As in the previous year, the International Focus Group for Process Integration (IFG for PI, formerly known as GSIG for PI) performed its yearly survey for SAP NetWeaver PI. The survey was scheduled from April 14th to July 5th 2011 and was open for all users and companies using SAP NetWeaver PI or XI as an integration platform. The survey contained 21 general questions and 9 questions about this year's focus topic monitoring.

This year's survey was a tremendous success for the international collaboration of the PI user groups, as the number increased from 155 last year to 412 participants from over 15 different user groups.

Survey Results

The following section shows an extract of the results.

Number of participants: 412

Participants per user group:

Industries:

Organization for SOA, Enterprise Architecture or integration:
(multiple selections allowed)

Used XI / PI release:
(multiple selections allowed if a company uses different releases in parallel)

Number of integration scenarios:

Required system availability (days * hours):

Evaluation of system performance:

As monitoring was one of the major pain points in our last year’s survey, we decided to make it a focus topic in 2011.

Indication whether monitoring is still a major pain point:

Use of tools from other vendors to cover end-to-end visibility and traceability:

Interpreting these results, it’s important to keep in mind that PI 7.3 as well as the new PI monitoring with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 was just in ramp-up phase during the survey, so that the feedback of the large majority of the survey participants still referred to the monitoring in the previous XI / PI releases.

A significant success of our last year’s global survey was that SAP really took our findings seriously and put additional efforts especially in the areas of monitoring and B2B connectivity. It will be interesting to see how the ratings in the next year’s survey will evolve when the first customers will have gained a broader experience with the new PI monitoring in SAP Solution Manager and the current PI 7.3 release.

Summary and conclusions

• Growing user base
• Majority of companies use PI for business critical scenarios
• Monitoring remains the most critical functionality / pain point, but is addressed by SAP with the new PI monitoring functionality for SAP Solution Manager and NWA for PI
• Stability and performance rated is as solid and significantly improved compared to the results in the previous years

Many thanks to all 412 participants! Look out for our next PI survey which will be scheduled from April and July 2012.

The International Focus Group for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (IFG for PI) is the first initiative of SAP user groups around the globe in the area of SAP NetWeaver PI and SAP integration. Due to an alignment with other international focus groups, the initiative changed its name from Global Special Interest Group for Process Integration (GSIG for PI) to International Focus Group for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (IFG for PI) in October 2012.

Our mission

The mission of the IFG for PI is to establish the collaboration between the various SAP user groups in the area of SAP NetWeaver PI and SAP integration. In addition to the collaboration, exchange of experiences and knowledge our goals are to combine and strengthen the feedback and influencing towards SAP and to work on joint best practices. Target of our group is to support the various PI focus groups as part of their national user groups (but not to replace them in any way).

Our members

Chair

At the group meeting 2012 in Stockholm Hermann Steinrötter was reelected as chair of the group for the period 09/2012 to 09/2013.

History

2008

• August: Kickoff meeting in Walldorf (ASUG, VNSG, DSAG, SAP)
• September: First international survey about SAP Application Integration and PI
• November: Web conference PI naming conventions

2009

• February – April: Survey about usage of EDI adapters on XI/PI
• May: Publication first draft of monitoring best practices
• May: Publication updated version of PI naming conventions
• September: Onsite meeting in Walldorf

2010

• January: SAPSA and SBN Norge join the initiative
• March: SAPience.be joins the initiative
• July/August: Second international survey about SAP Application Integration and PI
• August/September: JSUG joins the initiative
• September: Annual onsite meeting in Den Bosch / Netherlands
• October: SAUG and SUG UK & Ireland join the initiative
• October: Executive meeting with SAP management (Hervé Couturier, Dirk Kästner, Sindhu Gangadharan) at SAP TechEd Europe
• October: AFSUG & Russian PI group join the initiative
• November:The French user group USF joins the initiative

2011

• January – March: Concept and preparation of new PI survey
• April: Start of PI survey for 2011
• April: The Danish user group FSD joins the initiative
• May: SAP mentors Michal Krawczyk und Daniel Graversen join the group
• July: End of PI survey for 2011. We received more than 400 responses this year. Many thanks to all contributors and user groups!
• September: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Brussels), see also Thoughts after the Global Special Interest group for PI (GSIG for PI) after the meeting
• September/October: Official release of PI survey 2011 results
• November: Start of PI requirement gathering

2012

• February/March: Completion and review of PI requirements gathering
• April: Online survey for prioritization of collected requirements, see Online Survey - PI Requirements Prioritization
• May: Start global NetWeaver PI Survey 2012, see Global Survey for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 2012
• July: Completion of online survey for prioritization of collected requirements, forwarding of results to SAP
• October: Annual face-to-face group meeting (Stockholm), release of PI survey results & requirement prioritization
• October: Change of group name from GSIG for PI to IFG for PI

2013

• January/February: Finalization of questions for PI survey 2013.
• February: Maintenance and subscription of collected PI requirements by users at SAP Customer Connection Program.
• March: Release of new document version 3.5 of PI naming conventions (see working papers below), completion of subscription period of SAP Customer Connection Program.
• May: Official start of PI survey 2013.

SAP Influencing

• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2008
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2010
  Announcement for 2011 and 2010 results are publish in the our blog Global NetWeaver PI Survey 2011 and last Year's Results.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2011
  The results of 2011 can be found in the our blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2011.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2012
  The blog Results of the global NetWeaver PI Survey 2012 shows the results of our latest survey from 2012.
• Global SAP Application Integration Survey 2013
  The blog Global Survey for SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 2013 gives an overview of the focus topic and timeline for 2013.
• Results from Requirement Prioritization
  Results from the collection of new functional requirements for PI and the voting from the SAP user group members are published in our blog Results of the PI Requirement Prioritization. 9 of the 20 top requirements got nominated by SAP for the SAP Customer Connection Program. More information about the process and own participation can be found in the blog IFG for PI: Subscription process for new PI Features in SAP Customer Connection Program.

Working papers

• Naming Conventions for PI
  Best practice document about naming conventions and integration design for SAP NetWeaver PI (version 3.5 with updates for PI 7.31 released in March 2013)
• Best Practices PI Monitoring
  Introduction to monitoring capabilities of SAP NetWeaver PI (update for PI 7.3X in progress)
• Regression Testing
  Overview of regression testing for PI (work in progress)

Webinars

• SAP NetWeaver PI Roadmap
  Date: Monday, May 27^th, 10:00 CET
  Duration: 1 hour
• SAP NetWeaver PI Roadmap
  Date: Monday, May 27^th, 18:00 CET
  Duration: 1 hour

Further activities

• Continued work on PI requirement list and participation in th SAP Customer Connection Program
• Release of new and updated working paper till mid of 2013 (see previous section)
• Global NetWeaver PI Survey 2013
• Further webinars e.g. about PI / PO roadmap

How to participate and join

The download of the documents and the registration to the web conferences is offered to all members of the participating user groups and can be accessed via their specific portals or by contacting the speakers of the special interest groups listed in the table above.

Other user groups are very welcome join our initiative.

In case of questions or ideas do not hesitate to contact us!