BizTalk Adapter SAP Overview

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter is aimed at providing BizTalk Server 2004 the ability to interact with SAP.

It provides interfaces to SAP via IDocs and SAP .NET Connector generated proxies. SAP .NET Connector generated proxies provide access to SAP BAPIs and RFCs.

Redesigned and developed to allow for integration into the new BizTalk Server 2004 BizTalk Utilities Adapter Framework.

Developed in C#.NET it provides a fast optimized mechanism for communicating with SAP Applications from BizTalk Server 2004.

The BizTalk Utilities Adapters are fully integrated into the Visual Studio .NET environment providing Developers with an enhanced Visual Studio .NET Experience when configuring.

The BizTalk Utilities  Adapter is extremely easy to install and configure. All tasks performed when configuring the BizTalk Utilities Adapter is Wizard Driven.

System Requirements

The following are the minimum software requirements for the BizTalk Utilities Adapter:

•   Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation Framework
•   Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF)

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter utilizes EIF for writing event and tracing information to the Application Event Log and Windows Trace Files.

The Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation framework provides unified management, eventing, and diagnostic tracing services for enterprise applications in a production environment. Enterprise Instrumentation enables developers to consistently instrument enterprise applications, which are increasingly decoupled and distributed, and enables support staff to use a "white-box" approach to monitoring and diagnosing application health, faults, or other internal conditions.

Every released software application, regardless of size or complexity, imposes a common requirement on the business that the application serves: it must be managed to ensure that the application provides its services correctly and reliably during its operational lifetime. Instrumentation plays a key role in application manageability, allowing a particular software or hardware element to publish — or be queried for — relevant information. Examples of common instrumentation mechanisms include performance counters, event logs, Windows 2000 Event Trace, and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). These mechanisms are often complementary, as in the example of querying an event log through a WMI provider.

Achieving consistent instrumentation across all enterprise applications is a difficult task. Today, enterprises that build applications on Microsoft platforms must instrument their applications by directly writing to event logs, performance counters, third-party instrumentation APIs, or their own common instrumentation wrappers and libraries. Implementing and supporting the various forms of instrumentation brings additional challenges, given the distributed nature of today's n-tier, Web-enabled applications.

Operations staff must be able to trace specific paths through the system, not just monitor individual events and event sources. Logically related events from physically different servers need to be correlated. The instrumentation itself must be suitable for a production application; instrumentation overhead must minimally affect application throughput. Finally, organizations must be able to leverage as many existing management tools and infrastructure as possible, to monitor and troubleshoot the enterprise applications they support.

Key features of this framework are:

•    Unified programming model, suitable for both enterprise developers and system developers.
•    Operations teams.
•    Scriptable configuration layer, allowing operations teams to configure how events are raised or logged from an application.
•    Support for raising or logging events through WMI, Windows Event Log, and Windows Event Tracing, a high-speed kernel-mode tracing system.
•    Correlation of events to business processes or operations with Request Tracing, which allows operations staff to troubleshoot requests across a distributed application.

In Addition, the BizTalk Utilities Adapter incorporates the following enhancements to EIF:

•     The Level of Tracing and Eventing for the BizTalk Utilities Adapter can be set by running a Wizard in Administration Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-In. Levels that can currently be set is for Production, Testing/QA and Development.
•     Tracing Sessions can be enabled or disabled from the MMC Snap-In.
•     Trace Files can be viewed and exported from the MMC Snap-In.

Performance Monitors

The BizTalk Utilities Adapters feature an extensive set of Windows Performance Counters with which the BizTalk Utilities Adapters can be monitored and Fine Tuned.

Administration Snap-In

The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Administration Snap-In is used to perform the following tasks:

•      Updating of the License File for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.
•      Configuration of Enterprise Instrumentation Settings for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.
•      The Viewing of Trace Sessions and Files.
•      Creation, Deletion and Updating of SAP Destinations.
•      Viewing of Performance Counters for the BizTalk Utilities Adapters.

