SAP NetWeaver offers the best of ESA and BPM

The Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) applied in IT environments enables the aggregation of web services into useful elements with business value. ESA is an application based on a service-oriented architecture and an object oriented design. ESA signifies a state in which the IT architecture becomes flexible enough to keep pace with the existing and anticipated requirements of an organization.

ESA leads to the breaking down of composite applications and the layers thus obtained make up the components of ESA. This reduces the integration costs and stresses the importance of design and modeling.

ESA will enable companies to develop business strategies without having to worry about practical bottlenecks from inadequacies in the IT infrastructure. The major elements of ESA are abstraction, modularity, standardized connectivity, loose coupling, and incremental design. ESA when coupled with Business Process Management (BPM) allows enterprises to control costs, manage lifecycles, and operate with maximum flexibility.

SAP NetWeaver offers ARIS from IDS Scheer, which is a BPM tool, and SAP XI, which is an ESA tool. SAP NetWeaver allows enterprises to achieve maximum concurrence between the business processes and the IT landscape. The SAP NetWeaver platform provides the framework for building ESA-based solutions. SAP NetWeaver offers preconfigured business content, supports J2EE, and provides interoperability and extensibility with both Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere.

SAP NetWeaver is also the basis for SAP solutions such as SAP xApps composite applications, mySAP™ Business Suite solutions, and SAP R/3 Enterprise. SAP NetWeaver is based on open standards; it is an integration and application platform that helps companies to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO).