Repository Framework (RF)

Table of Contents

Audience and Organization of Sections

Motivation: The RF - What is it all about?

Scope of this Documentation: Views on the RF

References



Audience and Organization of Sections

This documentation is targeted at developers - either developers who want to use the RF as a basis for an application or developers who want to develop new extensions for the RF.

Good Java knowledge and a basic knowledge of Web technologies, SQL, and normal development processes is required. Knowledge of UML and SAP's block diagrams is helpful. The reader should be familiar with SAP Enterprise Portal and the PDK, and know how to develop and deploy SAP Enterprise Portal services.



Motivation: The RF - What is it all about?

The repository framework (RF) is an extensible framework that offers applications unified access to objects provided by various information sources.

An information source (or repository) can be a "store" (for example, a document management system or a file system) that typically stores unstructured data such as text or graphics. It might also be a "backend system" ("backend" for short) (for example, a database or an ERP system) that typically contains structured data such as data records or business objects.

A repository is connected to the RF using its repository manager (RM). The repository manager is responsible for converting the repository's internal representation of the stored information into the unified aspects of the RF and vice versa.

The unified access eases application development, because applications do not need to deal with the specific behaviors of the different information sources. For example, a workflow application based on the RF will instantly be extended to any other kind of document or business objects, as soon as the RF is extended with a new repository - without requiring changes to any lines of code in the workflow application.

In turn, objects from information sources benefit from the applications on top of the RF. For example, when the RF is extended with a new repository, all objects exposed by this new repository can instantly be searched using the generic search engine - without the need for re-implementing such functionality in the repository itself.




Scope of this Documentation: Views on the RF

There are several ways of looking at the RF:

From an end user's point of view, the RF is more or less transparent, since a user usually only uses the applications on top of the RF within SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0 to access the objects of the various information stores. The user's guide can be found at [User Guide].

From an administrator's point of view the RF along with its extensions and some of the applications using it is a component of SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0 and requires some configuration in order to work properly. The administrator's guide can be found at [Admin Guide].

Application developers use the RF client APIs or APIs of other applications, built on top of the RF, to build their applications.

Extension developers use the RF extension APIs to extend the RF with new repository managers or additional services. To build their extension, they might use existing features of the RF or existing applications by using the RF client API or other applications' APIs as well.




References