Missed out on our Q2/2016 product update for SAP HANA Cloud Integration?
→ Watch the session Recording
→ access the presentation on What's New in SAP HANA Cloud Integration - Update from the Labs Q2/2016
or read my summary on the key highlights below:
We started off the session with our first live demo showcasing how social media insights can be made actionable with SAP S/4 HANA as a very tangible example of a digital transformation story in action: Tweets on certain trends or products (we created our own data for further analysis live in the session) are channeled via SAP HANA Cloud Integration by configuring the following two reference integration packages from SAP’s Integration Content Hub:
- SAP S/4HANA Marketing Cloud - Twitter Integration
- SAP S/4HANA Marketing Cloud - Twitter Integration Admin
The gathered Twitter data – based on keywords you can freely specify in your reference integration flow – is finally pushed into the sentiment analysis module in S/4 HANA where you can slice and dice the data to take actionable insights as well as have targeted campaigns for specific user groups interested in your product portfolio
Good reading on this topic is also a recent SAP INSIDER article on How SAP S/4 HANA is evolving.
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Talking of reference content on the Integration Content Hub - we also shared the good news that - Aimtec and Whitepaper InterfaceDesign -two of our long-term partners in the integration space successfully passed the HCI content certification program and the respective reference content will soon be published also on our Content Hub.
We also expect further partner contributions - both certified and uncertified content/ and adapters- to be added to this site soon!
Further information on SAP’s content certification program for SAP HANA Cloud Integration can be found here on SCN.
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As there were quite some questions from the audience in our Q1 webinar on how cloud reference content can be leveraged also by customers who are using our on-premise middleware I also included a short demo on content re-use between SAP HCI and SAP PI/PO 7.5.
The steps included in this are the following
- On request PI customers (as of release SAP PI/PO 7.5) get provisioned with an HCI Web environment
- You will need to customize the reference content in the Design Space of the Web environment according to your needs
- and finally download the adjusted content to your file system
- and in a last step deploy it to your SAP HANA Cloud Integration runtime that we brought to SAP Process Orchestration, on-premise environment.
I showed these steps with the example of integration scenario in the Human Resource space, where information is replicated between the SuccessFactors Learning Management module and the SAP ERP HCM module.
Further information on this topic you will also find in our online help → Designing Cloud Integration Content for SAP PO 7.5 SP0 (and higher SP versions).
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The key demo of our session evolved around the fact that SAP HANA Cloud Integration offers you now the capabilities to develop OData services that expose existing data sources (currently in Beta Version).
These OData services can be consumed by Fiori apps, HCP Mobile Services or any other custom app to fulfil user-centric scenarios.
The steps involved in the definition of an OData service on HCI are the following:
- Part one is the service definition itself - In OData terminology it is the creation of the EDMX file, which provides the information on the entity sets and the datastructures contained.
- Part two is to implement the OData service: Once you have done the model definition, you need to implement it by connecting to an appropriate data source. To do so we now offer a modeling-based environment for fast and easy data binding via integration flows.
Once the ODATA service is successfully deployed, it is ready for consumption.
In our demo example we showcased how to - in the context of SAP HCI -
- retrieve data from an ERP back-end system with the help of the SAP Cloud Connector
- expose this data with thelp of HCI's ODATA Service provisioning capabilities
- create and simulate a simple mobile app with the help of SAP's HCP WEB IDE and HCP's Mobile Service capabilities.
A very good step-by-step description of this scenario can be found in Midhun VP's blog Introduction to Creating OData Service in HANA Cloud Integration (beta)
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Finally we very briefly looked at how you can make use of the SAP HANA Cloud Connector in the HCI context.
The SAP HANA Cloud Connector enables hybrid scenarios in which cloud applications access on-premise systems in a customers' protected on-premise network.The Cloud Connector is able to establish the connection to HCP accounts via a secure SSL tunnel, by a so-called reverse invoke approach, i.e. the connection is established from within the on-premise network to the cloud - and usually there should not be the need to open firewall ports for inbound traffic to an on-premise network in order to make on-premise resources accessible for HCP cloud applications.
In the context of SAP HANA Cloud Integration the Cloud Connector can be used for the following receiver channels: SOAP, idoc, http and the OData adapter.
You can download the add-on from the SAP HANA Cloud Platform Cockpit under Useful Links → Tools → Cloud
How to configure your instance of the SAP HANA Cloud Connector is described in the online help or in this SCN blog.
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There were some incoming Questions during the session that we promised to answer:
Q: I saw SFTP, is there an intent for HCP-IS to provide FTP Server capability to support FTP clients for partners who wish to share files?
A: Regarding your question about FTP connectivity: We received this requirement already from several other customers and will include it into our roadmap. We can't provide yet a date when we'll be able to deliver this capability, kindly stay tuned, as soon as we have further details we can provide them to you.
