Event Driven integration. Why should we choose SAP PI?

[Former Member]

Hi there,

We are building an e-commerce platform which will rely on SAP ECC. Inventory, orders and customers data will be handled by SAP.

We collect all that data through WEB and MOBILE apps and then send them over to SAP. At some point that data may change, for example:

• Customer is now able to send invoices;
• Invoice is ready to deliver;
• A particular SKU is now out of stock.

All that events have to sent to the e-commerce platform, so that it can act accordingly.

The question is:

• How can we have this event-driven approach within SAP? Do we need SAP PI to achieve that?
• How can SAP queue up an event in case there is no connectivity with the e-commerce platform? Is there any kind of message queue? Retries?
• Are these event-driven messages near real time (< 10 seconds)?
• How is SAP PI better than any other ESB, like TIBCO or Oracle OSB (the one we already use here)?

Thanks

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jean,

I'll address your questions individually.

• How can we have this event-driven approach within SAP? Do we need SAP PI to achieve that? Technically you do not need SAP PI however PI gives you message queuing and quality of service to guarantee messages are sent to the e-commerce platform exactly once. If messages need to be sent in order (in your scenario it sounds like it does) then you can also use Exactly Once in Order processing

• How can SAP queue up an event in case there is no connectivity with the e-commerce platform? Is there any kind of message queue? Retries? SAP PI handles this natively using the messaging layer. Messages from the sender are placed in a queue and then a receiver adapter picks up the message and delivers it. As mentioned above there is also quality of service options available. The receiver adapter in PI has a retry mechanism that can be configured to retry a specified number of times. The default is 3. If the endpoint is down the message will rollback into the query for later re-transmission

• Are these event-driven messages near real time (< 10 seconds)? One option you have in SAP is to use ALE events and to trigger IDOCS to SAP PI when the source object (invoice etc) changes. This can either be immediately dispatched (realtime) or batched depending on your requirement. Batching the IDOCS relies on a background job to dispatch them and can be configured to run as often as required. This is preferable if volume is high and you want to throttle the IDOCS. Another option is to use save/post events in the system and trigger outbound ABAP proxy calls

• How is SAP PI better than any other ESB, like TIBCO or Oracle OSB (the one we already use here)? SAP PI has come a long way in recent years and the single-stack Java deployment has a much smaller footprint then the old dual-stack deployment. In my opinion the functionality has caught up to the likes of TIBCO whereas they used to be the clear market leader. To answer whether or not PI is better than the other options i'd look at what your requirements are and then see how well they are met by PI using the SAP documentation. There are also other factors such as cost which is something you'll have to evaluate for each product. Also what resource skill sets you have at your disposal

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Nick

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Rick.

What a great answer!