Subscribing to this product is a good choice when there is no need to use or invest in on-premise infrastructure, and:
- two elements are written in languages that are not mutually understood;
- it is important that all pieces of data went through one point of contact.
The cloud’s popularity
Although the cloud is widely discussed for quite some time, companies still rather use on-premise solutions, or – as a last resort – hybrid ones. SAP SE is planning to change those statistics and puts a strong emphasis on cloud and private cloud solutions. Publishing the cloud version of S/4 HANA and the company’s subsequent activities suggest just that.
CPI is one of the pieces of evidence to support this theory. This tool is meant to define the course of the process between systems, or in other words: to modify data or an algorithm for their processing.
When SAP SE was designing cloud solutions, they also adapted the language of their system to the newest requirements. That is how ABAP on Cloud came to be. But in the case of CPI, technologies used to model IFlow are Java, JavaScript or Groovy Script.
CPI, or machine translation
CPI is about the transformation of protocols, structures, types and formats of data. Thanks to it, the transformation of what comes in into what comes out is automatic and does not require any external interference. That enables the communication between systems, and also speeds up some processes.
An example of how CPI works can be the sending of basic material data from one system to another. During the process, it turns out that the data needs to be supplemented with the data from yet another system. In this case, we model IFlow, which is based on the verification of the available data, then check which pieces of information are missing, and send a query for them. Only at the end, the system will send the set to the third system. This is one of the many standard types of CPI modelling.
Open Connectors – more than a standard
In addition to CPI, an interesting solution in the SAP Cloud Platform Integration Suite is Open Connectors. Open Connectors is very good for integrating third-party systems. Special connectors, as opposed to standard communication protocols, have appropriately adapted functions of automation of authentication and consumption of API services. Some of the many examples are SalesForce Cloud, MS Dynamics CRM, Twitter, Facebook. In total, SAP currently provides over 170 connectors.
When to move to the cloud?
The Integration Platform is also available in the on-premise version, but more and more companies decide to migrate to the cloud. In this context, the most frequently mentioned advantages of CPI are:
- easier system integration using the cloud
- and many available, ready-made integration scenarios within the api.sap.com platform.
A good excuse to change the PI in CPI may also be the expiring validity of the license or the need to update the solution.
The task of the partner who will undertake the migration of the Integration Platform to the cloud will be, among others, launching a predefined or designing a new IFlow, i.e. a process or sub-process integration course. This is an opportunity worth taking advantage of to simplify and/or organize them.
