At SAP's SAPPHIRE conference, SAP and Microsoft announced enhanced support for .NET development of SAP apps, and plans to deliver tighter integration of SAP apps with the Windows Azure cloud.
SAP AG and Microsoft have announced plans to better enable .NET
developers to build applications for SAP environments, as well as new
plans to improve integration between SAP software and Microsoft
virtualization and cloud software.
The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE NOW, being held in Orlando, Fla., May 15-18, where Microsoft was also named "SAP Global Technology Partner of the Year."
The companies plan to make business processes from SAP software more
easily consumed and extended by .NET developers, simplifying the
overall application development process. This level of access will help
redefine the SAP/Microsoft developer landscape with shorter development
cycles, lower costs and openness into core applications, the companies
said. Microsoft and SAP are also planning to provide integration
between upcoming landscape management software from SAP, Microsoft
System Center and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V technology, bringing
greater agility for cloud management and deployments.
The Microsoft announcement with SAP comes on the same day that SAP
announced a partnership with AWS (Amazon Web Services) to run a healthy
portion of SAP's enterprise software applications in the cloud on the
AWS platform. SAP and Amazon teamed to certify that SAP's software will
run on the AWS cloud. The first wave of supported SAP products on AWS
includes the entire suite of SAP BusinessObjects solutions and SAP
Rapid Deployment solutions supported on Linux platforms.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's announcement is more developer-focused and
includes no enterprise software running on the Microsoft Windows Azure
cloud. Instead, Microsoft officials speak of plans and eventualities
for SAP apps running on Windows Azure.
"Building on the successful partnership with Duet Enterprise, SAP
and Microsoft plan to offer interoperability and a native development
experience, so that a .NET developer can easily build applications in
visual studio that run across the SAP and Microsoft platforms," said
Vishal Sikka, member of the Executive Board, Technology and Innovation,
SAP. "Interoperability is a core advantage that SAP and Microsoft can
deliver to the customers we both share."
SAP and Microsoft recently launched Duet Enterprise software, a
joint product for SAP applications and Microsoft SharePoint
development. Enhancing their support across a variety of application
models and scenarios, SAP and Microsoft now plan to interconnect their
development platforms, extending development capabilities for
developers within the Microsoft ecosystem. This plan includes using
software development accelerators to enable connectivity between the
development platforms, integrating Microsoft development tools with the
business functionality of SAP solutions across a variety of application
models and scenarios. Microsoft and SAP's goal is to simplify access to
SAP applications for millions of .NET developers using SAP NetWeaver
Gateway technology, in a manner that does not require any specialized
knowledge of SAP business software. Tighter integration will bring new
innovations to the forefront, helping drive a plethora of new .NET
applications that consume and extend SAP Business Suite applications.
The anticipated new interoperability layers include:
Visual Studio integration: Microsoft and SAP will be partnering to
dramatically increase developer productivity and lower cost through
deeper integration of SAP systems and future versions of Visual Studio
and the .NET Framework
Windows Azure SDK for SAP NetWeaver Gateway: Extend SAP NetWeaver
Gateway with a new software development kit (SDK) for Windows Azure so
that .NET developers are able to create private or public cloud-based
applications for Windows Azure that connect to on-premise SAP systems
without leaving their existing development environment
Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.
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