Application Integration Made Simple with SAP HANA Cloud Integration – OpenSAP Course Week1

Hello All,

In this blog, I focus on sharing my learnings on the OpenSAP course for Application Integration Made Simple with SAP HANA Cloud Integration. I believe most of you would have already finished the week1 Unit test and would be starting hands-on exercises.

For those who are still trying to catch up with HANA Cloud Integrations, which is now renamed to HANA Cloud Platform – Integration Services, you may get started with my previous blog – Getting Started with HANA Cloud Integration (HCP Integration Services)

Just in case you do not have an Account for practice, you may get your trial accounts by reaching out to hci.trial@sap.com. Full details about this option are written in the blog – SAP HANA Cloud Integration – Test and learn more about SAP’s cloud-based integration solution

Ok, hope that should get you started.

OpenSAP course for Application Integration is been delivered by Volker Stiehl (Chief Product Expert) and Sindhu Gangadharan (Vice President and Head of Product Management) and content experts Katrin von Ahsen and Gayathri Narayana My honest thanks to the team as I was struggling to get started with HCI and this course really helps us to get started quickly.

This course might be a very quick one with only 3 weeks of course contents, but has interesting and detailed information on Integration Services.

The course is structured like this:

Week 1: Getting Started

Unit 1 – Supporting SAP’s Cloud Strategy

Unit 2 – Introduction to Web UI

Unit 3 – Configuring Pre-Packaged Integration Content

Unit 4 – Creating Integration Processes from Scratch

Unit 5 – Working with Data in SAP HANA Cloud Integration

Week 2: Enterprise Integration Patterns – Blog

Unit 1 – Enriching Content by Calling OData Services

Unit 2 – Message Translation Using Mappings

Unit 3 – Content-Based Routing

Unit 4 – Splitter/Gather – Working with Lists

Unit 5 – Asynchronous Communication

Week 3: Advanced Topics and Roadmap – Week 3 Blog

Unit 1 – Timer-Based Start of Integration Flows

Unit 2 – Structuring Large Integration Flows

Unit 3 – The Adapter Development Kit

Unit 4 – Content Reuse Between HCI and SAP PO

Unit 5 – Outlook – Strategy and Roadmap

Let’s have a quick understanding of the Week1 course.

Unit1 – Supporting SAP’s Cloud Strategy

     In the first Unit, we get to understand what is the role of Integrations Services and how they play a crucial role to support Digital Transformation like IoT, Mobility, Cloud, Big Data etc., 

     HANA Integrations Services is built from scratch to assist customers to smoothly integrate with on-premise systems. The course also addresses typical integration challenges, an overview of the Integration Technology, how pre-packaged Integration Flows, Out of the Box solutions, supports multi-tenancy, HCI software updates, security, data isolation and license/packages available for customers/partners.

Reference – Unit 1 Slide 6

     Most import to understand how the End to End Web Tooling works and different phases during the integrations scenarios as also discussed. Unit 1 also covers some customer examples.

Reference – Unit 1 Slide 7

Unit 2 – Introduction to Web UI

     This unit would be the most important unit which helps to understand the Web UI and how it really helps to solve the integration scenarios. The course discusses

1. Discover –

A pre-packaged content from Integration Catalogue, which can be copied to your workspace and make adjustments to your needs

Reference – Unit 2 Slide 16

2. Design – 

This phase is used for configurations and customizing as per user requirement, it offers you Modeling Area, Pallets, properties etc.

Reference – Unit 2 Slide 17

3. Run & Monitor –

Once you have the configurations done, deploy the package and analyse the deployed package from Monitor section.

Reference – Unit 2 Slide 18

This unit has a demonstration scenario which really really helps to understand all the phases of the HCI.

Unit 3 – Configuring Pre-Packaged Integration Content

     Now, it time to get you hands a little dirty. In this unit we shall start to understand on how to search for a pre-configured package from catalogue, how to copy them and rename it to avoid conflicts (this option has a minor change, as I did get option to rename it when I clicked on copy, however, option was given to rename when I started editing it), how to configure the source and destination integration flow, edit the connection details and deploy them. Final at the end of the course we also learn to Monitor.

Reference – Unit 3 Slide 27

Do not forget to look at the demo on this complete scenario.

Unit 4 – Creating Integration Processes from Scratch

     I would say, Unit 4 and Unit 5 are the most important things of this Week1 course. This unit talks about the Integration Process from scratch and introduces you to “Apache Camel” and a book related to “Camel In Action” by Claus Ibsen and Jonathan Anstey and “Enterprise Integration Pattern” by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf.

Reference – Unit 4 Slide 41

     The above image, explains how a Sender Component talks to a Receiver Components and how the messages are processed via integration channels and what are the process and underlying framework used. The unit then continues with a hands-on demo on explaining about creating a new Process Integration and testing it with an SFTP file transfer. You will also understand how to monitor and verify the successful data transfer.

I would recommend doing this exercise to get an understanding of Integration Services.

Unit 5 – Working with Data in SAP HANA Cloud Integration

This unit focuses on explaining the Data formats used and what are the fundamental properties of a Message, Exchange (a message’s container during routing) etc.

Reference – Unit 5 Slide 55

Reference – Unit 5 Slide 56

Once we understand the message and exchange formats, there is a simple scenario to help us to understand the message model, this is covered as a hands-on exercise.

Reference – Unit 5 Slide 57

Follow the Video and configure the communication channel and content modifier. Once done, you should be able to test it with an SOAPUI.

By this, Week1 course of Application Integration Made Simple with SAP HANA Cloud Integration is completed. Please note the last date to complete the Week 1, unit test is by July 27^th 2016.

Regards,

Nagesh