Eursap’s Tip of the Week: An introduction to SAP on-premise components
The SAP technical landscape is comprised of many components and it can be bewildering trying to understand what they all represent. The following technical cheat sheet might help those of you who are struggling with this.
• SAP enhancement pack (ECC6.0)
A package of new developments, features and enhancements for your ECC6.0 application.
• SAP support pack stack (SPS)
A package of patches to support your ECC6.0 application. These patches might identify and resolve problems in earlier versions.
• Netweaver
This is the fundamental technology platform for all ECC6.0 systems and brings together all the components which make up the application. More information here: https://www.sap.com/uk/products/netweaver-platform.html
• SAP S/4HANA release
This is the version of the application you are using, equivalent to the enhancement pack in ECC6.0. SAP releases a new SAP S/4HANA release each year. The nomenclature used to be comprised of the year and the month of the release – e.g. SAP S/4HANA 1909 was release in 2019, month 09. Since 2020, this has simply been replaced by the year – e.g. SAP S/4HANA 2020 and SAP S/4HANA 2021.
• SAP feature pack stack (FPS)
These are similar to support pack stacks, but in addition to patches will also include non-mandatory features. SAP delivers a new FPS each quarter.
• Operating System
This is the underlying software on top of which the SAP application sits. SAP ECC6.0 can run on many operating systems, such as Windows, Red Hat Linux, and even the occasional AS400 system. However, SAP S/4HANA will only operate on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).
• Database
The database is the foundation of the system, on to which all the tables, data and transactions sit. SAP ECC6.0 systems support Microsoft SQL, Oracle and IBM DB2 databases, in addition to SAP’s own HANA database. SAP S/4HANA only supports the HANA database.
• Kernel
This provides the connection between your device and the SAP application you use. The latest kernel provides overall stability to the execution of your SAP processes.
• UI component
This is a component of SAP Netweaver and provides various technologies, such as the SAP Fiori launchpad and Floorplan Manager (for developing your own Fiori apps).
• Fiori and Fiori front-end server
The Fiori component (latest version is Fiori 3.0) is the SAP Fiori application itself – the launchpad and the look and feel of the Fiori screens. The front-end server (FES) is the server on to which the Fiori application is placed. Fiori can run as an embedded application with core SAP S/4HANA, or can have its own “hub” server, which is separate from the core S/4HANA application. SAP recommends an embedded Fiori application on a unified server.
• SAP UI5
SAP UI5 is the programming framework used for the creation of web applications for use with SAP and SAP Fiori.
I hope you find this useful! Stay tuned for another SAP Tip from Eursap next week!
Be sure to also check out Eursap’s SAP Blog for more in depth articles.
Author: Jon Simmonds, Senior IT Architect
Get in touch with Eursap – Europe’s Specialist SAP Recruitment Agency