The Adapter Framework is part of the Adapter Engine, the Advanced Adapter Engine Extended, and the PCK. It provides interfaces for configuring, managing, and monitoring adapters. PI connects to any external systems using the Adapter Framework.
The Adapter Framework is based on the AS Java runtime environment and the Connector Architecture (JCA) version 1.0.
The Adapter Framework executes the communication between any SAP or non-SAP systems.
In the figure, the Integration Server, Integration Directory, System Landscape Directory, Runtime Workbench, and Enterprise Services Repository are shown on the left. The Adapter Framework and its modules are shown in the middle and the external system to be connected is on the right. Examples of external systems:
All SAP components are shown in gray. The components that you must or should provide for adapter development are shown in orange, as is the external system to be connected.
All Adapter Framework APIs can be referenced and called by using AS Java facades. The underlying Adapter Framework services, beans, and libraries are not called directly.
The JCA 1.0 container of AS Java uses the JCA 1.0 Service Programming Interface (SPI) to exchange server-relevant information with the adapter according to JCA 1.0 (1).
The adapter must be a JCA 1.0-compliant resource adapter. JCA 1.0 does not define the communication direction from the adapter to the Adapter Framework (application in the JCA sense). Therefore, the Adapter Framework is called by the adapter with a standard Enterprise JavaBean 2.0 session bean.
The Adapter Framework communicates using JCA 1.0 connections (2) and the JCA 1.0 Common Client Interface (CCI) with an adapter.
A message that comes to a dual-stack PI system from the Integration Server or to the Advanced Adapter Engine Extended from an external system is received by the messaging service in the Adapter Framework. Based on the receiver information, the corresponding module chain in the module processor is selected for further processing.
The Adapter Framework contains two default module chains: one for the sender direction and one for the receiver direction. If message processing is to be executed entirely within the adapter, you can use these default module chains for your adapter.
You can enhance the default module chains with customer-specific modules. The module processor controls the steps in the module chain by calling generic and, if defined, adapter-specific modules (3). The last module in the module chain forwards the message to the adapter using JCA CCI (2). The adapter transfers the message in the receiver direction, to the connected system.
Message processing in the sender direction proceeds in a similar way. In this case, the adapter calls the module processor in the form of an Enterprise JavaBean 2.0 local session bean and transfers the message object either as an XI message or in its own format. In the latter case, conversion to an XI message must then take place in an adapter-specific module.
In addition to message exchange, the Adapter Framework provides other interfaces that must, should, or can be supported by the adapter.
The configuration service accesses the configuration data of the adapter and the information from the System Landscape Directory (SLD).
To use a new adapter type, the adapter must be described in the form of adapter metadata, which is then loaded into the Enterprise Services Repository. This must be done before the adapter can be used.
An Adapter Framework service registers the adapter with the SLD based on the adapter metadata.
Runtime Workbench (RWB) and SAP NetWeaver Administrator are tools of the Process Integration for monitoring and administration. Monitoring covers the monitoring of message processing, and the status of communication channels, processes, and components.
Administration covers the scheduling of Jobs (delete and archiving jobs, the periodic starting and stopping of communication channels), the manually starting and stopping of communication channels, and the restarting of messages.
Whereas the RWB accesses the Adapter Framework audit log to monitor message processing, there is a special service that queries the status of an adapter using a defined interface. Interfaces are also provided that inform the adapter when the adapter instance is started and stopped. Unlike in JCA 1.5, JCA 1.0 does not have a standard solution for this.
Audit log entries can be written to a database table without the database transaction for message processing being involved.
Access to the SAP-wide Process Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) and simple performance measurements are integrated and can be used.
You can use the API for the technical trace and logging to write trace statements that describe the execution of the code. This logging API is not part of the adapter framework but part of AS Java.
The figure does not show possible deployment variants, such as the distribution of components in the AS Java server landscape.