XI in a SOA landscape - licensing

[Former Member]

We are in the process of formulating a SOA strategy. We want our webservices platform to be on .NET and since SAP doesn't have webservices management tool we are also evaluating Amberpoint/Actional.

SAP has not clearly spelt out how licensing will work in an ESA environment and we are thinking of using XI message broker for exchanging SAP information since costing will be based on the volume of data. For example if we developed a composite application on .NET and wanted to retrieve/post data from SAP via .NET connector then we'll require a named user license for every user who uses our application. So what we thought was if we introduced XI webservices layer (instead of NCo,JCo and WebApp webservices) between SAP and our composite application we can go for a per transaction based costing method. I assume we'll have a similar charging mechanism when ESA/BPP is ready.

What do think? Is there a point in using XI as a webservice facade? please share your experience in designing SOA strategies.

thanks.

regards,

Harsha.

[Former Member]

Hi Harsha,

XI is the right integration solution in your case. XI could be the central hub providing all the enterpise webservices which provide most of the master data from SAP R3.

Hence if you were to have a composite application layer above the webserices repository provided by XI, this will be a perfect SOA based architecture. XI will be ideal for managing all the security for accessing data from R3 and will suite the charging model you mentioned.

We have successfully completed a huge phase of XI providing webservices accross the landscape. The strategy works.

Cheers,

Naveen

[Former Member]

Hi Naveen,

Thanks for your comments. Its really encouraging to know that you have implemented a similar architecture. I'll appreciate if you can share some of your learnings, may be you can blog about it?

How do you think the ESA licensing will work? We dont want to be tied down to SAP's Web application server nor use a non standard compliance (jsr 168) Portal server. Isn't SAP looking at bundling a webservice management product to do metering and billing atleast? ESA should not be limited to NetWeaver based products (xApps).

thanks.

regards,

Harsha.

[Former Member]

Hi Harsha,

<i>Isn't SAP looking at bundling a webservice management product to do metering and billing atleast?</i>

SAP is big time using XI as their integration Hub as the provider of Enterprise webserices, that not only talk to SAP systems but also to other systems. In our ESA implementation using XI, we have integrated all the systems in our landscape to pushish their services through XI. Xi is integrated with SAP R3 , Oracle Servers , Sybase Servers , CRM , TSW , HR the list goes on. SAP in the near future is going to release a product called ESR - Enterprise Service Repository which is evolved from XI.

<i>ESA should not be limited to NetWeaver based products (xApps).</i>

You are correct. But you can always integrate other solutions into XI, so that XI remains the single source of all ur enterprise needs, providing Enterprise solutions. One stop to get services.

<i>We dont want to be tied down to SAP's Web application server nor use a non standard compliance (jsr 168) Portal server.</i>

SAP's WAS has evolved into a very good product. In fact SAP has most of its new line of products running of their web application server. We from our experience find it to be very dependable. of course it takes some effort to tame it to the way you like it to behave. In our landscape we are using SAP WAS for hosting all webdynpro / xapps / JSP Apps / Servlets. WAS lets you to load any application as long as it is complaint to the JAVA standards.

Cheers,

Naveen

[Former Member]

hi harsha...

a similar thread might help...

hope it helps..

regards.

vishal