Getting Started With Service Bus-Based Integration

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) provides a service bus that enables secure, standards-based, reliable, and scalable communication between provider and consumer applications. With SAP NetWeaver PI, IT professionals can connect the providers and consumers of services and events seamlessly across the entire IT landscape, including providing access to legacy systems and B2B protocols more quickly and easily.

SAP NetWeaver PI provides the SOA foundation capabilities to our customers. Using SAP NetWeaver PI, customers can leverage enterprise services delivered by SAP and also enable their existing investments in third-party and legacy applications by integrating them into their landscape and also service enabling the functions delivered in these applications.

• Overview
• Installation and First Steps
• Use Cases and Examples
• Mediation
• Connectivity
• Getting Started Documents

The Service Bus provides a communication infrastructure for the seamless connectivity of providers and consumers of services and events in a system landscape. The Service Bus implements a common service abstraction from lower-level protocols (HTTP, JMS, for example) and also provides service access to legacy systems and B2B protocols. The Service Bus ensures secure, reliable, and scalable communication (including Web Services Reliable Messaging) and supports various interaction patterns. It enables mediation (routing, structure mapping, and protocol conversion) between consumers and providers.
SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) - based on SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure - is SAP's platform for process integration using the exchange of XML messages. SAP NetWeaver PI provides a technical infrastructure for XML-based message exchange in order to connect SAP components with each other, as well as with non-SAP components.

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration implements the following sub capabilities of a Service Bus:

• Mediation
• Connectivity
• Reliable Messaging and Security
• Flexible Deployment

Mediation

One of the key principles of SAP NetWeaver PI is that data is exchanged between application systems in the form of XML messages. XML provides a set of standards and technical building blocks that provide a huge step forward in terms of interoperability.
XML is not only used for metadata, but it is also the syntax for everything that is exchanged between heterogeneous systems.
With XML you have a flexible, basic format for transporting and transforming information. Message formats can be based on open XML standards for business documents, or can be custom designed. Using XML-based mapping it is possible to transform messages into and from a common XML format, or directly from inbound into outbound format.

In SAP NetWeaver PI, messages are exchanged between communication partners by an Integration Broker. The Integration Broker routes the messages to the right receivers. Additionally, messages can be mapped, meaning that data structures on the sender's side can be mapped to data structures on the receiver's side.

For routing and mapping, the following options are available:

• Receivers of a message can be defined statically at configuration time.
• Routing rules enable the definition of content-based routing; with content-based routing, the receivers of a message are determined dynamically at runtime and are dependent on the content of the message.
• Mappings can be defined for data transformation between the sender and receiver side.

Connectivity

Getting Started Documents

Overview

Examples

As part of SAP NetWeaver Process Integration, there are various examples available that guide you through the technical concepts and tools step by step.

The following examples are available:

• Simple Application Cases: These provide a set of simple, fully-configurable, and executable Process Integration scenarios corresponding to a particular part of SAP NetWeaver Process Integration. The application cases usually comprise a single cross-component communication step and can be configured and executed with a minimum amount of effort. Therefore, they are particularly useful as an introduction to the topic.
• Demo Examples: These provide a set of productive Process Integration scenarios that enable you to quickly learn the most important concepts of SAP NetWeaver Process Integration and follow them in the system. Each Process Integration scenario represents a simple business application case from the area Booking a Flight. For this reason, you do not require specific business knowledge to use the demo examples. Each Process Integration scenario has detailed configuration instructions and can therefore be fully configured and executed.