Communication

The components of an SAP NetWeaver PI landscape (shortly referred to as PI landscape in the following) communicate with each other for different purposes like configuration, administration, monitoring, or the actual messaging.

The primary purpose of a PI landscape is to enable business partners and applications to exchange XML messages (business documents). This includes business communication between business systems, Integration Servers, Adapter Engines, or PCKs.

In addition to proper messaging, technical communication between various PI tools and runtime components is required.

Two different technical protocols are used for these communications: HTTP and RFC. Both the technical and the business communication are described together with the used protocols in the following two sections:

• Technical Communication

• Business Communication

Both the technical and the business communication can be secured on transport level and on message level.

• The section Message-Level Security describes how these communications can be secured by digitally signing or encrypting documents exchanged between systems or business partners.

• The section Network and Transport Security describes how these communications can be secured on transport level by encryption and digital signature mechanisms.