EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1: A...

UdoPaltzer · ‎11-06-2009

Introduction

The Unrestricted shipment of SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1 as of J... (EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1) is in unrestricted shipment since July 31st, 2009. Therefore, in this blog I would like to provide an update on which adapters and adapter modules are available today for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. You can find all the information below as well as additional useful infos and links in the presentation about available adapters and adapter modules for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1.

Unrestricted shipment of SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1 as of J..., and the second good news is, besides all the great enhancements, that the changes are compatible in comparison to SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. This means that in principle all adapters, that have been offered for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1, are also available for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. There are no incompatible changes in the Adapter Framework for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1, and there is no re-certification required for 3rd party adapters that have been already certified for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. Please note however that there have been syntactical changes in the Adapter Framework API in comparison to previous releases (SAP PI 7.0, SAP Exchange Infrastructure XI 3.0); this is mainly due to the adoption of the underlying Application Server Java 7.1, which is compliant to the Java EE 5 specification. More information about the changes and the available adapters can be found in the blog about the SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1: Available Adapters and Adapter Modules.

Available Adapters for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 developed by SAP

All adapters including their own modules developed by SAP are available as of today for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. And in order to continue with the good news, in EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 the SOAP adapter has been enhanced with an additional message protocol to support the XI 3.0 protocol. With this messages that are sent to or received from ABAP proxies, other Advanced Adapter Engines (AAE's) or Partner Connectivity Kits can be processed locally on the AAE and thus benefit from significant performance enhancements. More information can be found in the blog about the Unrestricted shipment of SAP enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1 as of J.... Please see also SAP note 1247043 (SMP login required) about the limitations that currently exist for EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1.

The following adapters developed by SAP are supported with EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 today:

Technical Connectivity for communication with SAP and non-SAP systems

File/FTP (File Systems / FTP Servers)
JDBC (RDBMS systems)
JMS (Messaging systems, e. g. MQSeries, SonicMQ)
SOAP (Web Services based on SOAP; new with EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1: Support of XI 3.0 message protocol)
WS-RM (Web Services based on WS Reliable Messaging)
Plain HTTP
Mail (Mail Servers via SMTP, IMAP4, POP3)
SAP Business Connector (SAP BC)
Marketplace (SAP Marketplaces)

Application Connectivity

RFC
IDoc
Proxy (ABAP and Java)

SAP Industry Business Packages

RNIF 2.0 (RosettaNet)
RNIF 1.1 (RosettaNet)
CIDX (RNIF 1.1)

Available 3rd Party Adapters and Adapter Modules for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 provided by SAP via Reseller Agreement

As in the past, SAP continues to rely also for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 incl. EHP 1 on partners to provide connectivity solutions for other applications and certain industry standards. With regards to adapters and adapter modules SAP has currently reseller agreements with the companies Informatica, iWay, and SEEBURGER. The connectivity solutions that are covered by the reseller agreements are sold and delivered through SAP, and also technical support for these partner solutions is available via the SAP Support Portal.

SEEBURGER

From the company SEEBURGER all adapters that are covered by the reseller agreement between SAP and SEEBURGER are already certified for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1; to be more specific, the following SEEBURGER adapters for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 that are covered by the reseller agreement are available:

Technical EDI Adapters

AS2 (EDIINT/HTTP(S))
OFTP (OFTP / ISDN, OFTP / TCPIP)
VAN Access (P7 / X.400, VAN FTP)

Business EDI Adapters

Generic EDI
Protocol converter for OFTP / ISDN or VAN Access
Data format converter for ANSI X12, EDIFACT
Mapping templates for purchase order, invoice etc.
Payment
Protocol converter for OFTP / ISDN, VAN Access
Data format converter for EDIFACT, SWIFT
Mapping templates for payment orders, debit advice etc.

Industry specific EDI Adapters

Aerospace & Defense
Automotive
Chemicals
Consumer Products
High-Tech
Paper
Pharmaceutical
Retail

The industry specific EDI adapters contain different mapping templates, huge message catalog with EDI XML schemas, different communication protocol converter as well as various EDI data converter (EDI <-> XML).

