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SAP PIPO Guru99 Tutorials3

This document provides an overview of SAP Process Integration (PI), its architecture, and its role in integrating SAP ERP with legacy systems and other applications. It outlines the components of SAP PI, including the Integration Server and Integration Builder, and explains the differences between single stack and dual stack configurations. Additionally, it describes the functionalities of the Integration Engine and the types of message exchanges supported by SAP PI.

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45 views3 pages

SAP PIPO Guru99 Tutorials3

This document provides an overview of SAP Process Integration (PI), its architecture, and its role in integrating SAP ERP with legacy systems and other applications. It outlines the components of SAP PI, including the Integration Server and Integration Builder, and explains the differences between single stack and dual stack configurations. Additionally, it describes the functionalities of the Integration Engine and the types of message exchanges supported by SAP PI.

Uploaded by

Bharath
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SAP Managed Tags: Cloud Integration, Integration and Certification Center

Objective

The objective of this tutorial is to make you understand - what is SAP Process
Integration? We will not go into the nitty-gritty of the subject but we will
discuss about the architecture and different features of SAP PI. We will cover the
basic features only and will avoid discussing all features in this tutorial.

Next there are a set of case studies which will give you an idea about the industry
level utilization of SAP PI. Once you get more acquainted with the subject, you
should try to solve them. The test cases are prepared in a manner so that it will
take you down into the subject from simple to more complexes with each lesson and
will give you an overall idea of the subject.

What is SAP ERP?

For any business - large or small, these are the standard business functionalities
it must carry out i.e. Material Management, Sales and Distribution, Finance, Human
Resources etc. There is much software in the market which is utilized by the
industry. You will notice the simplest one - the teller machine generating sales
invoice if you visit a small shop to a network of computers in a large retail
store, hotel etc operating on an ERP.

Enterprise Resource Planning i.e. ERP is an effective approach that most businesses
implement to enhance their productivity and performance. SAP ERP is SAP AG's
Enterprise Resource Planning, an integrated software solution that incorporates the
key business functions of the organization. The basic functionalities i.e. HR, MM,
SD, FICO etc are called business modules in SAP. SAP builds them as products and
sells them in the market. There are two more modules which do not support business
functions directly but are utilized for presentation and integration. The former is
called EP (Enterprise Portal) and the latter is called PI (Process Integration).
All the business modules are developed in ABAP while EP and PI are developed mostly
in Java. These modules are not executables but they need to be deployed in an
Application Server i.e. ABAP Web Application Server for ABAP modules and Java Web
Application Servers for Java modules.

There are few points we should know before we jump into the subject.

SAP stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.

SAP AG is a German multinational software corporation that makes enterprise


software to manage business operations and customer relations. SAP ERP is the
corporation's Enterprise Resource Planning, an integrated software solution that
incorporates the key business functions of the organization.

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP PI) is SAP enterprise application


integration (EAI) software, a component of the NetWeaver product group used to
facilitate the exchange of information among a company's internal software and
systems and those of external parties.

Legacy System

While implementing the SAP ERP in a large business establishment, it is found that
not all sections can be brought under the SAP ERP. Many of the business sections
may have their own proprietary tools which are highly complex and may not be
possible to be replaced. They run parallel to the SAP System. They are called the
Legacy Systems. Then it becomes necessary to integrate between the SAP Systems and
such pre-existing non-SAP System. This is where the SAP PI comes into play.

Why do we need SAP PI Apart from Legacy Systems, in a


large business establishment, SAP ERP does not consist of a single system but
several integrated systems i.e. CRM, SRM and FICO etc. To handle with such
complexities SAP introduced Process Integration a platform to provide a single
point of integration for all systems without touching existing complex network of
legacy systems. This is a powerful middleware by SAP to provide seamless end to end
integration between SAP and non-SAP applications inside and outside the corporate
boundary. SAP PI supports B2B as well as A2A exchanges, supports synchronous and
asynchronous message exchange and includes built in engine for designing and
executing Integration Processes.

Architecture of SAP PI

The SAP PI consists of a hub and spoke structure; the spokes connect with external
systems while the hub exchange messages between them. The source system is known as
the sender system and the target system is known as the receiver system. The PI is
not a single component, but rather a collection of components that work together
flexibly to implement integration scenarios. The architecture includes components
to be used at design time, at configuration time and at run time.

We can divide the SAP PI into several areas

Integration Server
Integration Builder
System Landscape
Configuration and Monitoring

Integration Server is the central processing engine of the SAP PI. All messages are
processed here in a consistent way. It consists of three separate engines

Integration Engine
Adapter Engine
Business Process Engine

Integration engine can be considered to be the hub and the Adapter engine the
spoke. Regarding the Business Process Engine, I will explain it later.

Integration Builder is a client-server framework for accessing and editing


integration objects and it consists of two related tools:

Enterprise Service Repository – to design and develop objects to be used in


scenarios
Integration Directory – to configure the ESR objects to develop scenarios

Two together, we built integration processes which are commonly called scenarios.

The System Landscape is a central repository of information about software and


systems in data center and simplifies the administration of your system landscape.

In Configuration and Monitoring we can monitor the messages and adapters.

Single stack and Dual stack

When PI was first released, not all components were built on the same platform.
Integration Engine and Business Process Engine was built in ABAP while Adapter
Engine, Integration Builder, SL, CM and Mapping Runtime were built in Java. So PI
needs both the Java and the ABAP environment to run and is known as the dual stack.

ABAP Stack

Java Stack

Integration Engine
Business Process Engine
Integration Builder

Enterprise Service Repository


Integration Directory

Runtime Workbench
System Landscape Directory
Adapter Engine
Mapping Runtime

But in the later version all the components are built in Java. Some of the dual-
stack components are either dispensed off or modified to work on the Java stack. So
PI needs only the Java environment to run and is known as the single stack.

There are pros and cons between the two stacks but they are not covered in this
tutorial.

Integration Engine

The Integration Engine is responsible for central Integration Server services i.e.
the pipe-line steps - routing and mapping. If the source message structure is
different from the target message structure, then integration engine calls the
Mapping Runtime, where source structure is converted to the target structure. The
Mapping Runtime is based on the Java stack. The integration engine can also
utilize an ABAP program for the conversion, which is based on the ABAP stack.

A message can be of two types

Synchronous - has both the request-response part


Asynchronous - has either the request or the response part only

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