Configuring Integration Scenarios

Use

Within a system landscape, one ABAP system can be defined as the central system. From this central system, entire integration scenarios can be configured and the configurations can be distributed to all affected systems that take part in the central configuration. In the context of the configuration of integration scenarios, the term system refers to a single client of an ABAP system.

For a system to have itself configured by a central system, it has to establish a management connection to the central system first. Within the central system, this system is then represented as a domain system. This means that the central system can create, update and delete Web service configurations in this (domain) system. During the setup of the management connection in the managed systems, the design time information of service definitions, consumer proxies and service groups is read and stored in a design time cache in the central system so that valid configuration requests can be created there. To configure connections between different domain systems, the domain systems are grouped in domains in which the same security and proxy settings are used.

If a third-party system needs to be integrated in central scenario configuration, you can create a domain system for this third-party system directly in the central system, without establishing a management connection from the third-party system first. A third-party system can provide Web services within an integration scenario; and it is basically a collection of uploaded WSDL documents that acts as a system within central scenario configuration.

Integration scenario configurations in a central system are especially useful in large system landscapes because they allow a consistent governance of security settings. They also offer automatic change management and allow for easy administration of service downtimes and service relocations. Also, since any ABAP system can be defined as a central system, no additional hardware is required.

Prerequisites

In your consumer systems, you use service groups for the instantiation of the consumer proxies. For more information, see Working with Service Groups.

Activities

  1. Configure one system in your system landscape as a central system.

    For more information, see Defining a System as a Central System.

  2. In each ABAP system that you want to configure centrally, create a management connection to the central system.

    For more information, see Creating a Management Connection to the Central System.

    If you want a third-party system to take part in your central scenario configuration, create a domain system in your central system that represents this third-party system.

    For more information, see Creating Domain Systems for Third-Party Systems.

  3. In the central system, create one or more domains.

    For more information, see Creating a Domain in a Central System

  4. In the central system, create logon data and assign it to provider systems.

    For more information, see Creating and Assigning Logon Data in a Central System

  5. In the central system, so-called matching interfaces are used to assign the preferred service interface to a consumer proxy of a service group for a combination of consumer and provider systems. This assignment is displayed in the matching interface application or can be created during the configuration of the integration scenario.

  6. Select an integration scenario definition and configure its connections.

    For more information, see Creating Connections for Integration Scenarios.

  7. Once you have created configurations in your central system, you need to distribute them to the affected domain systems. You can either release one integration scenario configuration at a time, or you can distribute all changes that have been made in the central system at once:

    Releasing Integration Scenario Configurations

    Distributing Changes from the Central System to Domain Systems.