The AEX provides the connectivity capabilities of the Advanced Adapter Engine (AAE) as well as the design and configuration tools (Enterprise Services Repository (ESR) and the Integration Directory (ID)) to set up scenarios based on the AAE.
AEX as an Alternative to SAP Process Integration (PI)
AEX is a leaner SAP NetWeaver PI installation alternative for the following reasons:
It is a fully independent, single-stack solution based on SAP NetWeaver AS Java only:
It has its own integration domain.
It has its own tools for design, configuration, and operations (ESR, ID, System Landscape Directory (SLD), SAP NetWeaver Administrator (NWA), and Monitoring).
It is powered by AAE and cannot be confused with a non-central AAE.
It has additional mediation and connectivity features to allow for major scenario shifts to AEX.
It is available from SAP NetWeaver PI 7.3.
Because AEX is based on SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) Java alone and is fully independent, it is easier to install and maintain, and needs less memory and data storage capacity. Therefore, the AEX is a cost-saving option compared to a full dual usage installation of SAP PI.
Comparing AEX with the Dual-Usage of SAP PI
In AEX, you cannot use integration processes cross component Business Process Management (ccBPM). As a replacement, AEX uses SAP Business Process Management (BPM) in the JAVA stack.
In addition, if you use AEX instead of the dual-usage PI, you can no longer use ABAP mappings.
Using AEX as a lean, low-cost integration middleware provides fundamental-to-advanced messaging capabilities for SAP and non SAP integration. It also provides high performance and robustness.
The AEX makes the use of a larger system unnecessary. In addition, it eliminates the need for a dual-stack SAP PI installation, thus reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Benefits of Using AEX
The following are the benefits of using AEX:
- TCO with single-stack is reduced.
- Installation and restarting are faster and less hardware is needed.
- The speed of resource consumption scenarios is reduced by up to ten times.
- Monitoring is simplified due to the use of one dedicated toolset and one stack.
- One database scheme is used.
The main development goal of the AEX is to close the gap between dual stack and the JAVA environment. The adapters for IDoc and HTTP have been redeveloped to run on the AAE.