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SAP announces J2EE support with NetWeaver By Mike Houghton Introduction This year SAP's TechEd was held in San Diego where over 4000 IT professionals came together to get some insight and training on what's coming down the SAP pipeline. The big announcement, the NetWeaver technology platform will now offer support for the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition standard (J2EE). They went on to say that part of NetWeavers new capability includes mission-critical stability for enterprise-scale Java applications. We wanted to know more about this and thought the Java community would to. We spoke to Ziv Carthy, the head of the SAP Developer Network to get the story. Key Features of NetWeaver One of the new additions to the Java functionality of NetWeaver includes the Java Virtual Machine container technology. This will allow standard Java code to run on a framework around the Java Virtual Machine itself. It does this by reducing the number of parallel users per virtual machine. It also improves on the overall memory consumption, the application stability and the number of affected users in the event of a screen freeze, loss of data or the need for re-keying of information. The JVM technology also includes several added features designed to assist developers in managing error resolutions. This includes the ability for developers to switch a user process in the production system in or out of debugging mode on the fly allowing for minimum downtime. While also including tracing and monitoring tools for error analysis and hopefully a quick resolution. So now, not only does NetWeaver offer support for such standards as HTTP, XML, Web services and of course ABAP, but now it also offers support for Java. All of this adds to SAP’s future interoperability with such applications as Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere. SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation of mySAP Business Suite solutions, SAP xApps composite applications, partner solutions, and customer custom-built applications. It also enables Enterprise Services Architecture, SAP's blueprint for service-oriented business solutions. NetWeaver is also a comprehensive change management application and integration platform that works with existing IT infrastructures. It enables infrastructure integration to link remote sales forces with order management, logistics, and transportation operations. SAP NetWeaver Background SAP was founded in 1972. Today, SAP has over 12 million users and 1,500 partners. SAP of Walldorf, Germany is the largest maker of enterprise application software in the world. Among other things, SAP offers mySAP which is a tightly integrated, comprehensive suite of enterprise addaptive solutions. NetWeaver is the technical foundation of this suite. It allows application developers to build, test and implement new business strategies and processes in their web applications. When we spoke to Ziv Carthy last week in a phone interview he told us that SAP is moving forward with cross platform support. SAP while keeping ABPU as their standard language, will add Java support which will, no doubt, help to diversify their customer base. By combining ABAP and Java support in one application, NetWeaver provides a single environment in which to work with applications regardless of what language they are written in. With NetWeaver providing a DB schema separately for Java the possibilities are enormous for consumers to develop new applications in web enabled scenarios totally using Java or .Net, avoiding ABAP altogether if they choose. This saves time, money and effort for developers. The Competition Some of SAP’s major competitors include such companies as Manugistics, headquartered in Rockville, MD, offers the industry's most proven demand and supply chain solutions, including enterprise applications and infrastructure products, strategic consulting, and Manugistics Consulting Services. Oracle is another major player. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA. Oracle is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the second largest independent software company on the planet. Also there is PeopleSoft, soon to be owned by Oracle and headquartered in Pleasanton, California. PeopleSoft currently has over 12,000 employees and annual revenue of more than $2.3 billion. They offer such solutions as "Real-Time Enterprise" which can be explained more easily as a business philosophy to move business processes to the internet. All of these vendors offer in-depth customizable and dependable enterprise IT solutions. It makes sense to talk to each of them when developing or considering a business strategy for optimizing both the supply-side and the demand-side of your business. Summary Now that SAP NetWeaver supports Java we will start to see a real positive impact in the marketplace for those who are in search of a cost-effective means to deploy and manage Java applications in their enterprise and small businesses. For companies of all sizes looking for a way to adapt quickly to market changes, respond to unforeseen challenges and to seize new opportunities, SAP NetWeaver is a tool that is worth looking into. Resources: SAP mySAP HP Partners with SAP SAP Metagroup xApps TechEd SAP Announcement Microsoft .NET Manugistics PeopleSoft Oracle IBM WebSphere