In simple words SAP XI is an integration technology which enables on to do A2A (application to application) and B2B (Business to Business) integration. It used all open standards like XML,WSDL,JAVA.. and soon internally so that we can integrate everything into it.
For doing so we have to go for adapters, proxies, BPMs and many more.
For more info go to: help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/14/80243b4a66ae0ce10000000a11402f/frameset.htm
generally interfacing means interacting with the applications/systems. XI and/or any other middleware interfaces with applications using diffrent adapters like file, jdbc, IDOC, RFC, http or SOAP.
Conventional methods of interacting with SAP is RFC, IDoc, BAPI, BDC.
SAP XI is one of the middleware. As big companies are having multiple systems in there landscape and the data needs to be trnsferred from one to may or many to one the concept of a middleware came into being.
Now the middleware also uses the conventional concept on any application system depenign on what it is interfacing with.
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