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Lifecycle Management Matters

Karl Kessler (karl.kessler@sap.com) joined SAP SE in 1992. He is the Product Manager of the SAP NetWeaver foundation — which includes SAP NetWeaver Application Server, the ABAP Work-bench, and the Eclipse- based ABAP development tools for SAP NetWeaver — and is responsible for all rollout activities.

SAP NetWeaver 7.4 is a comprehensive, stable

technology foundation that has seen a rapid

adoption rate in SAP’s installed customer base

as organizations look to take advantage of inno-

vation in areas such as SAP HANA, cloud, and

mobile, as well as support for modern develop-

ment tools such as Eclipse and HTML5.1 (See the

sidebars on pages 64 and 65 for more on the 7.4

adoption rate and features.) Since its release in

May 2013, SAP NetWeaver 7.4 has continued to

respond to changing business needs by delivering

new features via quarterly support packages, a

non-disruptive approach that is well understood

and accepted by the SAP customer base.2

So, with all of the functionality, stability, and

reliability provided by SAP NetWeaver 7.4, and

with its widespread acceptance among the SAP

customer base, why would there be a need for a

new SAP NetWeaver release?

While SAP NetWeaver 7.4 has continued to

adapt, technologies and trends have continued to

evolve as well, bringing with them new require-

ments. The Internet of Things (IoT) is taking a

more central role as machines, devices, businesses,

and people become increasingly connected and

drive the shift toward a networked economy. And

SAP continues to develop new solutions to help

its customers adjust to these changes, such as

1 Learn more about SAP’s development tools in my article “A Guide to SAP’s Development Environments for SAP HANA and the Cloud” in the January-March 2015 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

2 For more on SAP’s support package approach for SAP NetWeaver 7.4, see my article “Demystifying SAP’s Support Strategy for SAP NetWeaver 7.4” in the July-September 2014 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

A Foundation for the FutureWhat’s Coming Next with SAP NetWeaver 7.5

by Karl Kessler, SAP SE

SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4HANA)

— a new business solution that is built on SAP

HANA and offers a personalized user experience

with SAP Fiori. It is available in a cloud edition, as

announced in May 2015 at SAPPHIRE NOW, and

will be available in an on-premise edition as well.3

To support SAP S/4HANA, and allow the fast

development of dramatically simplified business

processes with an appealing user experience,

SAP needed to open up a new codeline for SAP

NetWeaver. In addition, to enable customers run-

ning Java-based SAP solutions to fully support

the latest technology trends, such as mobile and

IoT, it became clear that SAP would need to pro-

vide a design and runtime environment based on

Java 8 — an update that could not be provided

via an SAP NetWeaver support package without

significant disruption of customers’ installed Java

hubs and custom applications.

For these reasons, the need for a new founda-

tion has become clear.

The New Foundation: SAP NetWeaver 7.5SAP NetWeaver 7.5 — planned for the deliv-

ery of the on-premise edition of SAP S/4HANA

— is designed to meet these needs and lay the

groundwork for supporting the next stage of

innovation.4 It will be the compatible successor

3 For more on SAP S/4HANA, see Dr. Wieland Schreiner’s and Dr. Markus Schwarz’s article “The Foundation to Run Simple” in the April-June 2015 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

4 All statements targeting the SAP NetWeaver 7.5 codeline (including the exact technical naming and versioning) repre-sent planned product capabilities and are subject to change.

This article appeared in the Jul n Aug n Sep 2015 issue of SAPinsider (www.SAPinsiderOnline.com) and appears here with permission from the publisher, WIS Publishing.

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of SAP NetWeaver 7.4, and will provide the on-

premise foundation for SAP Business Suite (as of

enhancement package 8 for SAP ERP) and for the

on-premise edition of SAP S/4HANA. Both the

cloud and on-premise editions of SAP S/4HANA

share the same new codeline, meaning that

there is only one innovation codeline for SAP

NetWeaver, and the same features are available

for each edition. Enhancements are delivered

for the on-premise edition of SAP S/4HANA via

regular support packages, in the same manner to

which customers are accustomed, and those same

enhancements are delivered on a more frequent

basis for the cloud edition.

