Automating your SAP PI to CPI migrations

[DG]

Update 29/3/2022: Since the creation of the blog post we have been improving the tool. Check this blog out for the latest improvements on the SAP PI to SAP Cloud Integration Migration Tool.  

Migration of SAP PI to SAP CPI will happen over the next 10 years. It will likely be something that requires a lot of development time to complete. We have always wanted to improve the way integration was delivered. We want to automate the process, so developers can focus on what really matters, create good integrations.

Since we won the Hack2Build we have been able to work on the product to make a much better beta product. So now you can try it out and see how it will work on your existing project. It will probably take you one hour to convert the first ICO/Receiver Determination with the tool.

The migration tool is now a part of the Figaf Tool, which provides a lot of the framework for handling the migration.

You can see a full demostration here

The screenshot shows what to fill out to perform a migration. You select which ICO you want to migrate and how to map the channels.

What does the current solution support?

The source object will be either ICO or Receiver Determination. So your system needs to be 7.1 or higher.

We do support branches for Receiver Determination or Interface Determinations. The migration process will split the message the same way and with the same conditions.

We currently only support asynchronous messaging.

Message mappings support

We support the migration of message mappings with User Defined Function Libraries (FL).

The FL is converted into Groovy Script files and then added to our shared repository; see next section. You may need to update the FL because CPI does not support the Container object and uses other features like dynamic properties.

We support IDOC, RFC, External Definition, and Message/Data types in the mappings. Multi mappings are also supported.

Shared artifacts

We have added support for shared artifacts so you can synchronize changes to all objects. This is to make it easier for you to reuse your Function Libraries converted into Groovy scripts. If you modify one of the Groovy Scripts, the tool can also update all iflows.

We are considering moving this functionality to the Script collection at some point, but it does not support libs in function mappings. The same applies to the Message Mapping Artifact.

Channels conversion

The way we have decided to make it easy to make it simple to convert SAP PI Channels to CPI Channels. We have created a set of XSLT in a git repository and some of the channels we have used. We will continue to extend this with help from the community.

The idea is to map standard settings and external properties that copied from the settings.

Here is an example of an XSLT file and then content in it.

The process of creating this is to find SAP PI Channel XML as a sample, use one of the existing XSLTs from the Git repository, and then compare with an example to what you see once you configure the channel yourself.

In the XSLT, it is also possible to set up notifications to inform users about which manual actions they need to handle.

Preview of mapping

Once you have performed the migration, you see a preview of your migration. The preview allows you to understand what the expected iflow would look like and see the configurations’ different settings.

Migration of test cases

Testing is vital to the migration process; you want to know if you have migrated everything that matters, don’t you? For that reason, you can create test cases with the Figaf Tool to record messages from your SAP PI system.

You can take this test case and convert it to an SAP PI test case with a few clicks and test whether everything is working as expected. Since there are two data models involved, things like dynamic properties will need fixing.

Warnings and user actions

After the migration, you will get a list of tasks to perform manually. You can define them in the XSLTs to make it easy to remember which tasks to handle.

Figaf DevOps Suite in the migration process

Figaf DevOps Suite includes additional tools to benefit from in the migration process:

• Git repository: All your iflows can be synchronized to a git repository. The repository will allow you to edit and manage groovy scripts and XSLTs much easier. It also makes it easier to find BPMN XML and use it to map channels.


• Governance and automated documentation are making it easier for you to transport and configure the integration.


• Tools for monitoring the iflows and managing alerts help you to make it easier to run your SAP Integration.

 

Trying it out

We do have a free trial of the tool, and in most cases, it is possible to try the migration on your laptop. The installation is a part of the Figaf Tool. So it will probably take 60 minutes to create your first migration; You can signup for a free trial of the tool here. There are ten free migrations that you can try out today.

Future Features: Provide us your feedback

We will be improving the product based on the feedback of clients. Some of the ideas we have are the following.

• Synchronous support (Suppored now)


• Built-in error handling


• Exactly Once support


• Message Mapping parameters (Suppored now)

We are open to your suggestions to improve the tool. Please drop a comment on what would be best for you.

Blog original created at figaf.com