architecture of mobile solutions

[Former Member]

HI All,

I have one basic doubt regarding the architecture.Suppose we want the SRM to be accessible to the users on mobile like iphone and blackberry.

Iphone ---> relay servers ---> SUP 2.0 ---> netweaver gateway ---> Backend i.e. SRM/ERP .

Is SUP compuslory for both offline and online scenario?

Can we do without gateway which i think is not possible as SUP will not understand the data from SAP.

Looking forward for comments.Thanks.

[Former Member]

Hello To All,

Thanks for your reply,

Can i have to used Netweaver to send alert message in mobile device and now i am working on SUP 2.0 for SAP mobile applications

Regards,

Tapan

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

Can i send an alert directly from SAP to my Mobile when i will create Salesorder or travelrequest, etc.... with the used of Sybase ?

and for that i dont want to create any MBO in my Sybase, so is it possible to do that ?

Regards,

Tapan

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,
> 
>        Can i send an alert directly from SAP to my Mobile when i will create Salesorder or travelrequest, etc.... with the used of Sybase ? 
> 
> and for that i dont want to create any MBO in my Sybase, so is it possible to do that ?
> 
> Regards,
>  Tapan

You can easily send an SMS from SAP without any middleware/SUP. If you want to have an app on the device/mobile that shows alerts then you need a native app (fairly sure that hybrid/web app will not give you this option) but technically you have a few options other the SUP to have the app communicate directly to SAP, with JCO, ICF, Web Services could all be an option. When you start to see several of these scenarios, several device types, a growing number of users that want this functionality, more sensitive data and security requirements then you really should look into doing this with the help of SUP or similar servers. You will anyway want to take away some of the traffic from your production systems and not opening them up to the internet directly to enable something like this. If you have a running portal that is open to the internet with good security setup (reverse proxy/web dispatcher) then that could also be an option for limited scope and in future if it is further developed for mobility for more extensive use.

[Former Member]

The answer is also going to be dependent on if your planning to use SAP offered apps or not. If yes then you also need to have a netweaver mobile server / DOE in your landscape plus an active directory server for the user repository. If you are looking at pure online scenario then you have a lot of different options for mobile development but you will start to run into issues if you don't have device management solution, a type of Afaria server for managing the devices in your landscape as well.

[Former Member]

Hi,

from a architectural view you have several options.

The first thing:

iPhone - Relay Server - SUP

The Relay server is not really necessary. there are other options to have save access to your network. For example a provider can offer you Data routing into your network. Much more save the Relay Server and you have full control about users accessing the web from their mobile for example. If you just expose the SUP port to the web it is possible as well - but not as safe as using relay server.

SUP - GATEWAY - SRM (Backend)

Here you have several options as well. SUP can understand SAP directly - as mentioned earlier this is possible using JCO. You can use project Gateway as well, or you have the option to use Netweaver Mobile as well.

So at the end you have to decide which landscape fits best into our needs:

SUP - JCO - SRM

SUP - GATEWAY - SRM

SUP - NetWeaver 7.3 - SRM

All mentioned items have their pros and cons and I guess it is far more information necessary to decide which fulfills your request best, then we can provide here.

simple rule:

The more data and the more complex your data model is, the more you should think about the last option mentioned.

Hope this helps more from an arhitectural view and does not raise to many new questionmarks in your head.

Regards,

Oliver

[Former Member]

One doubt Oliver what difference does it make if we use gateway or NW 7.3?

[Former Member]

Hi,

well, Gateway delivers great functionality for mobile products - just NWM7.3 is the bigger approach. If you want to mobilize 100s of users with a lot of data, Gateway soon has a too high impact on backend servers and the monitoring is weak. NWM 7.3 offers greate monitoring abilitys combined with pre data delivery and push technology down to the device. You always have an idea what is on the device, when was it send, who works with it and what data came back fro the device. In gateway this is.... wel ... not 100% the case, even Gateway is absolutely great for apps with a smaller footprint!

Well, this is my personal feeling on how we use the different approaches, but I am free on an open discussion on that, cause this will result in better service to all SAP clients at the end.

Regards,

Oliver

[Former Member]

Oliver,

You have got a amazing insight on mobile perspective. I presumed that gateway would be the one which would convert data into odata format. How will we be able to do it via NW 7.3

[Former Member]

Oliver,

No mention of NW mobile. How is the future with NW mobile?

[Former Member]

Hi,

Gateway is unfortunately used 2 times:

1.) Gateway as part of Netweaver as such delivers oData functionality and access to nearly any function module insite SAP.

2.) The component that connects SAP Netweaver MObile and SUP is called Gateway as well - it exists of 2 parts (one on NWM and one on SUP) and the connection is with ESDMA functionality. So for everybody who wonders why NWM7.3 has these ESDMA transactions - that is the reason.

I hear a lot about the end of Netweaver Mobile and so on but if you talk about people insite SAP that have any clue about the development (so do not talk to marketing or sales people) you get a more clear picture. Netweaver Mobile will exist in the future beside SUP. It is a great enhancement to SUP, cause it delivers so much functionality for free that would take ages to develop it in SUP. The often mentioned connection between SUP and NW Mobile is more or less impossible, so even this will not happen. And if you have a look on actual development: NW Mobile 7.3 has ESDMA functionality. You need this to connect NW Mobile to SUP. And the SUP counterpart is now available inside SUP 2.1.1 as available functionality. It was hard up to now to install both features on older releases. So there is development ongoing on both sides of the table and Netweaver Mobile gives you the Enterprise Mobility functionality if it comes to Monitoring, complex DataModel Design or distribution rules.

SUP on the other side is unbeatable if it comes to native app development and all stuff around it.

And if the rumor about the end of Netweaver Mobile would be really true, why on earth would SAP deliver products like CRM or EAM on this complex landscape and not use SUP only?

Well, actually we have so many products inside the SAP world if it comes to mobility (Gateway, SUP, NW Mobile, .... ) that you really need to decide about the best solution for yur problem - before you start with the implementation.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Oliver

[Former Member]

Oliver,

So NW mobile cannot directly talk to SUP older releases?I think DOE is a very good thing that mobile has given.What do you say.I am not that great with mobile stuff.

Oliver the toughest thing to do is to decide which product is going to best suite for our requirement.The problem is that many like me dont know when to use what.I think there be should some kind of knowledge sharing session or that kind of stuff.

[Former Member]

One more thing i have heard there is hardly any development going to happen in mobile.This i had heard in one of the sdn KHNC calls related to SUP.What do you say?

[Former Member]

Hi Ambarish,

Have you explored connecting SAP and SUP with JCo?. This allows all the standard bapis to be easily accessed to build mbos and integrate with your mobile application.

The second option i see is using SAP webservices. simply expose the required RFCs as a webservice and call it within SUP to build mbos out of.

Yes, SUP is necessary for having the offline functionality.

Regards

-Asim

[Former Member]

I had asked from a architecture perspective ....