DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINNEERING

REGIONAL COLLEGE FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY – JAIPUR

SEMINAR SESSION 2010 - 2011

A
SEMINAR REPORT
ON

ERP SAP

By

ABHINAV SAXENA

Submitted in partial fulfilment for the Award of degree of

Bachelor of Technology

Submitted To:- Mr. NAVIN GOYAL

(Head of Department)
 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINNEERING
REGIONAL COLLEGE FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY – JAIPUR
SEMINAR SESSION 2010 – 2011

SEMINAR REPORT

ON

ERP SAP

By

ABHINAV SAXENA

Guided by

MR. ROBIL VARSHNEY

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 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINNEERING
REGIONAL COLLEGE FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY – JAIPUR
SEMINAR SESSION 2010 – 2011

PREFACE

The SAP ERP application is an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP)

software manufactured by SAP AG that targets business software requirements of
midsize and large organizations in all industries and sectors. It allows for open
communication within and between all company functions.

An Enterprise can go from its old calculations system to a fully integrated software
package. Some of the benefits may include: efficient business process, inventory
reduction, leads time reduction, improved customer service and higher profitability.
A fully successful implementation of a SAP ERP system can enhance a business in
many ways and help to give a company a competitive edge when it most needs it.

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 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINNEERING
REGIONAL COLLEGE FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY – JAIPUR
SEMINAR SESSION 2010 – 2011

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Seminar entitled “ERP SAP ” has been carried out by
ABHINAV SAXENA under my guidance in partial fulfillment of the degree of
Bachelor of Technology in Computer Engineering of Rajasthan technical
University during the academic year 2010-2011. To the best of my knowledge
and belief this work has not been submitted elsewhere for the award of any
other degree.

Guide Examiner Head of the Department

Mr. Robil Varshney Mr. Navin Goyal

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 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINNEERING
REGIONAL COLLEGE FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY – JAIPUR
SEMINAR SESSION 2010 – 2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my sincere thanks to Mr.---------------------------------------------------------------------------,

Designation --------------------------------------------------------------, Dept. ---------------------------------,

For guiding me right form the inception till the successful completion of the Seminar. I

sincerely acknowledge him/her/them for extending their valuable guidance, support for

literature, Critical reviews of training and the report and above all the moral support

he/she/they had provided to me with all stages of this Seminar.

(Signature of Student)

ABHINAV SAXENA

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 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION
2. FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM
3. CLIENT-SERVER SOLUTION
4. ABAP/4 DEVELOPMENT WORKBENCH
5. ARCHITECTURE OF SAP/R3
6. ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS
7. SYSTEM CENTRAL INTERFACES
8. APPLICATIONS
9. CONCLUSION
10. REFERENCES

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 INTRODUCTION

After the Internet, sap r/3 is one of the hottest topics in the
computer industry, and the company that developed it, SAP AG,
has become one of the successful in the software market.

The SAP R/3 system is targeted to most industries:

manufacturing, retail, oil and gas, electricity, healthcare,
pharmaceutical, banking, insurance, telecommunications,
transport, automotive, chemical, and so on.

All hardware vendors without exception are fully engaged to

partner with SAP: currently AT&T, Bull, Compaq, Data General,
Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Pyramid, Sequent, Siemens-
Nixdorf and SUN has supported and certified SAP R/3 platforms.

SAP AG was found in 1972 by four former IBM employees. Since

its foundation, SAP has made significant development and
marketing efforts on standard application software, being a
global market player with its R/2 system for mainframe

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applications and its R/3 system for open client/server
technologies.

The company name SAP stands for Systems, Applications and

Products in Data Processing. It is a standard software package
that can be configured in multiple areas and adapted to specific
needs of the company. To support those needs, SAP includes
large number of business functions, leaving room for further
Enhancements or adaptability to business practice changes.

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 FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM

The lower layer is made of operating system, physical database

(whose software is included in the SAP kit), and the network.
The middleware layer, which is above it, interfaces with the
lower one and integrates SAP applications on top of it. This
middle layer is known as the basis system, or R/3 kernel, and
includes components such as the ABAP/4 development work
bench, the system administration tools, batch job handling,
authorization and security management, and all cross
application modules.

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ABAP/4 is the 4GL (fourth-generation programming language) in
which all R/3 applications (the upper layer) are developed.

Middleware are the layered software components that facilitate

the development of client/server applications that can be
deployed in heterogeneous vendor platforms.

The basis system, also known as kernel, is the SAP R/3

middleware. The upper layer, the functional layer, contains the
different business applications: financial, human resources,
sales and distribution, materials management, and so on.

