Eli Lilly: Leveraging SAP XI in Your

Landscape: Costs, Benefits,

Lessons Learned
Timothy S Yates tyates@dataxstream.com
Scott A Sanneman sanneman.s@lilly.com
Learning Points
• This presentation will give you a solid starting point for
determining / cost justifying an SAP XI Implementation.
• This presentation will give you specific considerations that
need to addressed up front in order to control scope creep
and cost.
• This presentation will give you specific technical lessons
learned that can potentially impact implementation
timeline, delivery quality and overall implementation cost.
Background On Eli Lilly XI
Implementation
• General Company Information
• SAP Project History
• SAP Integration Infrastructure History
• SAP XI Project
Eli Lilly General Company Information
• Pharmaceutical company founded on May 10, 1876
• > 41,000 employees worldwide
• ~20,000 OUS, 8000 R/D
• Research and development facilities located in 9 countries
• Manufacturing plants located in 13 countries
• Products marketed in 143 countries
• Headquarters: Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A
• > 15 Billion in net sales in 2006
Eli Lilly SAP Project History
The Eli Lilly philosophy was to “implement common business processes
worldwide enabled by an integrated information environment”

• Introduced the Global Business Integration Project (GBIP) to the

organization in 1998
• Intent on standardizing common data and systems worldwide
• Scope included HR, Finance, SCM & PMP. Implemented 1st 2 countries
(France & Spain) in 1999
• Strict release timeline of 6 month cycles for new countries
• 16 countries implemented SAP, all currently on SAP R/3 4.6c
• SAP payroll for the USA introduced in 2006
• All other (Non-SAP) countries following many SAP processes through
integration (i.e. HR data for all Non-SAP countries integrated into SAP via
global interfaces)
• XI successfully implemented, intended to eventually replace existing data
movement infrastructure
• Lilly is currently undertaking an upgrade to ECC6.0.
Eli Lilly SAP Infrastructure History
• In The Late 90’s Identified The Need For An Integration
Infrastructure To Support The Integration Needs Of The
Project.
• Tools Like Mercator and MQSeries Where Selected
Because They Represented The Best Of Class Tools For
Enterprise Architecture Integration At The Time.
• The Last 6 – 7 Years Have Been Spent Developing A Set
Of Lilly Specific Tools Based On These Technologies.
Eli Lilly Existing Infrastructure
Challenges
• Infrastructure Built Using Different Tools
• Requires diverse skill set, Upgrade complexities, Change control
• Tool Stability, Agility, Reproducibility
• Using several tools requires many resource to diagnose issues
• Future Of Current Tool Set Not Clear
• Mercator Was Purchased Last Year By Accential Software.
Accential Software Was Purchased By IBM This Year. Implications
Unknown In Short Term. In The Long Term Should Be Good But
Changes To Tools May/Should Eventually Drive Significant
Upgrades. (Past Changes Have Been Implemented Without
Backward Compatibility)
Eli Lilly SAP Infrastructure

Eli Lilly has developed a custom designed routing system as

part of existing infrastructure, which includes:
• Transformation and Routing
• Mercator (IBM DataStage TX), Gentran, Informatica, C Programs
• Messaging
• IBM MQ Series
• Delivery
• C Programs (Wrapper / Unwrapper)
• Database
• Oracle
• Source Control
• Rational Clear Case
• Configuration Web Interface
• Java
• Maintenance, Trouble Shooting, Migration and Consistency Checking
• UNIX - Scripting and Security, Manual FTP
Eli Lilly Existing Infrastructure
Diagram
Other SAP
Products Data Flow
(EBP, APO,
etc) Target Configuration Flow
Application
Logging Flow

SAP R/3 DMR Web

Front End
(Java) Custom Script
& File Only
COTS

Custom
Outbound
Router & Config Config UnWrapper
File File Unknown
Mapping DMR (C++)
(Mercator) (Oracle) In Development

MQ Series

Lilly – Data Movement Infrastructure

Log Log DMR – Data Movement Repository

File MICE File
(Oracle) DMI – Data Movement Infrastructure

MICE – Monitoring Interface

Configuration and Execution
MICE Web
Front End Rational Clear Case – Source Control
Other Technologies: (Java)
Rational C++ (Un)Wrapper – MQ Series To File
FTP
Clear Case UNIX Scripting
Operations
UNIX Security

Data Sharing – DMI (Data Movement Infrastructure)

