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 FrameworkWindows 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“
Microsoft and SAP Enhance .NET Development, Promise Cloud Integration
title=Integration and Enhanced Flexibility}
Microsoft and SAP plan to create new interoperability between industry-leading SAP business technology and Microsoft’s virtualization and management portfolio across data centers, private clouds and public clouds.
The companies plan to integrate upcoming landscape management software from SAP with Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center. This integration will instill enhanced flexibility, scalability and management in the cloud all while reducing cost and risk. Through these connected offerings, SAP and Microsoft customers will be able to scale deployments in their own data centers or through private clouds. In the future, SAP and Microsoft plan to continue their collaboration to support deployment of SAP applications on the Windows Azure Platform.
Mitsui & Co., a large Japanese trading company based in Tokyo, recently deployed a private cloud solution based on Windows Server Hyper-V virtualization technology, Microsoft SQL Server, and the ERP (enterprise resource planning) application SAP ERP. Thanks to the integrated ties between the SAP and Microsoft components, Mitsui has established an IT environment that is not only centralized across multiple locations but is flexible enough to power applications when needed. Data storage needs for SQL Server backup have been reduced by 86 percent.
“By applying the Windows Server Hyper-V environment as an integrated foundation in our SAP landscape, we have increased the agility of Mitsui as a whole,” said Yuji Mano, general manager, Information Strategy Planning Office, Management Planning Department, Mitsui & Co., in a statement.
“Working together with SAP, our aim is to knock down any walls that would inhibit the richness and sophistication of our two combined platforms,” said Ted Kummert, senior vice president of the Business Platform Division within the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft, in a statement. “Customers and developers will have an open, more diverse field to build their IT infrastructures upon. We are ushering in modern IT platforms that can deliver value for years to come.”
In a blog post on the news, Kummert said:
““This integration will instill enhanced flexibility, scalability and management in the cloud, all while reducing cost and risk. Through these connected offerings, SAP and Microsoft customers will be able to easily scale their deployments in their own data centers or through private clouds, for example, if they have a workload that needs on-demand scale periodically, such as a paycheck or employee performance review application.”Together, Microsoft and SAP are committed to driving greater levels of innovation and flexibility for application development and cloud deployment’from your datacenter to the public cloud, eventually enabling hybrid computing scenarios via Windows Azure for companies to embrace cloud computing on their terms.”“