Explaining Other Connectivity Options

The figure, Connectivity Adapters and Security in SAP Process Orchestration (PO) Overview, shows an overview of the adapters available in SAP PO. Many of these adapters have already been discussed in the course. Some adapters that are not included with the PO license are available via partners and industry adapters.

In the next few sections, you will get an overview of some of the new adapters available for SAP PO.

REST Adapter

The REST adapter enables you to exchange messages between remote clients or web service servers and the Process Integration (PI).

It supports dynamic URLs, REST API polling, multiple operations per channel, as well as XML and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data formats.

The figure illustrates the possible settings of the REST adapter.

Web Service Reliable Messaging (WS-RM) Adapter Functional Scope

There is also a new WS-RM adapter for WS-RM communication. The figure illustrates the possible settings.

Starting with SAP NetWeaver 7.5 SPS22, the software of the SAP Process Integration add-ons Connectivity Add-On and Secure Connectivity Add-On has been moved to the standard.

The connectivity add-on runs on the SAP PI Adapter Framework, based on the Java Connector Architecture (JCA). Accordingly, its capabilities are being used for enabling the common message delivery options (Exactly Once (EO), Exactly Once In Order (EOIO)), an automatic retry mechanism, and information logging. The configuration of connectivity adapters, monitoring, and operations is done in the same way as for other adapters of SAP PI. The connectivity add-on runs fully in the Java stack and supports all valid deployment options of SAP PI (ABAP and Java, Java only).

The connectivity add-on is comprised of the following components:

• SAP SuccessFactors (SFSF) adapter.

• OData adapter.

SFSF Adapter

The SFSF adapter enables you to communicate with the SAP SuccessFactors system. The adapter supports SOAP, OData, and REST message protocols for communicating with the SAP SuccessFactors system. Refer to the SAP SuccessFactors site for more information.

The figure shows a screenshot with possible settings for the SFSF adapter.

Features are the SFSF adapter are:

• Login, logout, and session handling (session token).

• Supports simple, compound and adhocSFAPI (SOAP):

  Operations: Query, Insert, Upsert& Update.

• Supporting SAP SuccessFactors’ OData API:

  Operations: Query, Read, Create, Update, Upsert, Merge and Delete.

• Supporting LMS REST API:

  Operations: GET and POST.

• Automatic data polling using scheduler.

• Delta synchronization.

• HTTP Destination based connection parameters.

• Optimized message processing within PI runtime by grouping messages.

• Integration with PI Alert Framework & Channel Ping.

• Operate Sender Channel using Web Services.

Talent Hybrid

There are different integration technologies for SAP SuccessFactors integration. The figure, Talent Hybrid, shows the options, including SAP PO.

For connecting SAP SuccessFactors applications in the cloud to SAP ERP Human Capital Management (HCM) on-premise, SAP provides three integration technology options.

Employee Central And Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Integration

The figure, Full Cloud HCM Scenario, shows integration for Employee Central and ERP via SFSF Adapter on PO.

OData Adapter

The OData adapter enables you to communicate with any OData service provider. You can perform operations like Query, Read, Create, Update, Merge, and Delete. Refer to OData documentation for more information on OData protocol.

The figure illustrates the features of the OData adapter.

SAP customers requested, that PI/PO and SAP Gateway were brought together on one hub for Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) reasons. They expected to be able to perform user centric integration and process integration on one stack to reduce the following:

• Hardware costs.

• Administration costs.

• System landscape complexity.

Gateway/Java with PO is available as of NetWeaver 7.31 SP13.

Gateway scenarios can run on the NetWeaver Java stack w/ BEP connectivity to support UI composition scenarios based on OData services.

This allows customers to use their PO single-stack system as a central Gateway hub.

Gateway Java on SAP PO

The figure illustrates the architectural position of the gateway in Java on SAP PO.

Purposes of a Single Integration Hub

A single integration hub for application integration and user-centric consumption provides the following:

• PO can serve as a Gateway hub via embedded Gateway (Java) component.

• Exposes SAP backend data as OData services via OData Channel (ODC).

• Supports multi-destination (aggregate data from multiple backend systems).

• Connects to Gateway-enabled backend systems (technicalcomponentIW_BEP).

Restrictions of a Single Integration Hub are:

• Only ODC/BEP connectivity.

• Cannot run SAP Fiori apps yet.

• Cannot run Unified Inbox yet.

The business-to-business (B2B) add on runs on the SAP NetWeaver PI Adapter Framework, based on the Java Connector Architecture (JCA). Accordingly, its capabilities are used to enable the common message delivery options (Best Effort (BE), EO, EOIO), an automatic retry mechanism, and information logging. The configuration of B2B adapters, monitoring, and operations is done in the same way as for other adapters of SAP NetWeaver PI. The B2B add on runs fully in the Java stack and supports all valid deployment options of SAP NetWeaver PI (ABAP + Java, Java only).

The B2B add on comes with the following adapters supporting specific B2B messaging protocols:

• AS2 adapter

• OFTP adapter

• X.400 adapter

The B2B add on also contains a set of adapter modules allowing the conversion of native Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages into EDI-XML messages and the other way around. In addition, a plain text module is provided for handling custom B2B message formats in the same way. This content conversion is beneficial as SAP NetWeaver PI is optimized for processing XML messages.

They support all common message type and versions of the following B2B/EDI standards:

• ANSI X.12

• EDIFACT

• EANCOM

• TRADACOM

• Odette

• VDA

• Custom Format

SAP B2B Trading Partner Management (TPM) is a centralized application that meets the needs of B2B commerce in an EDI environment. B2B users have different levels of EDI requirements for data exchange over the Internet. The TPM application helps you manage EDI business relationships with multiple trading partners. The easy-to-use user interface solves the complexity of B2B communication between trading partners.

The SAP B2B TPM application helps you to do the following:

• Maintain centralized partner information.

• Create agreements between partners.

• Define certificate rollover.

• Configure functional profiles for custom value maps.

The figure illustrates the architectural build of the B2B add on.

B2B Configuration Integration Scenarios

With B2B, the configuration is done in the same way as in A2A scenarios.

The figure illustrates a basic configuration of a B2B integration.

B2B Integration Cockpit

A web-based B2B Integration Cockpit was introduced with SP1 that acts as a central access point for all B2B expert tools. The figure illustrates the main contents of it.

You can find more information at: https://help.sap.com/nw-b2b-addon_re