Co-Innovation platform from SAP and Sybase
There were lot of interest shown from the participants of TechEd to know more about the co-innovation platform offered jointly from SAP and Sybase. Many questions were around the installable for this platform, the solutions already available in market, the business use cases where co-innovation platform could be implemented, types of devices supported, security of device data, device management capabilities that the platform could offer and concerns about TCO & TCD factor due to two server side installations and maintenance.
Co-innovation platform consists of NetWeaver Mobile 7.10 (Data Orchestration Engine or DOE) with a connector to Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP). This connector named Gateway to NetWeaver Mobile (Mobile Gateway) is available as an add-on to DOE. There are two applications on this platform ‘Sybase Mobile Sales for SAP CRM’ and ‘Sybase Mobile Workflow for SAP Business Suite’ out in the market available for customers. Find a video on Sybase Mobile Sales for SAP below
NetWeaver Mobile 7.10 is just not a new version of its predecessor as it is comes with a completely new architecture incorporating the lessons learnt from the performance and scalability issues faced with the earlier releases. DOE and SUP brings complementary capabilities to achieve better end user experience. DOE's core capabilities include extremely efficient data staging and data distribution with high performance and scalability where as SUP brings in the real time push to the devices along with device management capabilities and the development tools to build applications with native user experience for various device types. Since there is a server to server integration between DOE and SUP and SUP is always connected to devices, a secured data push is possible from backend till the devices and vice versa. Currently, the co-innovation platform supports applications on Windows Mobile, Blackberry and iPhone.
Given the fact that there are various ways of mobilizing enterprise data, when to use what kind of solution has become a common question these days. Co-innovation platform will definitely fit those occasionally connected (offline) and occasionally disconnected scenarios where large number of devices will be working with good amount of data or in other words large scale device deployments with good data volume, thus using the advantage of efficient data staging and distribution capabilities offered by the platform.
The queries around TCO and TCD factor that could arise with 2 server side component installations in separate box are valid, but it is in the current form due to the fact that this platform came in to existence as a result of partnership between two companies. With Sybase joining SAP, what the partners and customers will be looking for is a unified platform, with all the current capabilities along with end-to-end governance and monitoring tools thus addressing and improving the TCO and TCD efforts in future.
Detailed blogs on capabilities and responsibilities of DOE and SUP in these links
SAP Sybase Co-innovation Platform for Enterprise Mobility
SAP Sybase Co-innovation Platform – Responsibilities of Data Orchestration Engine (NW Mobile)
Qualities Required for a Successful Enterprise Mobile Solution
