SAP Enterprise Services Architecture

SAP Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture (Enterprise SOA) has been defined by SAP as "an open architecture for adaptive business solutions". Enterprise SOA is enabled by the SAP NetWeaver platform, and builds on the benefits of Web services. SAP has positioned Enterprise SOA to deliver the benefits offered by service-oriented architecture, including enabling both flexibility and business efficiency. SAP state that Enterprise SOA provides companies with a "cost-effective blueprint for composing innovative new applications by extending existing systems, while maintaining a level of flexibility that makes future process changes cost-effective".
Key principles of Enterprise SOA
The five key principles of Enterprise SOA are:
#Abstraction — hiding technical details that can be confusing
#Modularity — breaking down complexity and creation of "reusable pieces"
#Standardized connectivity — enabling flexible composition of services to form processes
#Loose coupling — allowing for separate evolution of the various components without breaking any points of integration
#Incremental design — enabling changes to composition and configuration without affecting the internals of components, and vice versa
SAP Solutions that currently use Enterprise SOA
* mySAP CRM
* mySAP ERP
* mySAP SRM
SAP have committed to "building new SAP applications purely in a service-oriented way".
The recently announced SAP Business By Design product is also based on Enterprise SOA principles.
Composition of Enterprise SOA
Enterprise SOA is not a product in itself. However, principles of Enterprise SOA are being increasingly applied in SAP technology and software, such as:
* SAP NetWeaver, which provides the technical foundation for implementing an Enterprise Services Architecture.
* SAP xApps, the next generation of SAP applications, utilising multiple application components and built mainly by model-driven composition and configuration.
* In new releases of the SAP Business Suite, where more principles of Enterprise SOA will be applied.
How Enterprise SOA is related to SAP NetWeaver
SAP NetWeaver is the open integration and application platform for all SAP applications and solutions. It provides a technical foundation for implementing an Enterprise Services Architecture by providing common:
*Service descriptions based on Web services standards (e.g. WSDL)
*Development process for all types of remote interfaces, including process integration, user interface, application-to-application (A2A), B2B, etc.
*Web services-based runtime infrastructure
*Enterprise service bus for communication, transaction handling, debugging, tracing, message integrity etc.

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