Like many others I am eagerly awaiting the release of SAP Netweaver Gateway, a technology which promises to simplify SAP integration. By exposing SAP Business Suite functionality as REST based OData services Gateway will enable SAP applications to share data with a wide range devices, technologies and platforms in an easy to understand and consume manner.

The intention of this blog is to give a high level overview to the Open Data Protocol (OData), showing by example how to access and consume the services.  For a more concise definition I recommend the following recently released article - Introducing OData – Data Access for the Web, the cloud, mobile devices, and more

What is OData?

“OData is to Rest what MS Access is to databases”  a complimentary tweet I read, because MS Access is very easy to learn it allows users to get close to the data and empowers them to build simple and effective data centric applications.

“OData can be considered as the ODBC API for the Web/Cloud” – Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard API independent of programming language for doing Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) methods on most of the popular relational databases.

“OData is a data silo buster” 

Source: SAPNETWEAVER GATEWAY OVERVIEW

OData Services

Odata.org provides a sample of the Northwind Database exposed as OData formatted services, this is a great resource for exploring the protocol.

**If you are using IE you may want to disable the feed reading view.

The link below is to the Northwind service document, it lists all of the service operations, each operation represents a collection query-able data.

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/

To access the Customers collection we append the link provided above to the base url as follows

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers/

We can accesses specific Customers via the links provided in the feed http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers(‘ALFKI’)

With the query string operations we can start to control the data provided, for example paging Customers 20 at a time.

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers?$top=20 http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers?$skip=20&$top=20

Using filters we can search for Customers in a particular city or Products in our price range

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers?$filter=City eq ‘London’

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Products?$filter=UnitPrice le 200 and UnitPrice gt 100

Once we have found the data we wanted we can use the links to navigate to the related data. http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Suppliers(2)/Products

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Products(5)/Order_Details

Finally we can format the response as JSON

http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Products(5)?$format=json

Consuming OData

To illustrate how easy it is to consume OData, I am sharing simple JQuery Mobile application, it uses the following tables and relationships.

OData Sample Application - hopefully the 100 lines of HTML code, JavaScript and annotations are easy to follow, copy the source to a html file, save it locally and run in a browser. Best viewed in the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome and IE.

Opening up more than data

A couple of months ago I set off on a exercise to learn all I could about OData, along the way I started investigating some of the available opensource libraries like datajs and odata4j, rediscovering a passion for JavaScript and Java.  Through the many examples and resources available it was surprising how easy it was to take my limited skills into the world of Cloud and Mobile application development.

Conclusion

Similar in many ways to ODBC and SOAP, OData is an initiative started by Microsoft as means for providing a standard for platform agnostic interoperability. For it to become successful it needs to be widely adopted and managed.

From a high level the strengths of OData are that it can be used with a multitude of data sources, it is easy to understand and consume. From what I have seen it will be great for simple scenarios and prototyping. Early to tell what its real weaknesses are, however to be simple and easy to use there has to be either a lot of pipes and plumbing or constraints and limitations when used on top of technologies like BAPI’s and BDC’s, things like managing concurrency, transactions and state come to mind. Conversely the threats of not being adopted and competing standards and initiatives like RDF and GData represent some big opportunities for an extensible protocol.

The majority of SAP Netweaver Portal deployments have typically been vertically focused only, providing access to SAP applications in particular ESS and MSS. Only large enterprises and wall-to-wall SAP shops seem to use SAP Portal for content management, application integration and collaboration. The feedback from many customers who have reluctantly implemented the Netweaver Portal to take advantage of SAP functionality is that it is a bloated collection of un-pluggable applications, too rigid and constrained for them to consider as a complete horizontal portal solution.

Starting with Enhancement Pack 5 (Ehp5), the SAP Enterprise Portal infrastructure is not mandatory for ESS and MSS functionality. All role content will be ABAP based and applications will be deployed using Webdynpro for ABAP (WD4A) Floor Plan Manager (FPM).

The move from Java to ABAP potentially means for a lot of custmers no more dependence on the Portal, no need for a Java stack or Java development and technical resources.

Could the porting of ESS from Java to ABAP be the beginning of the end of SAP Netweaver Portal or is this part of a strategy for meeting the different customer technology requirements?

