Perfect Analogy to understand PI/PO Design Objects-IB.

[khusal810]

Hello Integration Aspirants,

Welcome to the second blog of this series to understand PI Objects using real-life analogies. I request you all to please visit my first blog before going further to understand the ESR Objects analogy, as I will be using the same example.

One of the questions I would like to touch upon before going forward with the actual analogy, which has been quite asked a lot to me why PI has two different tools the ESR and IB, and what is their role?

Consider an airplane for instance. The airplane is made up of several parts like engine, wings, etc. These are used as a basic model for an airplane. So the manufacturing plant will manufacture these aircraft. This modeling process to build an aircraft using many objects is exactly like ESR where you model the interface. Now when the aircraft is sold to a company say Emirates. This airplane will carry passengers from point A to B. This is done in the ID part, where you decide which Interface objects will be used to transfer messages from system A to B.

Now that we have understood what is the exact difference in ESR and ID.

Let's jump into trying to understand some basic objects used in ID for interface design with the help to the same example used in my last blog i.e transfer for the letter from India to the United States.

1. Business Component/Business System: Although there is a difference in Business Component and Business System, for the sake of simplicity for new learners we will keep them the same. In our analogy, you are sending a letter to a friend. Hence, you are the sender component and your friend is the receiver component here.


2. Communication Channel: Communication Channel or "Channel", in short, is used to establish connectivity between SAP PO and the system which it is trying to send/receive the message. Here we will consider, the Post Office is our SAP PO Box. There will one channel associated with each communicating component. Hence, Sender Component will have a sender channel to send to SAP PO whereas Receiver Component will have a receiver channel to receive from SAP PO. In our analogy, you ( the sender) is going to establish the connectivity with the Post Office (SAP PO) using your P.O.Box (sender channel). From which the letter is taken to Post Office and transferred to your friend's Mail Box (receiver channel). Your friend will collect the letter from his Mail Box.


3. Integrated Configuration: The whole process from keeping the letter into your P.O. Box to your friend receiving the letter at his end can be thought of as an Interface. Whatever configuration settings are done to make this letter reach your friend is defined in PI Object called Integrated Configuration or ICO. Here in ICO, we define the channels which will be used, what transformation will be handled along the journey of the messages are configured. So, the whole Interface configuration as a whole can be viewed in the Integrated Configuration.

Here below I will illustrate the above discussed in a diagram for better understanding.

PI Analogy - ID

I hope this blog will help you kickstart your understanding of SAP PI/PO.

Please provide your feedback.

Again stay safe and healthy and keep exploring!!!