Development Concepts and Architecture 

SAP NetWeaver is the leading integration and application platform. The driving force of SAP NetWeaver is to build interoperable, collaborative, and process-centered applications based on its new Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA). SAP NetWeaver is an application server and Web services package that adheres to industry standards and interacts with Microsofts .NET, IBMs WebSphere, J2EE and SAP ABAP languages.

SAP NetWeaver contains the tools and infrastructure to develop new applications as well as to adapt and migrate existing ones. The SAP NetWeaver philosophy for new applications is to create highly re-usable and service enabled applications, so called composite applications. Existing applications can be adapted to SAP NetWeaver by using the supported industry standards.

This chapter gives an overview of the basic structure of business applications, the new architectural concepts and design patterns for composite applications as well as the standards and SAP technologies that are involved.