Q: Actually I am facing a lot of problems with the SFTP adapter when using it for interfaces which data is created in a batch run. When will features like "Append Counter" or variables for filenames like in dynamic configuration on SAP PRO will be available for the SFTP Adapter?
A: For the sftp receiver channel there is already the option to set the file name dynamically. To do so the header CamelFileName can be used. This is described in the HCI developers guide with an example , see chapter 2.5.2.7
Q: Are these all prebuilt iflows on the Content Hub or a mix with Data Services?
A: The Content Hub has a focus on HCI-PI reference content (that is integration flows) and not on the HCI Data Servcies part of our solution.
Q: I do not see the ADP iflow in the content hub. Is there any update on when this will be available?
A: The reference content for this SFSF integration scenario is currently being built. Unfortunately we cannot give the concrete publishing date. We would kindly ask you to please stay tuned….
Q: I have more than 1 month trying to get SAP HCI Demo access (following the process via email). How can i accelerate the process time?
A: Sending a mail to hci.trial@sap.com is the right step, however the HCI Trial program is currently receiving quite an increased number of trial requests which might cause a delay Our sincere apologies for the delay!
For Partners we could recommend as an alternative to consider our new product offering, the Test & Demo license. SAP Partners can order the Cloud Test & Demo license for HANA Cloud Integration at this Partner Edge site.
The benefit of the Test & Demo license is - as compared to the Trial version- that it’s usage is not restricted to a 30-day period, however it is not free of charge.
Q: Is it possible to get an overview about the System performance of each node in the HCI?
A: Right, this is currently in the works. Development teams are currently looking into this topic and we are planning to make these numbers available to customers, soon.
Q: Is it allowed/possible to run integration Flows between 2 onPremise systems, for example SAP ERP & legacy database?
A: On HCI it is technically possible to also to integrate between two on-premise systems, however you would also need to consider aspects like network connectivity.
Q: In my case I have created OData and unable to deploy... it's not active most of the time... what could be the reason...
A: Unfortunately this is hard to tell without further investigation. I would please recommend to open a ticket on component LOD-HCI via http://support.sap.com.
Q: If Integration Content is deployed on-prem, is channels then configured locally or is this done in Cloud before downloading the package for on-prem deployment?
A: The configuration of the integration flow needs to happen in the Design Section of your HCI Web Environment before you download the artifact to your file system. There is no further configuration of channels possible in the on-prem landscape, the content is deployed as is (with the modifications you did in the previous step, that is in the HCI Web Environment).
Q: Hi, I have a SOAP sender channel and configured it properly. I will be giving the wsdl and access URL to the vendor(consumer), but they support only Oauth token based authentication(no user credentials/certificate based). Any pointers how do we achieve Oauth token based authentication to consume service hosted on HCI?
A: We are currently evaluating OAuth authentication and are about to implement this on the inbound side.What we have evaluated so far is OAuth with Client Credential Grant.But as there are different options using OAuth we would be interested what exactly is needed on customer side..
Please feel free to drop me a mail on this topic to appropriately channel your requirement (anette.asmus@sap.com)
Q: In future does HCI will have only Web UI access or there is a plan to use eclipse as well?
A: In general we strive for feature parity between Web and Eclipse. However please note that the Web environment is the preferred environment for any features related to the handling of reference content. In addition the new product capabilities for OData Provisioining on HCI are currently only availalbe in the Web Environment.
Other features, however, are more apt and exclusive to the Eclipse environment, e.g. the Adapter Development Kit and extensive java mappings.
Q: What about better connectivity adapters in HCI as we have in SAP PO?
A: The connectivity options we offer depend on the given infrastructure, so it will not be a 1:1 match between our cloud and on-premise middleware offering.
But yes, further connectivity options for HCI are currently in the works either developed by SAP (also see our current Product Roadmap) or our partner network.
Q: Is there specific sizing requirement for SAP Hana Cloud Connector?
A: Yes,please have a look at the SAP HANA Cloud Connector Operations Guide, section on System Requirements
Q: Is there an API in HCI to download a message payload (providing that persistence is activated in HCI)? For example in PI we have an internal web service which can be called and returns message payload based on given message ID in the request
A: A similar capability as you describe for PI is currently not available for HCI, however it is possible write and download attachments to the Message Processing Log in the HCI Web environment making use of the Script step.
For detailed information, further use cases and code samples for the script step see our SAP HCI Standard Documentation
Q: Can the Cloud Connector be also used for the SOAP and IDoc connection in iFlows?
A: Yes, the SAP HANA Cloud Connector can be used for SOAP, OData, idoc and http receiver adapters in the context of SAP HANA Cloud Integration
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