MBO vs oData

[CRVMANISH]

Hello Experts,

What is advantage of oData over MBO.

Why future SMP is all oData not MBO.

How oData works offline?

Can oData work without gateway?

Please suggest

Regards

Manish

[Andre_Fischer · Accepted solution]

Hi Manish,

the advantage of the OData protocol is that it is becoming an OASIS standard while the MBO protocol is a proprietary protocol. This is also the reason why the future of SMP is based on OData.

For the next version of the OData protocol (v4) it is planned to support delta queries as part of the standard.

This is already now possible with SAP NetWeaver Gateway as described here in the Online Help:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_gateway20sp04/helpdata/en/2e/d7d9ee0f0f4c3292a555ec1c2952b1/frameset.htm

And OData can for sure work without SAP NetWeaver Gateway. Just have a look at the site http://www.odata.org

We decided to go for OData because it is not a SAP proprietary protocol but is based on open standards like ATOM and JSON and will become a standard itself.

Best Regards,

Andre

[CRVMANISH · Accepted solution]

Hello Andre,

How can we do conflict resolution using delta query , say i have multiple mobile device sending data to SAP , how gateway can take care of that.

Does it works either ways.

Regards

Manish

[Andre_Fischer · Accepted solution]

Hi Manish,

it will be the responsibility of the developer to take care of conflict resolution.

Here you could use eTags for example.

If a conflict occurs you have to have a strategy how to handle the conflict like for example that the last update wins or whether the user or a human being have to decide what to do.

The delta query mechanism is only for read, that means you will be able to retrieve only those elements that have been changed after your last call. When your last call was is stored in the deltatoken.

Best Regards,

Andre

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Andre - Can oData for SAP be used for offline application? If yes, then how?

Regards

Pankaj Gupta

[Andre_Fischer · Accepted solution]

Hi Pankaj,

there is no out of the box support but using the deltatoken mechanism it is possible to develop a service that would deliver all entries that have changed after a certain point in time.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_gateway20sp06/helpdata/en/2e/d7d9ee0f0f4c3292a555ec1c2952b1/frameset.htm

Best Regards,

Andre

[CRVMANISH · Accepted solution]

Hello Andre

I am trying to implement Delta token but finding lot of difficulty can you please provide some guidelines,

i tried the link u shared for delta support , it does not make my life easy.

Can you please reply on this thread.

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3424917

Regards

Manish

[CRVMANISH]

Hello Andre,

Thanks for reply, last question why SAP keep on changing technology first MBO then syclo agentry now oData.  What will be the role of SUP with oData if it used only for security and deploying then we have lot of  MDM in market.

Question is are we still not able to find better solution than SAP MI

Customers and partners are confused to decide concrete solution for mobility.

Regards

Manish

[gerhard_henig]

Hello Manish,

let me shed some light on this. SAP is evolving and enhancing its mobile platform offering.  SAP Mobile Platform 2.3 which is the successor of Sybase Unwired Platform 2.2 already contains the superset of both technologies, SUP and Syclo Agentry with a unified administration.

It contains various SDKs supporting native, Hybrid Web, Syclo Container, online and offline apps.

For the next version of SAP Mobile Platform there is a plan to offer offline capabilities based on the OData SDK for native and Hybrid Web type of applications. It is also planned to enhance the Syclo container technology as this is used for the "traditional" service and sales offline apps delivered by SAP.

Best regards,

Gerhard

[former_member39002]

Hi all,

we are also stucked in an endless discussion about which solution to accept.

I personally find the MBOs really nice and simple to implement and found the code generation feature quite impressive. It really makes then no difference if you decide to go for Native, Hybrid, Online, Offline... With OData everything seems a little bit blury at the moment.

I want to ask for some extra "Insider information" from Gerhard:

- "For the next version of SAP Mobile Platform there is a plan to offer offline capabilities based on the OData SDK for native and Hybrid Web type of applications." Which version are you refering to SMP 2.3 or SMP 3.0?

- What is SAP's stand if many developers, evaluators and clients find MBOs as a better concept? Will it still be there in the future versions or later on all the developed apps should be somehow "migrated"? Is there some strategy for this?

Let's hope that we all get the answers to our questions soon

Best regards,

Ilina

[Former Member]

I worked with SUP before SAP acquired it. Then, the MBO concept made sense as it gave a coherent means of providing a consumption model.

Now, it makes less sense. MBO is a parochial legacy protocol tied to a product,  OData is not.

I've worked with OData in parallel to MBO and I'd prefer to go with OData in order not limit my options for solutions.

Regards

Ron.

[joao_sousa2]

But the real question is, in practice, aren't you already locked in just by licencing SAP Mobile Platform? Can you really say that by using OData you have less lock-in then when using MBOs?

In the end of the day, the more open a platform is, the less automation it has, because that's the price of lock-in. OData puts alot more of a burden on the developers than MBO which took care of all the synchronization. With OData, the developers needs to write more code.

I was not a fan of MBO, I think they provided little flexibility and weren't appropriate for the kind of transactional model that SAP uses, but my problem was never lock-in. For me the cost of using SMP and changing to another solution is the real issue, not using MBO or OData.

SMP is not open even though OData is. 

[CRVMANISH]

Hello Joao,

As far as my knowledge SAP Gateway is free component for SAP ECC.

SAP has brought GWPA  eclipse plug in tool which is to some extent automated , oData will be made available offline it is in future roamap . This means synchronization will take place. Lets see what SAP brings with oData.

Regards

Manish.