At DSAG (German-speaking user Group) there was a roadmap session that we could see some points from. This is what happens after SAP updated their support for ECC/Business Suite to 2027 it and implications for other tools. 

I would assume that this is the current working model and we will see more updates on this later. There will come an official roadmap later, once everything has been cleared. 

Update 7 April 2020: Now SAP has updated the support guidelines. Standard support to 2027 for 7.5 and then extended support until 2030. For now, 7.4 and lower will end maintenance in 2020.

I created a video with some more information.

Biggest takeaways were:

• PI 7.5 will be the last release but support extended some years until 2027.   
• So now a new version that we got the impression the last years. 
• There will be an on-prem version of SAP CPI and API management you can run on your own hardware. With a monitor and development tool. 

I really love this. It will have a lot of benefits to SAP customers. 

SAP PI

Java 8 has been extended support for longer by oracle. So there is no reason to upgrade to Java 11 and create a new version of NetWeaver Java. It would be costly for SAP to upgrade and also for customers so it makes a lot of sense. It is both PI but also all the other applications on the suite.

It would also be a stretch to get customers to move to the next NetWeaver release within 2 years, now have customers that have not upgraded for 10 years. 

I don’t know what the investments will be into PI/PO with this extended support. I would assume they free some capital for not having to perform the upgrade. 

SAP CPI

SAP CPI is the path forward and where customers should move. 

Removing PI from the Netweaver stack makes a lot of sense. It was probably 6 months behind cloud deployment and was costly to implement. I would assume there is quite a bit of work to port the framework to use the Netweaver stack compared to the cloud. 

That was the main reason we dropped running our Figaf tool on Netweaver stack. 

My assumptions of this: 

• I would assume that you need to upgrade every 1-3 months to get support or even be able to use the tool. I expect that SAP does not want customers running 5-year-old versions of CPI. So you need to be able to test and upgrade much more often.
• If SAP did not have the dependency for Netweaver then CPI can be upgraded to Java 11 and Camel 3.0. 
• If SAP will allow users to have an on-prem version of the CPI then it means that there will not be a change to WebIDE to develop CPI.

Learn more

If you want to learn more about SAP CPI we have created a course that helps you understand how you can develop SAP CPI, so you can get started faster. On the side you can also find our free version of the course.

If you want to develop and manage SAP CPI better try the Figaf IRT. It enables you to manage, govern, test and document SAP CPI and API management much simpler.