Guidelines for Developing Composite ApplicationsLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment provides design time and runtime infrastructures for developing, running, and managing composite applications that comply with SAP Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (enterprise SOA) technologies.

Composite applications use this service-oriented architecture to fill the gaps that standard solutions cannot cover. They sit on top of existing enterprise solutions and reuse their functionality to shape and add new innovative business processes. Composite applications are based on services that are already provided by other applications or components. They combine available service operations with new application logic, user interfaces, and business process orchestration. These services can be provided by SAP's Business Process Platform (BPP) with SAP Business Suite, as well as by service-enabled third-party solutions.

What Are These Guidelines For?

These guidelines outline the development steps for composite applications and are aimed at application developers and architects. They provide an end-to-end view of the composition use case "Developing and Building Composite Applications" with BPM-based process modeling as a starting point and explain how to choose the proper technologies to implement them. The use case description provides guidance about tool usage and supports developer's work in a task-oriented way.

The use case suggests a sequence of main tasks, each one containing a set of self-contained activities. Each guideline topic provides an introductory section, which explains the basic concepts and the relevant terminology. In addition, each main task comprises a set of individual developer activities that are arranged in an optimal sequence. To provide a detailed procedure, which also takes account of specific tool functionality, references to further information are given.

Unlike a tutorial, you do not get a specific sample application as the result of these activities. However, you can use these guidelines as a summary of the Developer's Guide with a focus on the process-centric approach when developing composite applications.

Use Case: Process Steps

  1. Check Prerequisites

  2. Set Up Your Development System

  3. Set Up Your Development Project for the Composite Application

  4. Model Business Processes

  5. Find and Validate Enterprise Services for Reuse

  6. Develop User Interfaces for the BPM Layer

  7. Optional: Integrate Online Interactive Forms by Adobe

  8. Adapt, Simplify and Join Existing Services using Service Composer

  9. Optional: Provide New Data Objects

  10. Develop and Expose New Business Logic

  11. Assemble and Configure Process Execution

Additional Resources

Understanding the Architecture of Composite Applications

For an overview of how the development process is related to the architecture of the composite applications, see Composite Application Layers .

Using the SAP NetWeaver Demo Model

You might want to make use of a sample or demo application - especially during the familiarization and evaluation phase. The SAP NetWeaver Demo Model provides ready-to-run demo content that can be used with different technologies.

You can benefit from the demo content in different steps and activities by:

  • consuming the deployed services

  • importing service definitions into the Enterprise Services Repository

  • having a deeper look at the implementation of the services.

More information: SAP NetWeaver Demo Model