Enterprise SOA

What are IT practices and IT scenarios?

IT practices and IT scenarios are SAP's way of expressing the value that SAP NetWeaver provides and the mechanisms used to provide it. When facing any sort of IT project, whether it is ESA-related or not, IT practices and scenarios can provide another tool for analysis, such as the five Cs of ESA, that can help teams of people communicate more clearly about what they need to do.

IT practices are focused on the business impact of SAP NetWeaver rather than on isolated technology components. The idea is that when facing an IT issue, instead of thinking of the portal, a unit of functionality, you will think about user productivity, the goal. IT practices identify how you can use SAP NetWeaver to solve specific business problems familiar to almost any IT organization. IT practices are intended to evolve as business issues change. They are currently defined as shown in Table 4-1.

Table 4-1. IT practices

IT practice	Description
User productivity enablement	Helps users and groups improve their productivity through enhanced collaboration, optimized knowledge management, and personalized access to critical applications and data
Data unification	Consolidates, rationalizes, synchronizes, and manages all master data (e.g., customers, suppliers, catalog items, etc.) for improved business processes
Business information management	Increases the visibility, reach, and usefulness of structured and unstructured data
Business event management	Ensures that ...