Creating BSP Applications using SAP

Web Application Server

A Premium Paper from thespot4sap LTD

Contents
1.0 Introduction ...................................................................................................................2
2.0 Overview of Business Server Pages (BSP) ...................................................................2
3.0 Understanding Web Application Server Architecture...................................................3
3.1 The Internet Communication Manager (ICM)...........................................................3
3.2 Business Environment ..............................................................................................4
3.3 Connectivity...............................................................................................................4
3.4 Relational Database ..................................................................................................4
4.0 Features of SAP Web Application Server.....................................................................4
4.1 Provides highly expandable and robust Web Infrastructure......................................4
4.2 Compatibility with Internet standards .......................................................................5
4.3 Web Application development using server-side scripting.......................................5
4.4 Open integration capabilties for Web-based applications in flexible environments. 5
4.5 Secure communication...............................................................................................5
4.6 Platform independence...............................................................................................6
5.0 Web Application Server - 6.10 Vs 6.20 Versions .........................................................6
5.1 Additional features in SAP WAS 6.20 .....................................................................6
6.0 BSP Applications ..........................................................................................................6
6.1 Business Server Pages................................................................................................7
6.2 MIME Objects...........................................................................................................7
6.3 Theme........................................................................................................................7
6.4 Application Class.......................................................................................................8
6.5 Controllers..................................................................................................................8
6.6 The Navigation Structure...........................................................................................8
7.0 Creating and defining a new BSP application...............................................................8
7.1 Instruction Set: Defining BSP Application ...............................................................8
7.2 Instruction Set: Activating BSP application............................................................10

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 Creating BSP Applications using SAP Web Application
Server

1.0 Introduction
Enterprise Resource Management Technology is evolving at a rapid pace with
professional business applications increasingly demanding a highly scalable,
reliable infrastructure that can support open Internet standards, off the shelf. A
Web Application Server serves all these purposes and delivers proven scalability
and performance. It also supports Web technologies and open standards, such
as HTTP, eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and Java (J2EE).

SAP Web Application Server (SAP WAS) is a platform for efficient development
and allows you to implement Web applications. SAP Web Application Server is a
crucial component of mySAP® Technology platform. It also paves the way for
implementing “Web services”. WAS supports all releases of mySAP.com
components (including ABAP language), any Java 2 Enterprise Edition and .NET
platform. This article concentrates on using SAP WAS with Java components.

2.0 Overview of Business Server Pages (BSP)

SAP Web Application Server enables new Internet paradigms to be combined
with the transactional operations of ERP. SAP supports the development and
operation of both Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and ABAP-based Web
applications and services.

The custom development of such applications start with the creation of an

environment, which provides a set of carefully matched tools to support various
applications, known as Web Applications Builder. It is an object-oriented,
repository-based development environment using ABAP and/or JavaScript. It
supports the complete development and lifecycle of enterprise applications, and
allows a user to develop new kind of enterprise web applications known as BSP
applications. The core parts of these applications are the Business Server
Pages (acronym BSP) and MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
objects. The concept behind BSP is similar to that of ASP (Active Server Pages)
or JSP (Java Server Pages) documents that can contain code and HTML, all of
which is compiled by the server upon request. You have the choice whether to
use ABAP or JavaScript in your BSP documents.

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SAP’s Web application Server assimilates conventional Web technologies with
new ones like Web Dynpro for the presentation logic of professional business
web applications. In order to implement BSP Applications, it is important to gain
an understanding of the SAP Web Application Server.

3.0 Understanding Web Application Server Architecture

SAP integrates a J2EE environment into the Web Application Server and
supports Java and ABAP in parallel within one server using a common database.
The functions of a SAP Web Application Server consists of four major building
blocks:

3.1 The Internet Communication Manager (ICM)

It is an independent process responsible for communications between the Web

Application Server and external supporters over intranets or the Internet using
standard protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP). The communication is carried out using a high-performance, memory-
based communication channel named memory pipe. ICM also significantly
improves Web site performance and scalability using dynamic and active content
caching technology.

Figure 1: Detailed Architecture: SAP Web Application Server

Image Source: SAP® White paper “Web Application Server: Building Reliable Business Applications”

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3.2 Business Environment

The environment is the component responsible for the business content and
underlying logic of the enterprise that is published using the BSP/JSP.

ABAP Environment is based on SAP’s application server development and

deployment environment. All existing components, such as business objects, can
be used for the business logic.

