AII - Concept

[former_member638448]

Hi Guys,

We have a production order business process which includes production order, production order confirmation, Despatch advice, goods Receipt etc interfaces. There are 60 Sourcing units across Europe and each sourcing unit has 4 different applications which communicate with ECC for these interfaces. Currently the data is sent to / sent by the ECC system using MQ and XI. We are planning to use AII and the data will then be picked up by AII and sent to XI and XI will crete the data in IDocs in ECC for inbound interfaces. for outbound interfaces, the data will be sent from ECC to XI and then XI to AII and AII to the target application. I have few questions regarding AII capabilities.

1. Device manager -> what is the role of device manager in non RFID scenario as most of the source applications are not an RFID systems? where would it be placed? would it sit on AII or source application? how would we get the DC?

2. How the data will be picked by AII from the source applications? currently the data file is picked up by MQ. would AII be able to pick up data from any specified folder?

3. what are the connectivity options(e.g. File/SOAP/HTTP/ JDBC etc)? Do we need to install ABAP as well as JAVA component of AII or only ABAP component will do ? What is the significance of JAVA component?

4. How do we monitor AII? Do we have anything like XI-Runtime work bench/SXMB_MONI?

5. how AII will handle any connectivity failure with either Source application or PI instance?

6. The AII content which we need to import in XI, would it cater to all possible supply chain interfaces? Can we customize it?

Thanks,

Vikas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vikas,

Let me try to answer some of your questions:

1) Device Manager: Device Manager does not play a role when the source applications are of non RFID types. Device Managers are usually used with Fixed RFID devices for which events are need to be handled. If Device Manager is there, it would sit in between RFID physical infrastructure and SAP AII instance. It will be a different machine altogether having a device manager (software/middlware) communicating RFID Read Events to SAP AII. Not having any device manager also depends upon supportability given by SAP AII to read the same. Let us Mobile RFID devices are directly supported by SAP AII, so we do not require device manager.

2) Data will not be picked by SAP AII from source applications. Instead data will be sent to a particular interface of SAP AII. SAP AII offers 3 different interfaces to sent data to. These are PML, ALE and Web Services. For eg. PML. Source application will send data to a paticular link offered by AII using HTTP POST. (That is internal protocol) Of course the source application should be able to follow the format in which data needs to be sent. SAP AII will be invoked only when read events come to SAP AII

3) Only ABAP component will also do. However JAVA Component will be required to run some of the mobile device based transactions and to access the web based interface offered by SAP AII.

4) AII has some special transactions for monitoring. But what do you wnat to monitor? Is it performance or the data that is being processesed by SAP AII. If its data we have T-Code slg1, smq1, smq2, sm59 to monitor SAP AII. slg1 is the application log of AII.

5) Are you talking about back ups with respect to connectivity. If there is a single instance we have to make sure connectivity is there. I am not aware of connectivity issues for SAP AII.

6) XI content will be able to support all standard processes. For eg. Production Order in your case. And it is pretty much customizable.

I hope i have answered your questions.

Regards,

Yogesh Bhatia.

[former_member638448 · Accepted solution]

Hi Yogesh,

Many thanks for your reply. It has clarified some basic AII concepts for me.

I have few more questions now -

Can you please explain me in a bit more detail about the AII connectivity with the source application -

what do you mean by "SAP AII offers 3 different interfaces to send data to"? please explain how dies it work.

If the source system is not capable of exposing its data as a webservice or send data through HTTP post or ALE, it can't be integrated with AII. Is it correct?

As I said we have around 60 sourcing units and round 240 applications which will communicate with ECC using AII, is it possible to use single AII instance for all the applications?

For outbound interfaces from ECC, how AII will send data to the target applications? if it is going to be through webservice, PML/ALE, what capabilities do we need at the target systems? Please explain the data flow in little bit detail.

we would need to monitor the data as well as performance in AII. If the data goes in error due to some reasons, we would need to know that. So as long as there is good monitoring capability, its okay.

By connectivity, I meant will the data be persisted in AII if suppose the conncetivity fails between AII and Source application or between AII and PI? and when the system other systems becomes available again, would AII send send/recieve the data automatically after the connectivity is established?

Thanks again for your help.

-Vikas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

AII Connectivity With The Source Application:

SAP Offers three different interfaces. SAP AII exposes a http link for ALE/PML kind of interface to which the source application sends data in a prerequired format using HTTP post method. This link in AII is nothing but an http event handler (ABAP Code). The only requirement is that source should be able to send data in a required format.

If source system is not able to send data to AII in a required format then data will not be received. There will be errors.

60 sourcing units and 240 applications. No data is present for AII in terms of how many events it can handle. However whether single AII or multiple AIIs will handle data in your case, that can be only visualized and no concrete answer exists. Even SAP has not come out with the same.

AII will connect to target applications using RFC destinations. Once connected, AII will use different internal commands to send data outside to target applications as and when required. For eg. for a particular RFID read i want to show green/red light on a RFID device. This will be done by AII command. AII command will comprise nothing but of AII rules.

AII has good monitoring capability. Sometimes messages hang up in queues of AII (Tcode smq1/smq2). These messages once failed can be resent.

[former_member638448 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Yogesh,

Its very helpful