Working in the SAP NetWeaver Java and Enterprise Portal areas, it seems to me the differentiation between the Portal offers in the context of the SAP HANA Cloud Framework is not made clear enough for customers.
1) The SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal from version 7.4 is the on-premise solution offer which supports the usage of SAP HANA as database. It can be run with other databases but it is going in the direction of being tightly integrated with SAP Cloud solutions.
More details are available in following SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.4 document: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49289
Advantages of this solution are developed in Yaviv blog (I invite you to read all the details in his white paper) :
• Full control over deployment (hardware / OS platform)
• Full flexibility for customization and extensions
• Individualized sizing
2) The SAP HANA Cloud Portal is the on-demand solution offer which is running in the SAP HANA Cloud Framework as the name indicates.
Advantages are:
• Lean, flexible Portal Paas (Platform as service)
• Fast time to value with regular updates
• Easy integration with on premise
• Lower TCO via scalable public cloud (Total cost of ownership)
• Standards based, open platform
Then, there is this question of integration of the SAP HANA Cloud Portal on demand with the on premise Portal solution. The FAQ from the page gives some hints about how it can be achieved:
" Is SAP HANA Cloud Portal a successor of SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.3x?
No, it is not a successor of Portal on-premise. The Cloud Portal can be an extension to Portal scenarios and can be integrated with your on-premise applications.
Will it be possible to migrate content from the classic SAP NetWeaver Portal to SAP HANA Cloud Portal?
Migration will not be possible since the two products are not directly related. However, cloud portal is designed to reuse content from SAP NetWeaver Portal.
If I run on-premise SAP solutions, how do I integrate with SAP HANA Cloud Portal?
The solution enables a secure and reliable integration with the customer's on-premise network for leveraging existing on-premise investments.
The Cloud Portal enables various methods of consuming On-Premise content by consuming data services based on SAP Cloud Connector (SCC). "
The Cloud Portal supports consumption of data services based on Rest APIs or Gateway services (OData). The best practice would be to build a UI5-based application that connects to an on premise backend system (such as a NetWeaver Portal) to fetch the business data.
Following resources show different means available to connect applications to the Cloud Portal:
https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw73/helpdata/en/31/42f34a7cab4cb586177f85a0cf6780/frameset.htm
Finally some use cases and tips to exemplify the utilization of the SAP HANA Cloud Portal:
Use cases for SAP HANA Cloud Portal
Tech Tips and Tutorials for SAP HANA Cloud Portal
