What is the "ESF2" framework?

[pfefferf]

Hi Experts,

at the moment we are defining the architecture for a new customer specific implementation.

We want to use BOPF as core application framework for the new implementation.

A colleague told me that BOPF is already replaced by a new framework, called ESF2.

Unfortunately I did not find any documentation about that framework. I have my doubts that it is really the successor of BOPF.

Does anyone know that framework and how it is positioned against BOPF?

Thx & Regards,

Florian

[former_member420954]

Hello Florian,

Think of ESF2 as the next version of BOPF. The Business Object development framework can roughly be summarized in the following "evolutionary" steps . ESF --> BOPF --> BOPF+ --> ESF2.

ESF stands for Enterprise Service Framework. Is your Customer Specific Implementation cloud based ? or is in on premise ?

Regards,

Indranil.

[pfefferf]

Hi Indranil,

thx for the information.

The implementation is no premise on an ERP 6.0 with EHP7 installation.

Some questions:

- Is it allowed for SAP partners to use that framework?

- Is there any official documentation?

- Are there any technical preconditions to be able to use it?

Thx for your help.

Florian

[former_member420954]

Hello Florian,

We need to differentiate what is available for use on the cloud and what is available for use in on premise.

ESF2 is available for use on the cloud. Applications like C4C, SAP ByD , Cloud for Travel ... use it.

For Business Suite Applications ( on premise ) , we use a version of BOPF we refer to as BS BOPF. This is somewhere between BOPF and BOPF+ in the "evolution" steps I mentioned earlier. BS BOPF is a bit different than the version of BOPF that is available for cloud applications ( ESF2).

There are technical differences on how queries are handled , or cloud BOPF use of LCP/GCP and BS BOPF use of service managers for example. The main concepts of the data and process model remain the same however.

SAP TM , SAP EHSM , some SAP EWM objects among other BS modules have BS BOPF based BOs. BS BOPF is available for use for partners , if you visit the content section of this forum , you should be able to get some nice starter documents to get you started. Many of these documents are rolled out by the BOPF standard team and the BOPF reuse team ( FBI, GBI, reuse Dependent Objects , Reuse Services ... ). I am not aware of any technical preconditions applicable other than ensuring that the Business Suite Foundation component is installed, which contains BOPF.

Regards,

Indranil.

[pfefferf]

Hi Indranil,

thx again for your answers.

Regards, Florian

[Former Member]

Hi Florian,

Indranil explained nicely the context of the different frameworks, exept the fact that he compares the Suite BOPF with something in between towards ESF2. There are some differnces between ESF2 and BOPF but basically they rely on the same concepts. Some years ago, we consciously decided not to offer ESF2 in the on premise world but to foster BOPF instead. The main reason for this decision was that the value add of ESF2 was not obvious, the two frameworks beeing to similiar. Our customers are already wondering about all the frameworks which had grown in the last years, so adding just another one wouldn't have made it better.

So if you are considering to use BOPF: we do not plan to replace it by ESF2. If you have the possibility to join the FPM hands on session at dcode, you will see that we integrated BOPF seamlessly into FPM. The same deep integration will be soon offered with Gateway. In case you are still douting about our intentions: BOPF is integrated in the ADT in Eclipse. No plans to offer ESF2 in the Suite context but focus on BOPF.

Regards

Thea

[Former Member]

Hi Thea,

very interesting Information about BOPF and ESF2. You wrote "The same deep Integration will be soon offered with Gateway". Could you maybe tell us more details about this Point.

Thanks a lot and Kind regards,

Florian

[Former Member]

Hi Florian,

UI models are in general denormalized views on several BOs: an invoice for example displays business partner information, banking data, invoice positions and within the postions material data. These informations are provided be different BOs and have to be mapped to the UI model. The current standards for for the view building and mapping between the models are FBI and GBI respectively. On the dcode you will see a direct integration into FPM without FBI and the related views it needs. From a development perspective it is more convenient as you model your UI based on the BO and its associations. The mapping to the BO is derived using the meta data of both models. But it is also interesting from a runtime perspective: the mapping component we are using is able to use the BOPF meta data to address read requests directly to the database. In the case of HANA we can execute data intensive operations, like sorting and aggregations on the database avoiding to transport data to the ABAP memory which is not needed on the UI directly.

This design we will also offer to replace GBI. In the context of Gateway, this runtime aspect is even more interesting as the Gateway protocol is stateless. In the context of FPM you may argue that data once in the memory is faster accessible in the following steps, and ABAP is very strong with respect to internal tables. In stateless protocols this is not the case, the second step cannot use the memory of the first one.

So far of what we will deliver in one of the next SPs and the delivery will not yet be feature complete to FBI or GBI. But it shows the direction we are thinking and working.

Kind regards

Thea

[former_member190794]

Hello Florian,

the BS-BOPF was created out of the ByD-BOPF for 6 years now to provide the BOPF experience also in the Business Suite. This was necessary as the ByD-BOPF (and its successor ESF2) only works on the internal AP platform and is not compatible to the Business Suite stack.

As the BS-BOPF was continously improved and extended over the last 6 years, the development experience is even better than ESF2 - at least in my opinion (e.g. ABAP type system, reduced stack, eclipse-based UI).

BS-BOPF is the one and only framework available in the Business Suite.

Best regards

Tilmann