Study of SAP R/3 Architecture

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OutlineWhat is SAP?SAP R/3 ArchitectureComponents of SAP R/3Features of SAP R/3 Issues Conclusion

What is SAP? SAP (System Application and Product) is the name of the biggest

European German Software company as well as the name of software itself.

The company was founded in 1972 by the five IBM employees. SAP R/3 Software has been developed using ABAP/4 as a

programming language. SAP is the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system that aims

to integrate all the different modules(SD,MM,CO,HR etc) in the company.The integration results in consistency of data throught out the system and the company as a whole.

As of 2005, SAP employs over 28,900 people in more than 50 countries.

SAP R/3 ArchitectureSAP R/3 is one of the main product of SAP,where R stands

for RealTime and the number 3 relates to three tier application architecture(Data base,Application Server and Client).

Most of the business in todays world runs on SAP R/3 system.About 80% of the companies implemented this software.

SAP R/3 Architecture (Continued)

Components of SAP R/3 Architecture Internet communication Manager(ICM)-set up connection

to internet. Supports protocol HTTP,SMTP.Dispatcher distributes the requests to the work processes.

If all the processes are occupied then the requests are stored in dispatcher queue.

ABAP Work Process executes the ABAP code.SAP gateway makes the RFC interface between SAP

instances available.Message server exchanges the messages and balances the

load.

FeaturesScalabilityOpen Standard SupportRobustness

Feature-ScalabilityThe architecture is such that it can be easily scalable if the

load at one server is increased.As application is independent from the data base and the

presentation layer then the servers can be replicated in order to balance the load.

Gateway component using RFC adds many SAP servers to it.

Feature-Supports open standardsSAP R/3 architecture is designed to be support most of the

open standard available today.It can run on UNIX,NT,AIX etc.

Customization language used:ABAP/4Netweaver:ABAP/4 and JAVA

RobustnessSAP R/3 is highly robust as a whole.All the components work in the coordinated manner. So they will work as a whole in order to solve the

unexpected scenario.

IssuesNo cache memory in ICM In SAP R/3 architecture ,clients treated as dumb terminals.Complex ArchitectureNo Support for other languages.

Issues:No Cache ICM(Internet Connection Manager) ICM uses the threads to parallelize the load that comes up.

Issue:R/3 models desktops as dumb terminalsToday desktops are very powerful and they can be used to

do a large part of computation.But in SAP,there is other way round.

Issue:Complex ArchitectureToday the technology is changing so fast that the code of

SAP R/3 architecture becomes large and more complex.So the possibility of falls behind and not keeping up with

the current technology..

Issue:No support for other languages.SAP R/3 architecture only supports ABAP/4 language.New architecture from SAP-Netweaver supports JAVA also.But still support for other popular languages C/C++ etc

left.

In the Nut-shellEven though SAP R/3 architecture supports

scalability,security etc but still there are many issues that are to be resolved.

Issues:No cache,customization problem,No Programming language support(C/C++),Complex architecture,treat clients as dumb.

Thank You !