Archiving

As standard within all of the BizTalk Utilities Adapters, inbound messages can be archived to a File Location or Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). Support for Archiving to BizTalk Server 2004 will be added in Future.

IDoc Support

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter provides for the sending and receiving of IDoc to and from BizTalk Server 2004.

IDoc Schema Generation

IDoc Schemas are generated from within Visual Studio .NET from a Wizard. SAP Release 2, 3 and 4 IDoc Schemas can be generated by the Wizard.

Schema information is extracted from the SAP system via a SAP Destination.

Multiple IDoc Schemas can be generated for a single BizTalk Server Project. IDoc Control and Status Records can be automatically promoted. Property Schemas for Control and Status records will be generated automatically if the options are specified.

In addition the following options can be specified:

•      Control

Specify if a Control Record Property Schema will be generated.

•      Data Types

Specify if Data Types for the Schema should be derived from the SAP Data Types for the IDoc.

•      Status

Specify if a Status Record Property Schema will be generated.

•      Version

Specify the SAP Release for which the IDoc Schema should be generated. SAP Release 2, 3 and 4 is supported.

IDoc Receive Pipeline

The IDoc Receive pipeline is used to identify, route and validate IDocs received from SAP Systems.

IDoc Receiver

The IDoc Receiver is responsible for receiving IDocs for SAP Systems and submitting them to BizTalk Server.

The following Properties can bet set within the Receiver:

•       Recycle Interval

A remote SAP System may disconnect for the IDoc receiver due to System or Network failures. Here you can specify the interval at which the Receiver will reconnect to the remote SAP System.

•       SAP Destination

Here you select a SAP destination as defined in the Administration Snap-In. New SAP Destinations can be generated from this interface by selecting <New Destination>.

•       Archiving

Specify how you want to Archive Messages received.

•       Encoding

Specify the Encoding in which IDocs should be received from the SAP System.

All messages are received within a Transaction.

IDoc Transmitter

The IDoc Transmitter is responsible for sending IDocs to SAP Systems. It can be defined statically or invoked dynamically by setting the Uri of a Port within your Orchestration to idoc://<SAP Destination>.

When defining it dynamically other properties can also be set.

The following Properties can bet set within the Transmitter:

•       SAP Destination

Here you select a SAP Destination as defined in the Administration Snap-In. SAP Destinations can also be created from this interface by selecting <New Destination>.

•       Batch Size

Specify the Size of Message Batches. A Value of 0 switches Batching off.

BAPI and RFC Support

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter allows for the execution of SAP BAPIs and RFCs from BizTalk Server 2004. SAP .NET Connector generated proxies are used to invoke BAPIs and RFCs.

Proxy Schema Generation

SAP .NET Connector Proxy Schemas are generated from within Visual Studio .NET from a Wizard.

Schema information is extracted from the SAP .NET Generated Proxy.

The Proxy class is then selected.

And the Method.

Request and Response Schemas are generated.

Proxy Transmitter

The Proxy Transmitter is responsible for invoking SAP .NET Connector Proxies. It can be defined statically or invoked dynamically by setting the Uri of a Port within your Orchestration to sapproxy://<SAP Destination>.

When defining it dynamically other properties can also be set.

The following Properties can bet set within the Transmitter:

•       SAP Destination

Here you select a SAP Destination as defined in the Administration Snap-In. SAP Destinations can also be created from this interface by selecting <New Destination>.

•       Batch Size

Specify the Size of Message Batches. A Value of 0 switches Batching off.

•       Statefull Bapi

This option should be set to true when calling Statefull Bapi Objects.

•       Throw Exception when no Records are found

Specifies if an Exception should be thrown when no records are returned.

The BizTalk Utilities Adapter will determine if the SAP .NET Connector Proxy should be invoked within a Transaction and request a new Transaction from the SAP System.

To learn more about these and other features, download an evaluation copy of BizTalk Utilities