PI Usage

[arunneerolil]

Hi,

In our landscape we have SAP ECC,SAP CRM, SAP BW, Redprairie WMS, Hyperion and a set of custom applications. Currently direct communication is happening between these systems.

We are planning to use SAP PI 7.0 as a middleware.

We are planning to shift all the direct communications through PI.

Is this the right way ?? bcoz SAP ECC,SAP CRM, SAP BW can talk directly also.

Is there any guidelines for deciding this ??

Thanks in Advance,

Regards,

Chemmanz

[Former Member]

PI is an EAI or ESB tool running in SAP Netweaver platform.

If you are planning to use the features of EAI and ESB framework inside your SAP and NON SAP systems then use PI.

PI is good when you have to consider the following concepts into integration scenarios of messages between SAP and NON SAP systems.

1. Heterogeneous consumers and providers of application services.

2. Wanted to reuse the integration artifacts across multiple scenarios of integrations. Artifacts are what make integration work in a loose coupled framework such as ESB, for example, a data type, message type, interface definition, mappings etc.

3. Wanted to deal with multiple protocols such as FILE, JMS, JDBC etc

4, wanted to enjoy features such as sync mode, async mode, staless, statefull etc.

BAD side

Keep in mind, if u are dealing with an ESB such as PI, everything coming in and going out is in the form of XML mean a lot of marshalling and demarshelling which is a performance bottleneck when u can achieve the same requirement through a point of point traditional integration.

Final point is, do not get in love with PI without proper justifying business reason and value added ESB features usage.

Thanks

[Former Member]

Chemmanz,

That is a basic functionality of the Middleware. It help to avoind having point to point connection and maintaining business logic/message conversion for all system at one location .

XI / PI allows differnt system to communicate each other without concerning about format of data exchange and your business logic would be at one location.

Its always good approch to used Middleware than having point to point connection.

If you read XI Fundamentals your doubts will get clear.

Let us know if you need more details.

Nilesh

[Former Member]

Hi,

The guidelines are driven by the type of objects you are try to pass between your SAP instances.

If the objects are standard objects, then use the standard middleware.

If the objects are non-standard objects, then use PI instead.

It is free of charge to move objects between SAP instance using PI - there is no volume base licencing implications I think.

All non-SAP applications may as well use PI if it can as it is present in the landscape.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Colin.