Currently, a lot of SAP Customers are picking up SAP CPI.
I have gotten a few requests to help some developers that were working on a real SAP CPI project. It is pretty difficult if you don’t understand the basis of SAP CPI.
I, therefore, decided to create a guide to show hot to get started with SAP CPI even faster. And what is the minimum requirement that you must have before you get started? How do you get a trial system?
I have been in the SAP Integration work for a long time. I started out doing SAP XI back in 2004. At that point, there was a lot of integration work going on with integration 3rd party application. It was the primary focus because SAP ERP R/3 had all the business applications internally. All integration work was therefore just to ensure that the Internal SAP is talking together correctly.
In the current cloud age, there is a large difference.
“Many applications area different application for specific domains.”
It means a fully new way of organizing your application. SAP has now purchase Ariba, Field Glass, SuccessFactors which has different ways of operating. They have all been build on different platforms to ensure they run optimal in their setting.
If they need to be useful to modern business then you must ensure that you have integrated them with your existing system. It is not an option not to integrate them, otherwise, users cannot interact with them and ensure that data is in the correct thru out the systems.
I’m running a one-person business Figaf, where we are making SAP PI/PO testing applications. Even it is only me with a limited number of customers I still need to integrate my CRM systems and Billing system to make the progress a lot faster for any sales process. I can manage it because I’m the only person and it is fairly easy to do with the number of customers coming.
If you have a large organization it becomes really crucial to be able to understand what is going on.
I have been sharing a post on the topic of current SAP Integration and what is happening there. It is both master data and transaction data that needs to be improved. SAP has announced some tools to speed up the process but we will see more on them at SAP Teched.
Surely, I can click on a webshop and purchase a photo book in just 5 minutes but then I also need to select pictures and maybe even add some text to the pictures. This is not a 5 minutes task that’s for sure. Depending how much effort you want to put into this it can take several hours, at the moment I have spent 5 hours on my photo calendar.
So why am I raising this topic? Well, I must come clean and admit that I’m kinda doing the same thing – and it bugs me.
At Figaf we have our SAP PI/PO testing tool IRT and I can set up a test in our own system in just around 5 minutes maybe even shorter. But this is not a real-life scenario when you apply our test tool it will take you a lot longer than 5 minutes.
It can be challenging not to go down the road where you make advertises that states you can make complex testing in just 5 minutes. I have tried to be more realistic and made a backpack where it says “test your full SAP PI/PRO system in days, not months”.
I do believe that this a valid assumption and at Figaf we want to be on the same side and make sure the testing is set-up correctly. But I’m also aware that in some cases it will take longer it could be some weeks and not days.
So how do you see this marketing vs. real life?
Is it okay to say, “set-up a test in 5-minutes” because I can actually show you it can be done or is that a no-go in your opinion?
SAP Migrations are never easy. This week I created a long post about how it is possible to make a good SAP PI to PO migration.
The purpose is to go from a dual stack to a single stack.
The reason you want to migrate is that it will make your SAP landscape much simpler. The java only instance is easier to maintain because there is just one server to run.
Performance is also better because of the java only, so there everything can happen in the same transaction and be processed fast. In the dual-stack you needed to move messages between the ABAP and JAVA stack up to 4 times per message, so there is room for improvement.
And then the big point is that you will be able to get maintenance of the system. SAP has reported that no more development will happen for the dual stack systems.
Read more about how to migrate from SAP dualstack XI/PI to a PO single stack system here.
I have been working on creating a course for PI developers so they could learn how to useProcess Orchestration/BPMN. I was missing a good tutorial to get started with BPMN so I could help my customers move to the single stack.
So I decided to create a course on the topic of BPMN and PI. One of the things I learned most from was on interview with some of the people how have been suing BPMN for some time. In this blog I’ll share some of the information that I got from the interviews.
BPMN is a beautiful tool that, we as PI developers, must understand how to use. Yes it was the word beautiful on a SAP product. Really nice. The reason is that it enables developers to draw the processes much better and is easier to understand. There is also the concept that there is the Business Rules Management (BRM) which makes some actions easier.
BPM is easy to get started with. It was not so difficult to use if you had the background on ccBPM. The basic building blocks are much the same and then it can do a bit more. Most experts agreed that it was a good idea to start small and with a simple process. Then you could enhance it to make sure that you covered the business. If you stared with designing the full process you would have a hard time validating it.
