Split architecture allows customers to upgrade to NetWeaver 7.5
Many customers are migrating from dual stack SAP process integration (PI) to SAP Process Orchestration (PO) systems as SAP road maps indicates that it will stop supporting SAP dual stack systems soon. In this blog I will provide the information on how customers can leverage dual stack split of the system so that they don’t have to invest time and money in converting complex ccBPM to NetWeaver BPM as there is no direct migration path available. To upgrade from dual stack to single depends on many factors as described below.
Case 1: Migration to PO 7.5 single stack
- Low complexity landscape with no complex scenarios
- No BPM scenarios
- Usage Classical scenario
- No legacy system interfacing using BPM
- No Java mapping
- No XSLT mapping
- No ABAP mapping
- NO local tables maintained in PI ABAP stack
Case2: Upgrade to 7.5 with split architecture to run dual stack environment
- Complex landscape connecting many legacy system
- Complex BPM connecting the 3rd party system
- High usage of Java mapping
- High usage of ABAP mapping
- High usage of XSLT mapping
- High usage of BPM in the landscape
- Usage of Integrated Configuration Objects (ICO)
In case1 there are no issues as it would be a straight forward migration from dual to single stack which can be accomplished using SAP migration tool as shown below.
In case2 there is more complexity involved due to multiple integration touch point. In this case we can still perform the migration of dual to single stack but it would be expensive and not straight forward which will raise many questions with respective to TCO and ROI from stake holders. In this situation SAP has provide some relief to customers running on dual stack and allow them to upgrade to NW 7.5 and still use dual stack architecture.
Dual-stack SAP PI systems with a release ≤ 7.4 remain supported as dual-stack systems – new installation, update and upgrade to these releases still supported.
Installation of SAP PI 7.5 and higher: For SAP systems based on SAP NetWeaver 7.5 and higher, dual stack no longer supported, without exception As a consequence, no dual-stack installation is offered as of SAP PI 7.5 – instead, standard installation consists of a separate ABAP + a separate Java stack.
- You install application Server ABAP for SAP Process Integration there, also Java users for AS Java for SAP Process Integration system are created and system is prepared to get connected to AS Java.
- You install application Server Java for SAP Process Integration AS Java for SAP PI system uses User Management Engine (UME) of AS ABAP for SAP PI system that you must have installed before.
Upgrade to SAP PI 7.5 SP1 and higher: After upgrading to SAP PI 7.5, you first have to split still existing dual-stack SAP PI systems before their usage is supported – for this, dual-stack split procedure now also offered for SAP PI 7.5 for more information please refer below link http://sapassets.edgesuite.net/sapcom/docs/2015/07/96224dc2-5b7c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.pdf
Hope this helps!
Hi Hari
I think the topic of migration from dual stack to dual usage (split architecture) can be quite subjective. With regards to the split architecture, TCO/ROI considerations need to weigh in the short term benefit of not converting ccBPM to NW BPM against the long term cost of maintaining two servers to host the ABAP & Java stacks. Also a dual usage architecture cannot benefit from leaner message processing for both the adapter engine as well as BPM processing.
In terms of the factors you described for both cases, I don't think that complexity and Java/XSLT mappings would have any bearing on the decision as these are independent on the availability of an ABAP stack.
Regards
Eng Swee
Eng-
I agree that dual stack to dual stack split would be subjective. So I have mentioned in the blog that it can still be done as single stack migration but it would not be straight forward considering the time and also effort involved in cases of landscape being very complex involving lot of BPM's as all of them have to be re-built. Instead they can still upgrade to 7.5 and have dual stack usage and later they can do it phases as small projects. In general as what have seen in recent times, Clients are combining PI upgrade or migration with other projects which will create dependency on PI system to be available with latest version for integration. Java mappings may be a issue as some of the API have been decommissioned in NW 7.5 so there may be changes involved to tweak the code and retest them and if we have ABAP mapping then design needs to be changed as in single stack no usage of ABAP. I don't recommend the dual stack split usage but this will leave clients with an option to have latest version with split architecture.
Thanks a lot for reviewing my blog appreciate your critics.
Regards
HS
Hi Hari
Thanks for your reply.
Let me rephrase my comment. Complexity in a landscape can be due to many different factors. BPM is only one possible factor that contributes to the complexity of a landscape. It is possible to have a highly complex landscape that does not have any BPM interface, and such landscape can benefit from a migration to single stack. In both cases you have already listed down two bullet points each regarding BPM, as such "Low complexity landscape with no complex scenarios" & "Complex landscape connecting many legacy system" do not seem to make sense IMHO.
Would you be able to further elaborate on the above statement as well? First of all, regardless of whether the migration is to single stack or dual usage, if there are any changes in Java API, it would affect both cases. Secondly, did you actually come across actual scenarios of APIs being decommission in NW 7.5 in your migration projects? Are you referring to general Java 8 APIs or SAP PI specific APIs? If the latter, I have not seen any announcements on this. So if you have actual experience in this, would you be able to elaborate further?
Regards
Eng Swee
Eng-
Thanks for your response. I will elaborate on all aspects which you have requested by couple of days as need to find a good example.
Thanks
HS