It has been a long time since our last release. We did have a summer vacation and had a big new function to release.
I have been teasing that we have Git integration for SAP CPI and also added it for SAP API mgt.
Watch on YouTube SAP CPI development with Git and IntelliJ using the Figaf tool.
Why Git
The thing that I like with our Git integration is that it allows users to access all sources from your project in just one simple repository. It will speed up the development because you will get easier access to all Groovy scripts and XSLT, so you can reuse it. We have tried using Github, SAP Git from Cloud Platform and also Bitbucket, others will probably also work. Just be sure it is a private repository.
It gives you an opportunity to work in your favorite IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ to edit the code. They have a much better code completion that allows you to write the code faster.
It is our first Git release, so we are looking for feedback about how the workflow should be and if there are any ways we can improve it.
Gradle plugins
From an SAP developer perspective, we are not really used to be able to use plugins in our IDE. SAP has released the NetWeaver Developer Studio for PI and the old Eclipse plugin for CPI development. Here you had some function you could use, but it would only work in that IDE. The better way to deliver integration tools is to deliver Gradle plugins. Normal Java developers have a lot of Gradle plugins they can use to bundle application or run them in a specific way. So it would make sense to add some code to Gradle plugins that allow you to upload, deploy and test your iflows directly from your IDE. That way you don’t need to leave your IDE to validate if your code is running correctly. We have created 3 plugins, which are all open source. One to CPI, one to API Mgt and one to handle testing with the Figaf DevOps Suite. The plugins can be found in the Gradle plugins directory or on our Github page.
Simple workflow
One of the big challenges with starting your own infrastructure is that you need to configure all your plugins. That is the pain we are removing. You don’t need to be a Git expert or know a lot of Java configuration; all configurations are delivered as templates that you can just reuse. It makes your developers much more productive.
Other improvements
We have made some more improvements in the application and fixed some bugs. Among them: when you use the Figaf DevOps Suite to transport individual iflows, it uses the unofficial Update metadata API. This allows you to keep the version history of your changes and do rollbacks. It is not ideal but we will use it until SAP supports the option to update an iflow with the official API.
Test data for CPI development
Another challenge is making it easier for the user to create test data and assertions for CPI development. Half a year ago we created an option to create a Groovy script to set up a message with test data. The approach did make it easier but you had to make some manual changes. The goal is to generate scripts for both input and expected output, so test cases are a lot easier to run and development gets even faster.
Try it out now and see how it works
You can start a free trial of the Figaf DevOps Suite and expose your CPI system using Git.