The integration of all applications relies on the basis system.The

R/3 kernel makes use of standard communications and
application program interfaces to access the operating system,
the database, and the network. This architecture allows users to
change system configuration and install new systems without
interrupting or altering the applications themselves.

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 CLIENT/SERVER SOLUTION

In general client/server is a style of computing that distributes

the workload of a computer application across several
cooperating computer programs. This type of computing
separates user-oriented, application, and data management
tasks. Client/server is mainly a software concept that includes a
set of service providers and service requesters. In client/server
computing, individual software components act as service

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providers, service requesters, or both. These software services
communicate with each other via predefined interfaces.

Major advantages of the client/server approach are as

follows:

 Flexible configuration

With the deployment of standard communication

interfaces, there are many possibilities for planning
a client/server installation: from a centralized
Configuration to a highly distributed system.

 Workload distribution

Since application servers work in parallel, and

communicate with the data base, users can be
evenly distributed based on their job tasks. Also
there is the possibility of deploying dedicated
application servers to specific business areas.

 High scalability
Client/server permits users to adapt their capacity of the
hardware according to the performance
Needs of the businesses, such as adding application servers
when there is an increase in the number of users, when
additional modules start production, and when data base
becomes larger. This enables companies to protect their
hardware and software investments.
One of the widely used client/server configurations with the
R/3 system is the three-tiered architecture, which separates
system’s computers in to three functional groups:

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 presentation, application, and database. The central server
contains the database, widely known as database server

 Application servers

Include the processing logic of the system,

including services such as spooling, dispatching
user requests, and formatting data.

The tasks related to presentation of data are handled by the

presentation servers, which typically are personal computers or,
workstations, enabling easy access to the system.

Communication among the three tiers is accomplished with the

use of standard protocol services, such as the one provided by
TCP/IP or CPIC. The key to SAP/R3 success was the strategy of
making open solutions, in which applications can run on
multiple operating systems, databases, and communication
technologies.

This enables customers to remain independent of a single

vendor if they wish.

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 ABAP/4 DEVELOPMENT WORKBENCH

ABAP/4 is a 4GL (fourth-generation programming language); the

acronym stands for Advanced Business Application
Programming Language. It is the SAP programming language
used in the development of all standard applications included
with R/3.

On top of ABAP/4, SAP has designed a full-purpose development

environment, known as the ABAP/4 development workbench,
which is integrated with R/3 system and is available for
customers to develop their own solutions and enhance or
extend the capabilities of the existing applications.

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It includes all tools necessary to develop and design programs,
screens, menus, and so forth. It also contains performance and
debugging facilities. Central to the workbench is the ABAP/4
object repository and the data dictionary.

Object repository stores all the development objects of

workbench: programs, dictionary data,
dynpros(dynamic programs), and documentation. The
repository is the key to managing and testing ongoing
development.

Data dictionary contains the descriptions of the data structures

used within programs. This is metadata repository that includes
table definitions, allowed values and relationship between
tables.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF SAP/R3

R/3 BASIS SOFTWARE

The basis software is the set of programs and tools which

interfaces with the computer operating system, the underlying
database, the communication protocols, and the presentation
interfaces. This software enables R/3 applications to have the
same functionality and work exactly the same way no matter
what operating system or database the system is installed on. It
is an independent layer which integrates all application
modules. It is the kernel of SAP R/3 software.

In addition to that R/3 basis also provides:

• The environment for R/3 applications.

• System administration and monitoring tools.
• Architectural software client/server design.
• Authorization and profile management tools.
• Database monitoring and administration utilities.

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The features of the R/3 basis system which enables these types
of interfaces are as follows:

• The client/server architecture and configuration

• The use of relational database management systems
• Graphical user interface design for presentation

The R/3 basis system is based on standards: ANSI-C for the

programming of the run time environment, Open SQL for
embedded SQL calls inside, ABAP/4 for interfacing with the
database, communication standards such as TCP/IP, and
graphical interfaces such as Microsoft Windows, Motif, or
Macintosh.

ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS

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The R/3 system uses some widely known terms to which SAP
gives some specific meanings.

TRANSACTION

Generally, a transaction is an operation that lets user make

changes to a database. The overall R/3 system must be seen as
a business transaction processing system.
In the SAP system, a transaction is a sequence of related steps.
These logically related steps, known as dialog steps, are
screens in which the data is introduced causing the generation
of other events. There is a special transaction monitor, the SAP
dispatcher, which takes care of handling the sequence of those
steps.

The final task of transaction is to modify the information which

ultimately goes in to the database. The transactions usually
contain two phases: an interactive phase and an update phase.
The interactive phase may be at least one step, but can have
many. This phase is responsible for preparing the database
records that can update the database. The update may be one
step or many. This phase processes the previously prepared
records and updates the database.

