This blog post discusses the various development options we have with the current SAP Middleware products:
- SAP Process Orchestration 7.50 (PO)
- SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI)
Lets assume we have both options available, being a SAP PO 7.50 customer who also purchased a SAP CPI tenant e.g. for B2G scenarios (SII spain). Now lets discuss the options we have when we build new integrations:
Option 1: SAP PO Integrated Configuration / iFlow
This is the typical use case, having a message sent from sender to receiver through an integrated configuration (ICO) using a sender channel, routing, mapping and a receiver channel.
- Classic PI/PO setup, known area (no surprises)
- No stateful message processing, unless you use BPM
Option 2: SAP Cloud Platform Integration
This is a use case to connect e.g. two cloud applications or (e.g. in case of B2G) to connect SAP ECC/ERP/S4 with the legal authorities of Spain (SII).
- Prepackaged Integration Content available from SAP and Partners
- Connectivity and Messaging runs in the Cloud
- On-Premise Connectivity possible through SAP Cloud Connector
Option 3: Cloud Integration Content on SAP PO 7.50
Here the modeling if an Integration Flow takes place in SAP CPI, but the artifact is deployed on SAP Process Orchestration.
- On-Premise Connectivity
- Complex scenarios with stateful message processing supported
Option 4: ICO and Cloud Integration Content on SAP PO 7.50
Both objects are deployed in co-existence on SAP PO. The ICO calls the local CPI iFlow (or vice versa) typically using the SOAP XI 3.0 or SOAP 1.1 protocol.
- Separation of duties: ICO for classic connectivity and mapping/routing, CPI content for stateful message processing (e.g. Aggregate)
Option 5: SAP CPI and SAP PO in Co-Existence
SAP CPI (running in the Cloud) together with SAP PO (On-Premise).
- Inbound: This makes sense e.g. if you have no public IP Address and inbound connectivity from the internet is not possible for SAP PO. The incoming communication can be handled via SAP CPI and messages can be sent to SAP PO via SAP Cloud Connector
- Outbound: Modern APIs might require multiple interactions which has to be implemented in Mappings (via Lookup) or Adapter Modules with classic ICOs. CPI offers many more flexibility here!
There are also other flavors of this option available:
SAP PO can also run in the Cloud (Microsoft Azure, AWS, SAP HEC), but we consider this as the On-Premise Installation, as this not a SaaS/IPaaS approach, but rather a hosted scenario (infrastructure-as-a-service).
The future option will be a SAP CPI runtime made available On-Premise which is independent from (the NetWeaver based) SAP Process Orchestration (expected 2021).
Summary
| Option 1 SAP PO (ICO) | Option 2 SAP CPI | Option 3 SAP PO (CPI) | Option 4 SAP PO (ICO & CPI) | Option 5 SAP PO & SAP CPI |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connectivity | On-Premise, Hybrid | Cloud, Hybrid | On-Premise, Hybrid | On-Premise, Hybrid | On-Premise, Cloud, Hybrid |
| Stateful Messaging | only with BPM | supported | supported | supported | supported |
| Complex Messaging (APIs) | only with BPM or Mapping Lookups | supported | supported | supported (CPI) | supported (CPI) |
| Future Readiness | SAP NetWeaver will be discontinued, PO 7.50 supported until 2030 | yes, this the future technology (based on Apache Camel) | iFlows based on Apache Camel are future proof | iFlows based on Apache Camel are future proof | see Options 1 & 2 |
| Feature Completeness | very mature for A2A, B2B, B2G integration | still some gaps which might require workarounds | still some gaps which might require workarounds | see Options 1 & 2 | see Options 1 & 2 |
