Modeling Integration Flows in an Overview

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to model Integration Flows in an overview

Integration Flows Modeling

In this lesson, the following topics are discussed:

  • Integration Flow Design Guidelines Overview.
  • Learn the Basics.
  • Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows.
  • Guidelines to Implement Specific Integration Patterns.
  • Integrated Design Guidelines.

Integration Flow Design Guidelines Overview

Integration developers must ensure that integration flows are designed in a robust manner to protect their company's mission-critical business processes. As each use case can be unique, there are as many integration flow models as there are use cases. SAP provides solutions for recurring requirements through the Integration Flow Design Guidelines, which are well-documented and implemented. These example integration flows can be tested directly.

This section provides guidelines for integration developers covering the following three main aspects:

  • Learn the Basics.
  • Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows.
  • Guidelines to Implement Specific Integration Patterns.

The integration flows are designed to meet the following requirements:

  • One specific guideline or pattern is the focus of each integration flow, making it easy for you to understand the topic.
  • You can easily deploy and execute each integration flow with minimal effort, allowing you to test each guideline or pattern on your own.
  • Each reference integration flow can serve as a foundation for developing more intricate scenarios.

Implement the sample packages

The last three exercises taught you how to implement and use a sample integration flow from the "Learn the Basics" package.

Learn the Basics

Here, the following topics are discussed based on sample implementations:

  • Start your integration flow design journey by getting familiar with a set of three simple integration flows that demonstrate the basic features of message processing. These flows progressively increase in complexity.
  • Learn how to access (and set) headers and properties.
  • Learn how to design integration scenarios with integration flow to integration flow communication.
  • Learn how to configure adapters.
  • Learn how to transport integration content from a source to a target tenant.
  • Learn how to implement different scenarios to decouple sender and integration flow processing.
  • Learn how to retrieve only delta data from the source system using the current date or the latest date in the payload.
  • Learn how to handle exceptions with an exception subprocess.
  • Learn how to use the monitor application to analyze the behavior of an integration flow at runtime.
  • Learn how to modify content to use different integration flow steps (for example, the content modifier or the content enricher) to modify the message content:
    • Learn how to convert data from a source into a target format.
    • Learn how to encode and decode content.
    • Learn how to handle message mappings.
  • Learn how to use steps that store the message on the tenant database.
  • Learn how to transfer files.

Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows

Here, the following topics are discussed based on sample implementations:

  • Learn to design with high availability.
  • Learn to design with resilience.
  • Learn to deal with limited resources.
  • Learn to design loose coupling.
  • Learn to handle failures gracefully.
  • Learn to design flows readability.
  • Learn to use prepackaged integration content.

Guidelines to Implement Specific Integration Patterns

Based on sample implementations, the following topics are discussed here:

  • Learn to implement and use anAggregator pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Composed Message Processor pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Content based routing pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Content Enricher pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Content Filter pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Message Filter pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Recipient List pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Resequencer pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Scatter-Gather pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Splitter pattern.
  • Learn to implement and use a Quality of Service pattern.

Integrated Design Guidelines Check

In the integration flow, you are now able to Execute Guidelines checks into your integration flow with an analyze view or Report of violated components.

Screenshot of the Inline Design Guidelines Checks.

Resources

Read more here:

About Designing Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows:
Description of the integration flows at: Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows
Basic Documentation
Description of the integration flows at: Learn the Basics
Documentation About Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows
Description of the integration flows at: Guidelines to Design Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows
Documentation About Guidelines to Implement Specific Integration Patterns
Description of the package, including further information about the links to the single patterns: Guidelines to Implement Specific Integration Patterns

Summary

SAP offers various solutions for common technical requirements through documentation and implementation examples. These areas include Learn the Basics, Guidelines for Designing Enterprise-Grade Integration Flows, and Guidelines for Implementing Specific Integration Patterns. You can research and use these examples in your own projects.

Create and Configure a General Splitter

Business Scenario

To process every productID of the incoming list, you aim to implement a splitter (iterator) to further expand your integration process.

Task Flow

In this exercise, you will perform the following tasks:

  1. Log on to the integration flow DelayedDelivery_Process.
  2. Create and configure a General Splitter.
  3. Save as version, deploy, and debug your integration process.
  4. Learn more about the splitter component.

Prerequisites

The step of creating a Content Modifier with sample data as payload (XML) has been completed.

Outcome after this exercise

A General Splitter component is currently running.

The graphic shows the exercise outcome.

What do you learn within this exercise?

Learn to use and configure a General Splitter.

Steps

  1. Log on to the integration flow DelayedDelivery_Process via the SAP Integration Suite.

    1. Navigate within the SAP Integration Suite Welcome page to DesignIntegrationsDelayedDelivery_Package_CLD900_Date_NumberDelayedDelivery_Process_Number.

    2. Following the status after the last exercise step.

      without splitter
    3. Imagine that the integration flow is more edited.

  2. Create and configure a General Splitter.

    1. Get a General Splitter from RoutingSplitterGeneral Splitter and place it after the Modify_setPayload component, as described.

      Choose Splitter.
    2. Expand the General Splitter by choosing the artifact. The configuration tab pops up, change the name to Splitter_iterateOverProducts.

      The graphic shows the Splitter setup.
    3. Switch to the Processing tab and enter the following data:

      Field NameInput
      Expression TypeXPath
      XP Expression//Product
      Grouping1
      Streamingflagged
      Stop on Exceptionflagged
      The graphic shows the Splitter configuration.
    4. The element is used in the product list to encapsulate the ProductIDs. With grouping set to 1, each ProductID is processed sequentially.

  3. Save as version, deploy, and debug your integration process.

    1. Perform the following steps.

      1. Save as version.
      2. Deploy.
      3. Jump to OverviewManage Integration Content.
      4. Set log level to trace.
      5. Deploy again.
      6. Jump again toOverviewManage Integration Content.
    2. Navigate to your Integration Flow Model in OverviewMonitor Message ProcessingMessage Processing Run.

    3. Choose the Splitter_iterateOverProducts Segment 1 (No. 1) option and navigate to the Message Content tab. You can view the payload from the previous step, which includes several products.

      Screenshot of the Payload. Check the Payload process.
    4. By choosing the first End artifact, you notice that the message is being processed. You can check the payload of multiple End artifacts to see the single product by using the navigation menu on the top-left side.

      You can check the payload of multiple End artifacts to see the single product by using the navigation menu on the top left side.
    5. Choose the last End step to see a different product.

    6. In summary, it can be stated that the General Splitter works as expected.

  4. Learn more about the splitter component.

    1. Navigate back to your integration process.

    2. Open the configuration bar of the General Splitter, and choose the question mark symbol.

      You can directly access the help site of the General Splitter by choosing the question mark symbol in the configuration bar of the Splitter, which will take you there.
    3. You can directly access the help site of the General Splitter by choosing the question mark symbol in the configuration bar of the Splitter, which takes you there.

      Screenshot of the SAP Help Portal showing information about how to define General Splitter.

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