Gartner adds insight in its Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals report 2009

Some customers are looking to expose SAP transactions in other portals.

SAP has shifted from its original strategy of Netweaver Portal being the only portal necessary across large enterprises to one accepting the existence of other portal technologies.

The report also says

Netweaver Portal has some gaps when compared with other leading horizontal portal products in content management, collaboration, social networking and enterprise mashup capability.

This would explain some of the other more predictable ways SAP are improving the cost of owning Netweaver Portal for their customers, including:

Not to mention some of complimentary ECM, BPM and EIM applications available from SAP and partners

For many who were looking for an out these changes will represent the beginning of end of thier Netweaver Portal journey. For those companies identified as already having a multi portal landscape these changes will be seen as options and opportunities, likewise for those who haven’t yet thought about it.  For the companies who have chosen Netweaver as a platform for compostition and collaboration they will see the changes as a sign of a platform maturing.

Very effective video for explaining the benefits of BRFplus.

For a while now I have been meaning to write about the potential of BRFplus. It makes a lot of sense for the business rules to be available as webservices and reused where ever possible.  One such use case would be in PI/XI where traditionally we would save mapping rules in the Java cache, being a fan of separating concerns replicating business rules has never sat well with me.

Unfortunately someone beat me to it PI/XI: BRFPlus – an alternative for value mapping tables and Z-tables for integration

I have really enjoyed coding in Business Server Pages since my days in the late 90′s specializing in SAP CRM. Lately I haven’t had much need to put my skills to action. Not that I dont enjoy WD4A, I just find the flexibility of BSP development more condusive to providing a better user experience.

Imagine how happy I was when I loaded the Gadgets Page Framework for NWBC 3.0 and found it was written using BSP.

Web2.0 meets Business Process. Indeed!!

SAP Eventus – The Human Face of Business Scenarios was a Composition on Grails prototype, released to public late last year it demonstrated Enterprise 2.0 principles by highlighting a real life collaborative business process scenario.

The next iteration of Eventus utilizes much more of the SAP products we are familiar with and showcases the “signature design” of the new Business Client “Nova” debuted at SAPPHIRE this year. One thing is for sure with the new look prototype we have a contender for this years Demo Jam.

SAP never looked better – drop and drag widgets, drag and relate objects, google maps, enterprise and web searches, Flash/Flex/AIR, BSP, Webdynpro, SAP Gui and much more all seamlessly delivered in a single UI, I even saw Textpad in there somewhere, I can only imagine the services and events utilized behind the scenes.

Sign me up, where’s the project, I want to start imagining the possibilities.

Thomas Otter has done a good job of comparing principles of Chess, design and software

Poker is another game that i like to play, Software Development Lessons Learned from Poker teaches us to be aware of the variables and act on the ones that matter.

What is it really like working for a big 4 consultancy?
“Do it for your resume and get out”
“OK, but a bit soul destroying.”
“Great place to launch a career, .. plan to build a strong network on day one.”

What would it be like working in Silicon valley?
“An Elitist’s Playground”
“Great just isn’t good enough.”
“a fantastic place to work.”

How do their salaries compare
Google – $US $113,000
Yahoo & Microsoft – $US 106,000
Apple – $US 89,000

Just a few of the comments and salary reviews employees have left on Glassdoor a new website allowing us to look through the window and see how green the grass is.

This pic reminds me of my time in London cause it looks like the underground tube map. The bubble had just burst, the market was volatile, technology was fleeting and customers demanding. Do I get off at first stop and specialize in a technology that i like, running the risk of missing the needed connections. Or move on constantly reinvent and have to compete for a seat in the crowd.

Not much has changed – know everything about nothing or nothing about everything.

Then along came the SAP WebAS server, it promised and delivered open integration. Web applications and webServices written in ABAP. Initially there was very little help available. Then in late 2003 when most needed the SAP Developer Network (SDN) arrived. Everyday there was a must read article. We were learning from the ground up, direct from the horses mouth – product developers and architects. To begin with we learn t the basics like how the webserver worked, then on to more advanced topics reusable patterns and creating patterns engines. We weren’t only learning about iterators, singletons, factory methods and effective coding principles like serializing, data binding, stateful vs stateless, but getting context into how they could be best incorporated into our developments.

