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Winshuttle Technical Architecture Guide Winshuttle Platform Whitepaper en
Winshuttle Technical Architecture Guide Winshuttle Platform Whitepaper en
The Winshuttle Platform is a collection of client and server components that helps customers maximize the potential of their SAP investment by simplifying and streamlining common SAP business processes. With the addition of the Winshuttle Designer authoring tool and Winshuttle Workflow application engine, Winshuttle now offers a complete environment for building and deploying custom solutions that automate SAP business processes, from data collection to workflow routing and approval to transaction execution. This paper provides an overview of the architecture of the Winshuttle Platform, including: System Requirements and Licensing SAP Integration SharePoint Dependencies Security and Authentication Load Balancing, Backup, and Disaster Recovery The information presented herein is intended to assist IT managers and administrators with evaluating the Winshuttle Platform for deployment in their organizations.
www.winshuttle.com
Platform Overview
The Winshuttle Platform is composed of seven products that run on Microsoft client and server software and integrate with SAP. The four client components collectively make up the Winshuttle Studio (Table 1) and are used to create forms, templates and web services for composing SAP business process automation solutions. Table 1: Winshuttle Studio Product Winshuttle Transaction Winshuttle Query Winshuttle Direct Winshuttle Designer Functionality Codeless development of templates and web services that perform SAP transactions and data operations. Codeless development of forms and workflows
The three server components (Table 2) provide the run time environment for solutions built using Winshuttle Studio as well as control and governance functions for the Platform as a whole.
Table 2: Winshuttle Platform Server Components Product Winshuttle Workflow Winshuttle Server Winshuttle Central Functionality Workflow execution and form rendering Web service execution and SAP integration Web service directory, governance, and control
Winshuttle Server contains two services: Transaction Services and Query Services. Transaction Services exposes scripts written with Winshuttle Transaction as web services and processes Transaction runs immediately or on a schedule. Query Services exposes Winshuttle Query scripts as web services and runs immediate or scheduled Query extracts. Design -Time Architecture During design-time (Figure 1), solution builders use Winshuttle Transaction, Query, or Direct to create scripts that perform SAP transactions and publish these scripts as web services to Winshuttle Server. They then use Designer to build forms that consume those web services, model workflows to route those forms, and publish the completed solution to Microsoft SharePoint. Interaction between Winshuttle Studio and the Winshuttle server components occurs via the SOAP protocol, as does interaction among the server components. Any interaction between Winshuttle components and SAP is done via Remote Function Call (RFC), the same interface used by the SAP GUI.
Windows XP/7
SharePoint 2007/2010
WORKFLOW
SAP
Figure 1: Winshuttle design-time architecture
Runtime Architecture At runtime (Figure2), users access SharePoint hosted web forms built with Winshuttle Designer using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Winshuttle Workflow executes the workflow logic and Winshuttle Server executes the web services that perform operations against SAP. Interaction between Internet Explorer and the Winshuttle server components occurs via HTTP and interaction among the server components is via SOAP. Any interaction between Winshuttle components and SAP is done via Remote Function Call (RFC).
