Enterprise Integration is a bit challenging and the field is moving to fast that nobody is able to follow on what is going on. That is what Integration Podcast will cover.
We will be focusing on the SAP Integration platforms from SAP PI/PO, Cloud Integration, API Management, Gateway and Cloud Platform. There are so many different tools that you must be looking at to understand what is relevant.
We will also be covering the other techniques going on to make sure that your Enterprise works.
Daniel Graversen has worked with SAP Integration for 10+ years. Over the years there have been some frustrations about how to get different software and tool working optimally for clients.
Daniel is an SAP Mentor and a part of the community around SAP.
Daniel is both developing integrations, sharing information about integration, trained people in using the tools and advised companies about best leverage their investments in integration.
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Episodes
004 – Using ECC to create a BPM framework
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I’m really excited to bring you today’s conversation. My guest is Jorge Iván Gaviria ABAP and PO Consultant working at the municipality of Medellin, Colombia.
Jorge created a framework to handle BPM requests in ECC that enabled users to access it both internally and externally. That framework was used to create an online request form for users to fill in. The form metadata is created in the ABAP backend where users define the content of the form. The form is then processed with SAP BPM to sent it for approval at the correct users. Jorge initially considered using the customer service model of SAP built on Java in the portal. But he quickly discovered that it was not customizable enough.
Some sample screenshots of the application.
I hope you enjoy this conversation and learn a little about how to use the SAP PI framework to create forms in a different way. But the audio quality is quite low on this episode. I will try harder to make the future episodes easier to listen to. I promise!
003 – Our new Interface Regression Tool is done!
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This is a big day for us at the Integration Podcast. We have launched our first few episodes and we’re really excited to have you along for the ride! It’s also a big day for my company Figaf. That’s because after a ton of work we are launching Version 2 of our Interface Regression Tool. We made many changes for this new version. It took three months of planning and two months of actual development time. It has been very costly but we did it for good reason. We could have added these new features to the old user interface but it would have created many problems.
To back up a step, the IRT is testing solution for SAP PI systems. We were running two different versions of PI that used different Java versions. This created issues with libraries and OpenSQL databases. We had to support clustering in this new version but it added huge amounts of complexity to an already complex piece of software. That forced us back to the drawing board to craft a leaner solution.
We made it much simpler to install and run on your local PC. And we’ve included a free version and a single user version. We wanted to offer that free version so you could get a good idea of how the tool operates and how it could help your organization. I hope you like it!
To get a copy of Figaf Interface Regression Tool simply click the link.
002 – Cloud integration stories with Marco Verhoef
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Today’s episode is all about cloud integration. I’m joined by Marco Verhoef who has worked for the last seven years for a Netherlands utilities company called Eneco. He has been pushing his company way from SAP PI and towards SAP cloud Platform integration (CPI aka HCI).
The business case for making that transition was largely cost related. Cloud computing was a better solution for a number of reasons. First was eliminating the need for regular updates which was costing his company as much as €50 thousand per year. The hardware costs were dramatically lower as well. Just running the servers costs €6000 per month.
Marco has achieved a lot in the two years since he first proposed a cloud integration strategy. They have also implemented fieldglass, an external worker SAAS product. He thinks the fieldglass setup was very similar to using SAP PI. He found that CPI was not that mature two years ago but by working with the product developers he was able to guide the process.
One of the more frustrating issues using SAP PI was ccBPM. CPI uses one single integrated development environment to do configuration and development and is much more user friendly than SAP PI.
The entire process took Marco and his team 18 months to complete. Migrating all the interfaces was the biggest task. There have been no performance issues though at times it can be slow. Marco thinks that has more to do with bandwidth limitations rather than a processing issue.
Marco says before considering cloud integration you need to know how complicated your current integrations are. Is its core business or just business support? A lot of companies don’t even think about going to the cloud for their integration tool yet. Marco says everyone should at least think about it. For as little as €1500 per month you can start and create a proof of concept.
