Gateway Productivity Accelerator (Developer Edition) Launched
Last September I published my blog introducing Gateway Service Builder which simplifies the development and generation of OData services on top of the SAP NetWeaver ABAP stack and SAP Business Suite. At that time we knew already that having strong developer support for SAP NetWeaver Gateway on on-premise ABAP systems is important but not sufficient. We will also need to do more to cater for OData service development on upcoming platforms like SAP HANA Cloud and Gateway as a Service. Customers will run on-premise systems in hybrid landscapes together with on-demand systems, consuming data from both. Therefore we will need a set of tools that span across different platforms and provide an easy and efficient development experience around OData. This is why we decided to build Gateway Productivity Accelerator as the next major building block for the development of user-centric applications on SAP.
We have now completed and published Gateway Productivity Accelerator (Developer Edition) (GWPA). GWPA is a set of developer tools in Eclipse which greatly improves the productivity of developers around the consumption and the provisioning of OData:
- A graphical modeler to paint the entity relationship model and to declaratively define all elements of an OData model, currently along the OData V3 specification. We spent much effort on usability and intuitive handling. For instance, there are several autolayout modes for newly imported models which come without layout information. A miniature view helps navigating in larger models and speed-buttons support fast editing.
- The modeler offers comprehensive validations for the data model while you are defining or enhancing it.
- You can import existing data models from a file or from an already running OData service.
- Of course you also can export data models (currently V2 and V3) for handover to a service implementation, for instance in Gateway Service Builder on ABAP.
- GWPA already supports references to OData vocabularies, a powerful new concept that was introduced with OData V3.
- GWPA integrates the Gateway Consumption Tools for iOS, Android, HTML5, UI5, Java SE and PHP, which were already published on SAP Service Marketplace and which allow the easy generation of service proxies or even full-blown starter applications for the most common client technologies.
We believe, that GWPA is a significant shipment also beyond its functional capabilities. Let me explain why.
First (and only) OData Modeler in Eclipse
So far the only (setting the Gateway Service Builder on SAP NetWeaver ABAP aside) relevant OData Modeler was part of Microsoft Visual Studio. Non-Microsoft developers were restricted to modeling their OData data models in a plain XML editor. Now any Eclipse developer can freely download and use GWPA to define the OData data model that he needs.
GWPA is platform agnostic
At SAP we now have more than one platform and are serving more and more client technologies. When OData is the agreed standard protocol for user-centric consumption, GWPA can become a commonly used developer tool to model and consume OData services on the most common clients on top of any SAP platform. This will simplify the development process and reduce the TCD for SAP based development.
GWPA is designed to be re-used by other Eclipse tools
This is important if you want to generate code for either service implementations or for client-side code. GWPA uses an OData domain model built on Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). From there, other Eclipse tools can extract information of the data model for a number of purposes like data-binding or code generation.
The GWPA OData Modeler becomes Eclipse Project “Ogee”
To drive the overall adoption of OData and the extension of the tool into other technologies SAP has initiated the contribution of the OData modeler under the Project Eclipse “Ogee“. There the Eclipse community can extend the tool in many ways together with the committers from SAP.
GWPA shipped jointly with other key Eclipse tools from SAP
At the same time as GWPA, we published several other SAP development tools for Eclipse for ABAP, HANA Cloud and SAPUI5 on the same public update site. Now anybody can download SAP developer tools for Eclipse from one public location and install them in one instance of the two most recent Eclipse releases. And last, but not least, the NetWeaver 2013 End-2-End Developer Scenarios were published on SCN with both GWPA and Gateway Service Builder taking important roles in there. Both publications are important steps towards a more harmonized developer experience for SAP customers and partners.
So, I hope you are curious by now and will try out our new Gateway Productivity Accelerator (Developer Edition). GWPA can be downloaded as a trial-edition from SAP’s public Eclipse update site on SAP HANA Cloud. Let us know, what you think of it.
Hello Thomas,
Nice blog. I m curious what the "catering" i for the use of Gateway as a Service? I think this is because in Gateway as a service one of the main ways to develop a Gateway service will be via the upload of a EDMX file, which is modelled with the GWPA?
Are there are other accelerators that I am missing?
Best regards,
Fons
Hi Fons,
you are asking a very justified question. GWPA now is a version 1.0. But already now you can use it in an end-2-end way:
Obviously this approach could theoretically be extended to GWaaS and the different options coming with that. I hope this answer is good enough for now.
Cheers...Thomas
Thomas,
This looks like a great tool, looking at the documentation at the moment this is only a plug-in for Juno? Will this be made available to the Eclipse Kepler build anytime soon?
Thanks
Martin
Hi Martin,
we are currently working on a new version of the tool, which also will support Kepler and subsequent Eclipse version. I cannot give you a date right now and therefore please continue to use the June version. Please excuse the delay.
Cheers...Thomas
Thanks for the update.
Martin
Hi Thomas,
any news regarding GWPA and Kepler?
Thanks, Ulrich
As the name of Eclipse update URL implies, you need Eclipse Juno for this.
I wasn't able to install this within my HANA Studio (Rev51) which runs on top of Indigo
Hi,
HANA Studio R51 also should be installed on Juno, not on Indigo, and we tested the installation of GWPA together with it. Can you please send me the issue, that you are experiencing (perhaps directly to me)?
Thanks,
Thomas
I am getting error while installing the Toolkit for Android(GWA)
Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.
Software being installed: Toolkit for Android (GWPA) 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.android.feature.feature.group 1.0.1)
Missing requirement: Framework Exploration Tree 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.framework.exploration.tree 1.0.1) requires 'bundle org.eclipse.core.runtime 3.8.0' but it could not be found
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: OData Common 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.common 1.0.1)
To: bundle com.sap.odata.dt.component.exploration 0.0.0
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Framework Wizard Exploration Component 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.component.exploration 1.0.1)
To: bundle com.sap.odata.dt.framework.exploration.tree 0.0.0
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Toolkit for Android (GWPA) 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.android.feature.feature.group 1.0.1)
To: com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.android.templates [1.0.1]
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: Toolkit for Android Templates (GWPA) 1.0.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.android.templates 1.0.1)
To: bundle com.sap.odata.dt.common 0.0.0
Check where i did the mistake
Hi,
it seems that you are trying to install the Android toolkit without having the Android SDK installed from Google, which is a prerequisite. So, if you do not want to do Android development, uncheck the Android toolkit feature. Otherwise pre-install the Android SDK and re-run the installation. In any case, we are working on a smoother installation process for this part.
Cheers...Thomas
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the Reply. Now i am using Eclipse JUNO, earlier Eclipse Indigo. JUNO have no issues. 😛
Thanks
Venu
I am trying to install GPWA Odata Modeller for HANA Weekstone latest release Version: 2.2.0
1.1.1
https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/juno
I am getting the following error. I installed Graphiti latest even I am getting same error.
Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.
Software being installed: OData Toolkit for Java Platform, Standard Edition (GWPA, Developer Edition) 1.1.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.javase.feature.feature.group 1.1.1)
Missing requirement for filter properties ~= $0: Graphiti Compatibility 0.9 to 0.10 for 0.9 1.0.2 (com.sap.org.eclipse.graphiti.comp09to010.09 1.0.2) requires 'org.eclipse.graphiti [0.9.0,0.10.0)' but it could not be found
Cannot satisfy dependency:
From: OData Toolkit for Java Platform, Standard Edition (GWPA, Developer Edition) 1.1.1 (com.sap.odata.dt.cons.toolkit.javase.feature.feature.group 1.1.1)
To: com.sap.odata.dt.framework.core.feature.feature.group 0.0.0
Cannot satisfy dependency:
In older version of HANA weekstone it worked.
I am trying in latest.
I appreciate your support in this regard.
Thanks
Anil
Hi,
I'm trying to create an application based on SAP Workflow. I was using tutorial from the link below.
http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-gateway/blog/2013/06/12/how-to-create-sap-workflow-based-android-application-consuming-odata-workflow-service-with-help-of-gateway-productivity-accelerator-gwpa
Everything was going smooth till I uploaded my app to emulator. when i try to logon logcat in eclipse returns the following error:
Both libraries are included in the project. Do you have any idea what could I do wrong?
Best regards,
Daniel Myslinski