Well, blogging to me is sharing information and inviting the feedback from the readers of my blog. If you are new to SAP Java development then this blog may be helpful. However, the details on the development process is not in the scope of this blog. Recently, I was assigned the task to enhance the Biller Direct application which comes as out of box solution from SAP.
I am a consultant and most of the time I have travelling assignment. Oh yes, I am 3-4-5 consultant. Well, with new assignment, my client location , role, business domain and often technology domain also changes. So, when I got assignment to work on SAP product, I was not surprised or intimidated. I learnt over the period of time to quickly accustom myself to client's processes and quickly learn (if required) the technologies required for the project. This is the best take home skill I developed while working as consultant.
On a fateful Monday morning, I traveled more than 1000 miles to start the work on my new assignment.On very first day, I met with the project manager who told me that I am the in-charge of that enhancement as nobody in the team had any technical knowledge about Biller Direct application. So, I could not have expected much help from the team.
As most of us will do, I started Googling about the Biller Direct Application. SAP SCN provides useful articles on all aspects of the development process. Frankly, the information that I got was often in bits and pieces. Putting together all the information was a bit difficult. I could not get any design document for the Biller Direct application. So, the reverse engineering was required to understand the design of the application. However, getting the source code became a big challenge for us. We all came to the conclusion that setting up the NWDI is the only solution.
I first learnt about the SAP Netweaver platform which serves as the integration platform. Below are the components of the Netweaver platform :
a) Enterprise Portal (EP)
b) Business Intelligence (BI)
c) Mobile Infrastructure (MI)
d) Process Integration (PI)
e) Development Infrastructure (DI)
For the SAP developers, DI aka NWDI is the key. It has the following component as well:
i) SAP Netweaver Developer Studio (NWDS)
ii) Design Time Repository (DTR)
iii) Component Build Service (CBS)
iv) Change Management Service (CMS).
NWDI should be setup before the development can start. NWDS is built at the top of Eclipse and serves as the IDE for the Java development. It provides the ability to pull the code from the code repository (DTR), perform check-in/check-out (through CBS) of the modified files, deployment to the Application Server, debug the local/remote java applications etc.
One more important thing to remember is that the applications provided by SAP follows the component model(http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nwce72/helpdata/en/49/11db65cf292810e10000000a42189c/content.htm) and hence like other applications, Biller Direct application is also made up of the component (called DC).
Understanding NWDI is key to perform any Java development on SAP platform. I could finish the project in around three months and those three months were very eventful. Time to do something new now.
I am a consultant and most of the time I have travelling assignment. Oh yes, I am 3-4-5 consultant. Well, with new assignment, my client location , role, business domain and often technology domain also changes. So, when I got assignment to work on SAP product, I was not surprised or intimidated. I learnt over the period of time to quickly accustom myself to client's processes and quickly learn (if required) the technologies required for the project. This is the best take home skill I developed while working as consultant.
On a fateful Monday morning, I traveled more than 1000 miles to start the work on my new assignment.On very first day, I met with the project manager who told me that I am the in-charge of that enhancement as nobody in the team had any technical knowledge about Biller Direct application. So, I could not have expected much help from the team.
As most of us will do, I started Googling about the Biller Direct Application. SAP SCN provides useful articles on all aspects of the development process. Frankly, the information that I got was often in bits and pieces. Putting together all the information was a bit difficult. I could not get any design document for the Biller Direct application. So, the reverse engineering was required to understand the design of the application. However, getting the source code became a big challenge for us. We all came to the conclusion that setting up the NWDI is the only solution.
I first learnt about the SAP Netweaver platform which serves as the integration platform. Below are the components of the Netweaver platform :
a) Enterprise Portal (EP)
b) Business Intelligence (BI)
c) Mobile Infrastructure (MI)
d) Process Integration (PI)
e) Development Infrastructure (DI)
For the SAP developers, DI aka NWDI is the key. It has the following component as well:
i) SAP Netweaver Developer Studio (NWDS)
ii) Design Time Repository (DTR)
iii) Component Build Service (CBS)
iv) Change Management Service (CMS).
NWDI should be setup before the development can start. NWDS is built at the top of Eclipse and serves as the IDE for the Java development. It provides the ability to pull the code from the code repository (DTR), perform check-in/check-out (through CBS) of the modified files, deployment to the Application Server, debug the local/remote java applications etc.
One more important thing to remember is that the applications provided by SAP follows the component model(http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nwce72/helpdata/en/49/11db65cf292810e10000000a42189c/content.htm) and hence like other applications, Biller Direct application is also made up of the component (called DC).
Understanding NWDI is key to perform any Java development on SAP platform. I could finish the project in around three months and those three months were very eventful. Time to do something new now.
