Fourth Tier in the Wings for SAP R/3 Applications
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SAP is in the early stages of adding a new virtual computing tier to its R/3 architecture as part of an effort to simultaneously address performance, scalability, and data-access issues. This fourth tier of distributed caching servers will reside between SAP application servers and back-end servers and will augment SAP's application servers as they deliver data to front-end clients.
To accomplish this goal, SAP plans to deploy its LiveCache server technology on multiple server platforms that will ultimately be integrated with every R/3 module. Currently, the LiveCache technology is only slated to be made available with the Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) module in SAP's supply management module running on Windows NT servers.
HOwever, a Unix version of the APO will be available in the fourth quarter, followed by an AS/400 implementation in the first half of 1999. Both implementations will include parts of Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) that will be ported to these platforms to run the APO module. Unlike the NT implementation, however, the Unix and AS/400 implementations will take advantage of the 64-bit platforms that are available for those systems.
As part of the effort to create a distributed layer of LiveCache servers that can be accessed by multiple application servers, SAP will redesign its memory systems in order to remove any dependencies on a session-based architecture in R/3. Instead, SAP will link cache memory directly to transactions. Therefore, as long as the transaction is live, it will reside in cache memory, as opposed to terminating with the loss of the session, according to Jurgen Primsch, SAP product manager.
Although SAP officials have set no formal date for delivery of this technology across all of R/3, its first incarnation -- in the company's supply-chain application -- will be available soon, and the company began briefing customers about the new architecture last week at its TechEd '98 conference in Los Angeles.
The emerging four-tier computing model should help to resolve a number of issues for SAP. First, servers with dedicated cache will significantly improve performance, while also allowing SAP customers to build more scalable applications that span multiple hardware servers. At the same time, this level of cache should make it easier for SAP and its partners to build data-access tools that are more tightly integrated with the core R/3 applications, because copies of the most up-to-date data in an R/3 system should be available in cache memory, rather than on a back-end data server built on top of a relational database.
"Right now data access is a really big issue, so this approach could be key," said Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at the Hurwitz Group in Framingham, Mass. "A lot of people have invested in SAP and are now looking for efficient ways to access that data."
SAP Inc., in Philadelphia, can be reached at http://www.sapus.com