Netweaver 7.4: Still NWDS or Eclipse?

[Former Member]

Hi,

we've currently updated our SAP Netweaver 7.30 (formerly known as Composition Environment => is this name obsolete now?) to 7.4.

My questions:

Is there also a new NWDS for NW 7.4 or do we have to use Eclipse with a SAP Plugin as for the ABAP development?

Do we have to use the SAP HANA Cloud Developer Center?

We use this 7.4 instance for BPM only.

Thanks in advance.

[Benny · Accepted solution]

Hi Eddie,

The NWDS always WAS a version of Eclipse with SAP plugins. So. I'm not quite sure what your question is...

REgards,

Benny

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Dear Benny,

My question is:

Do I have to dowload a pure Eclipse from eclipse.org and then install SAP plugins afterwards (as for the new ABAP development tools) OR do I have to download a NWDS 7.4 provided by SAP?

In the meanwhile I've found out that for AS Java NWDS 7.31 should be still valid as there was no change from 7.31 to 7.4 in terms of the Java stack.

So can I use NWDS 7.31 for NW 7.40?

Thanks in advance.

[Benny · Accepted solution]

So can I use NWDS 7.31 for NW 7.40?

Yes, you can.

Regards.

Benny

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the Info. What version Developer Studio is needed for e.g. NW 7.40 SP2? Is it the latest? -->

8.31.80002.130718123740

SP08

PAT0002

Best Regards

Kristian

[Benny · Accepted solution]

Hi Kristian,

to my knowledge there has been no changes between 7.31 and 7.4. So the  latest NWDS would still be in action.

Regards,

Benny

[rolf_paulsen]

Hello,

I find this thread still active, so I would like to know how you think about the fact that "with SAP NetWeaver 7.4, NWDS is no longer available.

On SAP Support Portal, Software Downloads, Installation 7.4, Clients, NetWeaver Developer Studio:

"As of SAP NetWeaver 7.4, SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio is no longer available.

If you want to use SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio with SAP Netweaver 7.4, you can still use SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio 7.3 including enhancement package 1. For more information, see SAP Note 1791485."

This sounds like NWDS is fading away and has got no future.

BPM gets more and more functionality in every SP of NW 7.4, but NWDS stays old as it is forever?

Why "old"? Benny wrote above:

"The NWDS always WAS a version of Eclipse with SAP plugins. So. I'm not quite sure what your question is.."

This is missing the fundamental difference between NWDS - a bundle of an OLD version of Eclipse with SAP plugins - and plugins provided by SAP for Eclipse:

The latter must keep track of version changes in the Eclipse ecosystem!

SAP chose the lazy way of providing NWDS as a monolytic bundle of Eclipse from (currently) 2010 with their SAP plugins. NWDS It still stuck to outdated Eclipse 3.5.2 from Feb 2010. Eclipse is now on 4.3! SAP HANA Studio is on Eclipse 4.2 (maybe stuck there for years, too?)

NWDS, THE java development environment by SAP, does not take part at the progress of all the Eclipse plugins.

NWDS has always been based on old Eclipse Version, but this is the first time SAP tells us that it will never update the Eclipse version any more, at least this is how I understand  "no longer available".

This is much worse than the maturity = feature Freeze in WebDynpro Java that was discussed few years ago. SAP's Java (Dev) Infrastructure is antiquating!

This fits perfectly to SAP NetWeaver Java that is stuck to Java EE 5 from 2006. The world outside SAP is on Java EE 7.

A possible explanation that SAP is neglecting its homework for both NW Java and NWDS is that SAP wants to abandon its own Java platform soon. Of cours it was easy for SAP to base their Cloud on Java open source components, but SAP does not take care of their proprietary Java tools to take the same step in standards based Java tooling. So we who use these tools are outdistanced from the progess in the Java world if we stay on NWDS and SAP NetWeaver as runtime environment - without a migration path.

Is there another explanation? Why does SAP still recommend WebDynpro Java, Visual Composer and BPM as technologies that require us to use outdated Development tools?

How do you think about this, how does this affect you Java strategy?

Best Regards,

Rolf

[ch_loos]

Hi Rolf,

First, NWDS is not fading away. The statement on Support Portal is indeed misleading.

The fact that there is no NWDS 7.4 is simply because NW 7.4 Java and NW 7.31 Java have the same codebase. So you can use the appropriate 7.31 NWDS also for your NW 7.4 server.

