The 5 elemental Gateway Principles

Inspiration: OData and SAP NetWeaver Gateway, SAP Press

SAP developed NetWeaver Gateway as additional middleware technology with the prime goal to increase the reach of SAP Business Applications. The positioning is to enable the development of new types of user-friendly front-ends as new channels for consuming and operating SAP data and functions. Lightweight-consumption Apps.

Gateway provides an open, standards-based (REST, OData), and centralized services-interface [gateway] to the SAP business applications, aimed and optimized for service-consumption through interactive UI-applications. The architectural guiding input for Gateway comes from 2 different perspectives: UI (end-user) and infrastructure (reach, costs).

In the Gateway architecture 5 elemental principles are applied, to achieve openess of SAP business applications also to non-ABAP developers:

1. Openness
   Gateway services must be open for consumption from any device and any technology platform
2. Timelessness
   Gateway must support opening up of any SAP business suite version, for which it is reasonable to expect to still be in use by end-organizations
3. Easy of consumption
   Any front-end developer must be able to utilize Gateway services to consume SAP data, no need for internal SAP knowledge
4. User focus
   Gateway must support the development of modern, interactive UI-applications
5. Division of work
   Gateway development must support work in parallel by backend developer for service provisioning, and front-end / Apps developer for the service consumption.

For a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Gateway architecture and it's guiding architecture, I highly recommend the SAP Press book "OData and SAP NetWeaver Gateway".