Mastering Enterprise SOA with SAP NetWeaver® and mySAP™ ERP

Chapter 3. Enabling ESA: The Evolution of NetWeaver and mySAP ERP

Chapter 2 provided background on ESA in the context of what is taking place across the IT industry. Application platforms and the evolution of SOA, BPM, model-driven development, and related technologies are affecting the delivery of packaged business solutions. The basis of competition is shifting to “applistructures” and value will come from platforms populated with the most extensive set of business content that meets your enterprise’s needs. Major vendors such as SAP offer end-to-end solutions that combine the technology and content. The other alternative is to assemble everything using a “best of breed” approach. Of course, many organizations will do a combination of the two.

All of this suggests great change in how applications themselves are created, acquired, and extended. Customers, platform vendors, other ISVs, and systems integrators can benefit from “applistructures” because they offer each of them a common approach for creating solutions. This, in turn, leads to faster time-to-market, greater agility, and better economies of scale for those who leverage the platform investments.

Most important, this new architectural model is the latest evolution in helping improve alignment between IT organizations and their business counterparts. This happens because SOA and related technologies enable business processes to be managed as a first-order concern. In other words, executable process models can be liberated ...