Page 1 Prepared by Sapient for MIT Version 0.

1 August September 2004

This document represents a snapshot of an evolving set of documents. For information on further iterations, please visit: http://istwiki.mit.edu/istwiki/ItagFrontPage
SAP
In the mid 1990s MIT chose SAP to be its ERP Solution. Initially the Financial Piece of SAP was implemented at MIT followed
by an Administrative implementation. MIT has two separate installations of SAP. One installation is for its main campus, the
other for Lincoln Laboratory. (Lincoln Laboratory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center of MIT located in
Lexington, MA). The main campus installation of SAP has the following modules currently implemented: FI: Financial
Accounting, CO: Controlling, PCA: Profit Center Accounting, MM: Materials Management, SD: Sales and Distribution, CA-CL:
Classification System, HR: Human Resources, PY: Payroll, LDS: Labor Distribution, CA: Cross Application, Plant Maintenance,
and Training Events Management. Lincoln Lab has its own support staff for their SAP installation and maintains it separately
from the Main Campus installation. Customized I-Doc interfaces from SAP at Lincoln Lab are used to communicate to the
main SAP system. These interfaces help integrated the two SAP systems to fulfill the financial reporting relationship between
the two. In the near future these interfaces will also help integrate the Hazardous Materials/Health and Safety reporting
relationship between the two.
There are two different ways to access the SAP applications at MIT. Users can install the SAP GUI on their desktop and
access it from there. In addition MIT has a web interface called SAPWeb which users can use for SAP requisitioning. Later
this year there are plans to integrate a Web Application Server for SAPWeb.
Various updates and upgrades are planned for SAP in the next couple of years. A highlight of these include the following.
SAP-BUD will signify the migration of the Nimbus (budgeting) functionality to SAP. This is scheduled to go live in December
2004 with a web front end interface. EHS is scheduled to have three phases rolled out. Inspection and audit
SAP Logical Architecture Diagram SAP Physical Architecture Diagram
are scheduled to go live in February 2005. The training and needs assessment phase will go live in Jun 2005. Employee
Payroll will be part of SAP by Jan 2006. (Student payroll will still be managed by SSIT.) Finally a hardware renewal of the
SAP platform is scheduled for 2005. There may also be an upgrade of the SAP version around the same time.
Shown below are the logical and physical architecture diagrams of SAP.
SAP DB
(Oracle)
Users
SAP ITS
SAP Client
Browser
Client
(SAP WEB)
System
Component
Key:
Related
System
Other MIT
System
SAP Application Server
Kerberos
Server
A
u
th
e
n
tic
a
tio
n
fo
r S
A
P
C
lie
n
ts
External
Systems
Other MIT Systems
Incoming:
Data Warehouse
Roles DB
SAP - Lincoln Lab
Mainframe
COEUS
MIT ID
Broad Institute
Outgoing:
! Data Warehouse
! Archive (IX0S)
Server
! Broad Institute
! MIT ID (Real Time)
External Systems
Incoming:
! Benefit Providers
! Financial Institutions
! EDI
Outgoing:
ECAT Vendors
Financial Institutions
Benefits Providers
Financial
Accounting
Materials
Management
Controlling
Sales and
Distribution
ProfitCenter
Account
Classification
System
Human
Resources
Payroll
Labor
Distribution
Cross
Application
X509Certificates
Drop
Box
SAP Web
Classic
Plant
Maintenance
TrainingEvents
Management
A9