6 months after SDN started and SAP integrated Java into the WebAS platform, previously SAP like many of its competitors had been using Tomcat to deploy its J2ee apps, a few smart takeovers later like TopTier and InQMy and SAP had their own J2ee engine. Here was a framework which incorporated arguably the most complete Java environment. No more source control headaches, the Java Development Infrastructure (later NWDI) had a completely integrated change management and transport system. The development tool set offered a WYSIWYG model driven RAD design IDE. The main benefits webServices and webdynpro meant that SAP had now got enterprise interoperability – structured (EJB, webServices, RFC,s etc) and unstructured data could be presented in a client agnostic enterprise grade front-end.

For many the introduction of Java was seen as the beginning of the end for ABAP, SAP would surely see the error in the way and stop investing in the legacy of ABAP and start looking to the future.

For a good 2.5 years up until 2006 there was a real thinktank on SDN and the ABAPers were leading the way. Now in 2008 and the developer thought seems to have been replaced with strategic talk around eSOA and business processes, the must read articles for me are few and far between.

What happened – is ABAP dead?

My view is that the Netweaver development platform has matured to a level where currently there is just nothing new to talk about at present, this will change.

As I read the agenda for SAP TECHED 08 “CONNECT. COLLABORATE. CO-INNOVATE!” SAP seems to be veering away from proprietary Netweaver and heading towards “heterogeneous inter-operable” Netweaver. This will mean adopting a more plug and play approach for development to cater to for the best of breed needs of its customers, case in point the Enterprise Service Bus. To me ESB means a paradigm shift from middleware hub-and-spoke integration to event driven peer to peer integration, containers and standards will replace the central hub as a means to providing guaranteed delivery.

Hey what do you know ABAP WebAS integration engine is a standalone webservice container, it plays well on its own and also plays well with other containers like the ESR (UDDI compliant – enterprise service registry ) without the need for a centralised hub in the middle (PI). WS-RM is one of the standards adapted into both ABAP and Java webservices as a means to guarantee delivery, this is only the start, better things are sure to follow.

The future for SAP development looks like plug-and-play and allowing customers freedom of choice.

How would you like your integration wrapped – ABAP and or Java?

Inspiring I know. Before you run off to convince your boss that you should go to Vegas for a week long jolly. Enjoy
“ENTERPRISE SOA – PUT THE POWER TO WORK!”

As expected the main buzz at Tech-ed was again around enterprise services and composite applications. Aside from the usual SAP showcase road show there was a lot of side talk and presentations around Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. A couple of the key concepts that I walked away with were Collective Intelligence applications and Enterprise Widgets.

Contrary to popular belief Web2.0 is more than rounded corners, stripes and beta stars. Web 2.0 is about content and collaboration. A collective intelligence application gets smarter as people uses it. Various examples illustrated were of wiki faq’s, blog product reviews and forum style customer self service applications where the customer and the vendor share the same configuration and data, with use the information becomes a lot more applicable concise and reliable, which means win win.

Widgets were really big this year, widgets are light weight mini apps that allow users to monitor or interact with certain information. Widgets can be desktop based, web based or a combination of both. Some examples of widgets I saw were of system monitoring, reporting and simple approvals for things like transports or purchase orders.Various vendors showcased there widget servers which allowed for remote and local SAP integration through community portals such as Yahoo. This was pretty powerful, say your on the road and need to approve some purchase orders in SAP you can do this through Yahoo. SAP themselves showcased some widget development, I wasn’t quite sure of the positioning of widgets given their enterprise portal solution.

Enterprise Services Oriented Architecture

Went to quite a few workshop and presentations on Enterprise Services and not much has really changed, SAP are still saying the same thing, the nice thing is that they are slowly delivering and this shows through some of the customer presentations.
What I was impressed with was SAP’s market awareness; they are at the forefront of a lot of open and industry specific initiatives. The phrase interoperability has now replaced the word proprietary. One initiative that surprised me was the “Imagineering Fellowship”, SAP have a secondment program whereby they get community experts together from Customers and Partners to brainstorm and prototype new initiatives, I met a few participants the results looked pretty cool.

Process Integration

Went to a quite a few workshops on XI, I was specifically interested in what was coming up and what was the hype around End-toEnd (E2E), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) and the Consumer Environment (CE).

