michal.krawczyk2

Michal's PI tips: How do you activate ABAP Proxies with AEX - simplified version

Michal Krawczyk — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:18:20 GMT

You might think that we already have a blog on SDN about configuring ABAP proxy communication with PI 7.3 - Proxy Configuration for PI 7.3 Java only but it turns out the config does not have to be that difficult as shown in the other blog. Let me show you how.

How to connect any ABAP based application system to AEX ?

1. First of all we need to start with creating a new RFC destination type G - SAP_PROXY_ESR:

a) please put the AEX server host name and port
b) path is /rep
c) user in the logon tab needs to be assigned to role SAP_XI_REP_SERV_USER

Now the important things:

1. If we have the SAP_PROXY_ESR destination we don't need to create LCRSAPRFC as it's obsolete if you use SAP_PROXY_ESR.

2. SAPSLDAPI is also not necessary for proxy connectivity in terms of connecting it to PI server and you don't need to create any Jco RFC provider destination on AEX - in most cases you will connect to a central SLD (probably on SOLMAN) anyway. Just make sure the SLDCHECK is working on your SAP backend.

How to create an HTTP destination from ABAP based application system to AEX ?

The second step is to create an HTTP destination to AEX:

a) please put the AEX server host name and port
b) path is /XISOAPAdapter/MessageServlet?ximessage=true

Next you just need to add this destination in SXMB_ADM --> Integration server config --> Global configuration - link

Was that much easier this time ?

In case you have any doubts - reference in help.sap.com

Michal's PI tips: Goodbye Exchange Profile - in java stack only PI

Michal Krawczyk — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:08:22 GMT

When you open a java stack only PI (possibility available as of PI 7.3) you may notice some changes at a very first sight like for example lack of RWB. There are also some other things which can be found in some other places. If you open the good old Exchange Profile for example you will see that all of the parameters are gone as per screen below:

This is probably because a connection to the Exchange Profile requires a gateway and java stack only systems don't have it (only the ABAP stack of PI has a gateway). The figure below shows a connection setting for the Exchange Profile and system number which will be used for the gateway connection.

Where are my Exchange Profile properties then ??

Don't worry there are still there but they were moved to the NWA (Netweaver Admin).
You can get there from the Administrator application by using the "Property configuration" link.

Next on the services tab you need to select "XPI Service: all config service" as per figure below and you can change all properties in the properties section.

Once you change all the properties you can use the Aii Properties link in the Administrator application and after you press the refresh button you should be able to see all new properties inside as per figure below.

Note

I'd like to thank William Li for his help with this topic.

Michal's PI tips: disabling file transports on PI

Michal Krawczyk — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:45:43 GMT

Many SAP PI admins have asked me if there is any authorization which can be used to limit transporting PI objects to the clients - leaving only CTS+ transports for everyone. I don't know any way to do that using the autorization but there is a way to disable file transporting in general. PI allows doing transports using file as per screenshot below.

There are two parameters in the Exchange Profile which can disable file transporting

a) one for disabling it in the ESR - Enterprise Service Repository - com.sap.aii.ibrep.core.transport.enableFileExport
b) one for disabling file transports in - ID- Integration Directory - com.sap.aii.ibdir.core.transport.enableFileExport

What you need to do is to add those two parameters with a boolean type and don't set the value (as the value needs to remain false).

Once you do the steps above it will not be possible to use exporting options in the ESR and ID as per screenshot below.

Note
If your CTS+ is available this will be the only option to do the transports from now on unless you change it in the Exchange Profile again.

Please let me know if you're using this option.

Michal's PI tips: composite web services on PI

Michal Krawczyk — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:16:25 GMT

Sometimes we one of the enterprise web services does not provide all the information necessary and it turns out that there is another web service which can return the missing fields. On the other hand many of the calling tools cannot or do not want to call multiple web services one by one to get all of the information but just want to use one composite web service which would return all information. Can PI leverage such integration flows and if so how? There are a couple ways of doing that via PI but in order for them to work efficiently we need to make some assumptions:

a) we cannot use a ccBPM - if we want our composite web service call to be quick we cannot use ccBPM for doing it

b) we should only be using ICO objects - we don't want to use the ABAP stack at all as it can slow down each call and in particular synchronous web service calls can suffer from that

c) we need to be able to turn of all of the logging for sync calls (which is disabled by default in PI) but we need to make sure it's turned off remembering that sync call logging on ICO is only possible as of PI 7.31 (EhP1 for SAP PI 7.3)

How to create a composite web service call then in PI itself?

As I mentioned there are still multiple ways of doing a composite web service, we could create a java proxy which would just call all of the necessary web services but would it allow us to use any of the PI tools ? Not necessary, we wouldn't even be able to provide communication channel details (URL, passwords etc.). Taking that into accout we'd like to prepare a composite web service call which would be able to use PI's communication channels (as this is a way not only to do nice administration but sometimes it can save us a lot of programming - like programming special autorization types, available with SOAP-AXIS communication channels in strandard). In order to use PI's communication channels we'd need to either use a standard PI flow (like ICO) or lookup API. As it's not possible to call two synchronous web services from one call we could try using the lookup API. The idea is to call a first web service in a normal way (using the ICO object) and then call all of the rest of web services using the lookup API.

