Describing SAP Process Integration Architecture

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.

The figure, Architecture of SAP Process Integration AEX, shows the architecture of the AEX.

The main components for design and configuration time are the Enterprise Services Repository (ESR) and the Integration Directory (ID).

Using these tools, an integration expert can design integration content (for example. interfaces and process integration scenarios) and specify the configuration settings for message exchange for a specific system landscape. The design and configuration tools are connected to the System Landscape Directory (SLD), which contains, for example the description of software components and systems.

Based on the configuration settings from the ID, messages are exchanged between the connected business systems at runtime. AEX uses the Advanced Adapter Engine (AAE) as runtime engine.

To process messages, the AAE uses information from the ID. This information is made available to the AAE using a runtime cache.

SAP Process Integration consists of the following components:

• SLD

  This component contains information about the landscape (technical systems and business systems) and the software catalog (product and software component versions). You can configure an SAP system to register itself in the SLD.

• ESR

  This component contains design objects such as interfaces, mappings, and process definitions.

• ID

  This component enables you to configure scenarios for the message exchange.

• AAE

  This component provides the basis for many adapters used to connect systems to the Integration Server. The AAE can also be used as the runtime environment for message processing.

• BPE

  This component controls message correlations and determines how messages are processed as part of cross-component Business Process Management (ccBPM). This is only available in dual-usage of SAP Process Integration.

• IE

  This component is a part of the Integration Server and it processes messages in the ID according to the system configuration. This processing involves determining the receiver and mapping the inbound message to the receiver interface structure. This is only available in the dual-usage of SAP Process Integration.

SAP Process Integration UI Tools to Access the Components

You can use the following tools to access SAP Process Integration components:

• SAP GUI

  SAP GUI is a client tool to access the ABAP stack of SAP Process Integration in a dual usage installation.

• Integration Builder

  The Integration Builder tool provides the Java GUI that you use to work in the ID. The Integration Builder also regulates versioning and lock management on the server.

• Enterprise Services Builder (ESB)

  The ESB tool provides the Java GUI that you use to work in the ESR.

• SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) Process Integration Tools (Eclipse-Based)

  You can have the role of a designer or configurator at different stages of taskflow to perform activities on objects involved in process integration. For each role, Process Integration Tools offers dedicated perspectives and interfaces to interact with the objects in the ESR and ID under one platform. The NWDS tool is the Eclipse-based Java development tool of SAP. You can use this tool to view and edit object types in the ESR.

• Browser

  In your browser, you can access configuration and monitoring, the ID, and the SLD.

The figure illustrates the architecture of SAP Process Orchestration.

As the standard connectivity option, you can use the Advanced Adapter Engine centrally, that means, installed on the same system ID (SID) where the design and configuration tools are also installed.

In an AEX installation, you also have the option of using an AAE non-centrally. That means you install the AAE separately on a system with a different SID than the central AAE. At runtime, the non-central AAE works independently of the central one.

The design and configuration environment (ES Repository and Integration Directory) resides on the system of the central AAE. Both the central AAE and the non-central AAE register themselves at the same System Landscape Directory (SLD).

With regard to user management, the non-central AAE works completely autonomously because it uses a local User Management Engine.

The figure, Installation and Connectivity Options and Configuration Types, shows the installation options available in SAP Process Integration.

Note

SAP NetWeaver has discontinued dual stack deployments. The dual stack option for SAP Process Integration has been replaced by a dual usage type that behaves like a Process Integration dual stack but stacks the AS ABAP and the AS Java run on separate system IDs.

The uniqueness of an object in the Enterprise Services Repository is determined by the following elements:

• The name of the object.
• The name of the software component.
• The associated namespace.

In addition to the technical and assigned business systems, the products, and their software components and versions that run on the technical systems are also created in the System Landscape Directory (SLD). The software components are imported into the Enterprise Services Repository. Within the software component version, you create the namespaces in which you then store the interface objects that you use in your business processes.

Interface objects include the inbound and outbound interfaces and details for mapping.

You can use interfaces, such as Remote Function Call (RFC), Intermediate Document (IDoc), eXtensible Markup Language Schema Definition (XSD), or WSDL in the ESR, or you can create them manually in the ESR.

Mapping Interfaces and Defining Mappings

You define outbound and inbound interfaces in the ESR. If the outbound and inbound messages in a scenario do not match, you also define mapping rules for a structure mapping in the ESR. For this purpose, the system provides you a graphical mapping tool or you can create mapping programs in Java, ABAP, or eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). In addition to the structure mapping, which maps the source and inbound structures to each other, you can also define a value mapping that maps the values of the structure to the required values in the inbound structure, for example, value 001 to value abc in the Material group field.

The ESR allows you to define the relationships between interfaces and business processes in a transparent way. To define these relationships, you create an integration scenario that represents the relationships between interfaces in abstract form (without the assignment of specific systems).

Implementation of a Scenario and Assignment of the Interfaces and Mappings Used

You can create process steps (referred to as actions) for a system with a particular role and assign outbound and inbound interfaces to each of these actions. You can also connect the actions with connecting lines and represent synchronous and asynchronous connections. Select an outbound interface for the sender system action and an inbound interface for the receiver system action for each connection. You can specify a mapping program that maps the outbound interface to the inbound interface.

Hint

Integration scenarios and objects referenced in scenarios, such as interfaces and mapping, are provided as the Enterprise Services Repository or SAP Process Integration content by SAP and its partners. These scenarios and objects can be used as configuration templates. In this way, they simplify the implementation of standard scenarios.

The Enterprise Services Repository (ESR) only stores information related to the development objects of a software component. For these objects, it is not important whether, and on which server, the software component is installed.

To allow business processes to run in a distributed system landscape, you need the configuration objects that you store in the ID.

Configuration Objects in the Integration Directory

In addition to the sender and receiver (as services) and the adapters, the following configuration objects also belong to the configuration in the ID for Advanced Adapter Engine based processing:

• Inbound processing
• Receiver
• Receiver interface
• Outbound processing

For the Advanced Adapter Engine (AAE) based processing, you need to configure the integrated configuration.

Messages can be processed by the Integration Engine (pipeline processing in dual usage installation), or by the AAE in dual usage or in Advanced Adapter Engine Extended (AEX), depending on the required adapters and functionality.

For processing messages by the Advanced Adapter Engine, you configure how the sender technically links up with SAP Process Integration (PI) (inbound processing) and with the receiver that receives a message (receiver). You then configure which inbound interface receives the message for the receiver (receiver interface) and how the Integration Server can technically link up with the receiver system (outbound processing).

The ID provides an object in which you can bundle all the configuration objects that belong together in the configuration scenario. Configuration scenarios make it easier to use configuration objects.

Process integration developers have the opportunity to use two different set of tools: the swing clients (JAVA WebStart based tools) and the tools available in Eclipse as part of a plugin called SAP Process Integration (PI). You can use the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio as your main tool for maintaining design time objects such as data types, mappings, service interfaces, and so on. The Enterprise Services Repository (ESR) is in the Eclipse perspective, you can model business processes with the Process Composer perspective and configure the routing rules or Integration Flows with the Process Integration Designer perspective.

You can download the new 750 release from: https://support.sap.com/en/my-support/software-downloads.html by navigating to Support Packages & Patches → 'N' → SAP NETWEAVER → SAP NETWEAVER 7.5 → DEVELOPER STUDIO .