XI is going through another re-branding from Integration to Enterprise. This re-branding is due to component changes which align nicely with the ESA strategy, the enterprise repository supersedes the integration repository and provides better global data, service definitions and mappings, this will makes it a lot easier to use and understand. I did a couple of workshops test driving the new product (7.1), some of the concepts like xml validation, pre-defined content and vendor adaptors (interoperability) are a long time coming. The service registry takes the UDDI webservice directory concept into the future by putting governance and process around reuse. On the whole I felt the new applications are leaps and bounds ahead of the initial offering but some concepts are still in beta mode. The service modeling tools are very cool but felt like taking the scenic route.

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) for SAP is still very much a concept when compared with webMethods offering. SAP aims to extend traditional workflow, BPM and BPEL by providing event driven process milestone monitoring using webservices. A lot of key words but the idea behind a BAM framework is to provide an easy, consistent way to centrally monitor heterogeneous business applications. For BPM and BAM to be successful I feel that SAP needs to focus on user federation (principal propagation as SAP coined it) and that the workflow engine needs to be decoupled from the brokered middleware. Maybe this is project Galaxy

I went to a workshop on End-To-End solution operations for XI, this seems to be a packaged service / strategy offered by SAP to do root cause analysis, diagnostics, change management and business process integration. It is quite disjointed to be called End to End however some good tools and concepts.

The Consumer Environment (CE) was something I heard about before I went to tech-ed, I attended a couple of presentations and all i can think of is it is targeted at non XI customers and ISV’s. As it suggests the CE is environment for consuming enterprise services, it appeared to me to be a cut down Netweaver framework with the latest WebAS built on Java EE 5. I can only imagine that they will be adding more later if this is targeted at software partners with a view to enabling and innovating.

Master Data Management

I think everybody is in violent agreement that master data management is the backbone to an Service Oriented Architecture, given this why hasn’t SAP MDM taken off?

I sniffed around a few workshops and demos on MDM to see what has changed in the 12 months since I last looked. The presentations are still the same, heavy on positioning and light on real world examples of delivery. The only thing I could see that has changed in the last year is they have delivered more admin and configurations functions through the portal.

The focus is still very much on modeling processes. The modeling tools delivered by SAP still have that 80/20 feel, as soon as you get into the reality of integration and transaction integrity you realize the modeling is only good for prototyping or very simple processes. As a product suite it feels more like disjointed software and concepts, heavily reliant on XI and Portal for integration.

Duet

Got time with the SAP Duet Product Manager, last time I saw Duet I left with more questions than answers and felt that it far too many limitations, specifically infrastructure requirements, available functionality and the ability to extend.

SAP has added a few new scenarios like E-recruitment and various CRM processes. I was really impressed how Outlook is used as a framework seamlessly deliver functionality of other MS products – for example the Infopath forms combined with task bar and help functions makes the screens very easy to navigate and understand. The product is still focused on occasional users and managers. The scope of functionality is very specific and configuration limited to aesthetics . I was told that in the near future there is plans for an SDK but didn’t get a feel how easy it would be to extend or add own functionality.

Figures quoted to me were around 700 global projects and less than a hand full of sites live. Despite SAP saying that Duet is meant to compliment their Netweaver offerings (Portal), the product feels like a show case for Microsoft Office. Given the limitations in infrastructure, licensing, scenarios and configuration, it begs the question why wouldn’t you develop a solution yourself independent of both SAP and MS.

Conclusion

SAP the company seems a lot wiser and more market conscious. I think that this can be put down to the community networking sites and the industry initiatives that they have been involved in. The last tech-ed I went to there was a real SAP v Oracle v Microsoft v IBM feel, a lot of chest beating, back slapping and hype. This time round there was far less hype and misdirection. Instead of trying to one up their competitors, they are now working closer with them and looking to their customers for inspiration and feedback.

On the whole there was nothing really new at Tech-ed, this is a relief because it showed that the technical directions taken in the past have proven to be the right ones. Apart from a few surprise mergers and acquisitions I think the technology is pretty much set and will continue to mature over the next few years. What I would expect is for SAP to look externally for innovation and start pushing harder Netweaver as an open development platform.