If there is a new NW version with a new codebase, then there will also be a new NWDS.

Second, you are not limited to WD/J or VC development - SAPUI5 tools can be used in NWDS (see my )

Third, the Process Orchestration tools (PI and BPM) which are part of NWDS are being continuously enhanced. For instance, since NW 7.31, PI tools have moved from Swing to Eclipse/NWDS.

Finally, be assured that we understand the need for Eclipse 4.3+ and Java EE 6 support.

If things go well we can share some news on this early next year.

Best Regards,

Christian

[rolf_paulsen]

Hi Christian,

thanks for this quick and promising answer.

I suggest that SAP changes the statement on Support Portal. "No longer available" is something different than "there is no need to..."

So for new projects it makes sense to evaluate SAPUI5 even for transactional applications where WD/J is today our choice today?

If BPM is enhanced both and in parallel on the 7.4 track (server side) and the 7.31 track (NWDS tool side) this is difficult for us customers to understand. "This feature is in 7,4 SPx and 7.31 SPy".

Java EE: Probably you should skip Java EE 6 and go directly to Java EE 7.

What you are writing reads indeed similar to statements of Benny >2 years ago, but there is not every year a HANA hype that outshines many other themes important for your customers. So let us be optimistic.

Best Regards,

Rolf

[ch_loos]

Thanks for the feedback, we will change the statement on SMP accordingly.

The decision to go for WD/J, WD/A or UI5 needs to be made on a case-by-case basis.

If you want mobile support then the choice is easy. For heavy, stateful, transactional UIs with a lot of fields and tabs WD (Java or ABAP) might still be the better choice. You also need to factor in the developer background/skillset and cost of development (tooling support). With newer themes like CORBU, WD can be made to look good too 🙂

NW 7.4 was mainly introduced for HANA support in ABAP. For Java, the codelines are the same.

NW 7.4 SPx = NW 7.31 SP(x+5), so e.g. NW 7.4 SP05 equals NW 7.31 SP10

I know that we have been talking about this for quite some time, but things are moving now and people are working on it. So please stay tuned!

Regards,

Christian

[rolf_paulsen]

We are facing the following "problems" with WD/J:

• WD/J is bound much too closely to NWDS and the DC concept: No EJB model without public parts of an "EJB DC" that are referenced in a Public Part of an "EAR DC".
  I would appreciate a WD Java version based on normal Eclipse projects.
• The WD/J tooling (build process) is for SAP NW Java only. I would appreciate an official Tomcat version of WD/Java (not only a demo) that can run in SAP Cloud or any other lightweight web/EJB container.

• The year "2018" is spooking around like an invisible ghost. It was mentioned around the SAP TechEd and KissOfDeath mystification. The end of support for WD /J? Or only the minimum of support for a SAP framework that is completely replaced by another?
  2018 is far too short for anybody who develops software in 2013 or 2014.
  
  Lets look outside the SAP box: Oracle about their Oracle Forms: "Oracle has no plan to discontinue support of Oracle Forms”. This statement is still valid. There have been other statements before like "until 2015"... but in the end they listened to their customers.
  Hopefully we will read the same with "Oracle" replaced by "SAP" and "Oracle Forms" replaced by "WD/J" next year.
  
  This takes us to the next - biggest - problem:

• WD/J is a good, solid, rich and performant framework that gives you anything you need for "heavy, stateful, transacional UIs..". Our end users (used to both Oracle Forms and/or SAP GUI ) like it, the user experience and feedback is good, there are great features for personalization inside the SAP portal that would take ages to implement them on your own.
  (OK, merging two developer branches in WD / J is a pain, so it is the opposite of agile.)
  Because WD/J has this quality, it is extremely difficult to find an appropriate successor.

Regards

Rolf

[hofmann]

2018:

Not sure why people think 2018 is the year WDJ support will die. The actual PAM for NW 7.31 shows as: End of Mainstream Maintenance: 12/31/2020

As WDJ is shipped with NW 7.31, that's actually the EOL date for WDJ. Btw, that is also the same EOL for NW 7.4. This, for sure, won't avaid getting the usual answers from SAP: we advise you to use WDA or SAPUI5.

