SAP Challenges Oracle – Is HANA the Secret Weapon?
TAKE NOTE (Insights into SAP solutions and Emerging Technology)
SAP AG (SAP) unveiled the biggest overhaul to its mainstay enterprise software in two decades, in a move to cement its dominance in that market, while in parallel, springing an attack on Oracle Corp.’s database business.
At an event in Palo Alto, California, SAP unveiled a much faster version of its Business Suite software running on top of its Hana database. By speeding up business tasks from pricing airline tickets to predicting weather, SAP is pushing to replace database software from Oracle, Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp.(IBM) that customers use to process and analyze information.
The move bolsters thier core product, which still accounts for the bulk of SAP’s revenue, after a switch in focus in the past three years to expand into mobile and Internet-based software. SAP who has traditionally had to rely on databases supplied by Oracle and IBM, is now betting the new features will convince customers to choose its own repository product.
Strategic Position
“SAP is serious about expanding its strategic direction in the database market,” Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc., said in a note. “We view the Hana initiatives as a strategic positive in repositioning the company for growth.” Sherlund has a buy rating on the shares. SAP’s Hana software stores data in faster computer memory instead of on slower disk drives, and lets customers handle business transaction data and its analysis in the same system, instead of buying two different products.
“We’re dramatically challenging the database market with a new value proposition and a next-generation technology,” Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-Chief Executive Officer, said in an interview. He called the new Business Suite the biggest breakthrough in applications since SAP released the R/3 software in 1992. SAP is pricing Hana so customers won’t need to pay more in licensing fees then they do for existing databases that handle processing and analysis needs for their SAP software, executives said. About 40,000 SAP customers run its applications on Oracle or IBM databases.
SAP said it will start providing a rapid-deployment feature this quarter for implementation within six months for customers migrating to Hana.
SAP vowed that Business Suite would continue supporting rival databases…..
UNDER DEVELOPMENT (Information for ABAP Developers)
Lets continue our exploration of ABAP OO and using it in SAP workflow. In this post, Bill will show us how to use ABAP Classes to streamline our code for an easier and elegant solution. Here is a little bit about Bill….
Bill Craig is the president of ASAP Consulting Inc., located in Centennial, Colorado. Bill has over 10 years of experience with SAP ECC systems and integration with SRM. His areas of expertise include SAP Business Workflow and ABAP development. He made his way into programming as a COBOL programmer, switching to SAP when the company he worked for migrated from mainframe programming to SAP. Prior to programming, Bill ran an upholstery shop in Denver, where he managed the workforce, payroll, sales, scheduling and delivery. You can reach him at [email protected]
Using ABAP Object Oriented Coding in your Custom Workflow – Part 2
In the first part of this blog regarding the use of ABAP OO with SAP Workflow, I explained some of the benefits of using ABAP OO with your custom workflows. In this part I will go into more detail about creating an ABAP OO class and using it within a workflow. This blog does not go into great detail about ABAP OO programming so learning some basics via other blogs or books is helpful.
Creating a class that can be used by workflow is a little more time consuming than creating a copy of a standard SAP Business Object and delegating your new object.
Q&A (Your Questions answered)
Q. I am trying to view a cutom table in SM30 and its not working. I am seeing other zTables in my shop being able to view in SM30..what is reason for? DO I need to write ABAP for this to work?
A. Your co-workers have created a simple table maintenance dialog for the zTable in question. You can maintain the customizing tables in SAP systems according to specific business requirements using table maintenance dialogs without the need of any ABAP development. Table maintenance dialogs help you create or modify the records of tables/views and transport changed data using transport management
The Table Maintenance Generator tool is used to create table maintenance dialogs and can be accessed with Transactions SE54 or SE11.
Perform the following steps:
- Open the table in Transaction SE11.
- Start the Table Maintenance Generator by choosing Utilities • Table Maintenance Generator.
- Assign an authorization group to the table maintenance dialog to restrict the maintenance of the table/view using authorization object S_TABU_DIS. You can create different profiles for different objects using this authorization object.
- Specify the name of the function group for the function modules that will be created.
- Select the maintenance type:
- If you select one step, only one screen will be generated, and the records will be displayed and maintained on a table list.
- If you select two step, you can generate two screens: one for displaying the list and the other for displaying or maintaining a single record.
- Define the screen numbers for Overview screen and Single screen that will
be generated according to the maintenance type. If you selected one step as the
maintenance type, you only need to provide the screen number for Overview Screen. You can also use the Find Scr. Number(s) button to open the tool that
will help you find the available screen number(s). The following three options are available to help you find the proper screen numbers:- Propose screen number(s)
- Display free number ranges
- List screen numbers
- Specify the change recording type for the changes that will be made using this
table maintenance dialog.- Standard recording routine
The changes are recorded by the standard recording routine. - No, or user, recording routine
Changes aren’t recorded by default. You can define your own event routines
to handle the changes.
- Standard recording routine
Click the Create button to create the maintenance dialog. You can now test the dialog in Transaction SM30.
Alternatively, you can also create table maintenance dialogs in Transaction SE54. It will take you to the same screen as just described. The only difference is the initial screen. You must provide the table name, select the Generated Objects option, and click the Create/Change button to enter the maintenance screen.
You can now easily add, modify, or delete records from tables and views.