An Overview Of Sap R-3 - What Exactly Is It?

An Overview of SAP R-3 - What Exactly is It?

By Joseph Parish

SAP R/3? What in the world is that? Well, if you are asking those particular questions right now then you are not alone. Many people when they first hear those set of letters wonder the same thing. SAP R/3 has actually been the previous name of the enterprise planning software which is produced by SAP AG located in Germany. The current name of this software is now SAP ERP.

The very first version of the SAP enterprise software consisted of a financial Accounting type of program known as R/1. The combination of the three letters consisting of S-A-P was ultimately replaced with the R/2 at the close of 1970. SAP R/2 was software produced for a mainframe computer system and usually operated on systems such as the IBM S-390 Enterprise mainframe computer. This software package proved to be extremely versatile and functioned flawlessly during the 80's and the early 90's.

These software modules were especially popular with the larger European companies which real time applications with multiple capabilities. It was not long before the successes of the initial software prompted the SAP Ag Company to expand its products and thus it brought out the SAP R/3 which was fully multiple platforms capable. This new software operated on various platforms such as Microsoft Windows and the ever-popular UNIX systems. From 1992 onward SAP dominated the business application market on up to 2002.

The real beauty associated with the SAP R/3 software is that it is created to function as distinct modules that effectively provided support for many of the organizational functions often found in today's modern businesses. These functions ranged from Finances and Control, Human Resources, Materials Management Branch, Sales & Distribution, as well as the Production Planning Department.

Each module was created to handle only specific business orientated tasks, however, all the modules were ultimately linked to each other. As an example, billing department could issue an invoice which would be directed to the accounting division and would appear in this section's account receivable

Combined with the excellent multi-powered S-390 Mainframe computer this system represented the ultimate software for business management. It could effectively be cross platforms without any sort of data lose at all. In other words, you could easily use the Mainframe as your central processing equipment and safely import various data from your individual servers regardless of the platform that they were using.

The various SAP specialized modules are programmed for coordination within certain business segments such as retail or utility purposes.

Unfortunately, in order to utilize all of these impressive features one would have to pay dearly for the associated license fees. The goal of SAP when it comes to their software development is that they want to provide a much more efficient product for the corporation than would be possible for them to actually attempt to create on their own.

The structure of the SAP R/3 has been programmed by using the proprietary language commonly known as Advanced Business Applications Programming or simply ABAP. This is a fourth-generation programming language which provides a powerful subset of programs capable of providing complete functions for management and analyzes. Although all the modules were fabricated to perform together each and every one can function solo.

Much could be written on this software package, however, due to the various Custom configurations that could be established it would take many pages to provide a mere scratching of the surface. To better understand this package, you should sit down with a representative and tell them what your company really needs in the way of enterprise solutions.

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