for example integrating with Microsoft Excel so customers can build reusable business rule sets. It also links with enterprise workspaces and Duet Enterprise software.

NetWeaver integrates with Sybase Unwired Platform technology to manage and develop the full mobile application life cycle, the company said. A project, codenamed Gateway, will build on NetWeaver to allow developers to consume SAP business data on any mobile device.

The new release of SAP NetWeaver also offers what the company called “Support for non-disruptive upgrades to SAP Business Suite software landscapes with pre-validated content for SAP Business Suite 7 and SAP Business Suite 7 Innovations 2010”.

There are also significant enhancements in identity management using SAML 2.0 for identity federation and Web-based single sign-on, the company said.

“We are living in a world where customers want to keep what is working and they want more – they don’t want compromises or trade offs,” Sikka said.

Described as “the core component of the SAP technology platform”, NetWeaver offers customers process integration and portal features. NetWeaver deployments have been growing “by an average of more than 20 percent per year over the last four years”, SAP said. The company counts more than 62,000 productive systems to date, with 200 new customers deploying SAP NetWeaver Process Integration in the current quarter.

Java support has been enhanced, with Java EE5 certification, Java-only ESB and JMS publishing and subscription capabilities. NetWeaver 7.3 also supports WS Policy 1.2, SOAP 1.2, WS Trust 1.3, Java SE 6, JSR 168/286, WSRP 1.0 and SAML 1.0/2.0.