SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis

MindTree White Paper on Enterprise Mobility

Muzaffar F Hussain | JUN 2012

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis

Executive Summary
Theres been a lot of debate and discussion around SAPs Mobility roadmap in the recent times. In this article, I intend to discuss my thoughts on what the SAP Mobile Platform seems to be evolving to alongside a brief discussion of the major milestones that has been influential in shaping up the platform to its current position. Enterprises considering large scale Mobile deployments, Technical Consultants, Market Research Analysts, Mobile Application Developers, SAP Consultants and anybody interested in keeping up with the developments in the Enterprise Mobility space are expected to find this report useful.

Contents
About the Author................................................................................................................................................ 2 Sybase....................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Syclo .......................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Open Mobile Apps Development ............................................................................................................... 4 What is Sencha Touch? .................................................................................................................. 4 What is Adobes PhoneGap? ........................................................................................................ 4 What is Appcelerators Titanium? ........................................................................................... 4 SAP Mobile Platform ........................................................................................................................................ 5 SAP named leader in Gartners Magic Quadrant............................................................................... 5 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................................. 7 References.............................................................................................................................................................. 7

About the Author

Muzaffar F Hussain is an Enterprise Mobility Consultant currently leading the Mobility Group at SAP Center Of Excellence in MindTree. His career encompasses 7 years in Product Definition, Design and Development of various Mobile Broadband Wireless Systems that has culminated in architecting mobility solutions for enterprises since October 2011.

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis

Sybase

Initially, following the SAP Sybase acquisition1, the industry analysts were under the impression that with Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP), SAP had finally arrived with regards to its mobility story. With SUP, SAP proposed to establish a single Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP) to design and deploy applications for the leading enterprise mobile platforms. SUP today supports building the following types of applications2: Native Applications The initial versions (1.5.2 and 1.5.5) supported iOS, Blackberry and Windows Mobile only. Support for Android was added from version 2.0 onwards. Hybrid Web Container Applications Hybrid Web Container enables developers to get the cross-platform advantage of HTML and JavaScript, and provides the security mechanisms, provisioning, and hooks to native device features they can't get through the browser. JQuery Mobile is the UI framework bundled with the Hybrid App Designer to build these apps.

Figure 1 Sybase Unwired Platform Architecture

Syclo

Nearly two years into the Sybase acquisition, SAP announced yet another one in the mobility space, this time that of Syclo3. This came as a shocker since Syclo was considered a competitor to Sybase and to many it appeared to be retribution. Syclo too provides an MADP called Syclo Agentry Platform which works on the lines of SUP. Apart from this, Syclo provides multiple Enterprise Mobile Applications under the banner of SMART Mobile Suite. This brought in speculation from existing partners and customers who were planning to invest or had already invested in SUP 3

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis licenses for mobility support. The concern here was whether SAP would continue to enhance and support SUP and the applications built on top of this platform.

Figure 2 Syclo SAP Solution Framework

However, looking at the solution framework proposed on Syclos website4 (as shown above in Figure 2), it appears that SUP will continue to be the core of SAPs Mobile Platform with Syclo Mobile Applications connecting to it. Besides, Syclos SAP Software Integration Layer (SSIL) could well be a wrapper layer within SAP NetWeaver Gateway in the existing mobility landscape.

Open Mobile Apps Development

At the same time as the Syclo acquisition was announced, SAP made another interesting announcement too. This was regarding support for well-known open MADPs like Adobes PhoneGap, Sencha Touch and Appcelerators Titanium Development Platform5. What is Sencha Touch?

Sencha Touch 2, a high-performance HTML5 mobile application framework, is the cornerstone of the Sencha HTML5 platform. Built for enabling world-class user experiences, Sencha Touch 2 is the only framework that enables developers to build fast and impressive apps that work on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Kindle Fire, and more. 10

What is Adobes PhoneGap?

PhoneGap is an HTML5 app platform that allows you to author native applications with web technologies and get access to APIs and app stores. PhoneGap leverages web technologies developers already know best, HTML and JavaScript. 9

What is Appcelerators Titanium?

Appcelerators Titanium is an Eclipse-based IDE, SDK and library of connectors used to rapidly build, test and deploy mobile, desktop and Web applications. For mobile development, Titanium Studio provides a framework to devel op rich application experiences, and connect those apps to SAP and 220 other data sources. Titanium SDK enables the enterprise to deploy native, hybrid and mobile Web apps all from a single JavaScript code base. 11

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis SAP seems to have already started with the process by enabling OData protocol support on SUP to access backend servers. However, in order to access SAP Business Suite using OData, NetWeaver Gateway is essential as an additional component in the landscape as shown in Figure 1.

SAP Mobile Platform

Based on the recent developments discussed in the above sections, the most probable SAP Mobile architecture going forward can be summed up as illustrated below in Figure 3.

Figure 3 SAP Mobile Platform Architecture

Apart from the standard offerings available from SAP and Syclo based on SUP, native applications can be developed on any of the mobile platforms supported by SUP. On the other hand the various open MADPs can be leveraged to build HTML5/CSS3/JS based cross-platform hybrid apps. The Sybase Unwired Platform provides device management capabilities like onboarding and security facilities whilst SAP NetWeaver Gateway exposes the core business logic and data from the SAP business suite towards the mobile devices.

SAP named leader in Gartners Magic Quadrant

Yes, you read it right. SAP was named leader in Industry Analyst Firm, Gartners 2012 Mobile Application Development Platforms Magic Quadrant6 (See Figure 4 below). With SUP, Afaria for Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Sybase 365 for Messaging Services, SAP has been named leader in this segment. Subsequently, with the Syclo acquisition & consolidation, SAP will emerge 5

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis far above the other contenders. This really demonstrates the drive, dedication and priority given at SAP to enable Mobility.

Figure 4 Gartners 2012 Mobile Application Development Platforms Magic Quadrant

SAP Mobile Platform A Technical Analysis

Conclusion

The options available to access SAP backend for an Enterprise Mobile App Developer are as listed in below table:
Backend System Sybase Unwired Platform SAP NetWeaver Gateway SAP EIS (ERP, CRM, ) SAP EIS (Not Discussed) SAP NetWeaver Mobile (Not Discussed) Access Mechanism Mobile Business Objects (MBO) Open Data Protocol (OData) Remote Function Calls (RFC)/Java Connector (JCO) Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) Data Orchestration Engine (DOE) Level of abstraction from SAP Partial abstraction Complete abstraction Tightly coupled Complete abstraction without middleware Tightly coupled

Table 1 SAP connectivity options for Enterprise App Developers

Lets hope that SAP is able to restore trust with their customers and the mobile app developer community alike. For starters, SAP could comply with the suggestion to provide the NetWeaver Gateway as an add-on to ABAP. That would really be a great way to reach out to the vast Mobile App Developer Community.

References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

SAP TO ACQUIRE SYBASE, INC., May 12 2010 Sybase Unwired Platform 2.1 Architecture Whitepaper SAP to Acquire Syclo, Extends Leadership in Mobilizing the Enterprise, April 10 2012 Syclo-SAP Relationship SAP Drives Openness and Choice for Millions of Mobile App Developers, April 10 2012 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms, 26 April 2012 Plumbing SAP's mobile architecture, 20 April 2012 The value of HTML5 in the SUP Hybrid Web Container, 28 October 2011 Phonegap's Official Website Sencha's Official Website Appcelerator's Official Website jQuery Mobile's Official Website

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