Connectivity and Integration in ABAP – Part 3
In my previous blog, I highlighted advantages of automating the configuration of distributed applications running over multiple systems. A prerequisite for automated configuration is a central SOA Manager system with a landscape of managed systems. Such a landscape is advantageous even if you are not yet ready to make the leap to scenario-based configuration. I want to encourage you to take the first small steps in this direction, so here I will explain what you need to do to set up the systems to be central or managed respectively.
The setup is simple using SOA Manager (I am assuming here that your systems are already fit for Web services). You make one client a central system, and in each of the other systems maintain a management connection to the central system.
First you need to define one SOA Manager as the central SOA Manager. You go to the relevant client and start transaction SOAMANAGER. Somewhere under Management Connections you will find a check box called Central System. Select this and choose Save. Enter the user and password for Meta Data Access (so the central system can manage itself) and click OK. Refresh the browser (with F5) to see the changes.
In each of the other systems, you can now maintain a new management connection to the central system. Because the management connection is a two-way connection, you have to specify the connection and authentication information for both ends of the connection.
Once you have done that, click the Start Setup button and everything will be done automatically. You can then check the status on the Existing Connections tab.
That is all you need to do.
Now, for example, you can run health checks from the central system. You can gather log data from the managed systems. Also the registries are automatically set up so that a service configured in a managed system will be published to the central registry, which simplifies single Web service configuration.
Hi Martin,
thanks for sharing! I first saw this Feature in NW 7.31 but you wrote managed connections have been introduced with NW 7.02. So my question is about the supported NW releases in a managend landscape. Can connections to NW 7.0 systems be managed? Needs the central system the highest NW release?
Best Regards,
Tobias
Hi Tobias,
The central system does not have to be the highest release. NW7.02 to NW7.31 are the same regarding this functionality. I would, though, advise choosing a system where you can readily apply support packages (or upgrade to higher releases). You could even have a NW7.02 managing a NW7.4 system. However, in this case you would be missing out on the NW7.4 features.
At the moment managed systems have to be NW7.02 or higher. Supporting lower releases (managed not central) is under consideration. Is there much demand for this?
By the way, it great to see you generating some activity in this corner of SCN. And, of course, I appreciate your kind comments. I am just back from vacation (and am off again at the end of this week), so my responses to your other comments will be slower than otherwise.
Best regards,
Martin
Thank you for your information. But back to your question: personally I have no need for NW 7.0 or 7.1 systems to be managed. The reason is that SAP does so many exciting new things in NW 7.02 and higher releases so that I recommend everyone an upgrade to those releases as soon as possible. I am glad that managed the upgrade although it was really hard sometimes: http://scn.sap.com/community/abap/blog/2013/01/28/is-sap-nw-ehp-3-really-non-disruptive
Best Regards,
Tobias