We are happy to announce a major achievement in our quest to become an industry-leader in SAP integration automation. Figaf won the “SAP Hack2Build-Beyond a Hackathon”, a two-week competition sponsored by SAP to automate SAP PI to CPI migration process.
The culmination of our experience in SAP Integration Automation and the edge of our Figaf SAP Automation platform made winning this prestigious award possible. With this background we built the first one-click SAP PI to CPI migration product. Thanks to SAP for the commitment to support us with the Go-To-Market activities to help clients speed up this process and increase the quality of the migrations by automation.
SAP PI to CPI migrations can be very time consuming
SAP PI is a hugely successful platform with more than 10,000 customers who need to migrate to CPI, before the extended support runs out for SAP PI/PO in 2030.
This is challenging considering that each customer has an average of 200 ICOs. 50% of the integrations on the platform usually occur on a one-to-one migration. Each of these can take 4 hours to complete, including testing and transport.
But not all the integrations will take place on a one-to-one basis. Because the new platform will have to be redesigned, content reused or is not relevant anymore. This will end up taking up eight hours instead of four hours. On average this makes at least 6 hours per ICO which results in a workload of 1200 hours. If you assume one person working 1600 hours per year then 1200 hours means one employee working nine months full time on it.
However, if you use automation then the workload will be reduced to approximately one-third which makes three months instead of nine months in full-time work equivalent. Automation can help you to not only achieve frequent and faster releases but also high-quality delivery that ensures you remain competitive. That is why you should consider automating SAP PI to CPI migration.
How can Figaf tools help with SAP PI to CPI migration?
We have built a future-proof SAP PI to CPI Migration prototype on top of our existing Figaf Tool, which already has the capabilities for managing and testing SAP PI and SAP CPI. The tool provides access to all the SAP PI objects that SAP integration developers can use in the migration. The created prototype can generate SAP CPI iFlows with the following elements from an SAP PI/PO ICO:
- Multiple receivers and conditions
- Multiple interfaces and conditions
- Support for Message Mappings with External Definitions
- Support for Function Libraries (with some limits)
- Support for Channel conversion with templates and external properties
When used in the integration process, SAP PI to CPI Migration prototype helps to streamline different landscape types where you have many similar integrations. This makes business sense in EDI scenarios where you can migrate all your similar mappings in the same way. And even if you have Seeburger message mappings, you do not need to worry because SAP PI to CPI Migration prototype can also handle it.
After completing the migration of the artifacts, the Figaf Tool goes ahead to simplify testing and transport changes to production. Figaf Tool can also help in the cases where you want to redesign your SAP Integration.
Watch on YouTube SAP PI to CPI migration Preview
-> The prototype has since become the Figaf Migration Tool
Figaf Migration Tool story
At the beginning of 2020, I started to research whether it is possible to develop a SAP PI to CPI migration tool. I kicked off the research by developing ideas on how to convert channels to CPI channels. This approach did not speed up the process. I left the project untouched because it seemed complex even if the client demands were unknown.
However, this changed when we received SAP’s invite to the “SAP Hack2Build-Beyond a Hackathon” competition. Armed with past experiences and the mistakes I learned in my earlier encounter with SAP PI to CPI migration automation, I set out to challenge myself for the second time. I shared my prototype ideas with SAP and what we needed to achieve. Having known both platforms and the APIs related to it, we quickly did some experiments to validate the prototype idea by modifying CPI iFlows. Fortunately, we succeeded in the process so it was a good place to start. Within the two weeks we implemented a prototype that generates CPI iFlows from the ground with routings and conditions.
What happened next
The Hackathon gave us a working prototype that makes it easier to create CPI iFlows and can save you plenty of time with SAP PI to CPI migration.
After validating the prototype in our lab, we ran a beta program to test the creation of iFlows in diverse real-world landscapes. The result is the Figaf Migration Tool, which helps you migrate SAP PI/PO ICOs to SAP Integration Suite. You can start a free trial to see how it works on your own landscape.