Informatica

The SAP Conversion Agent by Informatica is also available for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. The Conversion Agent adapter module can be used with all SAP's Java based adapters that run on the AAE of EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. The Conversion Agent supports the bi-directional data transformation of the following formats:

Unstructured

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint
PDF
Star Office
Word Perfect
ASCII reports
HTML
EBCDIC
Flat files
ANSI
...

Semi-structured

COBOL
HIPAA
HL7
...

Print streams

Post Script
...

Other standards

ACORD (AL3, XML)
ebXML
...

iWay

From the company iWay the following adapters are available for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1:

Application Adapters

JD Edwards One World XE
JD Edwards World
Oracle Applications
Peoplesoft
Siebel

Mainframe / transaction adapters

CICS
TMS / IMS

Further 3rd Party Adapters for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1

The adapter framework API for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 is public, so everybody is invited to write your own adapters and adapter modules for your own specific needs! You can find more information about the new adapter framework API for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 on the SAP Help Portal or on the SAP Service Marketplace (SMP login required). As mentioned above, no incompatible changes have been in EHP 1 for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 with respect to the Adapter Framework API. Therefore there is no re-certification required for 3rd party adapters that have been already certified for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1. Please note however that there are syntactical changes in the Adapter Framework API in comparison to previous releases (SAP PI 7.0, SAP Exchange Infrastructure XI 3.0). Therefore re-certification is required for 3rd party adapters that have been already certified for SAP PI 7.0 or SAP XI 3.0. The SAP - Adapter Framework Certification (NW-XI-AF) is offered by the SAP Integration and Certification Centers around the globe. The certification programs help to ensure the quality of the solutions built independently from SAP by partners and ISVs. The SAP Integration and Certification Centers also publish the up to date list of all currently certified adapters for SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1 at http://www.sap.com/ecosystem/customers/directories/SearchSolution.epx -> Search for "Third-Party Defined Integration Scenarios" -> choose "NW-XI-AF 7.1 ...".

Outlook: Upcoming adapter enhancements planned for the next version of SAP NetWeaver PI

The following adapter enhancements are currently planned for the next version of SAP NetWeaver PI:

Java based IDoc and HTTP adapter
New, Java based versions of the IDoc and HTTP adapter that run on the AAE are provided. With this additional connectivity options via HTTP and IDoc, for example to ABAP backend systems, can leverage the significant performance enhancements by local processing on the AAE. Please note that the first version of the Java based adapters for IDoc and HTTP won't have the complete functionality of their ABAP based counter parts.
Publish / Subscribe messaging for JMS Topics
The JMS property "topics" is supported in the JMS sender and received adapter. This functionality provides, besides the Integration Directory API, another option to implement publish and subscribe scenarios. The JMS sender adapter will be able to fetch and process messages that are provided for a certain topic by a JMS provider, and the JMS receiver adapter will be able to send messages for a certain topic to a JMS provider.
Large (binary) file-to-file transfer for File/FTP adapter
A simple streaming mechanism allows to copy very large files of unlimited sizes between two locations. This function will be provided for the file as well as the FTP transport protocol. Please note that in this streaming mechanism no access to the payload, for example for mapping or content based routing, will be possible at runtime.
Time-out configuration per communication channel
Inactive connections to backend systems can be terminated in order to lower the memory consumption and improve the system performance. The configuration can be made for individual communication channels as well as for sender and receiver adapters.
Configurable JDBC message size limits
The maximum message size and row size that should be processed by SAP NetWeaver PI can be configured in the JDBC sender adapter. This function, which is also planned to be downported to SAP XI 3.0 and SAP PI 7.0, ensures smooth system operations via controlled handling of large JDBC messages.
XI message packaging on AAE
Bulks of XI messages can be sent to the SOAP sender adapter on the AAE. This functionality, which is already available for the Integration Server, will be supported on the AAE and allows an even faster processing of messages.
Optional additional message persistence on AAE
Messages can be persisted on the AAE at multiple points during the pipeline processing. This function, which can be used optionally, ensures better compliance with legal requirements, for example in cases where each transformation of the payload needs to be tracked.

Currently, the start of ramp-up for the next version of SAP NetWeaver PI is planned for 2nd half of 2010.

More the information incl. links to documentation about the available adapters for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1, the certification programs, outlook to upcoming adapter enhancements etc. can be found in the presentation about the available adapters and adapter modules for EHP 1 of SAP NetWeaver PI 7.1.