SAP PI 7.3 vs Microsoft BizTalk 2009

[Former Member]

I am doing a research to compare which will be a better tool to use considering below mentioned three points :

1. A fully automated interface architecture to integrate SAP, CRM, GTS and POS.
2. The interfaces shall be easily monitored with alert (SMS, email, etc) and the rectification process shall be simple and only be carried out by authorised personnel.
3. The interfaces shall be easy to manage and scalable for changes and additional interface.

Looking forward for you answers.

[Former Member]

Dear Rupendra

I am sharing my perspective based on my experience in PI and Gartner Research readings.

For SAP applications, PI provides out of the box integration and has pre delivered content too.

This does not hold good for Microsoft, which does not provide any business content leading to higher TCO. Similarly Biztalk's support for pure .Net customers is high.

Biztalk's modelling capabilities are limited. BizTalk is not well integrated with other Microsoft

server products such as SQL Server, Sharepoint, or Commerce Server. On the other hand, PI is now augmented with BPM,Aris.

SAP NetWeaver supports both Java and .Net & i guess deliberately offers ABAP

for business app developers and Java for tech developers

Alerting capabilities are in general provided by both middle wares. E2E monitoring until now was a pain with PI, as it involved multiple screens for various stages of message processing. Now with Solman 7.3 and integrated monitoring in NWA, SA has tried to take a step forward.

Adding interfaces and maintenance depends on requirements and as a matter of fact how adept or well versed you are in using this specific middle ware. However both the middle wares are too technical to lie within the easy accessibility of an end user.

Kindly revert if you need some more info.

Regards

Monika

[prateek]

You will probably receive only PI related responses on SCN. I think you will have to post a similar query in Biztalk forum to get their views. Here is my take on PI for these points:

1. PI provides pre-delivered content and various communication option with SAP, CRM, POS. GTS although is not directly provided by PI, SAP's partner like Seeburger provide extensive content for GTS module integration. With these content, integration is merely a case of routing messages to appropriate systems.

2. PI provides alerting functionalities which if you use in conjunction with Solman 7.1 can amaze you. The rectification process and its management should not be part of a middleware and therefore SAP provides Solman which fulfills this need.

3. This is a design based comment. Based on your design of interfaces, it can be manageable and scalable. I would assume that both PI and Biztalk will have same comment about this point.

Regards,

Prateek Raj Srivastava