I went to the event to learn about SAP’s newest visions on the Modernization topics but just as much to talk with other partners about their visions for SAP Integration. It could also have been called migration but modernizing is probably a better word for it.
It was a blast talking with fellow partners and SAP Product management about what was going on in the world. It was pretty cool that there were around 100 people attending.
Thank you SAP for hosting us and taking good care of us.
From a marketing perspective, why did you not want to go there? It was cheap to attend but as always the highest cost is time off from project. Partners I talked with had not seen the event even if we have it in our newsletter (If you are not subscribed please do).
There were many of the presentations we have seen before, though with some small variations. Good if you did not know SAP Integration Suite, but then you were probably not a good partner. There was also some good about how Integration Suite is selling and the opportunity for partners.
There was a good Partner panel around modernizing talking about the different options for modernizing. The best quote: “IDOC are cure” by moderator Kathrine von Ahsen.
Important tidbits
- SAP plans to release 10 new adapters per year for Cloud Integration over the next years.
- If you rely on OFTP2 adapter consider if you can work with Mendelson and use it as a proxy. SAP was working on an adapter, but it is probably easier to get started now and then change to the adapter once it is available.
- A new Gartner MQ was expected in Q1 2025, and SAP hoped to stay well positioned with Edge Integration Cell.
- EOIO is still something that often is brought up in conversations and it sounded like SAP is looking at an option with JMS.
- I did see the migration assessment now had info about average message size. Together with the existing data about the number of messages, you have a good option to estimate the cost of running that integration in Integration Suite. The fields are in my Excel report, but there could be some rows missing.
Modernizing
There are lots of better ways to run your integration today. I think this slide shows the journey quite well. If you were to start over on this interface, how would you do it?
That is a good question to ask for the integration.
One of the larger customers has moved to Integration Suite and moved from a few other platforms into one. I cannot recall what period the 155M messages covered, which is quite important, and probably how they define an interface.
We did have a lot of talks about Events and for all Architects it is something to consider how to use and leverage in your platform. EDA seems to be here for a long time.
Migration to Integration Suite
Moving your integration from SAP PI/PO to Integration Suite is the easy path.
I really love this story with CBS and Kemira. It was a great way to learn more about the migration journey and how to automate the testing.
I got a comment on what we paid for the ad. My answer “We gave a lot of our functionality away for free”.
I also learned that the Pipeline Concept was updated to 1.0.9 which gives some new opportunities, see. And got some insight on future directions of it which sounds promising.
Somehow it seems the messaging is that either you migrate 1:1 or you redesign. I think the reality is different: it is going to be a mix.
If you want to see how to reduce the effort of your migration, see how Figaf supports SAP PI/PO migration.
Governance
I notice the word governance being used quite a lot and something to focus on. This was both with presentations on LeanIX and ISA-M as the ways to handle it together with Cloud ALM for the operational side.
I had not seen LeanIX in detail and could see that it could help a lot in the process of documenting the different scenarios. I can see it could give a good way to analyze the data on your migration and define a new architecture. It is also a lot of effort to start using it and use it as a central tool for planning your integration.
I have been considering how we can simplify the data collection to it and have some ideas but I’m not sure it will be a good business case for now. If Governance is a hot topic for you I will invite you to explore Figaf, since it simplifies managing all your integrations and the processing.
