028 – CPI SuccessFactor and Cloud Integration Patterns

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I had a chance to meet  at #SITCPH two weeks ago. Vadim is an Integration Architect at ARM.  We got to talk a lot on integration and what was going one. I have been looking a lot on Vadim blogs on sap.com like the SAP PI adapter logging or the dark side of Groovy Scripting.

I talked with Vadim Klimov about how new tools have an influence on the way we work with cloud integration and how flows for different scenarios can help us understand the integration with SuccessFactors using SAP CPI and a prem PI. I’m currently involved in a project where we are using OData V2 to access SuccessFactors data. There are some challenges involved with it. We need some workaround to be able to see information about people starting in the future. In The Integration Center in SuccessFactors, their are many options, when you are looking for filed-based integration. The interface is web-based and allows business users to easily create files. Vadim is using the CPI and PI to move the file to their own landscape.

We also talked about how they do error handling in CPI and what makes sense in that perspective. The process works differently than in PI, so you must understand how it works best there.  At Figaf we are improving the capabilities to monitor, test and support your CPI systems, so you can get notifications about what is going on.

We also cover Groovy development, as I would like to understand Vadim thinking on the area.

It was a very interesting conversation which I hope, you will enjoy.

 

 

 

027 – The future of SAP Integration

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Tuesday, November 13. 2018, I just hosted a webinar about the key takeaways from SAP Teched and how to implement things based on it. It thinks it was one of my own webinars with most viewers (40). So it is an important topic. I think I missed the Gartner quote that 50% of the development budget will be about integration or something in that line.

When we were starting to see some cloud applications I did not see so many integrations. Lately, I have seen quite a number of a project involving some cloud application. I had seen that SAP would be able to provide some of the content as pre-delivered, but there are going to be so much more than you will need to develop. I just got an email from an SAP customer that they got a tsunami of cloud integration, so it is other areas as well.

Understand where you are going

On the webinar, I do cover how you can understand your own integrations and try to plan what integration you should be doing. I recommend that you take a look at the Integration Solution Advisor – Methodology. It has been updated and I have talked with quite a few architects using it and it gave them a good understanding of what they should be doing.

Roadmap

Then I cover the current state of the SAP PI roadmap, which will affect your existing integration. I do see the CPI on your SAP PI system as a good option to run some of your content. You probably want to start a migration if you are on a dual stack system, I have some resources on how you can do an SAP PI migration project. If you have Seeburger and want to migrate to B2B Add-on I created a webinar on how you can automate the migration. I also recorded a podcast on how a customer did a migration of Seeburger to B2B Add-on.

After you have been going thru your ISA-M you will have some integration patterns that you need new tools for. I’m covering SAP Cloud offerings for integration and their full iPaaS product. I think it would be wise to use the SAP tools first to see if they suit your needs and if not then you can find a better vendor for the solution. SAP will be adding new functions to the Cloud Offering to address the customers needs.

Operations

There is a need to make more integration at a faster pace. And you are probably not able to get more people on your team. So it is about making them as effective as possible. At Figaf we have created solutions to enable the development process to be a little easier from development, documentation, testing and supporting. You can check our tool Figaf IRT that can support the full lifecycle. I think it will help you improve your development of new features, so you will be more flexible and develop things faster.

Next week I’m hosting a webinar where I’ll cover how you can use the Figaf IRT tool to optimize your SAP PI and CPI development process.

Signup for webinar on Speeding up integration

 

View the presentation

You can watch the full video here.

 

 

026 – Migrating to SAP B2B Add-On

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Today I discuss B2B migration with Kishore Enumula.  Kishore works with the Salling Group (Dansk Supermarket Group) one of the biggest retailers in Denmark. He has just been leading a migration from Seeburger BIC to B2B Add-on from SAP. I see that many consumers are moving away from Seeburger and starting to use SAP B2B Add-on.  Salling Group decided to migrate because they were their database had limited future support. They had no choice but to stop using the Seeburger tools. They had around 60-70 different message mapping they needed to migrate.  The entire process took about six months to complete.

Salling had 2000 partners listed in the Trading Partner Management (TPM) tool. They used the API to re-create all the partners because it would have been too difficult to manually enter all that information.  There were some performance problems and they needed to improve the CPA object cache to have all the partners defined. TPM also gave a good visibility to how was the active partners.

They created completely new mappings to the new structure, which gave the option to remove some of the old bad habits and use the new B2B functions.

In this podcast we also discuss:

  • Reasons why migration
  • Project time span and planning 
  • They build a tool for EDI team to manage the partners.
  • TPM performance was good once they enhanced the cache
  • Longtime archiving of EDI Messages. 

Figaf notes on the project

If you are considering a migration project do listen to the podcast and get the takeaways from it.

We have two offerings that will help in the process.

  • Seeburger migration tool. This will take the Seeburger Mapping and convert the structure of B2B Add-on. This will allow you to save many hours on the structure conversions. Read more on how it works on your SAP PI/PO system.
  • The other is Figaf IRT a test tool that makes it easier to set up tests and run them. It supports EDIFACT/X12 comparison and the B2B Splitter. It have a lot of features and can be used for more than just the b2b migration. So it supports the full development lifecycle of SAP PI. Check it out at https://figaf.com/IRT.

025 – What is going on SAP PI with Udo Paltzer

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I got a chance to get a conversation with Udo Paltzer, product manager on many integration tools from SAP, about the future roadmap of SAP PI Integration at the SAPSA/IFG conference. There has been a lot of discussion going on what it was and where customers should doing with their SAP PI/PO systems. It was really nice to get a chat with the Expert on the topic of what is the SAP direction.

A big topic is the use of SAP PI/PO where it will take us. So we do talk about it together with the SAP roadmap for it. What will the next release of SAP PI be and how you can influence it. What is happening to the BPM/BRM and ABAP stack. I had thought that the dual-stack option was complete of the table for the next release, but it may be possible that even it will be in the release. Though it is not a recommended option, and have not been for a long time.

Udo recommended that every user of SAP PI-systems upgrade to 7.5 (newest version), and he also mentioned that users are very welcome to write about any kinds of problems regarding to SAP Pi in the cloud. By doing so it is possible for SAP to react or respond quickly if necessary.

The new thing and useful is the option to run CPI on-prem to use for BPM processes, where you have some technical requirement. It is a pretty good way for SAP to be able to leverage dual delivery strategy, to have a rock solid PI for all the “standard” messages. Then they can deliver new innovation on the CPI part.

We also cover the new Cloud Integration Suite, which is the iPaaS offering from SAP around all cloud development and tools. It is pretty good to get your hands on to understand what to do and the model allow you to pay for the services that you use.

You can read more about the Impuls18 and IFG Integration conference here.

We did have some sound problems, so it is not an ideal sound. But the content is pretty good, I hope.

 

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