If you attended an SAP Insider conference, SAP's Sapphire, any ASUG-sponsored event, or a forum during the last year, you've no doubt heard about SAP's new product release, mySAP ERP 2004. It is also possible that you heard several new product names, such as ECC 5.0 and certainly SAP NetWeaver.

Hardly mentioned, if at all, in any current SAP presentations is the old and very familiar term SAP R/3. After reading this article you should be able to answer the following questions: What has happened to my R/3 and has SAP stopped developing further enhancements to the core application?

Well, the short answer is: The entire R/3 product suite has been enhanced on both the application and technical sides. In fact, it has so much new "stuff" and new technology that a new name was called for. That new name is mySAP ERP 2004.

I will address several points about the new functionality:

• The product evolution path from Release 4.6C to Enterprise (4.7) to mySAP ERP 2004
• The major differences between 4.6C, Enterprise, and mySAP ERP 2004
• What is included in mySAP ERP 2004 and what SAP NetWeaver adds

Product Evolution

Figure 1 illustrates the evolution path to mySAP ERP 2004.

Figure 1

Architecture from 4.6C to mySAP ERP 2004

Let's start at the left side of Figure 1 at the box labeled SAP R/3 up to 4.6C. At this level, the product core contained the FI/CO, MM, PP, HR, and SD components. A rather simple technical base, by today's standards, of SAP Basis and ABAP supported them. Add-on application products such as BW, SEM, and APO were classified as "New Dimension Products" and were added as required by customers. At this release level, when a customer wanted a release upgrade, it required an all-or-nothing approach. For example, you could not upgrade the financial module without including all the other core modules. In addition, the existing technical base did not support the newly evolving Web- based community without several complex challenges.

Because of these problems, coupled with requests from customers, a new application strategy and new technical base were developed and Enterprise 4.7 was released. The Enterprise release offered better solutions when a release upgrade was called for, and the technical base was improved to better address the evolving Web-based business environment.

Note the section of Figure 1 labeled SAP R/3 Enterprise Core. The core products (MM, PP, HR, etc.) pretty much retain the same menu paths and applications that are found in Release 4.6C. However, they come with finance application enhancements. (For more information, go to https://help.sap.com and click on Documentation>SAP R/3 Enterprise.) Overall, the major change on the application side was the new selective upgrade strategy, which for the first time offered individual product extensions and extension sets. For example, you could choose to upgrade only the financial components without upgrading other core components such as MM and HR.

The other major change with the new Enterprise release was on the technical side with the addition of the Web Application Server (Web AS). Enterprise retained the same Basis and ABAP capabilities as 4.6C. However, with the addition of the Web AS, the Enterprise release was better able to handle the new Web-based applications such as Financial Supply Chain Management (FSCM) and the Management Information Cockpit.

The next release after Enterprise is the first "ERP" release, ERP 2003. Only a few customers adopted this limited release during 2003. These customers' businesses required a much stronger technical base than Enterprise offered. The new SAP NetWeaver technical base fulfilled their Web-based technology requirements.

On the application side, the basic R/3 product suite and the new selective upgrade strategy developed within the Enterprise release were transferred into ERP 2003. The basic product suite was enlarged to include many of the New Dimension products.

In July 2004, my SAP ERP 2004 became available for customers enrolled in SAP's product release program called Ramp-Up. The structure of mySAP ERP 2004 is shown in the last box on the right in Figure 1 (mySAP ERP Edition 2004+). If you compare the mySAP ERP 2004 diagram to the earlier SAP R/3 4.6C diagram, you see that mySAP ERP 2004 contains a wider set of application components than SAP R/3. The concept of release upgrades using extensions and extension sets first found in Enterprise is included in mySAP ERP 2004. The R/3 4.6C core components are also included, but with the new name of Enterprise Core Components 5.0 (ECC 5.0).

The look and feel of the core product menus paths have changed very little since 4.6C except for some new menu options added to support the new applications. For the end user, everything looks much the same (Figure 2).

Figure 2

ERP 2004 application menu options

What the mySAP ERP 2004 Release Includes

See Figures 3 and 4 for a description of what is included in an upgrade.

mySAP ERP 2004 map

1. Analytics contains enhanced analytical tools for financial planning, workforce analysis, operations, and the entire product suite called Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM).
2. The Financials application group includes the Financial Accounting (FI) and Management Accounting (CO) modules and new applications of corporate governance tools such as Management of Internal Controls (MIC), the Audit Information System (AIS), and Financial Supply Chain Management (FSCM) with its tools such as Biller Direct and Dispute Management.
3. Human Capital Management has all the traditional HCM features and functions with some new features such as e-Recruiting.
4. The Operations area includes most of the logistical functions found in the MM, PP, and SD modules. It contains basic logistical functions including purchasing, inventory management, and projects.
5. The new Corporate Services group includes several new "core" components — for example, Incentive and Commission Management, Real Estate Management, Environmental Health and Safety, and an improved Travel Management tool.
6. The final functional group within mySAP 2004 highlights SAP NetWeaver. SAP NetWeaver is designed as an open technical platform enabling it to integrate with other non-SAP applications. That's why the symbols for IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's .NET are included on the SAP NetWeaver diagram (Figure 4).

Figure 3

mySAP ERP 2004 map

The Components of SAP NetWeaver

1. The first SAP NetWeaver segment is designed to provide the toolsets needed for effective people integration. It supports the SAP Enterprise Portal and provides the ability to communicate via multi-channels around the world at any time.
2. The management of information segment provides standard information management tools such as Master Data Management (MDM), Business Intelligence (BI), and the Knowledge Management (KM).
3. The process integration functional area ties together the people and the information via open standards (Integration Broker) and enables cost reduction via Business Process Management.
4. The application platform still includes the Basis and ABAP tools along with the Web AS and several other toolsets.

Figure 4

The components of SAP NetWeaver

Figure 3 highlights the content and scope of mySAP ERP, which is the current mySAP ERP 2004 product map. Note the several new applications in the ERP 2004 product suite. On the left side, the individual ERP 2004 components are organized into major functional groups.

Like the ERP product map, the SAP NetWeaver stack shown in Figure 4 breaks down the overall technical components into different functional areas designed to address different technical and applications requirements for mySAP ERP 2004.