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will also include improve-

ments for the SAP NetWeaver hubs. For instance,

SAP Gateway will offer support for OData ver-

sion 4 and incorporate productivity enhance-

ments for OData service developers. For SAP

Business Warehouse (SAP BW), the major areas

of innovation are flexibility (planning, Eclipse-

based tools, and web-based tools); SAP HANA

integration (more pushdown and leveraging the

information management capabilities of SAP

HANA); and big data (support for Hadoop and

dynamic tiering). Performance optimizations

for SAP Fiori applications are also planned, and

in the area of lifecycle management, the focus

is on a solid kernel infrastructure, simplified

migration and upgrade capabilities, true zero

downtime, and cloud operation and extensibil-

ity features for SAP S/4HANA.5

While the improvements and optimizations for

the SAP NetWeaver hubs, SAP Fiori, and lifecycle

management will provide important benefits for

customers, there are three areas in particular —

ABAP, Java, and the cloud — with innovations

planned for SAP NetWeaver 7.5 that will provide

significant advantages. Let’s take a closer look at

these key areas of enhancement.

New ABAP Development FeaturesABAP is a key engine behind the solutions

that drive your business. Planned features for

5 Note that SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will support Unicode- only deployments.

SAP NetWeaver 7.4 Adoption: Where Are We Now?SAP customers have adopted SAP NetWeaver 7.4 in large numbers to gain access to the latest innovations in their SAP NetWeaver usage types.

SAP has seen very high adoption numbers for SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) 7.4 on SAP HANA. SAP BW is fully optimized for SAP HANA, and benefits from the SAP HANA approach of pushing down data-intensive logic to the database layer to execute typical activation and transformation steps. SAP NetWeaver 7.4 provides SAP BW customers with the foundation for a successful migration and upgrade path to the SAP HANA database, especially when coming from other platforms.

Many customers running Java-based SAP NetWeaver hubs, such as SAP Enterprise Portal and SAP Process Orchestration, have also moved to SAP NetWeaver 7.4 from earlier releases such as SAP NetWeaver 7.0, which run on old Java runtime platforms that cannot support many of SAP’s recent infrastructure investments in performance, supportabil-ity, and active monitoring. Some customers have co-deployed the new versions of their Java-based hubs with their ABAP hubs on the same SAP HANA instance, while others have stayed on their established relational databases. Those who continue to run earlier releases should keep in mind that, in addition to lacking access to new features and functionality, the SAP NetWeaver 7.0-based Java hubs will be maintained only until 2017.

The highest rate of adoption by far belongs to SAP Business Suite. In 2014, thousands of customers moved to enhancement package 7 for SAP ERP — which runs on SAP NetWeaver 7.4 — as part of implementing SAP Business Suite, and this rapid rate has held steady in 2015.

Together, these trends mean that SAP NetWeaver 7.4 has become the de facto go-to release not only in theory, but also in customer practice.

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SAP NetWeaver 7.5 to help applications meet

your changing needs include enhancements to

ABAP development functionality, including pro-

gramming model enhancements via core data

services and support for real-time web-based

communication for IoT use cases via TCP-based

protocols, which build on the ABAP channels

concept introduced in SAP NetWeaver 7.4.

Core Data Services (CDS)Introduced with support package stack (SPS)

05 for SAP NetWeaver 7.4, the CDS infrastruc-

ture represents the data layer in SAP’s modern

business solutions, such as SAP S/4HANA and

SAP Business Suite. Supported natively in

ABAP and SAP HANA, CDS is a framework

for defining and consuming semantically rich,

reusable data models on the database instead

of the ABAP server, regardless of the database

platform, enabling a common programming

model that can take advantage of innovations

such as in-memory processing. These data

models are defined in ABAP programs as

CDS views, which provide access to the data in

the data model.6

The CDS framework has evolved to include

more than 6,000 standard-provided view defini-

tions and several hundred thousand lines of code.

This innovative data layer is critical not only for

efficiently retrieving data, but also for adding

annotations that describe the semantics and use

of the data and its types in different contexts,

such as in the user interface, for analytics, and

in searches. While SAP NetWeaver 7.4 includes

a wide range of functionality for using CDS, the

enhancements planned for 7.5 bring additional

features and flexibility.