XI Concept at Eli Lilly Scope

• Implement functionality to determine capabilities and

positioning in GBIP architecture
• Pilot: Design and implement 40 interfaces
• Technical Criteria – Re-implement minimal interfaces to cover most
scenarios (File, IDOC and MQ to JMS adapters)
• Build entire XI infrastructure, including configuration,
development, testing (QA) & production
environments
• Pilot implementation would be seamless to existing
business users when compared to existing
infrastructure!
XI Concept at Eli Lilly
• Reduce Number Of Tools To Support Interfaces
• Built On Robust SAP Technology With SAP Support
• Will Reduce Long Term Support
• Eliminates Need To Fund Additional Data Sharing
Infrastructure Improvement Projects.
• Technology Is Mature And SAP Community Is Moving
In This Direction
• Will Be Required To Leverage New SAP Integration
Development
Starting Point For Determining / Cost
Justifying SAP XI Implementation
• Building The Foundation
• Project Types
• Project Approaches
• Understanding Project Cost / Savings
• Project Cost Considerations
• Project Cost Savings
Project Types
• New EAI / B2B Implementation
• Adding SAP XI To Existing EAI / B2B Implementation
• Legacy EAI / B2B Replacement Implementation
• Legacy EAI / B2B Consolidation Implementation
New EAI / B2B Implementation
• Current Infrastructure
• No Existing EAI / B2B Tools In Use Today
• Business Drivers
• EAI / B2B Functionality Required
• Leverage Existing SAP Skill Sets (ABAP / JAVA)
• Alternative Options
• Build Point To Point Interfaces With Available Programming Tools
• Implement Solution From Different Vendor
• Challenges
• Building Out SAP XI Support Infrastructure
• Internal EAI / B2B Experience
• Finding Good External EAI / B2B Experience
Adding SAP XI To Existing EAI / B2B
Implementation
• Current Infrastructure
• Currently Have Other EAI / B2B Tools In Use Today You Intend To
Keep
• Business Drivers
• New SAP XI Functionality Required
• Leverage Existing SAP Skill Sets (ABAP / JAVA)
• Alternative Options
• Implement Solution From Different Vendor
• Continue / Expand Use Of Current Tools
• Challenges
• Building Out SAP XI Support Infrastructure
• Finding Good External EAI / B2B Experience
• Supporting Additional Tool SAP XI
Legacy EAI / B2B Replacement
Implementation
• Current Infrastructure
• Currently Have Another EAI / B2B Tool In Use Today You Intend To Replace
• Business Drivers
• New SAP XI Functionality Required
• Leverage Existing SAP Skill Sets (ABAP / JAVA)
• Consolidation Of Existing Designs
• Current Infrastructure
• Complexity
• Deficiencies
• Substantial Upgrades Required
• Current Vendor Support / Direction Concerns
• Alternative Options
• Implement Solution From Different Vendor
• Continue / Expand Use Of Current Tools
• Challenges
• Building Out SAP XI Support Infrastructure
• Finding Good External EAI / B2B Experience
• Supporting Additional Tool SAP XI (In Phased Replacement Approach)
• Adapting Source and Target Applications To Leverage New Tool Set
Legacy EAI / B2B Consolidation
Implementation
• Current Infrastructure
• Currently Have Multiple EAI / B2B Tools In Use Today You Intend To
Replace/Consolidate Into XI
• Business Drivers
• New SAP XI Functionality Required
• Current Infrastructure
• Complexity
• Deficiencies
• Substantial Upgrades Required
• Current Vendor Support / Direction Concerns
• Consolidation Of:
– Existing Designs, Tools, Skill Sets, Teams and Resources
• Alternative Options
• Continue / Expand / Consolidate Use Of Current Tools
• Challenges
• Building Out SAP XI Support Infrastructure
• Finding Good External EAI / B2B Experience
• Supporting Additional Tool SAP XI (In Phased Replacement Approach)
• Adapting Source and Target Applications To Leverage New Tool Set
• Managing Functional / Technical Trade Offs To Maximize Overall Project Benefit
• Managing Complexity and Timing Of Merging Multiple Tools
Project Approach Types
• Proof Of Concept
• Implement A Representative Set Of SAP XI Functionality Required
To Meet Overall Architectural Goals.
• Big Bang
• Implement All Required SAP XI Functionality In One Software
Release.
• Only Really Practical For New and Small Replacement
Implementations.
• Phased
• Implement Required SAP XI Functionality Over A Series Of
Software Releases
• Only Practical Approach For Large Replacement and Consolidation
Projects
Project Cost Considerations
• SAP XI Platform Software
• Third Party Adapter Software
• Hardware
• Consulting Services
• Project Approach
SAP XI Platform Software Costs
• There Are Three Primary Components That Make Up The Cost
