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Alternative Software to Sybase

Former Member
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Hi Everyone,

This is more of a query than a problem I have.

Sybase Unwired Platform together with SCC is what people use to create mobile apps that integrate with an SAP server.

I was wondering if there is other software out there that does the same thing and how you would use that software to manipulate data in SAP.

Regards

Jared.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

hofmann
Active Contributor
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There was/is Syclo, but after SAP acquired them because of the apps the future of their server software is unkown. Maybe it will enter maintenance mode, which translate in the mobile world to: discontinued and abandoned.

There is still SAP Mobile Infrastucture (MI) available that you can use to build your apps. MI also has monitoring and offline capabilities, but with SUP it makes little sense to develop mobile apps with MI.

There is SAP Gateway, or other ways of exposing BAPI data as web service or JSON/REST. But you'll have to take care of the offline capabilities by yourself. Every smartphone comes with a sql database, the rest depends on your coding skills.

And there are still online HTML5 apps that can be made offline when combined with a container like phonegap + local db.

If you search the ecoHub you can find out how partners are offering mobile solutions, like this one: http://ecohub.sap.com/catalog/#!solution:workforcescheduling

Basically, when you know how you'll access the SAP data you can start developing mobile apps like every mobile app. The drawback: more work.

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

Former Member
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Hello Jared,

There is an interesting solution currently available which leverages Web Dynpro for ABAP technology to mobilize SAP.  In essence, it transforms WD4A on to mobile applications on the fly.  That said, any WD (custom or delivered) will be operational on any mobile device.

I wrote some blogs about it (albeit short) and it seemed to make little impact on the mobile community.  As I understand it, this is the route SAP should have taken with mobile.  The app is a free download off of the Android or Apple stores, it's called Kairos Enterprise and can be hooked up to your own server for free.  The company website is: www.AragonHR.com

If you do check them out, let me know what you think of the app.  I myself found it to be quite the alternative to anything out there now.

Andy

koehntopp
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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That's all fine and dandy if you're looking to deploy one or two mobile solutions for a handful of users.

For starters, one of the advantages of having a middleware like SUP is that it makes sure that skript kiddies doing REST requests to your mobile channel will not bring down your ERP system.

Next, we're talking standard software, u.e. SAP and partners are trying to create software that works for a lot of customers. That requires a common infrastructure that allows for the deployment of a wide range of mobile apps with a common user/device management and administration.

As much as I like fiddling with simple solutions, I'm afraid that's not going to scale...

Former Member
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Frank,

I believe you are talking about custom built solutions which call their own REST services.  There's alot of blogs out there that detail these solutions and this is not the case here.  You will probably want to take a closer look.

This tool doesn't use REST, it calls the SAP WD4A framework from begining to end.  So you saying that doesn't scale is like saying none of SAP's existing WD4A architecture is doomed.  I can't logically agree with that.

If you like SUP, that's fine.  It definitely has it's place but there's thousands of developers out there who are actively seeking alternatives to a complicated and expensive solution when their requirements or budgets do not call for such things.  Multiple servers, learning curves, new languages/technologies when it was all there in ABAP to begin with... SUP reminds me of the JAVA hype train back in the day!

Andy

hofmann
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Frank,

when you use Gateway for REST and you expose it to the internet, the script kiddies can cause you some serious problems too.

SUP as of now is more for SAP and Partners to sell / deliver apps. SUP serves a specific scenario, and mobilizing a transaction or some screens (WDA/WDJ) is possible with SUP, but an overkill. If you want to do that using another technology is in most cases the better alternative. For instance, you can use the NWCloud Portal, or the on-premise portal and use JCA/BAPI with jQuery/Jersey to create REST-enabled mobile apps. All you need is a more or less capable Java and Javascript developer.

For "real" mobile apps that mobilize a whole process, you have to take other aspects into consideration and a platform like SUP offers the most: offline, modeling, monitoring, security,support, etc.