Software Deployment Manager 
Purpose
The Software Deployment Manager (SDM) is a tool with which you can manage and deploy software packages that you receive from SAP.
For the majority of functions in the SDM, you can use the right mouse button to display a context menu.
Software Deployment Archive (SDA)
The Software Deployment Archive (SDA) is the delivery format for SAP applications in programming languages other than ABAP. It is a ZIP-compatible archive format that can be used as a container for other archives. The SDA contains the manifest information - that is, package-related data - of its archives (such as jar, war) and an SAP manifest, which contains additional software logistics information.
The EAR archive is a special case in the J2EE context. If an EAR archive contains an SAP manifest, it is also an SDA. The SDM recognizes the EAR archive as an SDA, but does not rename the archive extension as <archive_name>.sda.
An SDA is the smallest unit that you can deploy. Furthermore, the SDA is the smallest unit for which patches can be created and delivered.
Software Component Archive (SCA)
A Software Component Archive (SCA) is the physical representation of a version of a software component. It contains a specific number of SDAs, whose quantity describes a precisely-defined version level.
A SCA update always results in a new version level of the software component.
Deployment
The deployment is the final step in the software delivery process; it involves the deployment of available software packages - SDAs or SCAs - in the runtime environment of the SAP Systems.
When deploying SDAs/SCAs, the Software Deployment Manager stores the data in the SDM Repository, where it then manages the installed archives. The SDM recognizes dependencies between archives and provides support when you install and maintain shared applications.
The SDM uses the Deployment Manager to control the deployment of SDAs/SCAs for the following
· J2EE applications
· File system content
· Database content
· SAP J2EE Engine Additional Libs
Prerequisites
If you want to deploy your applications with the SDM, you must register the relevant software packages in the SDM. The data is then stored in the SDM Repository, where it is used for Software Lifecycle Management.
See also:
· Working with the Graphical User Interface (GUI)