The SAP system is software which is composed of different
software and a server as a whole and has the ability to perform standard
business functions for corporations. The system has become so popular because
it can serve a wide range of functionality from manufacturing to finishing
products. There is one simple reason behind the popularity of this system; it
can be tuned to any level for any industry. It has the concepts of enterprise
resource planning (ERP) and business process reengineering (BPR) which is
integrated in the system.
“Sap stands for System, Andwendungen, and Produkte in Der
Datanverarbeitung, which when translated to English means System, Application,
Products in Data Processing.” The name of the parent Company is SAP AG. The
company SAP is based on Walldorf in Germany and is the world’s largest
enterprise software company. Its foundation is built upon the concept of
integration.
Originally, dating back to the 1970s, it took the then controversial
approach of combining various business functions into one application and
database. Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Planttner, Klaus Tschira, and
Claus Wellenreuther, former IBM employees, launched SAP in order to turn the
real business processing vision into reality.
After a year, the first financial accounting software formed
the basis for the continuous development of other software components which
later came to be known as the "R/1 system;" "R" stands for
real time data processing.
By the end of the decade, intensive examination of SAP’s IBM
database and dialog control system led to the birth of SAP R/2, designed to
handle different languages and currencies. The SAP R/2 system attained high
level of stability of the previous generation of programs. With this and other
innovations in SAP R/2, SAP saw a very rapid growth.
By the 1990's, when SAP R/3 was unleashed into the market,
the client-server concept, uniform appearance of graphical interfaces,
consistent use of relational databases and the ability to run on computers from
different vendors met with an overwhelming approval. The client-server
architecture moved to a more flexible and scalable architecture. Going by this
technology, the processing of an application could be split between the server and
workstations – the server handling the centralized functionality, while the
client workstation maximized for users. The data management was separate from
the server.
SAP ushered in a new generation of enterprise software –
from mainframe computing to the three-tier architecture consisting of the
Database layer, Application (business logic) layer, and user interface layer.
Today is the day for client-server architecture, where one can make changes or
scale on layer without having to retool the whole system.
The term SAP R/3 stands for runtime system three and the
client-server environment provides a set of business application for the
system. The R/3 architecture allows distribution of the workload to multiple PC's
connecting in a network. The SAP runtime system is designed in such a way that
it distributes the presentation, application logic and the data management to
different computers.