For instance, SPS 08 for SAP NetWeaver 7.4

introduced support for parameterized CDS

views, which allow you to produce context-

specific results using parameters — for example,

system fields such as logon language and logon

user — that are passed to the view at program

6 For more on CDS, see my article “Where ABAP Meets SAP HANA” in the October-December 2014 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

SAP NetWeaver 7.4: Features for Modern Business NeedsSAP NetWeaver 7.4 provides access to innovation that helps customers address their evolving business needs, including support for modern tools for development and features to handle big data, mobile enablement, and the cloud.

SAP NetWeaver 7.4 includes enhancements for custom ABAP development that lever-age SAP HANA, including the Eclipse-based ABAP development tools for SAP NetWeaver (known as ABAP in Eclipse).* It also includes support for SAPUI5 (SAP’s implementation of the HTML5 standard), which enables the development of modern user interfaces with web-based tools such as SAP Web IDE.**

To handle big data, SAP NetWeaver 7.4 is optimized for SAP HANA, which can address an organization’s most challenging processing and analytics needs. It provides mobile enablement with the ability to develop responsive SAPUI5-based SAP Fiori applications and deploy them as native apps on mobile devices via SAP Mobile Secure. SAP NetWeaver 7.4 is also optimized for the cloud through SAP HANA Cloud Platform, which integrates with existing on-premise SAP NetWeaver backends and offers an on-demand development and runtime environment for ABAP as well as a micro-services-oriented environment for use with technologies based on Java run-times and JavaScript containers.

* Learn more about SAP’s Eclipse-based development tools in my article “A Guide to SAP’s Development Environ-ments for SAP HANA and the Cloud” in the January-March 2015 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

** For more on application development using SAP Web IDE, see my article (with Monika Kaiser) “SAP Fiori Application Development in the Cloud” in the April-June 2015 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

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execution. Think of user interfaces where select-

ing a logon language defines the language

in which text is displayed on the screen. SAP

NetWeaver 7.5 adds the ability to pass the actual

date and time or logon client as parameters, pro-

viding more options for specifying the result set

of the view depending on the user and system

execution context, and avoiding the need for

view generation on the fly.

SPS 08 for SAP NetWeaver 7.4 also introduced

the ability to extend a standard-provided CDS

view with custom fields to customize the data

result set it returns. SAP NetWeaver 7.5 expands

on this functionality by enabling you to expose

an association, follow associations, or evaluate

complex expressions containing cast operators

in a custom-defined CDS view extension, which

allows you to join information from custom

tables following an association. In addition,

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 includes a full range of date,

time, and timestamp functions for extending

CDS views, and string functions for the compari-

son and calculation of complex column logic.

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 also introduces a

table functions concept in CDS. With SAP

HANA, database procedures push down data-

intensive logic to the database. Table functions

provide a means to incorporate the pushdown

logic residing in these database procedures

into the CDS view abstraction layer, so

that you can write more compact and modular

code. The implementation of a table function

for accessing SAP HANA logic is repre-

sented by a corresponding SQLScript-based

FIGURE 2 p An example table function implemented as an AMDP in the CDS view editor

FIGURE 1 p An example table function definition in the CDS view editor

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7 For more on AMDPs, see “Where ABAP Meets SAP HANA” in the October-December 2014 issue of SAPinsider (SAPinsiderOnline.com).

ABAP managed database procedure (AMDP)

— an approach introduced in SPS 05 for

SAP NetWeaver 7.4 that allows developers to

manage database procedures in ABAP while

they execute in the database.7 The AMDP

framework provides lifecycle and extensibility

support for the implementation.

Figure 1 shows the definition of an example

table function (myFlightDates), and Figure 2

shows the implementation of this table function

as an AMDP (getFlightDates) in the CDS view

editor. To use the table function, you simply

embed a call to it — that is, a call to the method

containing the AMDP representation of the

table function — in a CDS view similar to how

you would embed other ABAP artifacts. Once

embedded, the signature of the procedure (the

definition of the table function with its import-

ing parameters and return columns) is included

in the CDS view definition, so that syntax and

type checking can be properly performed.