Of The SAP XI Platform
• SAP XI Software
• Database Software
• Third Party Infrastructure Tools
• Alert Software
• Job Scheduling
• Archiving
• Etc
• Interesting Point About Our Project. The Software Had Already
Been Purchased In A Bundle Of Functionality Years Earlier
• SAP Had Since Moved From An Instance Based License To A Volume
Based License.
• The Volume Based License Presented Us With Several Challenges
• How To Measure Volume?
• What Volume Level Would We Need Licensed If We Fully Implemented XI?
Third Party Adapter Requirement
Costs
• If you are implementing EDI you will need a third party
adapter.
• If you require complex content conversion you will need a
third party adapter.
• Understand and identify the initial cost and maintenance
cost associated with them when developing your project
costs.
Hardware Costs
• Hardware Components
• Servers
• Storage
• Network
• Drivers Of Hardware Costs
• Landscape Design
• Number Of Environments Support SAP Promote and Support Structure
• Production Volume Requirements
• Testing Requirements
• Infrastructure Techniques
• Volume / Stress Testing
• Tuning
Consulting Services Cost
• Cost Of Third Party Assistance
• Consulting Services Cost Vary Drastically By Provider And So Can
The Quality Of The Services Provided
• Drivers Of Consulting Services Costs
• Project Scope
• What Constitutes The Boundaries Of Your Scope Of Project?
• Project Timeline
• How Long Will The Project Take?
• Balanced Pace: Business Capacity, Technical Capacity, Testing
Capacity
Project Approach Impact On Cost
• Each Of The Approaches Has A Cost Associated With Them.
Typically Each Phase Is Aimed At Reducing Overall Project Risk
• Initial Project Assessment
• Many Consulting Firms Will Do This For Free. Get More Than One And Compare
Findings
• A Workable Assessment Will Still Typically Require A Paid In Depth Assessment
• Prototype Environment
• Get Your Feet Wet Learn The Tool Identify Early Areas Of Concern And Monitor
As Project Progresses
• Identify Project Specific Cost Drivers That Will Impact Your Specific Project
• Proof Of Concepts Phase
• Test The Functionality Required To Completely Implement Your Vision
• Find The Hidden Challenges / Costs Early
• Overall Implementation
• Internal VS External Resources
• Timeline / Pace
• Other External Drivers That Impact Overall Implementation Cost
– R/3 Upgrades, Existing Infrastructure Upgrades Required, Unplanned Business
Events
Project Cost Savings
• Cost Savings
• Maintenance Cost Of Existing Software
• Reduction Of Redundant Hardware Support Costs
• Cost Of Skill Sets To Support Existing Functionality
• Maintenance and Support Cost Of Custom Designed Infrastructure
Functionality
• Cost Avoidance
• Cost Of Required Infrastructure Software Upgrades
• Cost Of Required or Need Infrastructure Enhancements
Maintenance Cost Of Existing
Software
• This Cost Savings Will Vary Depending On Your Type and
Scope Of Project
• Each Infrastructure Tool Has A Software Support Cost Associated
With It. Therefore Each Tool You Retire Represents A Potential
Maintenance Cost Savings.
• Consideration: Some Maintenance Contracts On Infrastructure Tools
Have Different Levels Of Support, The Higher Levels Can Have
Significant Yearly Costs Associated With Them.
• In Large Projects It Will Take Time To Phase Out The Use Of
Certain Tools. So Make Sure Your ROI Calculations Consider This.
Reduction Of Redundant Hardware
Support Costs
• This Cost Savings Is Primarily Driven By A Reduction In
Hardware Required To Support Multiple Infrastructure
Tools
• There Is A Monthly Support Cost Associated With Any Server
Hosted Within A Data Center
• On Tool Consolidations Projects, A Significant Number Of Physical
Servers Can Be Eliminated And Their Associated Support Costs
• Hardware Upgrades To Aging Tools Servers Can Also Be Avoided
Cost Of Skill Sets To Support Existing
Functionality
• Each Infrastructure Existing Infrastructure Tool Requires A
Team Of Different Software Specific Skills To Develop,
Administer, and Monitor.
• Consolidation Of Tools Can Significantly Reduce The Number Of
Resource Skills Required To Support An Infrastructure
• Reduce The Number Of Resource Required Overall To Support
The Infrastructure
• This Particular Area Obviously Will Be Subject To Political Debate
Because Of Its Potential Impact On Head Count.
• We Found In Our Project That Our DataStage TX Resources Easily
Adapted Their Mapping Skills To The XI Skills Required, And Became
Productive Quickly.
Maintenance and Support Cost Of Custom
Designed Infrastructure Functionality
• Many Existing Integration Infrastructures Are Developed
From Tools Introduced To The Market Over The Last Ten
Years.
• As a Result Many Existing Integration Infrastructures Rely on
Custom Developed Components To Meet Required Infrastructure
Functionality.
• This Custom Functionality Can Be Quite Complex And Require
Expert Level Skills In Multiple Infrastructure Software Products To
Effectively Maintain.
• These Infrastructure Components Are Unique Thus When An Issue
Occurs Either You Will Require Knowledgeable In-house
Resources Or You Will Need Expert Level External Help.
• The Cost Of Supporting This Existing Custom Functionality Is
Usually Significant.
Cost Avoidance Of Required
Infrastructure Software Upgrades
• Many Existing Infrastructure Tools Require Upgrades To Keep
The Product In Support
• If Your Infrastructure Is Made Up Of Many Different Tools. Chances Are
One Of Them Is Going To Be Driving An Infrastructure Upgrade
• Some Tool Upgrades Provide Very Little Challenge From An Effort And
Staffing Perspective, Some Are Significant.
• Understand The Impact Of And Drivers Of Future Tool Upgrades, They Can
Be A Driver Of Cost Savings From An Avoidance Perspective.
• When Upgrading A Custom Developed Infrastructure Made From Different
Software Tools, Projecting The Impact / Required Scope / Cost Of An
Upgrade Can Be A Challenging Undertaking.
Cost Avoidance Of Required or Need
Infrastructure Enhancements
• If You Have Developed Your Integration Infrastructure From Off
The Shelf Tools and Custom Designed Components. You Will
Find Yourself Continually Adapting That Infrastructures
Capabilities To Keep Up With Changing Business Needs and
Changing Technology Needs.
• As You Continue To Plan Ahead For Future Business
Requirements, You Will Find The Need To Scope Design
Changes And Improvement Projects.
• Most Of Our Future Scoped Functionality Existed In SAP XI Out Of The Box
• In Addition Because It Is An SAP Industry Supplied Tool As Future
Functionality Is Required, It Will Most Likely Be Added As The Tool Matures.
Project Controls and Project Scope
Definition
• Scope In Infrastructure Tools Early
• Understand Your Interface Volumes
• Understand Your Adapter Requirements
• Don’t Underestimated Content Conversion
• Assessing The Impact Of Environment Copy Backs
• Try Not To Get Sucked Into The Number Of SLD’s Required
Vortex
Scope In Infrastructure Tools Early
• Leave some room in your plan for development of simple
infrastructure tools.
• These tools will help you implement better more maintainable
designs as you project progresses.
• Some will be required from a technical perspective. Some will
significantly simplify other activities later.
• Don’t cut scope on this in early phases of your project.
Understand Your Interface Volumes
• Specifically what impact does XML have on your volume estimates.
• Don’t get to integration testing and figure out that your design brings XI
to its knees!
• Study your interface volumes. Specifically at production and initial
conversion loading conditions.
• Make sure your design accounts for these volumes and can handle the
load effectively.
• Specifically do the math on content conversion for each interface.
• Flat file to XML conversion.
• Calculate a conversion factor.
• Multiply production volume estimates by the conversion fact.
• The troublesome interfaces will become apparent very quickly.
• Reworking an interface design can be a costly mistake and can
significantly impact project timelines.
Understand Your Adapter Requirements
• What adapters do you need to accomplish your
goals?
• Understand that your are not going to implement EDI in XI without
the help of a third party adapter.
• Understand which adapters you will require and their delivered
functionality and functional gaps.
• Some adapters support multiple capabilities such as FTP and
SFTP by changing configuration settings. Don’t buy custom
adapters you already have.
• Some standard adapters will require custom adjustments via
custom Java modules. Understand and scope these custom
requirements early in your project.
Don’t Under Estimated Content Conversion
• Content conversion in SAP XI can prove to be one of the most
difficult tasks to overcome in an implementation.
• Content conversion is somewhat cryptic to configure and effort
balloons as content structure complexity increases.
• We underestimated this effort the most in our project
implementation.
• The more complex content conversion requirements we had
forced us to eventually rework a number of our interface and
