BPM-EAI: SAP NetWeaver Gateway changes the game again...

I have been pretty enthusiastic in the last few months about the emergence of the Enterprise App. What seemed to be the domain of I-Yuppies (pardon the phrase) is now slowly but surely making its way into the Enterprise domain itself and one of the most significant offerings has been from the ERP giant SAP.

For the major part of the last quarter SAP focused on the NetWeaver stack. SAP NetWeaver provided the development and runtime environment for SAP applications and could be used for custom development and integration with other applications and systems. This was part of the "applistructure" (applications + infrastructure) platform strategy where a single vendor offered the complete suite of products required to get the Enterprise Up and running.

However, over the past few years, there has been another equally significant, and in my opinion, much more disruptive, project that SAP has been working on called "The Gateway Project". The results of this project debuted on the third and final day of SAPPHIRE NOW as the SAP NetWeaver Gateway.

According to the official press release (refer link below): "SAP NetWeaver Gateway opens the door for millions of developers to use development environments of their choice to create highly innovative apps connecting to SAP software. Without having to acquire any SAP knowledge, developers can deliver apps running as interactive desktop and web experiences, within social environments, and on mobile devices and tablets that connect to SAP software."

This is a strategic shift compared with middleware such as the SAP NetWeaver technology platform since instead of extending the SAP business applications to various user environment, the Gateway involves enabling them to access SAP data using standard technologies. It however does provide greater voice to all those who believe that the "on-device" flavor of business applications is here to stay.

One of the biggest benefits of the technology is that it is designed to reach a wide audience of developers, as programming with it requires no ABAP or BAPI skills. Plus, its use of common (Web) standards makes data from the SAP back end available everywhere. (Refer "Two Min Apps" link below) This would ensure rapid adoption and coupled with the fact that these light weight apps would be typically those that are useful for making decisions rather than actual complex operations, it is a fair bet that we will be seeing more of these apps in the future.

It must be noted that for complex business applications, SAP still recommends the use of enterprise services. For instance, SAP NetWeaver PI offers further functions for A2A and B2B integration - albeit at a higher cost of development and maintenance. SAP NetWeaver BPM, on the other hand, aids in modeling, executing, and monitoring business processes.

SAP NetWeaver Gateway already offers comprehensive mobile enterprise functionality - including multiple-device management, device and data security, connections to further data sources, and based on reports, the platform will also be able to access SAP Business Suite through SAP NetWeaver Gateway following a planned update later this year.

More Reading :

Two Minute App : http://en.sap.info/gateway-apps-mobile-rest-duet-enterprise/43463

Official Announcement : http://sapphirenow.news-sap.com/2011/05/18/sap-opens-gateway-unleashes-data-devices-new-class-of-apps/