Background documentation Design and Configuration Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Regardless of whether you connect interfaces that already exist using adapters, or use the proxy runtime to connect message interfaces saved in the Integration Repository to the Integration Server, the information about the interfaces used in the integration scenario is located in the Integration Repository. The centralized storage of data plays an important role in SAP Exchange Infrastructure. All the information regarding a collaborative process is stored in a central location, instead of being spread across the systems involved. This approach is called Shared Collaboration Knowledge.

Note the following:

·        At design time, objects are created in the Integration Repository.

·        At configuration time, objects are selected from the Integration Repository and are configured for an actual integration scenario in the Integration Directory.

Basically, the Integration Repository contains potentially useful objects that are initially not dependent on a particular system landscape. The Integration Directory, however, manages the selection of objects actually available in the Repository, as well as their configuration for the particular system landscape.

The information from the Integration Directory is then evaluated on the Integration Server at runtime.

Software Components and Namespaces

The contents of the Integration Repository are part of a software shipment and are therefore assigned a software component version. You can separate these components further into logical units using namespaces that are then used to identify the objects. Development at customer and partner sites is also organized using these shipment units.

Exchange Infrastructure and the System Landscape Directory

The System Landscape Directory (SLD) is an SAP product that XI uses to store products, software components, technical system data, and logical business systems. From the point of view of XI, both repository data and directory data is stored in the System Landscape Directory (although the contrary is implied by the name System Landscape Directory):  The software components and software products in the SLD are shipment units and reflect installable and not installed components (repository content), while you store the installed systems in the SLD using a system landscape description. Also see: System Landscape Directory in the Exchange Infrastructure.