Clarification on SAP components needed

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I have a very naive question, as i am new to SAP. So, please just help me answer this question.

I am literally very confused about all the components of SAP, how do they get insatlled, how do we make them work together, to help the business grow.

I understand that Netweaver is a technology plaform, which is needed to build and run different SAP apllications and products like ECC,CRM,SCM,HR,BI,PI,EP etc

What I want to know that

1) when we install Netweaver, means when we go to Installation and Upgrade section and click on "SAP Netweaver 7.0" and insatll it, then is it good for anything, i mean does it contain any business component by default or its just a platform we have created and we need to install different applications separately on it.

2) When we install any particular application like SAP SCM 7.0, then do we require Netweaver to be installed already or its installation CD will take care of it by itself, means it will first install NW and then application.

3) What is ECC or ERP, is it some application like CRM, SCM etc or something else. How does it help in business? What i know is that ECC is the minimal installation of ERP, but what it is good for?

4) Say, in a company, we have different SAP applications running on different servers i.e. each application has its own database , then how exactly SAP is helping in business, when we have everything separately for every department of the company. I want to know is there a single database which incorporates all the changes, being done by different departments(different SAP applications) . Or we have different databases for each department, but they are just integrated to each other in such a way that it seems one. if this is the case then how do we integrate different applications together?

5) Please let me know the importance of these different applcations :

SAP PI, SAP EP, SAP MDM, SAP DS

Please help me in answering these above questions.

Eagerly waiting for the replies.

Thanks and Regards

[Former Member]

You have actually asked for a crash course in SAP....

[Former Member]

@Srikanth : Thanks for your help.

They were successful to some extent, but I was looking for more specific answers.

As you said that when we start installation we chose one component and install it.

1> I have a doubt here, along with different components like CRM,SCM,BI etc, there is also a option of installing "SAP Netweaver 2004s" . What will this do, i mean its not an component, its just a underlying platform, which anyways gets installed along with any component. So whats the benefit of this?

2> I still didnt get the importance of ECC. What is it, is it any functional component, if yes then how is it different from other components?

3> Can you please describe the function of all these units, in short : EP, PI , MDM, DS

Thanks

@Shitij : Was that an answer to my ques

[Former Member]

Hi,

For your first question please see the link below..

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/index?rid=/webcontent/uuid/611f0764-0901-0010-b9ba-a57e3acce8a5 [original link is broken]

2 I still didnt get the importance of ECC. What is it, is it any functional component, if yes then how is it different from other components?

SAP R/3 is replaced by SAP ECC.. its Enterprise Central Component, in SAP Netweaver 2004s the version is ECC 6.0.

Please see the below link for the list of changes. You can download it as a zip document.

/people/thomas.jung3/blog/2005/05/15/abap-46c-to-640-delta-training

3. Can you please describe the function of all these units, in short : EP, PI , MDM, DS

For EP : http://www.sapag.co.in/sap-ep.html

For PI : http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-pi71

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/57/08bb3f23823c17e10000000a114084/content.htm

For MDM :

For DS : http://help.sap.com/saphelp_scm41/helpdata/en/3f/5f73374026023fe10000009b38f8cf/content.htm

Hope this will help you.

Regards

Bhuban

[Former Member]

Hi Chilbul,

These are the answers for your questions:

1. When you install sap netweaver , it contains list of applications. By selecting components whatever do you want to install, those components only installed. Eg. EP, PI,BI, Di etc...

2. Installation Cd itself contains components, so we have to select require component like SCM.

3. Please refer below link... to understand more between ECC and ERP

4. SAP integrates all the modules, this is the main advantage of SAP. We can integrate different modules into one.

5. On depending on business criteria, we can use EP, PI , MDM, DS.

Thanks

Srikanth