WDJ and EJB

WDJ needs the class/jar files in the classpath. There is no need to have your EJBs in the form of a DC. You just have to make them available to the WDJ project (but then again, I stopped using the NWDS compile/deploy wizards a few years ago and use Jenkins for this).

WDJ tooling

Yes, this would be nice. This was raised several times before, but as WDJ entered kiss-of-death-mode I guess there are simply no resources (aka humans) left to do this. If SAP did this years ago, we now could have WDJ applications running on HANA Cloud Platform. For sure this would have helped a lot in adopting HCP. Failures done in the past are still hunting us 🙂

[rolf_paulsen]

Hi Tobias,

thanks for your reply.

2018:

The source of this number is SAP's flagship event from 2010 and that people listen to what SAP tells them, no woolgathering. SAP announced on Tech Ed 2010 that WE/J as part of major release 7.3 will be maintained "7 + 2 years". Indeed, in the CDN 201 session, it was 2019

CD201 Web Dynpro Java and SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer - What's New in SAP NetWeaver 7.3?

(ca. 33:30)

but all blogs about this event quoted 2018 (google "2018 web dynpro java") so I guess 2018 was the number mentioned in a keynote at TechEd 2010.

WDJ and EJB:

Of course your remarks are correct for the runtime, but not for the WDJ tools. They force you to use the DC concept from the EJB DC to the EAR DC, at least if you want to use EJB model.

No DC, no EJB model.

To use the EJB model for WDJ, you need an EJB DC with client Public Part and an EAR DC that references this PP in its own PP. The WDJ containing the EJB model references only the PP of the EAR (which is weird architecture since it only references the EJB at compile time) and the application-jee-engine.xml of the WDJ EAR application is generated with a classloading reference to the ear.

If you wanted to build a WDJ that consumes EJB services without the EJB and EAR being DC's, you would have to use plain Java model (which is much less usable than the EJB model), would have to write your own ctx.lookups() and would be stuck finally since you cannot insert the reference to the applicatoin EAR the application-jee-engine.xml of the WD/J: It gets overwritten during the WDJ DC build, only the EARs with PPs referenced by the WDJ DC are generated into the app-engine file. Finally you would have to hack into the WDJ build process.

Any hints for a non EJB model access to EJB services are welcome.

The usual answers from SAP: "We advise you to use WDA or SAPUI5"

For a Java based "heavy transactional" application on SAP NW Java, these "recommandations" are not helpful at all. Even more, this fact is so obvious that even SAP must have noticed it. To cast these "advices" to their customers is somewhat ignorant.

WDJ tooling

I do not think human resources are the only reason. Now that WDJ has reached "maturity" since 2010, SAP could have donated the WDJ framework to the Open Source community like Google did it with GWT. But from a business point of view, this is not interesting for SAP.

Finally to Java EE 6: My late wishlist

SAP, please skip Java EE 6 and go directly to Java EE 7. Do not get out with an outdated Java EE 6 after all these years on Java EE 5. Java EE 7 introduces an API for JSON processing that is useful for REST services and for your UI5.

Please, either implement Java EE 7 in your SAP NetWeaver 7.x or tell us how to run WDJ and BPM on JBoss and how to generate these weird wdrr.xml files inside WDJ EARs.

Thank you.

Regards

Rolf

[Benny]

Rolf Paulsen wrote:

2018:
The source of this number is SAP's flagship event from 2010 and that people listen to what SAP tells them, no woolgathering. SAP announced on Tech Ed 2010 that WE/J as part of major release 7.3 will be maintained "7 + 2 years". Indeed, in the CDN 201 session, it was 2019
CD201 Web Dynpro Java and SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer - What's New in SAP NetWeaver 7.3?
(ca. 33:30)
but all blogs about this event quoted 2018 (google "2018 web dynpro java") so I guess 2018 was the number mentioned in a keynote at TechEd 2010.

To shed some more light on this: in general there are maintenance schedules given to make sure until when we will support a release at least. As this is legally binding we obviously cannot give guarantees for eternity. (Don't laugh, I once was asked by a sales person if he could use the term "2018 and beyond", which of course is nothing else but a promise for eternity).

Maintenance schedules are for product releases and appear in the product availability matrix, accessible to all customers on SMP. Technologies that are delivered with a certain release inherit this maintenance schedule. NetWeaver 7.4 and everything in there has a maintenance schedule until 31.12.2020. This is explained in more detail in note 1648480 - Maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 Software. As there is mentioned that NetWeaver 7.0 Java series will end support in 2017. This is everything based on Java 1.4. I think until then there is no more Java 1.4 support elsewhere on the planet if that is not the case already.

