SAP NetWeaver 74

SAP NW 7.4 is basically successor of NW 7.0x and particularly NW 73 not just from general SAP Application Server - ABAP stack point of view but it comes with many features with regards to HANA. Reason being is that the NW 74 got optimized for the HANA. This doesn’t mean that other databases are not supported. Sure they are just focus of optimization is just HANA. The NW 74 is foundation of Business Suite and all its innovations of 20013 and BW 7.4.

Last update: 08JAN2023

The NW 7.4 is available since May 2013. Currently there are following SP of NW 74:

As of 31.12.2020 the NW 7.4 reached End of Mainstream Maintenance.

SP29             01/2023                  3284050

SP28             07/2022                  3225987

SP27             01/2022                  3142735

SP26             07/2021                  3075818

SP25             12/2020                  3001757

SP24             07/2020                  2947648

SP23             01/2020                  2882104

SP22             07/2019                  2819159

SP21             01/2019                  2739438

SP20             08/2018                  2681732

SP19             02/2018                  2598021

SP18             10/2017                  2556114

SP17             05/2017                  2479140

SP16             11/2016                  2392465

SP15             06/2016                  2324416

SP14             02/2016                  2285380

SP13             11/2015                  2240919

SP12             08/2015                  2187520

SP11             06/2015

SP10             03/2015

SP09             GA November 2014

SP08             GA September 2014 – so called Service release SRS2

SP07             GA June 2014

SP06             GA March 2014

SP05 GA December 2013

SP04 GA September 2013

SP03 GA July 2013

SP02 GA May 2013

SP00 GA May 2013

 

So now let’s have a look what new is available in NW 74, of course majority of them are focused on HANA. A list below is gathered on NW 7.4 SP8:

-      “Code to data” ABAP code paradigm: This means that instead to do complex or data intensive operations on ABAP application server the logic is moved one floor down to database means to data layer. There are many new ABAP statements available to support this approach. Following are techniques to support this: ABAP Managed Database Procedures (AMDP), Native SQL (ABAP Database Connectivity (ADBC)), Open SQL enhancements for building views for CDS, Optimized protocols (Fast Data Access), Table buffer enhancements, Core Data Services (CDS) etc.

 

-      Development environment in Eclipse: basically all the development (not only in ABAP but UI and HANA development) can happen now in one tool – the Eclipse. Means co-development and deployment of HANA and ABAP artefacts.

 

-      Components like Application List Viewer (ALV) and Business Rules Framework (BRF+) optimized for HANA: e.g. ALV optimized for HANA (ALV on HANA), these components are directly leveraging power of HANA, e.g. result set or help displayed in drop down boxes for ALV is reduced already in DB by code-to-data approach.

 

-      SAP Gateway and SAPUI5 functionalities out of the box: systems based on NW 74 are ready for exposing its data via SAP Gateway using SAPUI5 user interface.

 

-      Majority of NW 74 offerings available in SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL): from the CAL the SAP system can be easily deployed from variety of preconfigured Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS).

 

-      New developer tools e.g. for testing, monitoring: SQL Performance  Tuning Worklist (SWLT), ABAP SQL Monitor (tcodes: SQLMD, SQLM)

 

Useful links:

Overview and road map of SAP NW 74

NetWeaver Community page at SCN