How will the transition to ESA occur?
ESA is too large a change to happen in a big bang. Over the next few years, each release of the mySAP Business Suite will become increasingly service-enabled, model-driven, pattern-enhanced, and easier to configure and change. At a macro level, the change that ESA will bring will have the following shape:
The starting point is the world of SAP R/3 and the mySAP Business Suite as they existed before ESA. Processes are automated inside the applications and are configured with metadata. Almost 100,000 UIs exist in a wide variety of forms. SAP NetWeaver is used for integration and to support processes that move from one enterprise application to another, such as order to cash. ESA-style development is possible using SAP NetWeaver, but the supporting set of tools and the inventory of tools are limited.
The midpoint comprises the current versions of the mySAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver, and those that will be released in 2007 and 2008. These versions come with the Enterprise Services Repository populated with an increasing number of services built on the mySAP Business Suite and described in the context of a high-level process component model. SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer, SAP Composite Application Framework (SAP CAF), and a variety of other model-driven tools that use patterns will be available for the development of composite applications. An increasing number of xApps will be delivered by partners, and special-purpose composite applications such ...