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.
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.
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
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 27th 2016.
Regards,
Nagesh
Hi
First of all, Thanks a lot for taking some time out and for writing such a descriptive blog.
I'm facing an issue with my account (Not sure if I missed to do something), I could see only Discover option but not the design and Monitor.
Could you please suggest me what needs to be done?
Thanks in advance!
Regards
Bhagya
Hi Bhagya,
You would need an HCI account to get the design and monitor options working. If you have an account, you can refer to my previous blog on getting the required roles assigned to your ID so that you can see the options in your account.
Getting Started with HANA Cloud Integration (HCP Integration Services)
Regards,
Nagesh
Hi Nagesh,
I am a bit new to SOAP and SOAPUI. Can you tell me how to give the wsdl to SOAPUI ? Is it already available or do I need to create a local wsdl file ?