Developing and Configuring Integration Processes

In section Developing and Configuring Integration Scenarios we considered message exchange only for cases where messages are received and forwarded by SAP NetWeaver PI without any correlations between messages. Each interaction step is de-coupled from the others: the runtime engine processes an incoming message, forwards it to the configured receivers, and applies additional actions to the messages according to the configuration data. However, once the message has been sent, no status is held; the runtime engine “forgets” the message. With cross-component Business Process Management (ccBPM), the message choreography capabilities of SAP NetWeaver Process Integration are extended so that a status is kept. This section provides the basic information on how this works.

You can use ccBPM to define an integration process. An integration process is composed of a specific flow of steps (including the sending and receiving of messages), during which the status of the process is persisted on the Integration Server. In an integration process, you can define a specific level of process control. For example, you can specify how long an integration process must wait for further messages to arrive, or you can group incoming messages and then send them in a particular order. You can also define control structures, such as loops and processing branches that are independent of each other. You can define conditions that control processing depending on the result of the condition. You can correlate messages with each other in order to ensure that messages that belong together are processed by the same integration process instance.

To set up a scenario including ccBPM, you have to perform the following tasks:

1. Design an integration process in the ES Repository

   An integration process is specified as a separate object in the ES Repository using a graphical editor. To make sure that the integration process can send and receive messages, you have to embed the integration process in an overall scenario or model. The model type has to be a process integration scenario .

   Caution

   In order to embed an integration process into an overall scenario or model, you cannot use an integration scenario model or a process components interaction model as the overall process model. Instead, you have to use a “classical” process integration scenario.

   More information: Designing Integration Processes

2. Configure the integration process in the Integration Directory

   At configuration time, you treat the application component containing the integration process as a single communication component. Based on this assignment, you configure the process integration scenario using the model configurator.

   More information: Configuring Integration Processes

3. Execute and monitor the integration process

   Integration processes are executed using a separate runtime component, the Business Process Engine , which comes into play for the execution of integration processes on the Integration Server.