ESOA...... For Beginners....

[Former Member]

Hello friends,

I am a beginner in SAP. I want to explore the area of Enterprise SOA. Cany you guys help me how to approach this subject.

Things I would like to know :

1> How it began?

2> Where we are now?

3> How it is going to shape up tomorrow's business.

Any helpful answers will be rewarded with points.

Thank You

Avik

[gaurav_modgil · Accepted solution]

Hi Avik,

As of Late a Lot of Questions are being asked on The need of yet another new Paradigm for SAP: ESOA

My viewpoints on the same are as follows.

1. "HOW" or more importantly "WHY" it began?

Enterprise SOA Began as an Effort by SAP to make its Solution More Process Oriented, Thus enabling business network transformation and operational excellence at the same time.What we mean by Process oriented is that we concentrate more on the Business Process in Question, rather than the individual system which answers a portion of out business requirements. Most of the Time Business requirements are not restricted to a Single Module. For a Sales Person to work effectively, not only does he need to create a sales order in R3, but he needs to look after the customer complaints etc (CRM Jumps in), Also he needs to be aware of his own performance (BI jumps in). Older transaction based approach was not fulfilling this complex interrelated requirement.

As of ESOA all the Systems Define the Operations as Services declared in ESR. Any Business application makes use of these services from one or more System as per the requirement. The following diagram makes understanding this scenario easier.

By Centralizing the Services at one Location (ESR) we get to concentrate more on the core business process in question.

2. How it is going to shape up tomorrow's business?

The Impact on tomorrowu2019s business is interesting. The Businesses will become more agile, and incorporating new Practices/Change in the Business scenario will become far easier...which will in effect empower the Business user to adapt to the highly dynamic market scenario.

3. Where we are now?

As of now Netweaver Composition Environment 7.1 release from SAP facilitates the Technical System Requirements of the ESOA Paradigm. Free Downloads of a Trial version are available on SDN. Existing Landscape system can act as the source of services, which will be available to Composite Applications.

These Composite Applications can be simple transactions or Complex Business scenarios where multiple reusable components can be utilized to form Complex processes. We use Visual Composer, Guided Procedures, Workflows, etc to Model Business Processes.

Though it is impossible to comprehensively define ESOA in just a few lines here, I hope my reply helped you in understanding the core need and advantages.

Cheers

Gaurav

[Former Member]

Enterprise SOA is SAP's refinement of SOA.

For SOA, you should read <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture>

SAP refined by adding Business Meaning to each and every service in SOA concept.

SAP's eSOA roadmap is in a a quite advanced stage, but not yet complete.

Please go through the documentation on the following page as a starter. <> [original link is broken]

[Former Member]

For Tomorrow's business, eSOA gives the following advantages.

1. Easy decoupling and reorganizing of processes; thereby giving flexibility to business processes

2. Lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) in the long run.

3. The ability to easily create new applications/ processes as Composite Applications.

4. The ability to do business via the web using lot of Self Services for Customers, Suppliers, Partners etc.