SAP Web Application Server Components 

SAP Web Application Server is a further development of the SAP Application Server technology. Based on the highly scalable SAP Application Server infrastructure, new technologies have been implemented for directly processing HTTP requests (or other protocols) coming from the Internet (that is, from a browser), and for sending HTTP requests as HTTP client requests to the Internet.

To allow this additional functionality, the SAP kernel has been given an additional process, the Internet Communication Manager (ICM). The ICM uses threads to communicate on the Internet, as a server or as a client. If an incoming request is being processed by a work process, memory pipes are used for data transfer. Memory pipes are located in shared memory.

The following illustration shows an overview of the architecture of the SAP Web Application Server, juxtaposing the traditional SAP architecture with that of the SAP Web Application Server.

The individual components of SAP Web Application Server are explained in the following sections:

·        Internet Communication Manager (ICM)

·        ICM Server Cache

·        ICM Server Clipboard

The profile parameters required for configuring an SAP Web Application Server are described under Parameterizing the ICM and the ICM Server Cache.

You can find additional, important information in the following sections:

·        Logging in the ICM

·        Binding Ports < 1024 on UNIX

·        Monitoring the ICM with the ICM Monitor

·        Load balancing with the SAP Web Dispatcher

Integration

The Internet Communication Framework represents the layer between the ICM and the processing of requests in the work process. See the Internet Communication Framework documentation.

For information on using SAP Web Application Server to create Web applications using Business Server Pages (BSP) and to implement the services of the Web Control Framework (WCF), see Creating Web Applications with Business Server Pages.