SAP BTP Integration Suite - New Message Metrics

[MartyMcCormick]

SAP Integration Suite on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is licensed using 2 metrics: 1) number of tenants and 2) the number of messages per month.

As shown in the SAP Discovery Center, calculating the number of tenants is straightforward--1 each for instance of Integration Suite created, i.e. Dev, Test, Prod, etc.  However, the number of messages is calculated based on usage and requires customers to analyze their current integrations to estimate the sizing.  The messages themselves are priced in blocks of 10,000 and pricing can also be found in the Discovery Center.

This blog is to highlight a new capability within the Integration Suite that allows you to analyze message usage for a 31 day interval. This new feature is extremely helpful for customers who want to see how they've been using the Integration Suite as well as make projections for future use cases. 

Help documentation

For a detailed explanation of how message sizes are calculated based on number of calls and payload sizes, refer to SAP Note 2942344 SAP Integration Suite Message Metric Definition.  There are details regarding how messages are calculated across the capabilities in the Integration Suite.

In addition to the Note, the following two figures visually show some examples.  At a high level, message metrics are really based on receiver channels and message payload sizes (not sender channels where messages are sent to the Integration Suite).

Example 1 Message Metric Calculation

Example 2 Message Metric Calculation

In order to use the new application, your user will need an assignment to the PI_Business_Expert and PI_Administrator role collections.

In the Integration Suite, under Monitor Artifacts there is now a tile for "Message Usage" under the Usage Details section.

Message Usage Tile

 Within the dashboard, you can filter based on a 31 day date range to see the message usage details.  The visualization graph will separate the total chargeable messages from the SAP to SAP messages which are not counted in the message metrics (iFlows that are shipped with Configure Only mode).

Sample Message Metrics for a Month on the Integration Suite

Detailed Monthly Message Statistics

Hover Over the Graph for Additional Details

 You can view detailed integration flow (iFlow) details, including Receivers, Splitters, which artifacts were SAP to SAP and how a datastore was used.  You can use the Action icon to further drill into the iFlow as well.

Message Calculations by Integration Flow Details

When switching the Visualization Category to "Integration Flow", you can see the number of messages per component within the iFlow.

Details of Individual iFlow

Another great feature is that any data from the tables can easily be exported to Excel for further analysis. 

Data Export to Excel

Let me know how you are finding this new tool to use within the Integration Suite!

Thanks,
Marty

[DG]

Great blog. It is important to know how the messages are counted. 

How about API mgt. They are also a part of the same license as I understand it. 

And if you have a message received via API mgt, processed in Cloud Integration and then sent via Open Connectors. 

Daniel 

[MartyMcCormick]

API Management is shown in Usage Analytics for subaccount.  https://help.sap.com/docs/btp/sap-business-technology-platform/view-subaccount-usage-analytics

I dont think there is quite a detailed breakdown available for APIM yet like the BTP IS that was just added but will check into it.

Regarding the scenario you outline, my understanding would be 2 messages (assuming below 250kb threshold), one for APIM and one on the Open Connector Receiver channel.  Will confirm this as well.

Thanks,
Marty

[DG]

And I guess in API mgt you can also perform lookup calls like you do in your example. 

I would guess 3 messages the Cloud Integration should also be counted or is the message correlation id covered for the scerio. Probably and edge case but does have an impact for the cases where you protect CPI via API mgt or use open connectors from CPI. 

[paszy2]

@MartyMcCormick  -  i'm confused with the 2 receiver scenario 

in the sap note2942344  we have

"An  integration flow has two  receiver adapters. During runtime execution, messages are processed via both the receiver adapters and the size of the messages is 50 KB and 40 KB respectively. It is counted as one message because 40 KB +50 KB = 90 KB, which is less than 250 KB"

- on your blog we have that this is two messages.  

Is this because of difference between synchronous and asnychronous scenarios ? 

[MartyMcCormick]

@paszy2 

It’s because there is a splitter used in the image.  Point 3 in the “Special Notes” section: In case of integration flows using splitter, each split outbound message via receiver adapter(s) is counted as separate message (subject to size and logic as mentioned above). Size of input message to splitter is 210 KB.

Thanks,
Marty

[S0024375001]

Hello, thank you for the information.

We have multiple integration suite sub accounts.

Because of this situation I have two questions:

1. Is there a API to get this tile information, so we can combine the information of multiple integration suites in one request?

2. Is it possible to download multiple days in one CSV? If I see it correctly, it is only possible to download a one day CSV. That would cause a lot of work. For example: 4x sub accounts * 365 days = a lot of files 🙂

Thank you.

[DG]

What about Process Direct. That is not counted or is that wrong.

Iflow 1) send a sync message to iflow 2)  via Process Direct. Iflow 2 then sends the message via HTTP. 

Daniel

[Sigiswald]

@MartyMcCormick Is there a known issue with calculating the "SAP to SAP (Excluded)" messages?

I read SAP Note 2942344 in detail and I'm 100% sure my deployed integration flows are 100% standard and not modified. But in the monitoring they are not counted as SAP-to-SAP integrations. These are from the "SAP Cloud for Customer Integration with SAP ERP" package.

The counted messages are exactly the same when checking in Integration Suite as when checking in BTP.

If you download the Excel file with the details, it gives some more information. e.g. "Original Content = false". These are all standard SAP integration flows (that were never modified) in the same package.

Kind regards,
/Sigiswald

[Florian_Kube]

@MartyMcCormick would it be possible to make the API public/official to fetch the Message Usage (/rest/api/v1/metering/usage/)?

[MaxKuchenreuther]

 Hello everyone,
Hello @Florian_Kube 
I found this post on the SAP Cusomer Influence.

We at the Deutsche Bahn would also be interested in publishing the API. It would be nice if you could upvote the suggestion.
But you could submit a separate feature request again, then I would like to upvote it, because the API is necessary for us.

Kind regards,
/Max

[MartyMcCormick]

@Sigiswald - are the SAP to SAP iFlows in question "Configure Only" mode?  SAP Note 2942344 states at the bottom that only those iFlows shipped via Configure Only mode wont be counted for message monitoring and I've updated the blog accordingly.

I am also checking on API and if there is anything on the roadmap.

[Sigiswald]

@MartyMcCormick They are not "Configure-Only Mode", they are "Editable Mode". But they were NOT edited. SAP Note 2942344 then states "If you do not “Edit” the integration flow and just use the “Configure” button to configure and deploy it, the messages processed by these flows are not deducted from your overall allocated message monthly quota, similar to how it is explained in point 1." Where "point 1" refers to the "Configure-Only Mode".

Edit: I see. You were referring to the very last IMPORTANT section where it says "Messages processed by SAP-to-SAP integrations are not metered If you use it only in Configure-Only mode". Here it is not mentioned that integration flows of type "Editable Mode" and that were not edited are treated as being "Configure-Only Mode".

[Florian_Kube]

@MartyMcCormick I have a question regarding the splitter. When you, for example, receive a bulk request for business partners and you want to send them to Kafka as single entry and enabled Batch Size still count it as a single message? For example, let's assume the bulk request has a size of 1 MB. Each single message has 50 KB. If the batch size is set to 250 KB, will it be counted as 4 or 20 messages?