SAP Guide for Beginners-Part 2

After reading the first chapter of my little series ‘What it takes to be a self-directed SAP learner‘, The Beginning, you now should be aware of your future career in SAP. 

Of course it’s no easy ride to become a SAP Consultant. For example, to pass the certification, you have to memorize the content of the training manuals – around 4,000 pages. No chance to cheat. It takes an extraordinary will to archive that goal. If you don’t have that mindset, I promise, you will fail. 

But, there’s a second condition: Practical experience. 
The certification exam is very underhand, without proper understanding of the coherence it’s simply not possible to answer the questions. 

Therefore, every chapter of the SAP training manual is spiced up with concrete exercises. 

So you obviously do need an exercising environment – but, you guess it, SAP is not just another program. In fact, it’s a three-tier client/server architecture, consisting of this layers: 

• Database
• Application
• Presentation

And each layer typically runs on an own Server/PC. 
But don’t dispair, SAP has an solution for you :-) 

The SAP Developer Network (SDN) is a vibrant online community for SAP developers, analysts, consultants, integrators, and administrators. SDN members enjoy a robust collection of technical content on a range of SAP topics.

Visit SDN (http://sdn.sap.com), become a member (free of charge) and go to the download section. 
In the “Free Download Catalog“, chapter “Software“, click on the link “SAP NetWeaver Main Releases“. 
 

There, I suggest to choose the “SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (2004s) – ABAP Trial Version“. 
 

Check the System Requirements, start downloading (2.7GB). 
 

It sounds incredible, but this download offers a complete RDBMS (MaxDB), the SAP Application Server and also the SAP GUI – all you need to run a complete SAP System on your own PC/Notebook. 
It’s a 30-days-trail, but the license can be extend troube-free for 90 days, multiple times. 

The installation procedure is absolute hassle free, just decompress the downloaded files, open the [Start] HTML-file with your browser (Firefox or InternetExplorer) and follow the instructions. 

That’s it – the foundation of your new career! 

 

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