Adapters 
Purpose
Adapters enable the Integration Engine and the Partner Connectivity Kit (PCK) to communicate with different applications.
Implementation Considerations
You only require an adapter to communicate with SAP systems older than Release 6.20 and with external systems. A direct system connection using proxies and without additional adapters is supported for SAP systems that are based on SAP Web Application Server 6.20 or higher.
Features
Adapters connect the Integration Engine to SAP legacy systems, as well as to external systems.
In this way, adapters integrate existing SAP components with SAP Exchange Infrastructure, for example. In the process, XML and HTTP-based documents are converted to IDocs (IDoc adapter) and RFCs (RFC adapter) and the other way around. This enables you to integrate your existing SAP infrastructure with the new SAP infrastructure, which is based on system integration and the exchange of XML messages.
The plain HTTP adapter gives application systems the option of communicating with the Integration Engine and exchanging business data in a simple format, using an HTTP connection.
Furthermore, 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 XML and HTTP-based messages to the specific protocols and formats of the respective external systems and the other way around. You can specify generic modules for adapters in the Adapter Engine in the module processor. These modules give the adapters additional functions. Modules describes the modules shipped by SAP.
For more information about developing modules, see Adapter and Module Development. This section also provides information about how to create new adapters.
In addition to the J2EE-based Adapter Engine, you can also use the plain J2SE-based Adapter Engine.
Adapter Types and Attributes
Adapter Type |
Transport Protocol |
Message Protocol |
QoS |
Attachments |
Acknowledgments |
Attributes in Message Header |
Sender: tRFC File Receiver: tRFC |
IDoc-XML |
EO EOIO with qRFC |
No |
System acknowledgments (not at sender) System error acknowledgments Application acknowledgements Application error acknowledgements |
|
|
RFC |
RFC-XML |
BE EO EOIO |
No |
Receiver: System acknowledgments System error acknowledgments |
Sender Receiver |
|
HTTP(S) 1.0 |
XI payload in HTTP body |
BE EO EOIO |
No |
Receiver: System acknowledgments System error acknowledgments |
Sender Receiver |
|
HTTP(S) |
RFC XML with envelope IDoc-XML |
BE EO |
No |
See below |
|
|
File system (NFS) File transfer protocol (RFC 959) File transfer protocol using SSL/TLS (RFC 4217) |
File File with content conversion |
BE EO EOIO |
Yes (sender) |
See below |
Sender Receiver |
|
JDBC 2.0 |
Sender: JDBC 2.0 Receiver: XML SQL format Native SQL string |
BE EO EOIO |
No |
See below |
|
|
SonicMQ JMS Provider WebSphereMQ (non-JMS) Access JMS Provider with JNDI (Read) JMS Provider Administered Objects from File Access JMS Provider Generically |
JMS 1.x |
EO EOIO |
No |
See below |
Sender Receiver |
|
Sender: HTTP Receiver: HTTP(S) SMTP(S) Axis SOAP Sender: Servlet Task (active or passive) Receiver: HTTP(S) SMTP File Generic |
SOAP 1.1 Axis: SOAP 1.1 SOAP 1.2 |
BE EO EOIO |
Yes (sender, receiver) |
See below |
Sender Receiver (not for Axis) |
|
HTTP(S) JMS Sonic MQ 3.5 |
MML |
BE EO |
Yes (sender, receiver) |
See below |
|
|
Sender: IMAP4 POP3 Receiver: IMAP4 SMTP |
IXALL XIPAYLOAD |
BE EO EOIO |
Yes, for XIPAYLOAD (sender, receiver) |
See below |
Sender Receiver |
|
HTTP 1.1 HTTPS |
RNIF 2.0 |
EO |
Yes |
See below |
Sender Receiver (for two-action responder) |
|
HTTP 1.1 HTTPS |
RNIF 1.1 |
EO |
No |
See below |
Sender Receiver (for two-action responder) |
|
HTTP 1.1 HTTPS |
RNIF 1.1 |
EO |
No |
See below |
Sender |
|
HTTP(S) 1.0 |
XI 2.0 XI 3.0 |
BE EO EOIO |
Yes |
|
|
Acknowledgments
● Receiver adapters of the Adapter Engine
○ Receiver adapters that run on the Adapter Engine support system acknowledgments and system error acknowledgments if they are requested by the sender. These acknowledgments are triggered when a message is successfully processed by the adapter or if an error occurs while it is being processed.
○ The receiver JMS adapter is an exception to this rule. By using a parameter in the configuration, you can specify whether a system acknowledgment is sent like all other adapters or whether a DeliveryAckNotSupported is sent instead. This is recommended if the delivery of the message by the JMS adapter is considered to be too weak to trigger a system acknowledgment.
○ Receiver adapters of the Adapter Engine do not support any application acknowledgments.
The RNIF and CIDX adapters are exceptions to this rule, since they also support scenario-dependent application error acknowledgments.
○ All receiver adapters send ApplicationAckNotSupported and ApplicationErrorAckNotSupported.
Sender adapters of the Adapter Engine do not request any acknowledgments.
Adapter-Specific Message Attributes in the Message Header
Some adapters support specific message attributes.
See: Adapter-Specific Message Attributes in the Message Header