Configuring NWDS Development Tools

The development infrastructure of SAP Business Process Management (BPM) is split into three main building blocks.

The Process Composer is seamlessly integrated into SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) as a separate perspective and provides Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) process modeling capabilities. BPMN is based on the specifications adopted by the Object Management Group (OMG). This notation allows easy and intuitive process modeling for business analysts and developers in one common environment.

The Process Composer supports all stages of process modeling from high-level definitions down to the detailed enrichment. SAP BPM’s notation distinguishes between human and automated activities. These activities are structured within subprocesses. Human activities trigger tasks, which are executed through users while automated activities execute Web services and provide full integration into SAP's SOA-enabled business applications.

You can also import BPMN 2.0 models created outside of the NWDS into BPM.

The process server represents runtime services in BPM. The integration of BPM into SAP NetWeaver Administrator enables you to start and stop processes, to monitor and manage processes and tasks, and to troubleshoot processes.

The Process Desk represents a building block for task management, UI and forms integration, rule definitions, and event resolution. Task management provides capabilities for users to access, investigate, and execute the tasks assigned to them. Task management is also integrated into existing applications including the Universal Worklist (UW), which is already successfully deployed in customer scenarios.

SAP's UI technologies, such as Web Dynpro and Interactive Forms, can be configured for user interaction within modeled processes. Rapid UI prototyping capabilities enhance and speed up the design and specification of process interaction components. UIs are then generated from the modeling artifacts of the process context.

To access the process integration tools, go to http://<hostname>:<port>/dir, where <hostname> is the hostname of the SAP NetWeaver system and <port> is the port number of the SAP NetWeaver system.

The figure shows the PI landing page.

The Integration Directory is the place to combine other developments and in which new integration solutions are fabricated based on existing integration components available on the ES Repository and SLD. Here, we configure both application-to-application (A2A) and business-to-business processes (B2B) configuration scenarios.

The Integration Directory uses the Integration Builder as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to create and maintain configuration objects. The integration builder is a Java application.

The Integration Builder serves as user interface of the Integration Directory. In the Integration Builder (also known as just Directory), the configuration time is performed. You configure new configuration scenarios based on a combination of configuration objects and repository objects previously created at design time. A configuration scenario consists of one or more integrated configurations (ICOs), each representing a message interaction between two or more systems.

Using an AEX installation, you can use NWDS with SAP Process Integration Designer Perspective to maintain Integration Directory Objects. Instead of modelling an Integrated Configuration, you will create an Integration Flow (iFlow). After deployment, the iFlow will become an Integrated Configuration, which is available in the Integration Builder.

A graphical representation of the message interaction between the business systems is also provided as part of the configuration scenario. Additional configuration objects that are also part of a configuration scenario include, for instance, content-based routing rules, communication channels, alert rules, value mapping groups, and parties. The last object represents an external business party and is mostly encountered only in B2B scenarios.

The landscape area of the SLD deals with the creation and maintenance of technical and business systems installed in your system landscape.

Technical systems are application systems installed and registered in your system landscape. Typical examples of technical systems include SAP Enterprise Central Component (ECC) and SAP Process Integration (PI). As mentioned, they can be of different types, but the most important ones (and relevant for SAP PO) are AS ABAP, AS Java, process integration, and third party. A technical system can have one or more business systems assigned to it. For instance, a technical system representing a particular SAP system might contain multiple business systems for each client of that SAP system.

Within the SLD, you can group different types of technical systems in landscapes and sub landscapes based on their logical or technical relationships, defined by an SLD administrator. You can create different types of landscapes for different purposes (that is, administration, general, SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure [NWDI] systems, scenarios, transports, and Web services).

Business systems are logical systems that can act as senders or receivers within an integration scenario in SAP PO. Business systems are always linked to a technical system in the SLD and can be of the SAP AS ABAP, SAP AS Java, or third-party system types. Business systems are grouped in SLD business system groups and transport targets to facilitate the transport (for example from development to test) of integration scenarios created in the Integration Directory.

The SLD has a software catalog of all available SAP products and software components in your system landscape. That software catalog includes information (metadata) about support packages and dependencies between the products and software components.

A product within the context of the SLD is a logical unit that corresponds to a collection of product versions, each with one or more software components. In an SAP environment, a product represents an SAP technical component. Before you can start developing any integration solution in SAP PO, you first need to create a product and at least one associated software component version in the SLD.

A software component is a logical unit representing a collection of software component versions (SWCVs), each with one or more software component units. A software unit supports specific functionality of a product and software component version; it also embodies the logical link between the product and software component version.

In order to avoid naming conflicts between software components, the SLD also provides a name reservation service (also known as a name server), which allows you to reserve names that are guaranteed to be unique. In this section, we discuss name reservations and CIM instances and classes.