SAP XI ADAPTER ENGINE ABAP

The J2EE-based Adapter Engine provides you with various adapters that you can use to connect external systems to your Integration Engine. You can use these adapters to convert XI Protocolbased messages (SOAP /attachments over HTTP) to the specific protocols and formats of the respective external systems and the other way around.

Besides the J2EE-based Adapter Engine, you can also use the plain J2SE-based Adapter Engine.

Most XI adapters reside on the J2EE adapter engine. The only 2 exceptions are the plain HTTP adapter and IDoc adapter, which both reside within the Integration Server (ABAP) The AE is fully integrated with the XI landscape.

All adapters (including IDoc and HTTP) are configured centrally in the Integration Directory. There you can specify whether an adapter is to be located at the inbound channel (sender adapter) or at the outbound channel (receiver adapter) of an Integration Engine Reuse of Integration Directory’s existing versioning and Transport capabilities Central administration and monitoring over adapters, Integration Server, Integration Engine through Runtime Workbench Adapters can be hosted separately, possible on another host The J2EE adapter engine is based on the open JCA architecture. This is part of the J2EE standard.

As such, each individual adapter is referred to as a ‘resource adapter’. The JCA architecture allows to ‘plug in’ resource adapters, written by third-party vendors, SAP partners or customers.

Adapter framework is the main building block of the adapter engine.

The Adapter Engine is based on the adapter framework. The adapter framework is based on the SAP J2EE Engine (as part of the SAP Web Application Server) and the J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA). The adapter framework provides interfaces for configuration, management, and monitoring of adapters.

Adapter Framework provides common functionality for Adapter Engine and SAP Partner Connectivity Kit Adapter Framework inherits properties and features such as scalability, clustering, high availability, thread management, etc.

Adapter Framework provides its own queuing and logging services Temporary stand-alone operation without connection to an Integration Server is possible, while still providing e. g. guaranteed exactly once messaging to and from connected application system The Adapter framework is at the core of the adapter engine. It provides the core services which are common to all adapters: messaging, queuing and security handling. This is really the runtime of all adapters.

This slide also explains the benefits of having an adapter framework which is based on the open JCA standard. Te goal is to enable customers and partners to provide their own adapters through a consistent architecture and certification process.

Adapter Framework supports J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA).

JCA is standard architecture for connecting the J2EE platform to Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), e. g. ERP, DBMS, etc.

A Resource Adapter plugs into an application server, providing connectivity between the EIS and a Java application JCA enabled Adapter Framework provides defined interfaces to which both our adapters and 3rd party adapters can conform JCA is a widely accepted standard that 3rd party adapter providers are familiar with Adapter Software Development Kit (ASDK) based SAP XI Adapter Framework (as SAP PCK) and includes Adapter Framework Interface Specification, JCA sample adapter (incl. source code), Java Docs, xsd file .

The adapter engine can be deployed centrally or locally.

When the Integration Server is installed, the central AE is automatically installed as well.

Optionally the customer can deploy any number of local adapter engines. This can be done for several reasons (see next slide) The PCK is based on adapter framework and is intended for business partners who do not have a full XI system. The PCK will be detailed later on.

Note that the IDoc adapter is not part of the J2EE adapter engine and resides directly on the Integration Server host (ABAP stack). Same for the plain HTTP adapter which is not pictured here.

The J2SE adapter engine was the main solution for XI 2.0. It is still provided with XI 3.0 mainly for those customers who have already invested into it in the context of their XI 2.0 project. The J2SE adapter engine provides a limited set of technical adapters (File, JDBC, JMS, SOAP).