The IT senario Enabling Business-to-Business Processes belongs to the IT Practice End-to-End Process Integration. Enabling business-to-business processes is the message- and standard-based integration of inter-company processes by seamlessly connecting SAP and non-SAP applications and orchestrating the process flow between them. Companies are under enormous pressure to keep costs down and productivity up. The key to achieve this is to replace redundant manual processes with repeatable, automated technologies. Business-to-business integration is a vivid example of such a technology. It can result in significant short and long term benefits and carry those benefits across the entire business supply chain. To enable business-to-business processes, SAP NetWeaver provides one platform to centrally manage the design, configuration, and execution of business processes running within and beyond your enterprise. The functionality provided in SAP NetWeaver for B2B includes the means to maintain and manage Collaboration Profiles and Agreements between Business Partners, a Partner Connectivity Kit to enable XML document exchange between a smaller business partner and a bigger partner using SAP NetWeaver, an enhanced message protocol that is conducive to B2B process characteristics and security enhancements, as well as the support of industry standard B2B message protocols like RosettNet Implementation Framework, CIDX etc. Enabling Business-to-Business Processes in SAP NetWeaver adds business value because it supports XML-based business processes between business partners using industry standards and also enables small business partners to conduct XML business document exchange by providing them with a small scale, easy-to-use client. This scenario includes the following variants: Business partner integration using industry standards Organizations can perform message-based and standards-based integration of intercompany processes using various communication channels. Small-business partner and subsidiary integration Organizations can use the SAP Partner Connectivity Kit to conduct business with subsidiaries and small-business partners that do not have another integration solution.
New Capabilities Available with SAP NetWeaver 2004s
The IT senario Enabling Business-to-Business Processes provides the same functionalities for SAP NetWeaver 2004s as for SAP NetWeaver 04, i. e. there are no differences in the capabilities for this IT scenario. However, a huge number of features have been provided with the last support packages for SAP NetWeaver 2004s / SAP NetWeaver 04, and more features will be provided in the near future for this IT scenario. An overview about the most recent and newly planned functionalities can be found in this presentation: New Features in E2E Process Integration - NW 2004 (XI 3.0) & NW2004s. A more detailed description of the released new capabilities of the last support packages is available on the SAP Help Portal. Since there are many new features available in the area of Software Life-Cycle Management (e.g. Installation, System Copy) for SAP NetWeaver 2004s, please also see this overview presentation covering the new aspects of SAP NetWeaver 2004s that are interesting from a process integration point of view.