Imagine that system 1 is calling a WS on system 2,3 and 4. ICO object has a standard configuration to call just system 2 and systems 3 and 4 are being called using the lookup API as per screenshot below. The lookup API for web service can be called using Bhavesh's blog: Webservice Calls From a User Defined Function..

Was that simple ? Is that all ? It turnes out we may have a second issue with this approach which we need to solve - passing parameters. How can we call the rest of the web services if the first one will not return the object key? We can have two situations:

a) composite web service calls can return multiple outputs from multiple object IDs (like details for multiple master data objects -materials). In this case the return messages from all web service calls need to return object IDs which can be used for calling additional web services. There is no problem here.

b) composite web service call can return only information about one object (like Purchase Order details). In this case the response may not have Purchase Order number in the response so we need to find out a way to call the rest of the web services with the same object ID.

How can we deal with the issue from the second approach if we cannot use variables from request message in the response mapping?

We can easily do it using Adapter Specific Message Attributes - ASMA. Inside the request mapping put the object ID into some ASMA parameter and inside the response mapping you can query ASMA data to get the same object ID and this way it does not have to be in the reponse of the first web service call at all.

How do you fell out this approach?

Michal's PI tips: ActiveMQ - JMS - topics with SAP PI 7.3

Michal Krawczyk — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:03:39 GMT

In my previous article PI/XI: ActiveMQ - free but yet powerful JMS provider I've presented how to set up communication between SAP PI and ActiveMQ JMS server with the use of queues. As of SAP PI 7.3 we have a possibility to use not only queues but also topics. For a whole list of new SAP PI 7.3 features please have a look at this presentation: What Are the New Service Bus-Based Capabilities with SAP NetWeaver PI.
If you want to find out more about differencies between topics and queues please have a look at those short definitions - How does a Queue compare to a Topic.

Setting up ActiveMQ communication

In order to set up ActiveMQ communication you need to do two things:

Step 1

Make sure you need to enable Topic support in the communication channel

Step 2

The configuration for ActiveMQ topic support is a little bit different then the one presented in my previous article and requires specifing at least the clientID for the connection factory implementation as per screenshot below:

You can also specify some additional parameters if necessary (for creating durable topics for example). Now that everything is set up completely you should be able to see a new consumer on the topic on your JMS server.

Important thing:

One more important thing you need to remember while using topics with ActiveMQ is that you cannot browse topics as you could with queues as per Can you browse a topic.

Michal's PI tips: JDBC/JMS driver deployment - now more forceMode=true

Michal Krawczyk — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:13:29 GMT

JSPM is a new tool for deploying java packages on SAP PI and as it's a new tool, there are some tricks you need to know to use it. Every PI consultant gets to know JSPM very closely once he needs to get the JDBC/JMS drivers deployed on the PI server and let me quickly describe the typical process:

- first the consultant needs to get the clean com.sap.aii.adapter.lib.sda file from the server

- then he/she needs to put the appropriate JMS/JDBC drivers to the file

- then he/she submitts the new sda file to the SAP admin which can put it into the appropriate folder to that JSPM can pick it up (as there is not way to pick it up from an client's computer)

- then it's very often the case that the file is not visible in the JSPM (hot fixes) and we start wondering why ?

What can we do then ?

There are a few choices:

a) we can try starting JSPM in so called force mode - jsmp/forceMode=true as maybe the version of the sda file is wrong but this requires some additional admin activities (restarting JSPM) which may not always be possible

b) we can try to investigate what the error was

We will go the second way and in order to check what was wrong we need to get the latest scan_inbox_XX.log file. From that file in most cases we can see what happend and in some of them it will clearly be a version issue - we always need to deploy a new version of the driver in order for JSPM to work correctly. This check not only tells us the issue but also suggests what is the version deployed on the server - so we know to which version we need to change in order to have the file deployed.

Now that we know the version deployed we need to change it in our com.sap.aii.adapter.lib.sda file and we can do that in a matter of minutes. We just need to change two files shown in the picture below.

We need to change the version in 3 places.

Step 1

MANIFEST.MF file - in one place

Step 2

SAP_MANIFEST.MF file - in two places

Now our file should be ready for deployment.

Hope this simple tutorial will let you save some time while doing the JSPM driver deployment.

Michal's PI tips: Two things you may have not known about a wsnavigator.

Michal Krawczyk — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:28:59 GMT

1. Web service navigator is being used for testing web services but a lot of people don't use it's full potential (yes, it seem to have some). In this short article I'd like to discuss about two very rarely but quite helpful functions of that tool. Imagine you're doing a WS test for a typical PI scenario:

a) you're created a WS in PI

b) you put the address of PI's WS in the navigator which creates a callable input

c) you insert parameters and execute the scenario

if it works you're happy and you can inform someone that it worked.