J2EE Environment consists of a full-featured, J2EE-certified runtime environment

that processes the request passed from the ICM and dynamically generates the
response. This enables Web application developers to create Web applications
that include the presentation and the business logic by using standard Java or
J2EE technology. The SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo) enables method calls
between Java applications and ABAP applications (and vice versa). The SAP
Java Connector also meets the J2EE standard specification for the integration of
enterprise information systems i.e., the J2EE Connector Architecture.

The connectivity hiccups between different application servers and Enterprise

Information Systems can be solved by the J2EE Connector. The J2EE
Connector architecture is part of the J2EE 1.3 platform, which is based on the
standardized technology of the J2EE.

3.3 Connectivity
To integrate third-party products, tools, and applications, the Web Application
Server supports several open connectivity standards. As a result, the Web
Application Server provides complete technical interoperability across all SAP
and third-party components. The Web Application Server supports Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP), XML-based protocol for exchanging information.

3.4 Relational Database

Web Application Server uses an exhaustive repository for exchanging sensitive
enterprise data. In order to deploy successful Web Services, a set of Enterprise
Application Integration (EAI) tools are also required.

4.0 Features of SAP Web Application Server

4.1 Provides highly expandable and robust Web Infrastructure
The SAP Web Application Server is the natural choice for customers seeking to
combine high expandability and flexibility with Web development in a diverse
environment. It has a highly efficient caching mechanism for user access and

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database access with an optimized lock management and multiple distributed
processes.

4.2 Compatibility with Internet standards

SAP Web Application Server supports HTTP, HTTPS and other Internet
Standards. It also allows a user, the desired flexibility to be in sync with changing
technologies. It can also act as a server for bringing applications to the user via a
Web browser or for communicating with other applications in XML or HTML
either directly or via a standard Web server. It can also function as a client to
access other Web applications for collecting information and data.

4.3 Web Application development using server-side scripting

The server side-scripting concept has been readily adopted by developers as it
provides them with a platform of choice. It is similar to Active Server Pages
(ASP) and Java Server Pages (JSP) and thus can be instantly adopted by
developers. The presentation of a Web application is organized in Business
Server Pages (BSP). Such an integrated web development environment provides
complete support to a Web developer’s tasks including versioning, debugging,
deployment, and transporting, It also supports scalable development projects
supporting many simultaneous Web developers. The SAP Web Application
Server also supports workflow with the Web Flow for creating and running
comprehensive business logic.

4.4 Open integration capabilties for Web-based applications in flexible

environments
Open integration capabilities provide both real-time and cached access to SAP
and non-SAP applications, allowing web-based expandibility to customers
without affecting their existing, stable component landscape. All integration
facilities supported by SAP are available with the SAP Web Application Server.
All existing SAP applications, along with connectivity to standard middleware
components or support of traditional communication standards is available with
the SAP.

4.5 Secure communication

The SAP Web Application Server ensures authentication and secure
communication. It also supports widely accepted Internet security standards like
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and HTTPS. SAP Web Application Server supports
digital certificates, ticketing, and cookies to enable effective user authentication.
With X.509 client certificates, users can be identified without any need to
remember passwords. The SAP WAS also supports the use of cookies to identify
a user.

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4.6 Platform independence
The SAP Web Application Server supports all SAP-compatible operating
systems, databases and middleware. Additionally, it supports open technology
standards, including all major communication protocols and document standards
for all business objects and processes, whether in J2EE or ABAP. Adaptability to
any technical infrastructure from mainframe to small servers for all major
databases is featured. Consumer needs are readily met by providing user access
to mobile devices allowing deployment on top of any technical infrastructure.

5.0 Web Application Server - 6.10 Vs 6.20 Versions

SAP® launched the first version of WAS in September 2001, when it was known
as SAP® Basis. It provided open usage capabilities such as a native Web
enabling infrastructure, the adoption of latest technical standards, like HTTP,
HTTPS, XML, SMTP and SOAP. But within a year, in May 2002, SAP launched
WAS version 6.20 which has many additional features over version 6.10.

5.1 Additional features in SAP WAS 6.20

• In SAP WAS version 6.20, XSLT engine has the onus of transferring XML
documents. It is also used for transformation between ABAP, XML, HTML,
or any other text-based format.

• The Web Dynpro technology, which provides a sophisticated development

and runtime environment for Web applications based on server-side
scripting.

• Cluster management functionalities and advanced load balancing are one

of the key features with SAP WAS version 6.20.

• Add-on tools for Java integrated development environments (IDEs).

6.0 BSP Applications

Having discussed the objectives, uses, and architecture of SAP Web Application
Server, we can now start building BSP applications. Lets see the structure of a
BSP application (See Figure 2).

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 Figure 2: Components of BSP applications

6.1 Business Server Pages

It is a set of pages that represent a user interface (layout and page flow
definition). The layout part of a page normally contains ABAP or JavaScript code
which is inserted into the HTML structure. They can contain server-side scripting
code in either JavaScript or ABAP. BSP applications use all the conventional
ABAP technologies, such as Open SQL and internal tables, allowing developers
to create Web pages quickly. This enables existing SAP logic, data structures,
and interfaces to be directly used in Web applications.

6.2 MIME Objects

In the SAP System, all MIME objects represent graphics, style sheets or audio
and video files that are managed in a central database called the MIME
Repository. For every new BSP application, an identically named directory in a
repository is created, where you can store all application-specific MIME objects.

6.3 Theme
It is a container for MIME objects that are used to adjust the appearance of BSP
applications. You can replace each MIME object in your application with another
object from the file system. Themes are created as individual development
objects in the Web Application Builder and can be assigned to a BSP application
to overwrite preset styles and MIME objects on the pages of that BSP
application.

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6.4 Application Class
The business logic of a BSP application is encapsulated in an application class.
This allows several BSP applications to use the same application class and
provide one business application that contains different interfaces, such as for
various devices, without having to replicate the business or application logic. The
application class is a regular ABAP Objects class and is realized by means of a
global ABAP class, which implements the access to business data.

6.5 Controllers
It comprises business logic and application data. Controllers assess the data of
an incoming request based on a model and then select a suitable view for
rendering the response to the user.

6.6 The Navigation Structure

It determines which navigation request is used to direct the navigation process
from a particular page to the subsequent one.

7.0 Creating and defining a new BSP application

SAP WAS provides companies with the choice and flexibility to extend their
solutions according to their available development skills and technical
constraints. Just like all Repository objects, a BSP application can also be
created, by copying it from some other location. For each new BSP application,
the system creates an empty directory with the same name in the MIME
Repository.

7.1 Instruction Set: Defining BSP Application

1. Log on to the SAP Web Application Server.

2. Open the Object Navigator and launch transaction SE80.
3. Select BSP Application category in the object type dropdown
4. Enter the name of new BSP application LearningBSP (See Screen 1).

While assigning the new BSP application to a valid namespace ABC differing
from the standard namespace, you must place the namespace as a prefix in
front of the actual name of the BSP application.

E.g.:
/ABC/NAmeBSPApp

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 Screen 1: Creating a new BSP application

5. Click Enter key to confirm your entry. The system checks to see whether
or not a BSP application with that name already exists in the R/3 System.
If there is none, the Create Object dialog box appears.
6. The dialog box titled “ Web Application Builder: Create BSP Application” is
displayed. Choose “Yes” to create the BSP application.
7. In the subsequent dialog box provide a meaningful Short Description of
the BSP application and press the Enter key. The system refreshes the
left frame, displaying the root node LearningBSP of the application.
8. Select Create. The system then displays the Create Object Catalog Entry
dialog box.
9. As a last step, assign the package to the service.

A successful creation of BSP application displays the BSP application you

have created in the object list tree structure.

Instruction Set Outcome: After performing the above steps a BSP application
is created in the R/3 Repository as a development object.

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In case a user wants to generate the first page while creating the application,
he/she has to go through the following procedure after Step-5 mentioned above:

1. Right-click on the LearningBSP node and select Create > Page.

2. As shown in screen 2 a pop-up is displayed prompting the user to enter
the name of the BSP. Type in “learning.htm” and provide a suitable page
description for the page, such as “learning BSP”.

Screen 2: Defining a new BSP application

3. Assign a suitable name to the Business Server Page. Now, the system will
open the page in the editor frame of the “Layout” tab with some default
HTML code

A new BSP application has to be activated before it is executed. One can either
activate single pages or the entire BSP application, but it is possible only if the
syntax is correct and the check run does not return errors.

7.2 Instruction Set: Activating BSP application

1. Double-click the BSP application that is to be activated.

2. Select Activate option from the context menu of the Object Navigator
3. The system displays a list of the inactive sub objects of the BSP
application.
4. Confirm the selection by clicking on the green coloured check mark.

If after performing these steps an error message is displayed on the screen then
retry to activate the application after eliminating all the errors.

If activation is successful, a message “Object(s) activated” appears in the status

bar stating that the user has generated the runtime version for the BSP
application.

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The Web Application Server is the infrastructure of both new as well as existing
application components. It also serves as the foundation of the SAP R/3
Enterprise. The enterprises constantly strive for implementing dynamic e-
business strategies, which demands a robust and effective ERP infrastructure
and ERP software capabilities. To this end, SAP Web Application Servers can
revolutionize the way corporate e-business solutions are developed.

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