With SAP NetWeaver 7.5, you can also acti-

vate a CDS view before the implementing AMDP

method is available, so that you can prototype

your functions in an incremental fashion. A quick

fix (pressing Ctrl+1) lets you create the method

from within the CDS definition, so that you don’t

have to leave the CDS view editor.

ABAP Channels Many traditional SAP user interfaces are

designed to follow a request/response model of

interaction, where one system (for example, the

user interface client) sends a request to another

system (for example, the ABAP backend), which

then sends a response to the request. With this

approach, if you want to be notified about an

important change, such as a change in a data-

base field, you have to trigger a “refresh” action,

such as pushing a refresh button on the screen,

which is essentially a poll conducted periodically

on the backend to gather changes in the underly-

ing database table. This is a time-consuming and

resource-draining approach that can struggle to

support highly interactive and collaborative sce-

narios that leverage real-time data.

In contrast, most modern application devel-

opment follows a more efficient approach that

proactively sends notifications directly to the

user instead of waiting for a request, eliminating

unnecessary database load and enabling real-time

communication capabilities. To bring this capabil-

ity to SAP customers, SPS 05 for SAP NetWeaver

7.4 replaced the inefficient polling approach with

an infrastructure for event-based communication

using ABAP channels created in SAP NetWeaver

Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) ABAP.

This approach — which supports push channels,

messaging channels, and collaboration scenarios

— uses web sockets to facilitate the exchange of

messages between different ABAP sessions and

enable users to collaborate over the infrastruc-

ture in real time.

Figure 3 on the next page illustrates the

basic channel infrastructure. A push chan-

nel is an implementation of the web socket

protocol in SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP that

allows the ABAP backend to propagate

a change in the system’s state to the end

user by immediately updating the frontend.

A messaging channel is a logical channel that

enables ABAP sessions to exchange messages

using a publish/subscribe model of communi-

cation. A collaboration scenario combines the

push and messaging channels, using a publish/

subscribe approach to push messages from

ABAP sessions to the frontend via a web socket

connection. This enables chat-like conversations

between two end users, and is already used in

customer relationship management scenarios.

The ABAP channels are available for use with

both modern user interfaces based on SAPUI5

(SAP’s adaptation of the HTML5 standard) as

well as traditional user interface frameworks

such as Web Dynpro. Channels are defined using

the ABAP Workbench, and can be accessed pro-

grammatically with an ABAP class-based API,

with methods for sending and receiving mes-

sages. There are many sample programs that

are standard-delivered with SAP NetWeaver AS

ABAP that can help you master the technology

rather quickly.

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will add further protocol

support for the ABAP channels. For instance, it

will add the ability to define arbitrary TCP-based

channels to allow the coupling of the ABAP

stack in IoT scenarios, such as warehousing and

shop floor environments, which will enable the

management of control flow and event handling

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simultaneously. In addition, the channel infra-

structure will bring stateful and stateless support

for both client and server and will complement

the publish and subscribe models with point-to-

point messaging.

Support for Java 8 The speed of innovation, especially in cloud envi-

ronments based on Java, is very high. While the

Java codelines for SAP NetWeaver 7.31 and 7.4

— which are identical, both running on SAP’s

Java virtual machine 6 (JVM6) — are supported

until 2020, keeping pace with new and rapidly

evolving technologies is a compelling reason to

update your Java-based environment to the latest

version, Java 8.

To enable SAP customers running Java-based

hubs — such as SAP Enterprise Portal, SAP

Process Orchestration, and SAP Business

Process Management — to update to Java 8

to take advantage of features such as lambda

expressions for functional programming, an

enhanced collection framework, default meth-

ods, and new tools for profiling and remote

debugging to ease daily support, the Java stack

for SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will be optimized to

run on SAP’s JVM8, and include support for

Java Connector (JCo) 3.0 as well as enhanced

security features.

It is important to keep in mind that updat-

ing the Java stack for SAP NetWeaver to Java

8 is a major task to undertake, since all of the

SAP NetWeaver usage types and Java-based

software components are updated during the

SAP upgrade. In addition to updating the SAP

NetWeaver AS Java runtime environment, you

will need to update SAP NetWeaver Developer

Studio, which is based on the Eclipse platform,

to Eclipse 4.4 (Luna). Updating the Eclipse

The speed of innovation in cloud

environments based on Java

is very high. To enable SAP

customers running Java-based

hubs — such as SAP Enterprise

Portal, SAP Process Orchestration,

and SAP Business Process Man-

agement — to keep pace with

new and changing technologies,

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will be

optimized to support Java 8.