The usual answers from SAP: "We advise you to use WDA or SAPUI5"
For a Java based "heavy transactional" application on SAP NW Java, these "recommandations" are not helpful at all. Even more, this fact is so obvious that even SAP must have noticed it. To cast these "advices" to their customers is somewhat ignorant.

There have been first releases of WDJ tools also and all I can say is keep your eyes on UI5.

WDJ tooling
I do not think human resources are the only reason. Now that WDJ has reached "maturity" since 2010, SAP could have donated the WDJ framework to the Open Source community like Google did it with GWT. But from a business point of view, this is not interesting for SAP.

Correct. Unfortunately we missed the point when this was appropriate. I was personally debating this whenever I could internally. My personal opinion now is that it is too late to do this as I know the reaction will be:  "SAP drops old product on community". Fortunately we teamed up internally to push UI5 into open source, which was successful, as you might have noticed.

PS: I'll forward your wishlist to the appropriate people

Regards,

Benny

[rolf_paulsen]

Benny,

thank you for your valuable insights.

Your remarks about WDJ and Open Source are understandable since the inside of WDJ is still Java 1.4 including excessive code generation and your opinion that it is too late now is true.

SAPUI5 / HTML5 / jQuery based UI: Where does a "lightweight application" end and a "heavily transactional application" start? Of course, development of complex screens in Java script is hard work and the programming model is different (getting more similar to client-server-applications), but the BPM Inbox, albeit slightly "beta", looks promising.

Tools will develop and we will get into practice.

P.S: Tools are based on Eclipse... please keep in close touch to the Eclipse train and start to develop plugins, not standalone applications. Eclipse 3.5.2 below NWDS will be almost eleven years old on 31.12.2020 and NWDS will be the only app on (completely unsupported) Eclipse 3.5.2 on the planet then.

Regards

Rolf

[ErvinSzolke]

Hi Eddie,

have a look at the note:

#1791485 - NWDS 7.3 EHP1 as development environment for NetWeaver 7.4

Here you find all available 7.3 EHP1 versions:

https://nwds.sap.com/swdc/downloads/updates/netweaver/nwds/nw/731/doc/auto_com.sap.netweaver.develop...

(requires S-User authentication)

Best Regards,

Ervin

[Former Member]

Why doesn't the update site accept SAP Service Marketplace user certificates?

[ErvinSzolke]

Hi,

normally the SMP user should be valid. If it is not, then you can ask around on the SAP component XX-SER-SAPSMP.

Are you sure that your problem is the S-User, and not issues like the one I described at:

#1832260  --  NWDS Update fails with "Premature end of file"

Best Regards,

Ervin

[Former Member]

Sorry, I meant accessing the URL you provided to download NWDS. It doesn't accept my valid SAP Service Marketplace certificate which works for other SAP sites. I can login manually though.

[ErvinSzolke]

Hi,

I am not sure one can log on there with SSO, it always prompts the user to enter user and pass.

I am also always entering my SMP pass to get in.

Regards,

Ervin

[Former Member]

Hello,

I try to connect with  NWDS 7.31 Sp08  to NW7.40Sp03 server by means of Preferences-> SAP AS Java.

After I entered the AS Java hostname and Instance in the Add - dialog box - nothing happens:

- no error

- no log entrys

- no server added

What might be wrong ?

Best Regards

Johannes

[valteraraujo]

Johannes Kammerer wrote:

Hello,

I try to connect with  NWDS 7.31 Sp08  to NW7.40Sp03 server by means of Preferences-> SAP AS Java.
After I entered the AS Java hostname and Instance in the Add - dialog box - nothing happens:
- no error
- no log entrys
- no server added

What might be wrong ?
Best Regards
Johannes

Hi Johannes, I had the same issue, do you already find a solution for that? In my case it is weird because few servers 7.4 SP3 works or others don't.

Regards

[Former Member]

Hello,

Yes, I found a solution here :

  http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/Java/NWDS+Troubleshooting

I had to set this paramerter in DEFAULT.PFL of the server:

service/protectedwebmethods=DEFAULT

and restart the server.

Best Regards

Johannes