Serialization

Use

In SAP Application Interface Framework, for some processes, it is required that messages are processed in the correct order. Serialization ensures that SAP Application Interface Framework does not start to process a message until the preceding message, which is related to the same business object, is fully processed.

Messages that are related to the same business object can be handled by different interfaces. If the order in which messages are processed is important, you can set up serialization. Messages related to different business objects do not have to wait for each other to be processed, even though they may be handled by the same interfaces.

In SAP Application Interface Framework, for some processes, the order in which the messages are processed is not important. However, it may be important that the messages are not processed in parallel to avoid locking errors.

Messages that edit business objects that are already locked for editing by another process should wait until the other process releases the lock.

Prerequisites

Key fields must be defined for the interface in Customizing for SAP Application Interface Framework under Error Handling  Define Interface-Specific Features.

Features

There are four options for serializing messages:

• Internal time stamp of the creation of the message in SAP Application Interface Framework

• External time stamp of the sending system

• External index

  If messages are not received in the receiving system, or if messages overtake each other, the time stamp does not indicate that a message is missing. In this case, the sending system has to determine the order in which the messages should be processed and passes this data in a field in the payload of the message to SAP Application Interface Framework. This external index is then used to process the messages in the correct order.

• No serialization

  At the beginning of message processing, SAP Application Interface Framework tries to lock the object. If the object is already locked by another message, the current message has to wait until the object is unlocked (you can configure the waiting time and number of retries). Once the message is processed, the lock is released. You can define multiple objects that can be locked per interface of SAP Application Interface Framework.

Activities

In Customizing for SAP Application Interface Framework under Interface Development  Additional Interface Properties  Define Serialization Settings, you make the following settings to enable serialization:

• You define a serialization object with the serialization type, serialization table, and other related settings.

  The serialization type can be one of the following:

  • External index

  • External time stamp

  • Internal time stamp

  • No serialization

    Select No serialization when you want to define that certain objects/messages should not be processed in parallel.

• You assign the serialization object to one or more interfaces.

• You assign the interface key fields to the serialization object for serialization and locking.