April 2006 Archives

SAP Security Check - Vulnerability is Everywhere a Problem - Detect it Now I have written elsewhere on my blog about my security concerns and worries in a web-enabled SAP BW environment. Web reporting is relatively new, and I'm not convinced that clients are doing all they should to ensure the security of their data, in particular in the areas of intrusion monitoring and comprehensive BI landscape testing. This is a great service of which I was previously unaware. Summary included here: Checked Components in Detail: Checked Component "SAP Basis WebAS": Basis administration check User Management check Super users check Password check Spool & printer authorization check Background authorization check Batch Input authorization check Transport control authorization check Role management authorization check Profile parameter check SAPgui Single-Sign-On check Certificate Single-Sign-On check External authentication check Checked Component "SAP ITS - Internet Transaction Server": Landscape check WGate and AGate configuration check Administration check Checked Component "SAP Business Connector (BC)": Landscape check Configuration check Port check SSL check Checked Component "SAProuter": Saprouttab check OS access check SNC check

Google Web APIs Reference

SAP - SAPPHIRE '05 Boston - Home

Google Search: bw netweaver -"best -practices" -forum site:sap.com

Frequently Asked Questions - Planning in SAP BW

SDN - The SAP Developer Network BSP / How To: Exploring BSP Development with MVC 5 Craig Cmehil Business Card Company: Hella KGaA Hueck & Co Apr. 26, 2005 04:15 AM Permalink Part 1 - Introduction, Tables, Table Types and sample data. Part 2 - Building the App. 2a - Building your Model 2b - Building your Controllers and Classes 2b_1 - Building your Controllers and Classes 2b_2 - Building your Controllers and Classes 2b_3 - Building your Controllers and Classes 2c - Building your views Part 3 - Working the App 3a - Display it and entering 3b - Editing and adding categories and subjects Part 4 - OTR Part 5 - Conclusions This has taken me a bit longer to get to than I originally hoped it would but with the SDN Meets Labs I guess my timing was just bad for this series. I hope though that you've found it useful and somewhat enlightening.Last September I finished up the first series with straight forward BSP without using an MVC model. In this series we saw that it was quite easy to build page after page without much thought to changes for the future. With the straight BSP it was easy to rearrange, rebuild, recode and reconstruct our pages. With this current series we see that it required a bit more planning in the beginning but in the end we ended up with many more reusable components and a more flexible application.Again in this series I showed the very basic ideas needed to get started however in many cases I did not show the best way to accomplish something in terms of performance. It is my firm belief that if you give someone trying to learn a new technology everything up front, then a few things happen: They don't learn as much with a complete solution given to them They tend to stick to what they've learned as you've given them too much to start with The complicated and best performance solution is usually the one they won't be able to follow as they get lost trying to figure out where to start Now of course there are expections to this as with everything but for the most part these hold true and my hope is simply to help someone get a head of the learning curve and entice them to start experimenting. In fact during the Walldorf SDN Meets Labs conference I had a very interesting conversation with Sergio. By the way I'm still waiting for that email . Which was directly related to this. He suggested that I add more about Model binding for example. My hope was that perhaps he and I or some others could take from Thomas Ritter and expand on the entire concept of Model BindingThat and many other topics can and should be expanded for use within BSP development.For now though I would like to stick to the series at hand and discuss some of the various points: OTR Reusable Components OTR OTR is one of the most powerful parts of this entire development environment and if used correctly can drastically increase the effectivness and usablity of your application. The idea and ability to easily translate all text within your application. OK, data that people type in is another thing but the display text that is a huge item. You as a developer can easily make your application and then pass the translation along to others to complete. Once the translation is there you can reuse it in future applications. Reusable Components How many times have you done the whole copy and paste to get a code segment into a new application? How many times have you said "Hey I did that before, now where was it?". With use of the MVC concept you can easily integrate your views into various applications. I've worked on several applications of late and quite often I use the same standard set of views to accomplish what I need done. This of course is because I have one package for all of my applications.Where does that leave us...Hopefully this now leaves everyone with a good starting point for BSP development. If you have comments, suggestions or anything else please drop me line or write a comment. Craig Cmehil is a web developer for Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.

Microsoft, SAP strengthen alliance Published: April 25, 2005, 10:45 PM PDT By Alorie Gilbert Staff Writer, CNET News.com Microsoft and Germany's SAP are joining forces to develop and market software to link SAP's business management systems more closely with Microsoft's Office suite, according to an SAP representative. The companies plan to discuss the joint effort--code-named Mendocino--on Tuesday at an SAP convention in Copenhagen. Although the companies are longtime partners, the Mendocino project represents the first time the software giants have created a new product together, SAP spokesman Bill Wohl said. The relationship between SAP and Microsoft has grown cozier amid the recent upheaval in the business software industry caused by acquisitions and flat demand. The companies briefly contemplated a merger last year--a fact that emerged during an antitrust trial over Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft. Now, instead of buying SAP, Microsoft is collaborating with the company. The new program will enable Office workers to enter data into an SAP system via Microsoft's popular Outlook calendar and e-mail programs and via Excel spreadsheet. The companies plan to deliver Mendocino later this year, and both will sell it, Wohl said. The program is designed to spare workers from redundant entry of data and keep the companies' systems in sync. For instance a business consultant could schedule a meeting with a client in his or her Outlook calendar program and it would automatically show up in SAP's project management application for budgeting and billing. The companies have not announced pricing.

