Standalone SAPConsole 7.10 

Before starting to read the documentation, please note that the SAPConsole release cycle is independent of the SAP NetWeaver release cycle.

Purpose

As part of SAP’s ongoing effort to build on SAP systems core business logic and offer it for non-standard display environments, SAPConsole has been developed to support different types of output devices. SAPConsole supports character-cell terminals, including radio frequency (RF) devices, as well as web-equipped devices.

The SAPConsole for web-equipped devices (also called Web-enabled SAPConsole or WebSAPConsole) will no longer be supported for SAP-systems based on SAP NetWeaver releases higher than 7.0.

SAP therefore recommends to use ITSmobile for SAP Basis releases 46C and higher, a technology based on ITS,  see also ITSmobile versus Web-enabled SAPConsole.

SAPConsole’s main responsibilities are:

●      Connecting to, and exchanging information with the SAP system. This information is usually in the form of descriptions of screen elements and their contents.

●      Managing the interaction between users and screens.

Architecture

The following picture shows the architecture of the SAPConsole landscape.

There are two ways of information exchange with SAPConsole:

●      Via Telnet

Telnet is used for character-based terminals. You can see the Telnet information flow on the left-hand side of the picture. During a telnet connection, the telnet client connects to the Telnet server and the Telnet server starts sapcnsl.exe as command interpreter. For every authenticated connection a new interpreter is started. The rendering is done by the console displayer.

●      Via Web Server

You can see the Web Server information flow on the right-hand side of the picture. During a browser-based session, the browser connects to the web server. In the example shown in the picture, the Web Server is an IIS web server. IIS starts isapi_sapcnsl.dll as command interpreter. The rendering is done by the web displayer.

As of SAP NetWeaver 7.10, SAP J2EE Engine is not supported anymore as web server in the SAPConsole scenario. Instead the available IIS of Windows 2003 should be used.

SAPConsole administration tasks, for example specifying the SAP system to which to connect, are done in the SAPConsole Administrator.

Implementation Considerations

●      You find the system requirements for running SAPConsole as well as the supported Telnet Servers, Web Servers, and Browsers in SAP Note 1043241.

●      Up to and including Release 6.40 of SAP GUI for Windows/SAPConsole, SAPConsole was delivered together with SAP GUI. As of Release 7.10, SAPConsole is a standalone component and no longer delivered with the SAP GUI. For more information of where to find the software and how to install it see Installing SAPConsole.

●      Since the SAPConsole 7.10 is a standalone component, you do not have to install SAP GUI on the server, where the SAPConsole is running.

●      Concerning the upgrade to SAPConsole 7.10 from older versions, there are two scenarios:

○       If you just need the SAPConsole and no SAP GUI on the machine where the SAPConsole is installed, SAP recommends to uninstall the old SAP GUI and to install the new standalone SAPConsole 7.10.

○       If you also need a SAPGUI on the machine where the SAPConsole is installed, you should first upgrade the SAP GUI to release 7.10 and then install the standalone SAPConsole 7.10.

Features

●      Provides the backbone for interfacing with mobile devices.

●      Enhances the display coverage of the standard front-end SAP GUI component for character-cell environments.

●      Provides vendor-independent support for character-cell RF terminals and web-equipped devices.

●      Provides Telnet and Web access to the SAP system.

●      Is compatible with standard ABAP/SAP GUI application and supports standard ABAP/SAP GUI development.

●      Enables increased reusability of the ABAP environment.

●      Is a single source for both graphic and character-cell terminals.

●      Involves minimum application-specific development.

●      Supports multiple configuration profiles.

●      Supports text boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, and push buttons.

●      Supports automated logon to a SAP system.

●      Supports printing from a SAP system (output device must be configured in SAP system).

Constraints

SAPConsole has the following limitations:

●      It requires Windows 2003 server (32 bit).

●      It does not support some advanced SAP GUI features such as tab strips, ActiveX controls.

Activities

The fastest and easiest way to get the Standalone SAPConsole 7.10 working, is to follow the procedures of the Best Practice section.