A2A

[Former Member]

i read abaout B2B scenarios, it was meant communication between, two external systems, bcos both use different format for communcation,

but why is A2A needed, every communication in sap is done through idocs or bapis, what is the need for xi to perform A2A configuration,

i found one scenario in this forum for A2A, it says a file has to be idoc , for which XD01 tcode was being used,

we can easily do that through lsmw, bdc, or bapis through direct input,

what is the point in doing XI.

thank you

[Former Member]

Sanjana,

An Application Node or a Business Node can be either SAP or other some other System and can further be defined as either internal or external to your network

So A2A and B2B is more about definition.

Generally speaking, all SAP Nodes will be internal to your Company. Therefore XI can offer A2A communication between these Nodes if the communication method is to differ from the SAP standard communication methods (as you have stated).

Another example is that you may have an internal Node (eg a Web Server) that wants to communicate with one of your SAP Nodes. XI can orchestrate communication between these two Nodes. Eg XML or CSV file to IDoc or BAPI.

Or you may have two internal Nodes (non SAP applications) that want to communicate …

Refer to this url for definition of Network Zones

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/d9/ef2940cbf2195de10000000a1550b0/frameset.htm

I have provided the below excerpt

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The SAP Exchange Infrastructure (XI) can be used for two main purposes:

• Intra-enterprise application integration (EAI) where company-internal heterogeneous applications communicate using XI. This is also known as A2A (application-to-application) communication.

• Inter-enterprise integration where companies exchange XI messages. This is also known as B2B (business-to-business) communication.

Depending on the usage scenario, the risk assessment of the network infrastructure, and a company’s security policy, appropriate security measure should be taken.

The least critical case is where XI is used for A2A messaging within a company-internal secure network, because there may be no need to install different network zones.

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I hope this explanation helps,

Mike

[Former Member]

Hi Sanjana,

Be fore asking this question you should understand what is the difference between A2A and B2B communication.

I think for the reply of people u got the idea about what is A2A and B2B scenarios.

Now in B2B your data is coming from the VAN Network or Mailbox and it is difficult to get the data which is encrypted with digital certificate from VAN or Mailbox using the standard adapters hence we go for the third party adapter adapters like AS2,FTP,X400 etc provided by seeburger.

NOw data which is coming is not in the normal format the data is coming in the form of EDIFACT,TRADACOM,INHOUSE,EANCOM strucutres and as u are aware that Xi can only understand XML strucutre hence we required third party adapters which can understand the EDi strucutres and convert the EDI strucutres in XML and proivde that to XI.

Hope it will help you.

Thnx

chirag.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Lets see the importance of A2A or B2B scenario from XI perceptive,

Using SAP NetWeaver XI, you can centrally design, configure, and execute such A2A or B2B processes.

The shared collaboration knowledge, which is based on open standards, ensures openness and interoperability for communication with existing integration solutions. The pre-delivered content that is provided allows an out-of-the-box integration of SAP solutions with other SAP or non-SAP applications and with in various business scenarios.

By providing one common infrastructure for such collaborative processes between SAP and non-SAP applications and in various business scenarios, the complexity of a company’s system landscape is reduced and the overall performance therefore increased.

Now as you had said that A2A communications are possible with SAP through IDOC/BAPI or LSMW etc is correct, but do you really think that this will be an easy job????

If you see for data transfer with any SAP to nonSAP applications or vice-versa, that will be point to point connectivity. For e.g.

Let say we have one Idoc to be transfer to file from SAP and then that file need to move to any other application. Then you need to do the ABAP development for it to make the file with required format. If there are such 100 IDOC Types need to transfer with different output file formats then that would be cumbersome to deal with each seperate ABAP programs or may be any SAP tool.

Again further to transfer the file to different application will need another development in that application.

With the help of XI, this repeatative and unwanted work will be avoided. You could have the reusability with it. XI could be used as central hub for these kind of activties effectively.

This is one of the example that I had given, Don't restrict the usage of XI only for SAP, XI can be used as central hub for all SAP and nonSAP applications, even it can be used for NonSAP to NonSAP applications also.

In XI, we have the features to handle the Business Processes, i.e. Workflow in ABAP. You might be aware the time utilization required in ABAP to develop the workflow, these kind of avtivities are pretty easy to handle in XI.

Thanks

Swarup

[Former Member]

>>we can easily do that through lsmw, bdc, or bapis through direct input

if with ABAP you can do pretty much anything that doesn't mean it must be used to everything,LSMW/BDC are used for master upload,it must not be used to day to day transactions,XI is used for everyday transactions,even LSMW fails if the data transfer is very huge and you gotta use emigall(for utilities).

Thanx

Aamir