Internet Explorer
Access web forms [HTTP]
Windows XP/7
SharePoint 2007/2010
WORKFLOW
Execute web services [SOAP]
SAP
Figure 2: Winshuttle runtime architecture
To run solutions built with Winshuttle Studio, clients only need Internet Explorer, along with the operating system and .NET Framework requirements listed in Table 3. The Winshuttle Platform server components run on the Microsoft Windows server stack. Winshuttle Central and Winshuttle Workflow are Microsoft SharePoint applications. The full system requirements for the Winshuttle server components are list in Table 4. Table 4: Winshuttle Platform Server Components System Requirements
Component Server Software Operating System .NET Framework Microsoft SharePoint Minimum Requirement Central Workflow Server
Database
N/A
SAP GUI Server Hardware Processor Memory Storage Network Network Ports Desktop Software Internet Explorer
7.10 Patch 11
6.0 or higher
Licensing All Microsoft and Winshuttle licensing requirements are based on the version of the software deployed. Winshuttle Workflow and Server can run on SharePoint 2007 WSS or SharePoint 2010 Foundation, so no SharePoint CALs are required for either design-time or run time deployment. SAP Integration The Winshuttle Platform has a light footprint on the SAP environment. The Query Services component of Winshuttle Server requires a module to be installed on the SAP system. Neither Transaction Services nor any other Winshuttle functionality requires installation of additional software on the SAP instance. SharePoint Dependencies Both Winshuttle Central and Winshuttle Workflow are built on SharePoint and are deployed via SharePoints solution deployment framework (.wsp deployment). However, Winshuttle uses proprietary technology in place of native features of SharePoint when doing so improves performance or simplifies the user experience: Forms and templates connect to SAP directly via Winshuttle web services. Data is not passed through SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS). The Winshuttle Workflow engine is Winshuttle technology and is not based on Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Forms rendering is Winshuttle technology and is not based on InfoPath Forms Services. Security and Authentication Winshuttle uses Windows Integrated Security to provide authentication between the user and the server components of the Winshuttle Platform (i.e. Winshuttle Workflow, Server, and Central). SAP native security is used for interaction between the user and the SAP system. There are four ways to configure authentication to SAP and the user experience and deployment procedure will vary depending on which is chosen. User enters SAP Credentials. When the user executes an SAP transaction via a Winshuttle web service, Winshuttle Server prompts for the users SAP username and password and then creates an RFC connection to SAP using that users SAP credentials (Figure 3).
Logon
SAP username/password
SAP
Users SAP credentials are stored on Winshuttle Central. Users Windows Integrated Security credentials are mapped to their SAP credentials and the mapping is stored in Winshuttle Central. When a user executes an SAP transaction via a Winshuttle web service, Winshuttle Server retrieves that users SAP credentials from Central and creates an RFC connection to SAP (Figure 4).
SAP credientials for current user retrieved from Winshuttle Central Windows Integrated Security RFC using current user
Logon
SAP
User connects to SAP using a shared service account. SAP credentials for a Shared Service Account are stored on Winshuttle Central. When a user executes an SAP transaction via a Winshuttle web service, Winshuttle Server retrieves the system account credentials and creates an RFC connection to SAP (Figure 5).
SAP credientials for system account retrieved from Winshuttle Central Windows Integrated Security RFC using system account
Logon
SAP
User logs on using an SAP Logon Ticket. When the user executes an SAP transaction via a Winshuttle web service, Winshuttle Server prompts for the users Windows Integrated Security username and password. Winshuttle Server passes these credentials to a ticketing issuing system and receives an SAP logon ticket, which is used to create an RFC connection to SAP (Figure 6).
SAP NetWeaver AS
Logon
Windows username/password
P SA
go Lo
et ck Ti
ue iss
SAP
Figure 6: SAP logon ticket It is important to note that only users who execute transactions or otherwise interact with SAP need a mechanism for logging onto the SAP system. In a workflow solution, for example, some participants in the process may perform steps that do not require access to SAP; these users will only need their Windows Integrated Security logon to access the form and perform their part of the process.
Additional Resources
For more information see the Products or Support & Training sections at www.winshuttle.com or contact a pre-sales engineer at info@winshuttle.com.
Winshuttle provides software products that improve how business users work with SAP. For customers who struggle with rigid, expensive and inefficient processes that limit their ability to adapt to changing business conditions, Winshuttle has the solution. The Winshuttle Platform enables customers to build and adapt Excel and SharePoint-based interactive forms and workflows for SAP without programming. Thousands of Winshuttle customers have radically accelerated SAP processes, saving and redirecting millions of dollars every day. Winshuttle supports customers worldwide from offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and India.
Corporate Headquarters
Bothell, WA Tel + 1 (800) 711-9798 Fax + 1 (425) 527-6666 www.winshuttle.com
United Kingdom
London, U.K. Tel +44 (0) 208 704 4170 Fax +44 (0) 208 711 2665 www.winshuttle.co.uk
Germany
Bremerhaven, Germany Tel +49 (0) 471 140840 Fax +49 (0)471 140849 www.winshuttle-software.de
France
Maisons-Alfort, France Tel +33 (0) 148 937 171 Fax +33 (0) 143 683 768 www.winshuttle.fr
India
Research & Development Chandigarh, India Tel +91 (0) 172 663 9800