DILOG STEP

A dialog step is a SAP R/3 screen, which is represented by a

dynpro. A dynpro, or dynamic program, consists of a screen

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and associated processing logic. A dialog step is controlled
exactly by a dydpro.

LOGICAL UNITS OF WORK (LUWs)

Conceptually, a logical unit of work (LUW) is an elementary

processing step which works as a locking mechanism to protect
the transactions integrity. A LUW is a set of steps with in a
transaction, and all those steps must be correctly completed to
go ahead with transaction logic. If there are errors before the
end of transactions, the current LUW is cancelled, but not the
previous ones.
Three kinds of work processes can be distinguished.

• A database transaction, known as LUW or database LUW, is

the period of time in which the operation requested must be
performed as a unit. This is an all nothing operation, i.e. at the
end of LUW either changes are committed or they are rolled
back.

• An update transaction or SAP LUW is the equivalent to the

database concept for the SAP systems. Generally it consists of
numerous database LUWs.

• ASAP transaction or ABAP transaction is made up of set of

related tasks combined under one transaction code.

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SYSTEM CENTRAL INTERFACES

The R/3 middle ware is made of central interfaces as shown in

the figure

• The interface with the operating system.

• The interface with the database.
• The interface for presentation.
• Communication can be seen as a special type of interface
which directly or indirectly is present in the other three types.

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For compatibility and portability reasons, all these interfaces are
grouped together in the central interface functions of the SAP
system kernel.

OPERATING SYSTEM INTERFACE

One of the main task of the operating system inter face is to

guarantee the portability of the whole system. This done using
an internal portability layer. This layer offers to the applications
nearest services to the system, such as message handling and
memory management, independently of the platform and
optimized for performance. The inherent openness of R/3 makes
it run over different operating systems, which has to be POSIX
standard-compliant.

The mission of system interfaces is to provide services such as

scheduling, memory management, and similar tasks, which
could be partially done by the operating system software, but
SAP executes them internally for portability reasons. The R/3
run time environment is written in ANSI-C, but all application
programs inside R/3 are written in the interpreted programming
language ABAP/4 developed by SAP.

The components in charge of controlling the user dialogs are

the dynpros. The technology base for R/3 application is made of
the interrelation of the dynpro interpreters and the ABAP/4
language.

From the view point of the operating system, the runtime

system of R/3 can be seen as a group of parallel processes
(work process). Among these processes there is a special one,
the dispatcher, which controls and assigns tasks to the other
processes.

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DISPATCHER PROCESS

The SAP dispatcher is the control program which manages the

resources of the R/3 applications. It works as a typical
transaction monitor which receives screens and data from the
presentation services and passes them to the corresponding
work processes.
Using client/server terminology, a work process is a service
offered by the server and requested by the client. Dispatcher
manages the information exchange between the SAPGUIs and
the work processes, enabling users to share the different work
processes available.

Main tasks of dispatcher are as follows:

• Balanced assignment of the transaction load to the work

processes.

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• Buffer management in main memory.
• Connection with presentation level.
• Organization of communication processes.

The logical flow of execution of a user request follows:

Users enter data in the presentation server; the data is received

by SAPGUI, converted to a SAP format, and send to the
dispatcher.

Initially, the dispatcher keeps the requests in queues, where the

dispatcher later processes them one by one.

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The dispatcher allocates the user requests using the free work
processes. The real execution takes place inside the work
processes themselves.

At the end of execution, the result of the work process task

goes back to the SAPGUI through the dispatcher. SAPGUI
interprets the received data and fills up the user screen.

SAP has optimized the data flow between the presentation and
application servers. Typically the quantity of data that goes in
the network from dispatcher to the SAPGUI does not exceed
2K.The communication is established via standard TCP/IP
sockets.

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The dispatcher has a special advanced program-to-program
communication (APPC) server built in to it which communicates
and responds to requests submitted by the work processes. On
each application server there is one dispatcher but multiple
work processes.

WORK PROCESS ARCHITECTURE

Work process is a program in charge of execution the R/3

application tasks. It consists of a task handler, ABAP/4
processor, dialog interpreter, and database interface. Activities
inside the work process are coordinated by task handler. It is
the control program inside the work process. The processing of
the codes of the application program is done by ABAP/4
processor. Dialog interpreter manages the user dialogs. The
database interface allows the work processes to establish direct
links with the database.

SERVICES: WORK PROCESS TYPES

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Depending on the type of services provided work processes are:
dialog, batch, update, enqueue, spool, message, and gateway.