Performance is improvement is much better. So there is not the requirement to try to avoid using BPMN for all cost. With ccBPM the goal was to avoid using it because of the negative performance that it had. The people that I interview did not share this concern and thought that BPMN was a much better performing tool and the PO was a good solid platform.
BPMN can be eliminated in many patterns in the migration. In a lot of instances we want can avoid using BPMN when migrating. A lot of ccBPM is from old releases of XI where we often had to create collect patterns and async/sync bridges. Well this mean that you will not end up having the same number of ccBPMs and BPMN if you do a migration. In some scenarios you may also end up creating new processes, to make the business process better supported.
Data structures/message types is being validated much more. In ccBPM you could put whatever message into the process. BPMN requires you to have the exact data structure, so you will have to define the data as it are. This is giving some issues if you want to have idoc data into the process. One workaround is to use CDATA structures for the data you don’t want to define.
Versioning can cause some challenges. The best is to use NWDI to handle the projects. NWDI did make all of the change management and version control much better. The challenge is that not all clients have NWDI. So there is the option to export the software components
It is always nice to be reconfirmed in some of the ideas you have, of what you see the business you are in. The book is old from 1999 and updated in 2004. A lot of things have happened in the SAP field over the last years.
The book goes into details with all the different aspect of how you can approach the SAP marked either as a consultant or as an end user. The premise for those has not changed over the years. So it is the same type of decisions you will have to make today. In that perspective I think it is a killer book for everybody how wants to move into the SAP field.
There is a nice way of balancing what to do in some situations, should you take a higher paying job to work with older systems or getting the job that makes you travel.
One issue I have been seeing is that people may not have the long term for what they want to do in the business. They just have a job and like or don’t like it. The long term vision is important when you are selecting the job and when you have to select if you want to move.
One interesting thing the is
The Catch-22 of SAP: there are not enough trained consultants because those who have training are consulting and none of them are teaching.
It makes it really hard for new people to enter the space and make sure that companies are getting more qualified jobs.
One of the reasons is that it is either a job as a trainer or as an implementer. This means that you do not get the information for people how really do the implementation. It would be nice if it was possible for some of the top implementers/specialists to be able to deliver content they know.
I’m leaving from home in a few hours for SAPPHIRE, and really looking forward to meet all the really cool people there. But you mostly meet people at random, some will help get your objectives. But you have to be lucky.
So I thought that it could be interesting to see how was at the event that could make a difference. The ideal people for me to meet would be people working with SAP Process Integration (PI). It is difficult to find them and you have to meet a lot of people, which is nice though.
I decided to make a video saying how I wanted to meet. It would though probably be nicer if other people did the same. So if you are up for the challenge. Create a youtube video about how you want to meet. The format can be whatever you can make. If it is with your mobile phone it is also great.
Just make a video reply to my movie and tag the video with #sapphire and #sapphiremeet.
I would expect that you know what Google Wave is; otherwise you are not viewing this post. If not please look at Starting on Google Wave, to get more information on the future of communication.
For a while I have been working on how to create Google Wave applications and how they can interact with enterprise application. It is an interesting area with a lot of integration work possible and productivity enhancements.
From what I have learned so fair the features of Wave can connect very well with enterprise applications and make an environment where the users can work.
I created a demo on how Google Wave can be used to manage a simple workflow application. The demo features a loan application, with possible collaboration between the customer and the bank. The demo is made without any backend integration, but it is possible to make this integration.
A more detailed description of how this works can be found at the blog.
So it is possible to create simple “workflows”. Hardcore ABAP workflow programmers will laugh of this type of workflow, since they are missing a lot of the functionality they are using. With time and implementation of a workflow framework, creating workflows will be easier. Wave workflows will be have the advantage of being a much better tool for collaborating and contain semi structured data.
With a lot of Enterprise Services on the SAP systems, it is fairly easy to find the services that you need to enable you to implement ERP functionality in third party applications. You browse the ESR to find the webservice, which you want to use. Then you create a proxy for the service and can call this from your application, in this instance Google Wave. And then when the bank employee has approved the loan the SAP system is informed about the change.
