What is SAP NetWeaver? Tutorial & Overview
Jessica Blake
⚡ Smart Summary
SAP NetWeaver is the integrated technology platform, not a product, that underpins every mySAP suite application, unifying People, Information, and Process integration on the Application Platform through SAP Web Application Server.
What is NetWeaver?
NetWeaver is SAP’s integrated technology platform and is not a product in itself. In fact, the new version of Basis is called NetWeaver.
It is the underlying technology for all the products in the mySAP suite. All the products in the mySAP suite can run on a single instance of NetWeaver’s SAP Web Application Server, also known as SAP WebAS.
NetWeaver makes access to SAP data possible using simple HTTP protocol or even mobile. This eliminates the need for installing — and, more importantly, training in — SAP’s client-side software.
The core capabilities of SAP NetWeaver are the integration of People, Information, and Process, all resting on a common Application Platform.
People Integration
People integration brings users together and helps them work more efficiently.
- Portal: Delivers unified, personalised, and role-based user access through SAP Enterprise Portal technology.
- Collaboration: Promotes cooperation in enterprises using virtual team rooms (Collaboration Rooms), real-time communication (chat and application sharing), and third-party groupware and synchronous tools — for example Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and WebEx.
- Multi-Channel Access: Connects users to enterprise systems through web-based, voice, mobile, messaging, or radio-frequency technology.
Information Integration
Information integration brings together information from a variety of locations and gives it meaning in the context of daily work.
- Business Intelligence: Provides reliable tools for creating individual and interactive reports and analytical applications.
- BI Content & BI Content Extensions: Enables quicker implementation using pre-configured role and task-oriented information models in SAP Business Intelligence.
- Knowledge Management: Allows common access to unstructured information and documents in a distributed storage landscape — search, classification, subscription, versioning, and more.
- Search and Classification (TREX): Provides SAP applications with services for searching, classifying, and text-mining large collections of documents (unstructured data), as well as for searching and aggregating business objects (structured data).
Process Integration
Process integration coordinates the flow of work across departments, divisions, and companies. This usage type covers all functions previously delivered by SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure (XI) — now branded SAP Process Integration (PI) and its successor SAP Process Orchestration (PO) — which are used to realise cross-system business processes.
This usage type enables different versions of SAP and non-SAP systems from different vendors, running on different platforms (for example Java and ABAP), to communicate with each other. SAP NetWeaver is based on an open architecture and primarily uses open standards (in particular XML and Java). It provides services essential in a heterogeneous, complex landscape, including:
- A runtime infrastructure for exchanging messages between systems.
- Configuration options for managing business processes and the flow of messages.
- Message mapping so payloads are transformed before they reach the receiver.
Application Platform
SAP Web Application Server (SAP WebAS) provides a complete development infrastructure on which you can develop, distribute, and execute platform-independent, robust, and scalable Web services and business applications. SAP Web Application Server supports ABAP, Java, and Web services in the same instance.
SAP NetWeaver Architecture: ABAP, Java, and Dual Stack
SAP NetWeaver Application Server ships in three flavours. The one you install depends on whether the application uses ABAP, Java, or both.
- AS ABAP: Runs the classic ABAP work processes. Includes the ICM (Internet Communication Manager), ABAP dispatcher, gateway, message server, enqueue server, and multiple work processes. This is the stack used by SAP ERP, S/4HANA, and BW.
- AS Java: Runs Java EE applications. Ships with one ICM, one SAP Start Service, several Java server processes, plus the SCS (System Central Services) instance holding the enqueue and message servers. Used by Enterprise Portal, PI, and Composition Environment.
- Dual Stack: Combines ABAP and Java in one system. The central instance holds message server, enqueue server, and a separate ASCS (ABAP System Central Services) instance. SAP recommends splitting dual stacks — new installs are single-stack.
All three flavours use the SAP Kernel binaries, disp+work processes, the enqueue lock table, and a shared database schema. Basis administrators monitor them with SAP MMC, SM50, SM66, ST22, and ST02.
Key NetWeaver Usage Types
Every NetWeaver install exposes only the “usage types” you activate. The list below lines up the most common ones with the business scenario they support.
| Usage type | Stack | What it delivers |
|---|---|---|
| AS ABAP | ABAP | Base runtime for ERP, BW, and Solution Manager. |
| AS Java | Java | Base runtime for Portal, PI, CE, and IdM. |
| EP / EPC (Enterprise Portal) | Java | Role-based single sign-on portal with KM and Collaboration. EPC is the leaner core-only variant. |
| BI | ABAP | SAP BW data warehouse, reporting, query and analysis. Requires AS ABAP in the same system. |
| BI Java | Java | BI front-end tools (BEx Web, Web Application Designer) that need Java. |
| PI (Process Integration) | Dual | Message broker across SAP and non-SAP — Integration Directory, Integration Repository, Adapter Engine. |
| MDM (Master Data Management) | Java + native | Consolidates customer, vendor, and material master across systems. |
| CE (Composition Environment) | Java | Design and run Java-based composite applications on top of existing services. |
| MI / Mobile | Java + client | Occasionally connected mobile scenarios — replaced by SAP Mobile Platform and SAPUI5. |
| IdM (Identity Management) | Java | Centralised user provisioning, role assignment, and password self-service across SAP and non-SAP systems. |
SAP NetWeaver vs SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)
NetWeaver was the on-premise platform for the 2000s and 2010s. SAP BTP is its cloud successor — a subscription-based, multi-cloud service that folds NetWeaver’s capabilities into a single environment. The comparison below explains what carried over and what changed.
- Deployment: NetWeaver is on-premise; BTP runs as a managed service on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba.
- Runtime: NetWeaver installs AS ABAP and AS Java on your servers. BTP exposes Cloud Foundry, Kyma (Kubernetes), and ABAP environments as ready-to-run services.
- Integration: NetWeaver PI/PO handles integration. BTP replaces it with SAP Integration Suite (Cloud Integration, API Management, Open Connectors).
- Portal: NetWeaver EP served corporate portals. BTP offers SAP Build Work Zone (formerly Launchpad Service) with Fiori-first entry points.
- Analytics: NetWeaver BW hosted the warehouse. BTP pairs SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud for cloud data warehousing and BI.
- Extensibility: NetWeaver was the ABAP development stack. BTP provides ABAP Cloud (steampunk) plus Node.js, Java, and Python runtimes with an extensibility model that keeps the digital core clean.
Because BTP embeds NetWeaver’s foundational services — application server, integration, and extension tools — most NetWeaver skills (ABAP, OData, IDoc, BAPI) still apply when moving to BTP. Only the deployment surface and DevOps toolchain change.
