Use the new CE 7.1 NWDS for developing 7.0 Portal Applications

[Former Member]

Hi all,

We currently evaluate which would be the best development studio for our development. Of course I know the SAP Guideline "use the same NWDS as your support package stack". This would mean we have to use NW 7.0 SPS 16. But we realized there is a new Eclipse Version within CE 7.1 NWDS.

So the question is, could we also use the new NWDS, is it compatible with 7.0 or did anybody try something in the way we want to do?

Thanks for your help,

Stefan

[michael_glaun · Accepted solution]

Hi Stefan,

You might want to consider using the "federated portal network" (FPN) capabilities of SAP NetWeaver 7.0 and CE7.1.

FPN in this case allows you can utilize the full composition capabilities of NWCE7.1 to develop applications and then render them in a central 7.0 runtime environment (portal). This is loosely called the "side-car approach".

For more information: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nwce10/helpdata/en/3e/878ce2eba747e2b065cfb5d4496483/frameset.htm

Michael

[Benny]

Hi,

to make it short: No, it's not. 7.0 is based on J2EE 1.3and Java 1.4, while 7.1 is based on Java EE 5 and Java 1.5. There are significant diferences between both.

Regards,

Benny

[Former Member]

Hi Benny,

thanks for your answer. Can you explain a little bit more in detail? For example i could imagine to run the nwds with an java 1.5 but compile the programs with an java 1.4 or something? Are there architectural changes made with the new nwds?

best regards, stefan

[Former Member]

Java 1.5 added a lot of new logic in Java, as well as a much bigger and extensive API. Therefore it's unlikely that a 1.5 Java application will compile with a 1.4.2 or lower compiler. It's not impossible, just unlikely. Especially if you're using any of the new code.

The older compiler won't understand parts of the code and logic you used.

[Benny]

In addition to what Frederick said:

Eclipse and therefore NWDS does support development for target JVMs of former releases. It then uses the defined JVM to compile your stuff. But this does not help if the tools you're using produce stuff for the newer code - for example EJB 3.0. This would not run in older JVM, whatever you do.

Regards,

Benny