Whether sap r/3 needs to be applied when being integrated with other heterogeneous systems
When you need to integrate sap r/3 with other heterogeneous systems, you are faced with two choices: one is simple and practical text (solution 1 ), systems Exchange data through the agreed public directory. Generally, each interface uses a specific file. In addition, sap xi (exchange infrastructure) is used as the middleware (solution 2 ), sap xi fully supports integration between SAP products or between SAP products and other third-party systems.
The two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. This article analyzes them from several perspectives.
From the perspective of uniformity, each interface of solution 1 adopts its own connection scheme, with different modes. solution 2 uses a single point connection between Xi and R/3, on Xi, you can manage the external connection methods of each system.
From the perspective of Operation/maintainability, each interface of solution 1 has its own Program After being officially put into use, daily maintenance personnel need to monitor the status of each interface. If there is an exception, more complicated manual intervention is required to achieve data consistency; in solution 2, Xi monitors and controls all interfaces through centralized processing, centralized maintenance, and centralized monitoring, technical means and re-transmission are used to ensure that all information is correctly transmitted to the target system, so as to prevent the loss and duplication of transaction information during transmission.
From the perspective of status update, solution 1 transfers data through text, which cannot guarantee data loss during transmission. It can only query the final data status through the final import log. In solution 2, if the IDOC mode is used to integrate with R/3, the IDOC status update of SAP ensures that the status of data is updated at the outbound and inbound ends, in addition, Xi can better understand the status of data in various States.
From the integrity point of view, the solution is difficult to judge whether duplicate imports exist for text data. Some judgment should be added to the program to ensure that the data will not be transmitted repeatedly. solution 2, SAP's IDOC audit mechanism ensures that the data is accurately imported by the receiving system, and the status update is used to confirm whether the data is imported to the target system accurately.
From the perspective of error handling, solution 1 generally uses multiple creden for data communication in the form of file packaging and requires programming to process one or two files with errors separately. solution 2, each credential data is an IDOC, and it is easy to re-process the incorrect IDOC.
From the error reminder perspective, solution 1 cannot automatically complete the error reminder. You can only manually check the report to find out whether the interface has an error. solution 2, you can use the BPM and R3 workflows of Xi to automatically handle Error alerts. Multiple methods are supported, such as email, fax, and SMS. However, during the test, it was found that Xi occasionally lost messages. For example, XI reads the data in the database table and changes the table's identification field to indicate that the data has been read, however, data is lost when it enters XI. There is no error message in adapter monitor and message Monitor of Xi. This is a serious problem.
Considering the possibility of system errors, as the system increases, the possibility of errors increases exponentially. Solution 1: If the requirements for real-time performance are not high, the system on both sides will not affect the data consistency between the two sides. solution 2 should consider sap XI or the system on the machine, to solve this problem, you need to consider how to deal with this situation if you confirm that Xi has lost messages.
In addition, security is an important indicator for some systems. XI provides encrypted message transmission, which is not described here.
Considering the implementation time, the use of text files is the simplest and can be quickly structured and put into use. solution 2 shows that the implementation time is longer than the use of text files from the perspective of a single interface, however, if the number of interfaces increases in the future, the implementation speed can be improved quickly.
From the perspective of functional scalability, solution 1 should adjust the interface programs if any peripheral system changes or the SAP system upgrades, that is, the format of exported/imported file files has changed; in solution 2, Xi used a graphical data matching tool to shield the impact on other aspects of the data modified by one party.
Considering the implementation cost, the use of text files is the lowest for the overall project development cost on the interface, while solution 2 adds the software license fee to the additional software implementation cost. However, considering the cost of interface development and the cost of maintenance and expansion, the opposite conclusion may also be obtained.
In short, the implementation of the project requires a comprehensive consideration of the implementation risks and TCO to determine whether to use sap Xi.
