Difference between Netweaver Business Client and Netweaver Enterprise Portal

[Tarun]

Hi Experts,

We are at EHP5 and implementing the ESS. As read from many sources there are two options for implementing ESS in EHP5. One is through Netweaver Business Client and other is through Netweaver Enterprise Portal.

Can someone please tell the differences between them and which one should prefer while implementation, I mean Pros n cons of both.

http://help.sap.com/erp2005_ehp_05/helpdata/en/1c/d363d96e604378bb2b6661d543e7b9/content.htm

Regards

TS

[siddharthrajora · Accepted solution]

MWBC offers low TCO but if you dont implement POrtal, you might be missing some services in EHP5 like benefits which are converted to WD ABAP in EHp6 only,

But if you go with EHp6, all services are converted to WD ABAP and NWBC will be perfect fit then

read here

http://scn.sap.com/thread/2114018

[Former Member]

NWBC and EP both are great depending upon what you want to look for...

For implementing HCM services and if the company has never implemented self-services, then NWBC is the better option compared to EP.

My reasons for supporting NWBC:

1. You can enable a NWBC through the web-browser so there is zero footprint.
2. NWBC does not require portal resources (no additional/separate hardware, maintenance cost is low, easy to implement - BASIS and Security can deploy the solution)
3. UI is better looking and this is the direction SAP seems to go into and promote\

Pro's for EP

1. One thing I like about EP is that you can customize the colors to match your company colors where as the themes in NWBC are fixed.
2. EP supports WD-ABAP and WD-Java services

But besides this, I do not see a major need for EP.... If you are a company who is implementing self-service for the first time, then NWBC would be a better choice...

If you get EhP6, then all services are in WD-ABAP... if you are on EhP5, all but Benefits services are in WD-ABAP. Benefits is still in Java. It will be converted to ABAP in EhP6 release.

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Hi TS,

I can only give some pros for EP since we don't use NWBC:

Pros for EP:

- Zero Footprint

- Multiplatform

- Nice unique branding options

- Single point of entry for all different kind of applications no matter the architecture

- Can be accessed from pretty much everywhere since it's, in the end, a web service

Methinks NWBC has a better performance but misses the above Pros and if I'm not mistaken, it is a client application, so you will have this application on every computer which needs to have access on business applications and I wager it's about ~600MB to ~800MB.

In my opinion: NWBC for smaller companies who dont need multiplatform stuff and only want to distribute some WDAs, other than that. EP is still better for bigger companies.

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member]

Hi Lukas,

Just a small correction: NWBC also has a "web" version since ehp5. So it is also available as a web portal, but fully Web Dynpro ABAP based. So in this scenario, you cannot execute Web Dynpro Java applications, which could be a problem (for instance, if you want to use UWL or other Java-only services).

Kr,

Julien

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Ah, good to know! Everything from EHP5 onwards is still an "unknown world" to me ;-D

Cheers, Lukas