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What happens when multiple SAP instances run on NetWeaver 2004

Former Member
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Hi,

With the NetWeaver 2004 release all the NetWeaver components are supposed to be more tightly integrated. Can anyone shed some light on the following scenario. What happens when a company runs multiple instances of mySAP globally. Will there by necessity be multiple instances of the NetWeaver stack, or can multiple instances of mySAP run on one shared Netweaver stack? Is there any information on the web on issues like these?

Thanks,

Hans

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Answers (1)

Former Member
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NetWeaver is the technology platform upon which SAP solutions are now based. The answer to your question really depends on which components of NetWeaver you refer.

The main component of NetWeaver is the Web Application Server (WAS) with both its J2EE and ABAP personalities. The key part here is that it is an application server - the applications such as ERP (R/3), CRM, SRM, etc run within the confines of the Web Application Server.

To ask whether the WAS can be shared between systems is akin to asking whether more than one car can run on the same set of tyres. Maybe if you have one of those monster trucks and manage to strap the chassis of the other car to the roof...

(As a side point, there is an SAP technology of which I know little to enable multiple mySAP components to be run on one database instance, but sharing the underlying database is not the same as sharing the same WAS).

With respect to the other components of the NetWeaver technology platform, such as Portals, BW, Exchange Infrastructure (XI) and Master Data Management (MDM), these are inherintly designed to support multiple mySAP components and so there might be possibility here for shared usage. However this really depends on your company's needs from one site to another.

Here's a fictitious example in the hope of showing the relationship between NetWeaver and mySAP components if you chose to use MDM to harmonise data between multiple mySAP ERP systems.

The 2 mySAP ERP systems are running on separate databases in different geographical locations. Both instances of mySAP ERP are running on top of separate instances of the Web Application Server.

The shared MDM system is running on a separate database again with interfaces to and from each of the mySAP ERP systems. MDM here is based on (runs on) top of NetWeaver's XI component. XI is in turn is based on top of Web Application Server.

So in this scenario you have 3 instances of Web Application Server: one for each of the mySAP ERP systems and one for the central MDM server.

Now, I like to think of the WAS as a kind of cross-platform abstraction of the operating system. So given that, it's a fair question to ask why can't say ERP and CRM run side-by-side on the same WAS. The thing is, technically they probably could if SAP invested the energy to bring these separate mySAP components together in one SAP system - a monolithic system approach.

However don't expect this to happen because SAP has recognised customers don't like the monster truck approach - they're just too much hassle to park.

Hope that sheds some light.

Scott

Former Member
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Thanks Scott,

most enlightening!

Hans

Former Member
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But the way SAP has projected it, as it can be run on pool of WAS so that if one fails will use other(apart from dialog instance).

As per differences between 4.7 and 5.0 its possible to run on single WAS.

Then what's differences in NW apart from integrity.

Regards,

Atul