Now the question:

What happens if you want to store a test case of this execution ?

Two approaches:

a) You can give someone the URL for the WSDL and send the parameters together with that - you need to do that for all of your WS calls

b) You can create a test case in wsnavigator for all of your tested web services and send the test case file (XML) to someone of append to documentation

Let's have a look at the automated - second approach as it's very easy and quick to do.

Step 1

After you execute your scenario you just need to add it to the test scenario - "Add to test scenario" button and you should do it for all web services you want to test.

Step 2

Next you need to do to the "Test scenario" tab and from there select "Editor" and export your scenario. It will be exported with all the parameters necessary for executing your WS call.

Step 3

Once someone else would like to execute the scenario, it needs to be imported to wsnavigator again (in the Test scenario tab -> Editor - Import) and it can be executed. Once you try to execute it you will see that all parameters are already filled in and the WS can be retested very quickly.

The method mentioned above is the easiest way to store all test scripts in case you don't have any alternative tool for testing web services.

2. What if we created a WS on a J2EE engine which does not have wsnavigator so we'd like to use wsnavigator of our local PI server for example? This can also be done and all you need to do is to populate a so called "white list". You can do that in http://pihost:port/nwa/middleware-settings . From that link you need to select wsnavigator and put the host of the J2EE engine on which the web service is deployed and you can now access it from your local wsnavigator.

Those two tips are pretty simple but as per my experience not a lot of people are using the "full" potential of our simple tool - wsnavigator. Hope that this small SAP tool will now be even more widely used in PI WS scenarios as this is the tool that is available for everyone who's working with PI (not like any other alternative SOAP testing tools from different vendors).

PI/XI: Eclipse based message mappings - PI 7.31

Michal Krawczyk — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:52:46 GMT

Starting from the PI 7.3 SAP gave us the possibility to maintain some of the PI objects not only from the Swing client (ERS, ID) but also from the Eclipse (or NDWS). In PI 7.3 the number of objects was however pretty limited and we could only create: Data Types, Message Types and Service Interfaces. As of PI 7.31 we can create most of the objects from the Eclipse as you can see from the screenshot below (view on the Enterprise Service Browser)

Some of those objects (like Service Interfaces) are maintained in the very same way as in the Swing client but some of them like Message Mappings have a little bit new way of creating them. Below you will find some more information on how the to use Message Mappings.

Creation of Message Mappings - property tabs

The very first screen of maintaining the properties of Message Mappings is pretty much the same we we used to have within ESR.

Message Type assignment is also the same as we've used to have in ESR but as you can see on the screenshot below you can also view all local functions (UDFs) in the view.

Creation of Message Mappings - doing the mapping

Doing the actual mapping is pretty much the same as with any other Eclipse based "mappings" known from other tools like Java WebDynpro for example.

The best thing comes later, when you need to use any of the standard functions. Finally we have some IntelliSense (by pressing CTRL + SPACE) and we don't need to input everything ourselves.

As you can see from the screenshow below you can also use the UDFs in the very same way.

What about our favourite contexts? There not gone… you can still select them but you don't do it from the node but from the function itself.

Creation of Message Mappings - testing the mappings

The testing is one of the things that got changed in a very positive way. You can do the test by "running" a Message Mapping.

and now comes the best part, you don't need to copy/paste your payload, you can just simply use the file from your desktop (do you remember the waiting for message to appear in the test tab for large messages? - it might be gone now).

Obviously you still have "Parameters" tab which allows to specify importing parameters and also header parameters.

After do test the mapping the result is show in the XML format.

[Plagiarism] Why thieves from portals like saptechies.com are safe ? Bloggers please help...

Michal Krawczyk — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:32:19 GMT

If you ever wrote a blog or article on SDN you may be surprised on how many pages like saptechies.com you can find it. Not only that... the fact is that the article will say that someone else is the author of your article (which will be copied exactly as it was posted on SDN). Obviously people that create them do it to earn from google ads, etc. by why no one is doing anything against it ? On one of the forums we had a discussion about it and it seems that SDN does not own the blogs' content so they cannot take any legal actions against those thieves. So what can blog owners do:

- they can try to write e-mails asking to remove the content but who will listen to single souls - for sure not thieves right ?

- they can try to write to companies like google (or any other companies that put ads on those pages) and ask them to stop using pages like that as working with thieves you can only become one - but again will google listen to single users ?

It turns out that maybe the only way to move this topic is to write a blog and ask SDN users to do a search for their own blogs on such pages and try writing to companies like google with specifying as much proof as possible and maybe this way we can achieve something ?

My proposal would be: could you please try to check if your blog can be found on any other page and mention it in this blogs comments ? This way we will have tons of proofs for their donators and we can start writing e-mails not as a single person but as a group of people?

Here are a couple of mine:

original: