What are the similarities and differences between SAP BusinessObjects and XS Engine?

Question

I have an application developed using sapUI5. The next step would be to host the app on a web server/application server.

That being said, there are 2 options to consider:

1. SAP XS Engine
2. SAP BusinessObjects

I'm pretty familiar with how this would work with XS Engine. The XS Engine is a lightweight application server embedded in SAP HANA that can be used to layer procedural logic and Web services on top of HANA tables and views.

Here is a diagram showing its structure (XS Engine):

With that in mind, how does Sap BusinessObjects compare to XS Engine? With XS being directly on HANA, BOBJ has a few other layers in between. Only I cannot understand what they are, and how they work. How is BusinessObjects able to 'talk' to the HANA database?

Answer 1

BOBJ(3-Tier Architecture)

1. Flexibility of having different Netweaver (ABAP/Java) Gateway server and Backend server, and it could be m:n connections b/w them.

2. Backend server could connect to any DB. (need not be HANA)Because of which you can easily and with little disruption integrate SAP HANA functionality into your current architecture.

SAP HANA Native Application – Using SAP HANA XS:

1. If you are building a new application from scratch which is SAP HANA specific, SAP HANA XS is a better option. With SAP HANA Extended Application Services you can build and deploy your application completely self-contained within SAP HANA.

2. This provides an opportunity for a lower cost of development and ownership. It also provides better performance because of the closeness of the application and control flow logic to the database.

This is quite a broader topic. I am open to add other points if I've missed.