FIGURE 3 p The ABAP channel infrastructure enables real-time message exchange and user collaboration

User 1 UI User 2 UI

Updated UI

ABAP System

ABAP MessagingChannel

ABAP PushChannel

ABAP PushChannel

HTTP

Application Server Y

Session B

Datachange

Application Server X

HTT

P

Datachange

Session A

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platform then requires updating all of the tool

plugins, such as the Java and Java EE plugins, the

Web Dynpro plugin, the Web Services plugin,

the Composite Application Framework plugin,

and so on.

Also be aware that, while updating to the

Java 8 adaptation of the SAP NetWeaver Java

stack is recommended for customers running

Java-based hubs to protect and optimize their

software investments, SAP is not repositioning

new Java-based program models in the con-

text of SAP NetWeaver AS Java. The adoption

of new standards and innovative programming

models are reflected in SAP’s in-memory and

cloud platforms.

Enhancements for the CloudBusinesses are continuing to push forward

with cloud adoption, and in keeping with this

trend, planned features for SAP NetWeaver 7.5

include enhancements for integration with SAP

HANA Cloud Platform. Due to the importance

of on-premise landscapes in the SAP installed

customer base, SAP does not restrict itself to

cloud-only models, and for this reason, SAP

NetWeaver 7.5 includes extended support for

hybrid deployments.

With SAP NetWeaver 7.5, SAP expands the

relationship between SAP NetWeaver and the

new and emerging on-demand platform offer-

ings from SAP. In addition to serving as the

basis for standard deployments — as a platform

for standalone SAP NetWeaver hubs such as

SAP BW, or as the foundation for enhancement

packages for SAP Business Suite, for instance

— SAP NetWeaver also provides the basis for

SAP S/4HANA, both the cloud edition and the

on-premise version.

SAP NetWeaver 7.5 will remain an important

player in hybrid deployments, extending SAP

Business Suite and SAP S/4HANA via a micro

services-oriented environment offered by SAP

HANA Cloud Platform that includes SAP

NetWeaver connectivity services. These cloud-

based micro services give Java and JavaScript

developers full access to a wide range of back-

end services delivered through standard

SAP interfaces and protocols, enabling them

to generate added value in loosely coupled

scenarios. In parallel, SAP joined Cloud Foundry,

an open source cloud platform supported by

multiple software vendors. SAP HANA Cloud

Platform will take advantage of Cloud Foundry

ideas and concepts, such as cloud-based polyglot

development and runtime environments, with

simplified and optimized access to SAP HANA

and SAP NetWeaver-based solutions.

To further support hybrid deployments, SAP

is investing significant development effort into

providing an on-premise runtime container

for SAP HANA that is designed with Cloud

Foundry principles in mind and supports Java,

JavaScript (node.js), and a compatibility layer

for SAP HANA extended application services

(XS), following the “bring your own language”

paradigm. This approach will enable partners

and customers to develop new solutions based on

innovative technologies such as node.js and will

also ease the adoption of standards not only in

on-demand environments, but also in established

on-premise landscapes.

SummarySAP NetWeaver 7.4 is a full-featured, reli-

able technology platform that has kept pace

with market trends and customer needs and is

widely adopted by SAP’s customer base. How-

ever, emerging business and technology trends

around the cloud, big data, and IoT are driving

needs that require a new codeline and runtime

environment to support innovative features

and functionality. To meet these needs, SAP is

planning a new SAP NetWeaver release — SAP

NetWeaver 7.5 — that will serve as the founda-

tion for the next enhancement package for SAP

Business Suite and the on-premise edition of

SAP S/4HANA, and will lay the groundwork for

the future of application development in your

own organization. n

With SAP NetWeaver 7.5,

SAP expands the relation-

ship between SAP NetWeaver

and the new and emerging

on-demand platform offerings

from SAP.