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(Februar, 1999)

Challenge and opportunities for the next Millennium
New Business Areas: SAP and Oracle
SAP R/3 and the internet - a short technical overview

Challenge and opportunities for the next Millennium Tilbage

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Berlin, the city that has changed in many aspects is one of the most vi-brant places in Europe and you can see how the future of the new Europe is taking shape.

On 25th and 26th January 1999 “The GSE Management Summit on S/390” in Berlin combined this vision of a new Europe with the challenge and oppor-tunities for the IT environment.

What is GSE?

GUIDE SHARE EUROPE (GSE) is a non-profit association of companies, organisations and individuals who are involved in Information and Communi-cation Technology (ICT) solutions based on IBM architectures.

GSE aims to encourage members to exchange experience and information related to and influence ICT product and service providers.

The Conference

During these two days IBM Execu-tives briefed on key IT Solutions for 1999.
The conference focused on e-Business for S/390, Server Consolida-tion, ERP, Networking and Business Intelligence.

Exsamples of solution areas

1. e-Business

It is clear to understand that the fasci-nation world of e-Business is the most important strategy for the next millen-nium. This global business trend means:

Transaction costs falling rapidly

Pressures on supply chains & distribution channels

Competitive landscapes altering

2. Server Consolidation

Too many companies are con-fronted with a large network. A new trend called Server Consolidation is dominant in current IT deployment.

The focus is to improve your effi-ciency by moving towards a better in-tegrated server platform, with lower costs, larger scale and more stability.

3. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP is the new booming market trend which covers all business activities throughout an enterprise and all indus-tries. Customisation of existing pack-ages is the key strategy to speed up the software developments.
The S/390 platform is ideal for ERP applications, but ERP is not “just an-other project”.

4. Network

All your investments in e-business solutions will include a risk if you do not understand the dynamics of the Network.
Old technologies continue to grow but new emerging technologies will start to open new perspectives and change the rules of the business game.

5. Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence Solutions

Knowledge Management and Busi-ness Intelligence Solutions will help you to build a proactive business strat-egy and dramatically improve your market analysis and insight. Knowl-edge is power. To exploit the existing data better is one of your biggest challenges.

“Every now and then a technology or idea comes along that is so profound, powerful, universal, that its impact changes everything, the way we live, work, educate our children."

(Lou Gerstner)

New Business Areas: SAP and Oracle Tilbage

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Although Contracters has only ex-isted since August 1997, we are al-ready employing more than 25 people in Switzerland and Denmark. Based on this success in the IBM Mainframe market we have decided to start up 2 new business areas in 1999: SAP and Oracle.

Well, they are not exactly new to me. I was dealing with Oracle consul-tancy services from 1989 to 1997, where I was sales director in TPI in Switzerland and in Denmark. Addition-ally I founded SapTech in Switzerland
in 1994, which in 1995 established a subsidiary in Denmark. As chairman of the board of directors in SapTech from 1994 until 1997 I accumulated a lot of experience about SAP consultancy. So to sum it up, Contracters has not only a lot of experience in the IBM Mainframe business, we actually also know a lot about the new business areas SAP and Oracle.

We intend to continue the growth in 1999 and expect to employ more than 50 people by the end of this year.

Alongside with our new webpages www.contracters.com - we have the pleasure of sending
you a free user-friendly Contracters-mousepad.

You can order more via e-mail (info@contracters.dk).

SAP R/3 and the internet - a short technical overview Tilbage

123

There is a lot of discussion going on at the moment about the so called ‘e-business’, making business using the Internet.
This article deals with the question:
How does the system structure behind e-business in the SAP-world look like?
Let’s first consider the situation from in-side SAP and out:

SAP point of view

The main features of the Inside-Out ap-proach in SAP include:

Application development is taking place in SAP using ABAP/4.

Business rules/functionality stays in SAP alone.

By containing the business logic in SAP itself the maintenance of the SAP installa-tion is less complicated. The integration with the transactions model in SAP is seemless and there is no need to syn-cronize applications and user screens. In other words: only normal SAP-routines are needed and nothing else.Seen from outside and into SAP the matter looks different:

Outside-SAP point of view

The key features include:

Applications development by using other programming languages, like
JAVA, C, C++, Visual Basic etc.

Using separate logical layers for integrating SAP with other external
systems (legacy systems, databases, etc.)

The total Internet-related application-logic is placed outside SAP. The interface, connecting the two worlds, is standardised interface objects. This gives a totally open interface.
Put into a scheme the two different points of view looks like this:

Feature	SAP Point of View	Outside-SAP point of view
Programming Language(s)	ABAP, HTML	Visual Basic, Java, Javascript, Interfaces to DLL (build in C, C++, etc.)
Logic Placed where:	IAC´s BAPI and dynpro´s placed in SAP. HTML	On the web-server (HTML page generated logic)
Control of user-interface	SAP dynpro´s function modules, plus HTML	HTML page logic runs on web-server. Javascript runs in the web-browser
Needed SAP- Version	Build in version 3.1G or later and compatible with 3.0D	Version 3.0D for Employee Self Service Applications. In gerneral HAHTsiteapplications can integrate with all releases of R/3
Security	SAP web basis components can be configured from within, - from without or bridging a firewall. Normal user security in SAP	External applications must use SAP´s userverification when a user approach SAP from outside.
Prototyping	Use ABAP/4 developers workbench to create dynpro´s. Use SAP´s web-studio to build HTML business pages that invoke them	Use HAHTsite integrated development environment to make pages that invoke BAPI´s or RFC
Supported web-server	Any NT-based server that supports CGI 1.1s or later, NSAPI and ISAPI	Any NT-based server that supports CGI 1.1s or later, NSAPI and ISAPI

It may sound complex, but most of the elements are already developed and more or less standardised.

Example: All needed BAPI’s are developed in a co-operation between Microsoft and SAP and are included in newer versions of SAP as a utility.
The main effort is in connection with development of dynpro’s in SAP plus to have the components configured in an optimal way.

Good luck!

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