M.S. in E-Commerce Technology 2005

SugarCRM Pushes Out Open Source Apps -- Again [OETrends.Com] SugarCRM is taking steps to push Open Source business apps to a new level, adding a raft of new upgrades to its Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. Sugar Suite 3.0, which will be available April 30, will add a wide range of sales-savvy support tools, including campaign management, email marketing, document management, sales forecasting and even a wireless access option for access from the road. The new features are built on top of SugarCRM’s core Open Source sales force automation (SFA) and CRM platform.

Google Web APIs Go Open Source These can be added to a variety of web services - cool stuff! A separate entry shows an example of how the API can be leveraged against an existing web application. For the actual WDSL. To see the FAQ.

Google Code This is the location of Google's Open Source API code. Here are the instructions for Google's API development. APIs_Reference.html

Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) Abstract WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message formats or network protocols are used to communicate, however, the only bindings described in this document describe how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP 1.1, HTTP GET/POST, and MIME.

By Martin LaMonica, ZDNet, 4/20/2005 URL: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5678612.html NEWTON, Mass.--With its ambitious Project Fusion, Oracle is absorbing software from a string of acquisitions and getting ready to go toe-to-toe with heavyweight SAP in back-end server software. At a customer event here Wednesday, Oracle executives detailed the components of its Fusion Middleware, which will eventually underpin all its applications. A limited roll-out of the server infrastructure software will kick off toward the end of 2005, they said. The process is expected to take several years. Oracle refers to Project Fusion as its ongoing initiative to integrate customers from acquired business software makers PeopleSoft, Retek and J.D. Edwards, which PeopleSoft had bought before it in turn was purchased by Oracle. News.context What's new: Oracle says its "Fusion Middleware" is a modular, standards-based infrastructure that will help merge its different application lines. Bottom line: With the Fusion software, Oracle goes head-to-head with SAP's NetWeaver. More stories on this topic The executives said the Fusion middleware is Oracle's answer to NetWeaver, rival business software maker SAP's most strategic development effort. NetWeaver is standards-based infrastructure software, or middleware, designed to ease data interoperability in SAP applications. Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, said that the company invites the competition from NetWeaver because the Fusion middleware is based on existing application server products already used by customers. By contrast, SAP does not have a history of selling middleware. "If SAP wants to compete by talking about infrastructure, great. We've been doing that for years," Phillips said. "SAP has done neat packaging (with NetWeaver), and they've talked about it. But very few customers can say, I'm using NetWeaver for 'X,'" he said. The Fusion middleware consists of several components, including a Java application server, a Web portal, business intelligence software and Oracle's Collaboration suite for e-mail and Web conferencing. The software is based on Java and Web services standards, which will make it easier for customers to modify Oracle programs and share information with non-Oracle-based systems, according to the company. Next year, two major upgrades of Oracle's packaged applications--Oracle eBusiness 11.i.12 and PeopleSoft--will be certified to run on the middleware suite, said John Wookey, senior vice president of applications at Oracle. Other lineups, such as the J.D. Edwards range, will have new products certified for Fusion as they are released, he said. Fusion will also cover Oracle's data hubs, which is software meant to make information easier to track by providing a single instance of data for many applications. The company expects to release a data hub for companies to track products next month. Eyeing SAP customers Although Oracle has its hands full trying to retain thousands of newly acquired customers, the company has its sights on SAP customers with wandering eyes. Oracle recently launched an internal program called SAP Battle Desk that is designed to nab SAP customers who may be considering their options during a significant application upgrade, Phillips said. In particular, Oracle is targeting those businesses that may need to install SAP's NetWeaver infrastructure software during an upgrade project. "SAP is changing its architecture, and that will require some major changes. So if they're going through such a hard upgrade, they might as well look at what else is out there," Phillips said. SAP is counting on NetWeaver to ease integration between outside products and its applications. This year, the German software maker plans to begin publishing the interfaces of NetWeaver and inviting third-party companies to build add-ons to the SAP applications. Wookey said that Oracle has software for automating business processes using industry standards, but that SAP does not. Oracle purchased a small company last year called Collaxa that has developed a business process "engine" based on a Web services specification called BPEL, for Business Process Execution Language. Wookey said the name "Fusion" came from a former PeopleSoft engineer who noted that before the merger, both Oracle and PeopleSoft had projects under way to create standards-based infrastructure and tools. The initiatives were called People Tools X and Oracle 11i X, Wookey said. Oracle executives did not single out Microsoft as a competitor in discussions with customers, but Microsoft is working on a project analogous to Oracle Fusion and SAP NetWeaver. Project Green, which had its introduction delayed again earlier this year, is designed to provide a common platform across Microsoft's packaged applications. In addition to common software, Oracle intends to provide a more common pricing scheme for its different applications, executives said. The company expects to eventually publicly publish pricing for PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, as it does for Oracle eBusiness suite. Another way Oracle can compete against SAP is to beef up via acquisitions, notably by buying application providers focused on specific industries. The purchase of retail application specialist Retek could provide a model for other deals, although Oracle does not rule out acquisitions in other areas, Phillips said. Although Oracle has historically been known as a database company, the company's strategy is to bulk up its applications business as rapidly as it can. That's because an application customer will "drag" sales of the Fusion software and Oracle database. "What's not widely understood is that being successful in the applications business is probably the best thing for our database business," Phillips said. "If you want to grow the database business, you'd better own the applications."