DIALOG WORK PROCESS

A dialog work process is in charge of the interactive tasks of the

R/3 system. Dialog work processes execute just one single
dialog step at a time and becomes immediately available for the
next user request, which is assigned by the dispatcher.

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BACKGROUND WORK PROCESS

The back ground work processes are in charge of executing

ABAP/4 programs submitted by for background execution. The
ABAP/4 programs submitted for background processing are
executed in the planned time by the background work
processes.

SPOOL WORK PROCESS

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Spool work process is in charge of formatting the data for
printing and passing it to the host spool system. The spool
requests, indicating the printer and the printing format of the
spool request, are generated during dialog or background
processing and are held in spool database.

ENQUEUE WORK PROCESS

Enqueue work process is in charge of lock management system.

In order for the system to run in a consistent manner, it must
ensure that when a transaction’s dialog steps are handled by
different work processes, they retain the assigned locks until

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the end if the transaction or intentional release of lock, even
when switching work processes.

Locks are managed by the enqueue work process using lock

table which resides in the main memory. Locking objects are of
two types: type S, object that can be shared, type E, objects
that cannot be shared.

UPDATE WORK PROCESS

The update work process is in charge of executing database

changes when requested by the dialog or background work
processes. A dialog program first generates log records in the
VBLOG table, which are then passed by the update program
once dialog is finished. The update log record can have two
components, primary update component (V1) and secondary
update component (V2). Time critical processes are held inside
the V1, less critical ones inside V2.

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MESSAGE SERVER

The message server is a service used by the different

application servers to exchange data and internal messages.
There is only one message server per R/3 system. Every
application server has a unique name for the message server.

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GATEWAY SERVER

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The gateway services allow the communication between R/3,
R/2, and external applications.

PRESENTATION INTERFACE

The presentation interface is the component is in charge of

making functionally equivalent the presentation and handling of
R/3, no matter the type of front end used.

The connection between the SAPGUIs and the SAP dispatcher is

made with an optimized protocol, in which small data packets
are send through the network. The presentation interface allows
for upload and download functions from the application server.

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DATABASE INTERFACE

The underlying database of he SAP/3 system acts as the main

container for all the information managed by the system. The
database interface supports different relational databases from
different vendors. The main task of the database interface is to
convert SQL requests from the SAP development environment
to the database’s own SQL requests.

SAP R/3 COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS AND INTERFACES

Inside R/3, communication is an overall process which involves

most of the components of the systems both internally and to
the exterior world. At the operating system level, the protocol
used is TCP/IP. Communication with the database is
accomplished using remote SQL calls. Between applications
there are many programming interfaces which use an
underlying communication layer, such as CPIC, RFC, ALE, and
EDI.
The communication interfaces are employed to integrate all the
layers of the client/server architecture, from database server to
application server to presentation servers. Additionally they
define channels for exchange of information.

APPLICATIONS

The R/3 applications are usually categorized in three core

functional areas: financial, logistics, human resources.
Additionally SAP actively develops special software packages on
top of R/3, targeted to specialized vertical industries.SAP
financial modules give customers the whole picture of
accounting functions, with excessive report facilities to allow for
fast decision-making support. They are also suited for
international corporations with multiple subsidiaries, including
support for foreign currencies and multilingual capabilities.
HR modules include all necessary business processes to
efficiently manage all the needs of a company’s human
resource area- application screening to payroll accounting or
personnel development.

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Logistics applications manage all processes involved in the
supply chain of goods: from raw material procurement to final
customer delivery and billing.

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 CONCLUSION

Looking from whole point of view SAP R/3 is one of the suitable
software for managing large number of business processes.
SAP AG provides online service systems for administration and
guidance. It provides consulting, information and maintenance
services for the customers of SAP/3 software.

Thus SAP R/3 would be the most suitable software package to

almost every industrial application for medium as well as large
scale industries.

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 BIBILOGRAPHY

1.USING SAP R/3 BY: ASAP WORLD CONSULTANCY AND

JONATHAN BLAIN

2.THE SAP R/3 HAND BOOK BY: JOSE ANTONIO HERNANDEZ

3. www.wikipedia.com

4. www.google.com

5. www.sap.com

6. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_AG

7.
searchsap.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid21_gci214190,00.ht
ml

8. www.capgemini.com/collaboration/alliancepartners/sap/

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 SEMINAR GUIDE INTERACTION REPORT

Phase Interaction Remarks

Topic Decision

Resources search

Compilation of
resources

Abridged report

Rough draft

Intermediate
draft

Signature

Seminar Guide

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 Seminar Observer’s Report

Name Observations Remarks/Marki

ng (10)

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