implement SAP Conversion Agent by Itemfield.
Assessing The Impact Of Environment
Copy Backs
• In the initial phases of building out a landscape this is not an
important consideration.
• Once a landscape is built however you will most likely not want
to copy back XI. This is counter to most other SAP applications
best practices.
• Each SAP XI instance has unique ID configuration for the
environment. Copy backs will erase this unique configuration.
• You will not need to copy back your SAP XI landscape so don’t
spend a lot of time planning it or debating it. It will only cause
you issues.
Try Not To Get Sucked Into The Number Of
SLD’s Required Vortex
• There is no right answer here. You will find documentation that
states there should only be one. You will find documentation
that says there could be more than one.
• When a consultant tells you it depends on your project he is
right.
• Our experience is that less is easier to manage.
• Set a direction and move on.
Technical Lessons Learned
• Packet Processing Not Supported By IDOC Adapter
• User Defined Java Functions
• Custom Cross Reference Functionality
• Required Setup To Use ABAP Maps
• Message Size After Content Conversion
• Large Message Processing
• Message Pointers
• ABAP Mapping
• JMS Adapter
• Conversion Agent By Itemfield
• Adapter Tracing
Packet Processing Not Supported By
IDOC Adapter
• On the surface this does not appear to be an issue or a concern.
• Each outbound packet from SAP is split into individual
messages in XI.
• However this has a negative effects on downstream applications
like Gentran. When outbound EDI data is processed by
Gentran it is typically grouped by trading partner. This caused
Gentran to generate significantly more EDI envelopes than
normal.
• It also impacted other downstream applications by making them
process lots of individual messages instead of groups of
messages. This created performance issues for certain
applications.
• Only way to process IDOCs as a group was to process using a
collection BPM.
User Defined Java Functions
• Writing Custom Code Inside A GUI Map Is Sometimes A
Good Thing
• We used user defined JAVA functions in the following way.
• We identified and created user defined functions that replicated all
existing DataStage TX mapping functions not supported by XI.
• When we identified that a particular mapping requirement was creating
specific difficult challenges for GUI mapping techniques we would build
the required functionality in a user defined JAVA funciton.
• One technical challenge to user defined JAVA function was that they
are map specific. If you want to reuse a function you must copy it from
another map.
• In general our functions required 20 lines of code or less but
significantly simplified our map conversions and mapping rules.
Custom Cross Reference Functionality
• SAP provides GUI mapping rules that allow you convert
mapping data via a cross reference. The issue is the cross
reference data is map specific and can not be reused.
• We had many instances where the same cross reference data
was required across multiple maps.
• We create with minimal development effort a custom cross
reference solution that utilized a custom ABAP table, a custom
function module and a custom user defined JAVA function.
• The user defined JAVA function had to be copied from map to
map but the logic and cross reference data was stored in the
function module and ABAP table. Thus allowing us to reference
the same cross reference data across multiple maps.
Required Setup To Use ABAP Maps
• The exchange profile needs to be modified before
mapping can be done on the ABAP stack.
• Modify the exchange profile setting
“com.sap.aii.repository.mapping.additionaltypes”.
• We added the entry “R3_ABAP|ABAP-Class
Map;R3_XSLT|ABAP-XSL”.
• This allows both ABAP class maps and XSLT maps via the
ABAP kernel.
Message Size After Content
Conversion
• Make sure you consider the size of you message after it is
converted to XML when designing your interfaces.
• A inbound 5mb flat file can grow to a 50mb xml document.
• An interface that appears to be well within processing limits quickly
becomes too big.
Large Message Processing
• Why Does XI Not Handle Large Messages Well?
• Netweaver’s dual stack design (ABAP & Java) results in a
bottleneck whenever large data sets move from processing on one
stack to another. The standard way for the two stacks to
communicate is via RFC.
Large Message Processing
• The following diagram shows the communication between the
ABAP and Java stacks during normal message processing.
ABAP Stack

