Java Technology in SAP Web Application
Server
Purpose
The SAP Web Application Server Java is a fully Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3 compliant application server. The J2EE standard is defined by the Java Community according to the rules of the Java Community Process and is copyright protected by Sun Microsystems. Since November 2002 SAP has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Java Community.
Features
· Available, reliable, and scalable architecture
The
Web AS Java
architecture
avoids single points of failure
in the cluster environment by load balancing client requests between server
processes. The
load balancing system distributes client requests across the server
processes of the cluster and optimizes the capacity of each server process.
Requests are parsed by the Java dispatcher and forwarded for processing to
individual server processes. The Web AS Java
failover system also provides session failover to preserve the
state of the user session. If a server process becomes unavailable, the state
of the user session is recovered transparently on another available server
process.
· Centralized system landscape management
The
SAP NetWeaver
Administratorprovides a
central entry point to the whole SAP NetWeaver system landscape. The SAP
NetWeaver Administrator enables starting and stopping of systems, services,
and applications, as well as technical configuration, user management, system
monitoring, log viewing, and application and performance tracing.
· Security
The SAP Web AS Java implements the Java
Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) API, enabling efficient user
and
authentication
management. SAP Web AS Java provides pluggable login modules based on the
JAAS that support various authentication methods, including basic
authentication, log-on tickets, X509 certificates, SAML and WSSec, which
support efficient integration in Single Sign-On environments.
Security
administration tools allow troubleshooting and security administration
tasks both for individual systems and entire system landscapes. In addition,
the Web AS Java enables you to take full advantage of your network
infrastructure by allowing for filtered communication over firewalls and
packet filtering devices. Consistent with the open architecture of SAP
NetWeaver,
transport layer
security on the SAP Web AS Java is implemented through support for Generic
Security Services API, the Java Cryptography Extension and
Secure Network
Communications for SAP-specific communication.
· Consistent development environment covering the entire software lifecycle
The
SAP NetWeaver
Developer Studio provides a complete set of development tools
covering all aspects of Java development to develop, build, deploy, and
execute applications centrally.
The SAP
NetWeaver Developer Studio also provides access to the
NetWeaver Development
Infrastructure(NWDI). The NWDI
enables distributed and team-oriented development via central source code
storage and versioning, component-based build process, development landscape
and transports management.
· Sophisticated model-driven UI development
Web Dynpro
provides a client-independent
programming model for developing professional user
interfaces. Web Dynpro
tools support application development during the implementation and design
phases. Web Dynpro applications are developed with a declarative programming
approach to produce a platform-independent metamodel. The necessary source
code is then generated automatically and executed at runtime. You can access
the source code of your application from the development environment and thus
define events for your Web Dynpro application. The generated source code
contains separate, specially marked areas for this purpose.
· Web Services integration
Web services are Web-based interfaces that can be integrated into
a company’s business scenarios. Using Web services enables you to
combine functions implemented on different software components into a single
process. Web services are self-contained, modularized, executable entities
that can be published, searched for, and accessed across a network. The Java
Web Service Infrastructure allows developers to integrate Web services,
irrespective of where they reside or how they are implemented. Therefore,
business processes spanning different systems, both intra-company and
cross-company, can be implemented.
· Database-independent persistence framework
The
Open SQL for Java
framework provides a database
abstraction level for truly portable database-independent applications. Open
SQL for Java enhances performance by providing statement pooling and table
buffers, caches open database connections in a server-side database connection
pool transparently to applications, and facilitates maintenance by monitoring
and tracing facilities. The Web AS Java also provides the Java Dictionary as a
central repository for database objects. The Java Dictionary is fully
integrated in the NetWeaver Developer Studio and enables portable definition,
creation and modification of database objects, manages database objects’
life cycle, and performs statement checks against Open SQL grammar and table
definitions.
See also: