Thank you for attending the Q2 instance of the SAP Cloud Platform Integration Quarterly webinar.
Our prime focus for this session was to demonstrate the feature parity of the web interface as compared to the eclipse interface to reinstate that now you can perform all your development and operational tasks via the web interface given that we deprecated the Eclipse interface on the 6
th of June 2018.
After a walk-through and demo of all the new features of the web interface, we went into the details of the 2 new connectivity adapters added to the SAP Cloud Platform Integration portfolio, viz. AS4 and Process Direct.
Presentation |
Recording
We started off to showcase how the new developments target
ease of use of the interface with features like the
pan image viewer,
alignment guides and contextual
speed buttons. Further enhancing the experience of working with large flows, we have
collapsible properties sheet and design palette; while the
overview section helps you find yourself on the canvas and get a high-level view of the entire integration flow.
The web interface also incorporates features that make the configuration of the integration flow parameters more
dynamic via extended
externalization and use of header and property as configuration parameters. For more details on the list of parameters that support headers and properties, please refer
here.
In order to increase developer
efficiency, we provide you with ready access to relevant information in one place via new views like the
Resources view,
Problems View, Endpoint view, Keystore view, etc.
To foster content
reuse between SAP Process Integration/Orchestration while customers move their interfaces to Cloud Platform Integration, the web interface now allows connecting securely to the on-premise ES repository of SAP PI/PO via the SAP Cloud Connector to
import mappings.
For
quick resolutions to errors and issues faced during message processing the web interface offers
tracing capabilities that represents message processing in a tabular and graphical layout and logs payload and headers at each step. Additionally, it includes
adapter tracing for message transforming adapters like AS2, LDAP, Mail, RFC, SFSF, SOAP, IDoc, etc. Supporting further during error resolution are logs like
Default trace (provides processing information),
HTTP Access Log (all HTTP access information),
Audit Logs (all configuration information) and
Configuration Status View (enabled via Manage Integration Content view). Further enhancing the experience via
Enriched Monitoring, the web interface allows new log visualization enabled via multiple representations, improved search, better insights into retries, etc. makes all the relevant information available in the same view.
Please go ahead and use the web interface of SAP Cloud Platform Integration extensively.
Still miss Eclipse, share your feedback, concerns, questions, issues about working solely on the Web Interface
here.
Switching gears to connectivity options, we covered details about the 2 new adapters added to the Cloud Platform Integration portfolio, generally available now under all licenses – AS4 and Process Direct.
AS4 adapter built specifically for the Australian Tax Office usecase to support the Single Touch Payroll utility - first cut enabled only on the receiver side to facilitate exchange of eBMS 3.0 standard compliant messages.
Process Direct adapter facilitates in-tenant call to other integration flows deployed on the same tenant to enable fast and direct communication between them without crossing the tenant boundaries or touching the load balancer – thereby reducing latency and increasing performance.
Questions asked during the session:
- Is there a timeline when we can use/create a technical user to send data to the CPI?
- This is already possible. Find more details here.
.
- Can we build custom XSD's in WEB-UI?
- A new XSD file cannot be created, but existing XSD can be opened and edited. You can
create an empty XSD and develop it in Cloud Platform Integration.
.
- Is there a way to keep the formatting of your integration flow – the layout changes during rendering and the flow gets messed up.
- As of now there is no way to control this. We shall make this better. However, in general, most of the developer formatting is preserved.
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- It would be nice to have folders inside resources to manage XSLT mappings with multiple include files.
- This is a good feature to have. It is added to the roadmap. Alternatively, you could incorporate a naming convention that allows you to identify and group the resources as per the use case.
.
- It would be nice to execute checks before / without saving the integration flow.
- As per our understanding, you would like check for configuration errors in the integration flow without saving the flow. We are releasing an auto-save feature in the coming months - as a result of this feature, we continue to save the state of the integration flow without having the developer save it explicitly - this helps save your work in case of any unforeseen events, browser timeouts or connection problems. The requested feature shall not be relevant after the auto-save feature.
.
- Does CPI support TLS 1.1? If yes, is there any end of support plan?
- Yes, for maintaining compatibility, CPI will keep supporting older versions optionally. i.e. if a customer has requirements either to restrict or allow specific protocol versions, he can do so by configuring his own custom domain / custom ssl host.
There are no plans to stop TLS 1.1 support as there are also no indications for such requirements from the regulations.
Still for security reasons, the IT security community worldwide recommends 1.2, and it seems logical that 1.1 disablement may come in the future (at least in an year or two).
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- If standard content needs to be enhanced and if extension is not available, is it possible to get editable version?
- Yes, this is selectively possible. This option also means that the customer shall cease to receive content update notification and any standard life cycle support from SAP. The package needs to be managed manually by the customer.
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- When will it be possible to reprocess a failed message?
- This is possible for outbound errors via modelling by using data store or JMS queues. - nothing is available out-of-the-box.
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- Is it possible to trigger CPI integration flows from Control-M as job?
- Yes, this is possible by making use of BMC CONTROL-M Business Process Integration Suite which enables Control-M to invoke Web Services, Java programs and interfacing with message technologies.
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- Is there a straightforward way to edit/change the content of an attachment? How could I delete an attachment?
- The only way to work with attachments is via scripts.
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- Is there any option from which we can see the how much VM is consumed/left by the tenant to prevent any issues in advance?
- Cloud Platform Integration does not have consumption dashboard so far. The Cloud Platform Integration Operations team monitors all customer tenants 24/7 to check for any spikes in resource utilization and takes corrective actions.
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- What are the plans for having a JDBC adapter to access on-premise tables?
- The JDBC adapter to connect to on-premise and cloud databases is expected to be released by Q1.2019.
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- Do I need to use open connectors along with SAP CPI to access on-premise tables directly?
- No, connecting to on-premise databases shall be supported via the JDBC adapter that is planned for release by Q1.2019.
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- Is there any plan to add QOS in near future?
- As of today, there is no plan to support QoS out-of-the-box in Cloud Platform Integration. However, some of the common QoS can be modeled using the available process steps.
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- Is there a way to manage different keystores in groups?
- All the available keys and certificates are available together under the tenant keystore. As of today, there is no plan to enable grouping of artifacts as many artifacts are used in several use cases. This can however be accomplished by giving appropriate, meaningful, group-specific aliases to each artifact.
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- How would the new XI Adapter work with ABAP systems - how would the ERP connect to the design to generate ABAP proxy objects.
- Stay logged. We will cover this in the next occurrence of the quarterly webinar that will be hosted in September 2018.
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- Any plans to support the ENTSOG AS4 usage profile?
- Support for PEPPOL shall be available via the AS2 adapter by Q4 2018. Does that suffice your use case.
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- It would very useful if we are able to select properties from incoming message XSD using UI instead writing expression.
- User interface based viewing of all XSDs for field selection is planned for release in Q4.2018.
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- When will the LDAP adapter sender side be enabled for query operations?
- LDAP receiver shall be enabled for query operations in Q1.2019.
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- Is SAP going to add asynchronous functionality to the Process Direct adapter?
- As per the current backlog, this is planned.
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- Is there anything planned for process step template?
- Saving process steps as templates is planned, timelines are not finalized.
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- What are the plans for better JSON support -validation, mappings and swagger/openAPI support.
- As per the current backlog, this is planned.
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- How can I use XSDs that reference other XSDs in stand-alone CPI (no PI/PO available)?
- This is planned for development this year. Details shall be shared in the subsequent webinars.
Have questions that are unanswered. Please send them
here.
