Version Interoperability
Use
This topic provides information about the support for federated portal network (FPN) functionality across different versions of producer and consumer portals running in the same landscape. Version interoperability between portals refers either to different support package stacks (SPS) within the same SAP NetWeaver release (such as an SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS20 consumer portal paired with an SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS21 producer portal) or to different SAP NetWeaver releases (such as a consumer portal running SAP NetWeaver 7.0 including enhancement package 1 that is paired to an SAP NetWeaver 7.3 producer portal).
General Information
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Remote role assignment: When implemented in a multiple version environment, remote role assignment is supported only for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS9 and later.
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Remote delta link: Supported only from SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS10 and higher.
Version Hierarchy
When you assess version interoperability support, you need first to determine if the producer or consumer is the newer release:
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Producer portal is a newer version (consumer < producer).
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Example 1: SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS13 (consumer) and SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS21 (producer)
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Example 2: SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (consumer) and SAP NetWeaver 7.3 (producer)
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Consumer portal is a newer version (consumer > producer).
Example: SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS21 (consumer) and SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SPS12 (producer)
SAP NetWeaver Functionality Levels
Once you have determined the versioning of the producer and consumer portals, you can assess how various levels of SAP NetWeaver functionality have an effect on version interoperability in a federated portal network.
The following table describes the level of support for each version-pairing of consumer and producer:
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Consumer < Producer |
Consumer > Producer |
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|---|---|---|
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FPN functionality Refers to the FPN content usage modes, namely remote role assignment , remote delta links , and WSRP application sharing . |
Supported |
Supported |
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Portal functionality Refers to any navigation-related functionality that is supported by the portal framework, such as object based navigation (OBN). |
Supported |
Supported |
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Application functionality Refers to business packages, content, and their applications. |
Consumer-side functionality determines the support level. If content on the producer uses portal client-side functionality that is not available or supported by the consumer portal, then the content is not supported in an FPN implementation. |
Supported |
The aforementioned restrictions that apply when the producer portal is a newer version result from the following:
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The portal framework is rendered on the consumer portal at runtime ( remote role assignment and remote delta link ). This means that the client-side functionality of the consumer, which is dictated by the portal framework, ultimately determines which runtime functionality is supported.
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Applications are rendered on the producer and are displayed on the consumer using URL redirects. This means that server-side functionality is determined by the producer version. If the application requires server-side functionality that is not supported on the consumer, the application is able to run; however if the application requires client-side services, then these services must be available on, and be supported by, the consumer.
In most cases, it is the applications that are mostly likely to be a source of risk to version interoperability.
More Information
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SAP Note 1295662
(contains detailed information about release and support package considerations and application compatibility guidelines)