Since I'm dealing with Enterprise Portal quite a lot of time, I've made some private notes to have a look at, when someone asks me about the different versions of the EP. So, why not sharing this infos with you? With this weblog I want to give you a quick overview to the SAP Enterprise Portal Landscape from the administrative point of view, how the EP changed during the different Support Packages and how the different components fit together.
Technology
EP60SP2 is the current, official released version of SAP Enterprise Portal and runs on Web Application Server 6.20. Starting with EP60SP3 the Enterprise Portal is part of the SAP Netweaver (still in Ramp-Up but it should be released this year, too) and it runs on WAS6.40. So there was a big step between EP60SP2 and EP60SP3, because SAP switched the underlying Web Application Server.
Main differences between WAS6.20 and WAS6.40
This is a short list of the main topics I recognized during changing to the new version. WAS6.40 (technically it's based on J2EE-Version 6.30)
supports current JDKs (e.g. SUN JDK1.4.2_05)
integrated System Landscape Directory (SLD), can be used for connection purposes
(new) User Management Engine 4.0
has got its own database for configuration, SLD and UME
integrated WebDynpro runtime environment (SAPs solution of a MVC-Framework)
uniformed logging service (since 640SP4), putting all the logs together in one default trace file
Licensing the Portal moved to the WAS's Keystore
Upgrade Strategies
Stacks / Support Packages / Patches / Hotfixes:
A stack consists of support package versions for all netweaver components. SAP guarantees that all components in a Netweaver Stack release work together. So it's recommendable to upgrade all components always to the next stack. A Support Package is a set of changes that upgrade a component to a higher SP-Level. Patches are interim-changes on specific SP-Levels. There used to be Hotfixes for patches for fixing problems in a short time, too. But I haven't seen them in newer Netweaver-releases anymore.
There are some differeneces in how the support packages and patches are deployed. Support Packages since EP60SP3 are deployed via a SAPINST-Routine. Patches for EP60SP6 are deployed via SAPINST, too! Patches for KMCSP6 are deployed via SDM.
Current versions of the Enterprise Portal:
Enterprise Portal 5.0:
J2EE-Engine
Patch25
EP50
SP6(Patch1.4)
CM50
SP6(Patch1.13)
PDK
50.0.6.0
Enterprise Portal 6.0 SP2:
WAS6.20 (J2EE-Engine)
Patch25
EP60
SP2(Patch4.7)
KMC50
SP2(Patch4.5)
PDK
60.2.2
Enterprise Portal 6.0 >=SP3:
Netweaver Stack:
02(Preview)
03
04
WAS6.40 (J2EE-Engine)
SP3->SP5
SP6
SP7
EP60
SP3->SP4
SP4(Patch4)
SP6(Patch4)
KMC60
SP4
SP5(Patch1)
SP6(Patch2)
PDK
60.3
60.3
60.6
Developer Studio
SP5
SP6
SP7
EP50 runs on a J2EE-Engine Single node, with EP60, it's a J2EE-Engine for Cluster, since then we're also calling it Web Aplication Server (J2EE-Engine).
(Portal)Development
Portal Development Kits
The PDK consist mainly of javadocs, tutorials, tools for deploying/removing/browsing/running portal archives. PDK50.x, imported as Business Package PDK60.2.2 for EP60SP2 (.epa), imported as Enterprise pOrtal Archive in Portal PDK60.3 for EP60SP3/4 (.sca), deployed via SDM PDK60.6 for EP60SP6 (.sca), deployed via SDM
PlugIn for Eclipse-based IDEs:
It consists of Wizards for creating Portal Archives (.PAR files) and deploying them online on the Portal Serer. When using Netweaver Developer Studio, the PlugIn is full integrated and obsolete.
Netweaver Developer Studio:
Eclipse based IDE for developing WebDynpro Application as well as Portal Archives (.PAR files) and deploying them out of the IDE on the server.
