Development Approach with Duet Enterprise

[Former Member]

Duet Enterprise is a new, jointly-developed product from SAP AG and Microsoft Corporation that enables interoperability between SAP applications and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise plus Microsoft Office 2010 clients.

In the 2nd half of 2010 we participated together with a large Dutch insurance organization in the Duet Enterprise Rapid Deployment Program. In the RDP we followed a well-chosen approach to evaluate this SAP – SharePoint integration product on it’s capabilities and potential. In this article I highlight the main points.

Product evaluation via a custom Proof-of-Concept

Both partners in the RDP regarded it as essential to evaluate Duet Enterprise as interoperability product via a custom Proof-of-Concept. Only such we are confronted wih actual experiences and issues in the application and potential of the Duet Enterprise capabilities. We do not suffice with merely a rather simple out-of-the-box scenario provided by Duet Enterprise.

Selection criteria for the PoC scenario

For us the main reason to consider Duet Enterprise is as integration foundation for company-specific SAP / Microsoft interoperability. To best evaluate the product capabilities on this aspect, we defined the selection criteria for the PoC scenario. We weighted the possible scenarios on the following aspects:

1. A real application context, with current and/or future purpose
2. Give input to SAP / Microsoft integration design guidelines

Validation approach

The PoC is intentionally approached as a regular development project. Thus functional specification, architectural and technical design, realization and testing, with ultimate ending in product implementation. In these Agile times, the phases are not necessarily in linear order; especially the integration architecture and realization have had some iterations as results of lessons learned.

Functional specification

In this phase, the application functionality is clearly defined, and agreed plus functional validated with the customer + end-users. Noticeable is that in this phase special attention is / should be given to the UX-factor: the User Experience of the application. This is because  the most heard compliant against SAP is typically the lesser user friendliness. And also because nowadays information workers expect no less than a pleasant and familiar workspace, in which one is facilitated and helped to do your daily and also occasional work activities.

Integration and Software Architecture Design

Essential in this phase is close cooperation between the SAP and Microsoft solution architects. Both typically come from different backgrounds (‘different worlds’, almost like Mars versus Venus), yet it is required that they have a sufficient common understanding to architect a proper and future-proof design.

In the architecture itself, a best practice is to apply a layered service integration architecture. Each layer has its own responsibilities. In a nutshell, SharePoint sits at the front-end / presentation layer, SAP at the back-end layer; and Duet Enterprise is the glue as integration layer.

The integration layer is derived from the [use cases of the] functional specification. One of the design principles applied is that the SAP backend is and remains ultimate responsible for correctness of the data. This also implies that business rules are enforced and remain the responsibility of the SAP backend.

Duet Enterprise also imposes some constraints on the service interfaces. At conceptual level this means that Duet Enterprise [currently] only supports data oriented interfaces, operating via CRUD behavior. The explanation is that Duet Enterprise utilizes Business Connectivity Services to exchange data from SAP to and from SharePoint. BCS is a strict data oriented capability, it is not usable for [SAP] process oriented control.

Development Process

Once the service interfaces are derived and defined, the development team can go ahead with implementing the SAP-SharePoint integration via Duet Enterprise. The outline of this development process is  as follows:

1. Configure / define the derived interfaces as SAP Enterprise Services in the ESR, using the SAP ES Builder. Hereby you must augment the interfaces as defined with 2 additional parameters required for proper Duet Enterprise handling, namely:
   • Correlation ID; this is used for the end-2-end monitoring of entire runtime flow through the SAP and Microsoft landscapes
   • Business Object Instance Key; this is used as generic identifier in all SCL framework components at runtime and at designtime. It consists of 3 components, Data Value Identier, SCL Business Object Name and the System Alias of the Backend. The key is to be generated in the SCL processing of each SCL service response, in the following structure: __. The usage of this key is enable the SCL in subsequent handling to transparently identify the correct backend in a SAP landscape with possible multiple system instances. Notice the implication that if your SAP landscape consists of only a single backend, there is no concrete runtime usage of this field; all your SCL requests will be routed to the single backend. In that case you can simplify the key structure.
2. Export the defined SAP Enterprise Services in WSDL format
3. Hand over the WSDL file to both your SAP developer(s) as SharePoint developer(s). From here, both can in parallel configure and/or build their own side.

SAP NetWeaver 7.02 / Service Consumption Layer

1. In the SCL system, using ABAP Workbench / transaction SPROXY, create service proxy. This generates the skeleton of the provider class that includes the methods specified in the service interface. Later on you will implement the operations which involves some ABAP programming. The explanation of this break-up is that in the construction of the operations you need the GenIL model; and that you do not have yet generated in this stadium.
2. In the SCL system, in  transaction se38 create the GenIL model based on the request and response structure of the service proxy. This generates a generic SCL Business Object Model.   The reason that it is named ‘generic’ is because it is an intermediate mapping layer between the consumer (SharePoint BCS) specific data structures and the backend (e.g. SAP ECC 6.0) specific part. This enables that the consumer can transparently communicate with different backend systems/versions. That can be simultaneous in case of a distributed SAP landscape, consisting of a multitude of variant backends (e.g. ECC 6.0 for North America, while ECC 4.26 for the Dutch company division). But it is also beneficial when you upgrade your single system SAP environment – the GenIL model shields the client side from such backend environment change. And this also holds in the other direction – via the same GenIL model other clients as SharePoint can in theory also consume the exposed SAP data and functionality. An example is Alloy for IBM WebSphere.
   The GenIL model is actually to be more regarded as a generic Gateway derivative than strict Duet Enterprise specific.
3. In the SCL via transaction SIMGH, create per service operation a Backend Operation Proxy that invokes the SAP Backend capability: either a SAP Enterprise Service, BAPI WebService or RFC / Function Module.
4. In the SCL, via transaction se80 create per service operation a Mapper object that implements 2 methods with predefined signatures for inbound and outbond mapping. This involves ABAP code to do the mapping from the GenIL model to the backend specific data format, and vice versa.
5. In the SCL / ABAP Workbench, return to the generated Service Proxy and fill in each of its generated operations. This also involves ABAP code to do the mapping from the received input to the GenIL model, and from the GenIL model to Duet Enterprise service output.
6. In the SCL via transaction SOAMANAGER, create the endpoint for the service proxy.

SharePoint 2010

1. Start SharePoint Designer to generate External ContentType(s) on basis of the imported WSDL from the SAP Enterprise Services.
2. If applicable, generate SharePoint External List as User Interface metaphore. Whether applicable is determined by a) the data structure; External List requires a flat structure (thus no hierarchical / parent-child relationships); b) the User Experience desired by the end-user.
3. if the External List is not applicable, realize in Visual Studio a custom build SharePoint webpart. Hereby you can use the whole richness of available ASP.Net and SharePoint webcontrols – datagrids, calendar, richtextbox, dropdownlist, …  Also, SharePoint 2010 allows InfoPath forms for custom UI.
4. Configure the BCS model to connect for this External ContentType to the endpoint in the SCL of the Duet Enterprise specific service.

Conclusion

Introduction and application of Duet Enterprise is not a free ride. It takes time to get familiar with its concepts, and the development approach + tooling add-ons in the ABAP Workbench and SharePoint in the form of BCS Model Generator. It also requires preparation time at front in defining and architecting an application design. But that’s no different from any other software development project. Given that, Duet Enterprise is a noteworthy addition to the SAP / Microsoft interoperability toolbox; and I recommend to consider it for applicability in your specific SAP/MS integration scenario.