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Service-Oriented Architecture |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 03 March 2009 10:29 |
SAP is SOA enabled.
SOA (pronounced as so-uh) stands for Service-Oriented Architecture.
SOA architecture is based on NetWeaver technology.
Being SOA enabled means that SAP software support service calls.
Any program (even external to SAP) can make a service call to SAP to retrieve some useful information or to register new information.
For example lets say you have developed an external website that needs to retrieve current pricing information from SAP software. Instead of retrieving information from the database (by writing SQL) your website will make a service all to SAP requesting prices on selected items. Also your website may make a service call to SAP to register a new customer.
The information might arrive to your program responsible for generating website in an XML (Extensible Markup Language) format.
XML is a popular choice of protocol for data exchange. You can then parse this data and display it to the website in any layout you like using HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
Websites are built using HTML language. This is the language that your browser can decode.
SOA architecture brings flexibility to the table. It makes it easy for external applications to communicate with SAP.
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