IDOC Adapter Integration Engine IDOC Adapter

ABAP Class
XSLT (ABAP)

Stack Boundary
(requires RFC for traversal)

Message Mapping
Adapter Engine Adapter Engine
Java Mapping
(J2EE) (J2EE)
XSLT (Java)

Java Stack
Large Message Processing
• Message Pointers
• Lilly’s existing interfaces were enormous by XI standards
(>500MB).
• These large files usually contained full refreshes of the data due to
technical constraints on the receiving, non-SAP system.
• XI’s architecture is not structured to handle large amounts of data.
• The key to processing large messages with XI is to minimize stack
boundary traversal.
• We were able to do this by saving the message as a file and only
passing a pointer to the data (ie filename). It was the job of the
processing agent to delete the file after it was confirmed that it was
sent to the receiver.
Large Message Processing
• ABAP Mapping
• Some messages were brought in via the J2EE Adapter Engine, but
not converted to XML. This unconventional design decision was
made because the conversion to XML required added processing
and memory requirements that caused message processing to take
too long. We decided to pass the data directly to the map
unconverted.
• In an effort to further streamline message processing and in
addition to the removal of XML conversion overhead, we also
decided to do away with some of the stack traversal overhead. We
accomplished this by implementing our mapping requirements with
ABAP.
Large Message Processing
• ABAP Mapping continued
• Doing the mapping in ABAP was doubly advantageous because
message mapping and XSL mapping requires that the data be in
XML format. Since our data was still in flat file format, our only
options were Java mapping and ABAP mapping. With the added
requirement of reduced stack traversal, our only remaining option
was ABAP.
• Our data was in a structured text format. ABAP turned out to be a
very good language for this type of data mapping. Our large team
of competent ABAP developers made short work of the ABAP
maps.
JMS Adapter
The JMS configuration is not out-of-the-box! JMS drivers must
first be installed……….including:
• The correct JAR files in order for the JMS adapter to
function correctly, which is one of the challenges we
faced with the use of JMS.
• Performance tuning for XI to operate effectively that
impacted JMS. SAP provides a document that outlines
performance tuning requirements in XI version 3.0 (see
appendix for information).
JMS Adapter
Secondly, during integration testing, we discovered an issue
regarding a message of 30mb in size:
• Issue: The following error occurred when attempting to connect to
the JMS adapter: "Delivery of the message to the application using
connection AFW failed, due to: MQJMS1016: an internal error has
occurred. Please contact your system administrator. Detail:
java.nio.BufferOverflowException.“
• Resolution: The Java Development Kit (JDK) had to be upgraded
to version 1.4.2_08 or higher (or if using version 1.3.1, upgrade to
JDK 1.3.1_16 or higher). We upgraded our server version to
1.4.2_12 in order to process messages >25mb (see appendix for
additional information)
SAP Conversion Agent by Itemfield
At Eli Lilly, we implemented the SAP Conversion
Agent by Itemfield as an adapter module to help
deal with more complex and unstructured
messages!
• Issue: identified that some special characters (i.e.
German Umlaut) were not displaying correctly (showing
as ‘??’), even though the character set was configured as
Western ISO-8859-1.
SAP Conversion Agent by Itemfield
• Resolution: CM_TransformModule.sda module that
related to Content Master (as it was known then) service
pack 15 (SP15) was not working to provide adequate
translation of special characters following data
conversion. The CM_TransformModule.sda of SP17 was
deployed in each environment which eventually fixed the
problem. For information, Eli Lilly was using XI SP15
and Conversion Agent SP15 at the time this issue
occurred (see appendix)
SAP Conversion Agent by Itemfield
• Issue: We identified that several messages by-passed
the SAP Conversion Agent. Thus, the payload was not
being converted into an XML format and XI was receiving
a flat file instead of an XML file.
• Resolution: The fix for this was based on an existing
OSS note (930598). This note was not only pertained to
Conversion agent but it was more generally specified for
any module that was attached to the adapter.
Adapter Tracing
• Each Java Adapter Can Be Traced At A Technical
Level.
• Adapter Tracing Is Activated By Using The J2EE
Administrator Tool To Change Trace Levels.
• Warning: At Higher Adapter Trace Levels The Adapter
Polling Frequency Can Really Impact Trace File
Growth.
• Make Sure You Polling Frequency Are Reduced
• Or Make Sure You Only Activate Traces For Short Periods Of Time
Key Learnings
• Calculating A Cost Savings On An SAP XI Implementation Will
Depend On Your Project Goals, Your Current Infrastructure, and
Your Specific Infrastructure Challenges.
• Prototyping Environments and Proof Of Concept
Implementations Will Help You Control Overall Project Scope
And Requirements By Identifying Areas In The Project That Will
Require Specific Consideration Up Front
• Don’t Underestimate Content Conversion
• Scope In Simple Infrastructure Tools That Will Simplify Long
Term Maintenance And Reduce Interface Development Time.
• SAP XI Can Handle Large Sized Message Interfaces. You Just
Have To Handle Them Differently.
Session Code:
0707