When SAP created the package architecture in R/3 Enterprise, its goals were:

• To improve the structure of the software
• To encapsulate software functions more strictly
• To make well-defined interfaces available to all applications
• To clarify responsibilities

For R/3 Enterprise in particular, the application of the package concept is designed to ensure that the R/3 Enterprise Core and Extensions are developed separately, so that customers can install and maintain them separately. Thus the package concept can be used to structure and encapsulate the software, both inside the R/3 Enterprise Core and between the different Extensions.

The next section in this documentation deals with the how the package concept is implemented in the architecture of R/3 Enterprise. We will also show examples of how packages can be created in possible customer scenarios.