I did have some problems with calling the ES from the Google Appengine, where it is only possible run robots currently. On Appengine there are some limitations on what you can call of Java classes, and I did not manage to get Axis working with ES. Therefore I have just used Plain HTTP calls to ES, where I have created the SOAP envelope manually. Then parsing is also done using XML parsers. From an architectural point I’m not real proved of the solution, but for the demo it is ok.
An example of how it is possible to use Google Wave in SAP is showed in the following video. In this video the user enters a command. The robot then responds with a list of orders this customer have.
The integration still has some short comings, which needs to be addressed, before Wave can be used in organizations.
The list of orders is displayed as plain text, so it is not possible to interact with the text. It would be possible to add buttons or check boxes to perform some simple processing of the orders.
There is a need for a more clear communication with the robot. Using a command like the one used in this example, is not useable. Controlling of the robot can performed using a form like in the workflow demo.
When do you get rid of old text data? Using a SAP CE and BPM it is possible to design dashboards which just shows the data a user needs to see. This is not possible in Wave. It is possible to delete Blips (the boxes with text), but it might be difficult to know when the data is not useful anymore. The user can always scroll back with the replay function.
I will be sharing some more of my examples with you as I get further in my research with Google Wave and SAP. You can follow the progress at http://masteringwave.com.
Apparently it is time for a lot of mergers and acquisitions with VmWare/Springsource and Facebook/friendfeed. Brian Sommer has found the Reuters story about SAP are considering to by Tibco. Apparently they have tried to get hitched before, but without a final conclusion.
If such a fusion happed it could resemble the merger between Oracle and BEA in January 2008. It also was two companies with the same product suite for the middle layer. Oracle then had select which of the products future development should happen on. For the integration part the BEA product was selected, so all consultants had to learn the new product.
SAP did a similarly integration with Business Objects, which from the side as given a lot of new products or rebranded products. For someone who has not worked with BI the integration of two products happened limited problems. From what I have heard it was the frontend from Business Objects and the backend from SAP BI, which was developed as a product, so a new best of breed application was created.
But Tibco has more than just one area of products they have complementary product whole Netweaver suite. For the integration/SOA part I have heard that Tibco should have some better products in some areas and the portal probably does not match how SAP has created the portal. Come to think of the J2ee stack it was also purchased from a company that I have forgotten. But that was on a time when SAP did not have the java stack.
Dennis Howlett says that SAP have to watch Software AG. And that Tibco’s Silver cloud platform could profit SAP.
If the acquisition is approved, then it would be interesting to see what that mean for customers, SAP and partners.
Do you have any Tibco product which you would like to have instead of the equivalent SAP products?
Last December I wrote about how to use SFTP SSH from a Unix server, without using a Seeburger Adapter. SAP PI/XI cannot be used to access SSH SFTP sites directly, but this script can help. There have been many requests for a version which also works on windows. I do not have access to a windows server with PI or XI so it is a little difficult to test for me.
I have now written the following script, which works on my Vista labtop. I have not tested it on Windows 2003 or Windows 2008, where most PI systems will run.
I have used Putty for creating the SSH connection. I have used the pscp (an SCP client, i.e. command-line secure file copy). To try something different then using SFTP. SCP makes it easier to get files which should exist in a directory. Pscp should be downloaded and saved in the same directory as the script.
The script looks like the following.
@echo off
REM PARAMETERS
REM %1 target file PI %F
REM %2 query for where the file is located ie. root@figaf.com:dir/*
REM %3 SSH Password
REM RESET the target file
echo '' >%1
SET TARGETDIR=%~d1%~p1download
echo %TARGETDIR%
IF EXIST %TARGETDIR% GOTO SKIPCREATEDIR
mkdir %TARGETDIR%
:SKIPCREATEDIR
del /Q %TARGETDIR%\*
pscp.exe -pw %3 %2 %TARGETDIR%
type %TARGETDIR%\* > %1
The script takes the following parameters.
The %F which is the name of the file, which the adapter is currently reading.
A the location of the file on the server side in the form “user@server:path/[filter*] ie. root@sftp.figaf.com:dir/SKB*. This command logon with the user root on the host sftp.figaf.com. Then looks in the directory dir, relative to the login dir and the selects all files starting with SKB.
The users password.
The command in the communication channel should look something like.
