B2B/TPM on SAP BTP Integration Suite migration (SAP PO, Boomi, EDI Providers and home-grown apps)
2023-12-12 18:54:48
Author: blogs.sap.com(查看原文)
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Summary
SAP BTP Integration Suite has matured in the B2B/EDI space over the years and a much broader adoption is currently happening but what to consider for this type of migration? In this article I will try to answer why does it make sense to move to SAP BTP Integration Suite B2B functionality, when to take this step, what is it made of and how to do it without disrupting the most important integration flows for many companies, responsible for selling, buying, and shipping most of the products.
Figure – SAP PO, Boomi, EDI provider (OpenText) migration to SAP BTP Integration Suite TPM/B2B.
WHY – why move your EDI integration to SAP BTP Integration Suite B2B/TPM?
There are two aspects of that question. The first one is related to the fact why move at all if the old system is working and without any doubts it will be a challenging process. Because the cost of doing nothing can be very high and maybe it’s time to think about it:
How many CR (change requests) were not implemented or implemented with a big delay on the current landscape?
How much does it cost to run the EDI on-premise?
Where there any scalability issues that required additional cost?
Was there any downtime caused by the old integration platform?
Is the current integration platform ready for new EDI types of connections?
Is the company bound to use a single Service Integrator (SI) or vendor resources as no one else can operate the current EDI solution?
What is the employee productivity with the current integration platform?
Is there any technical debt related to using the current integration platform?
Once you answer the first question on the cost of doing nothing then you might get into some more detailed questions depending on the type of your current EDI/B2B integration solution:
SAP Process Orchestration B2B addon (SAP PO)
Does it make sense to stay on the on-premises solution with an end of life in 2027?
How quickly can you do the changes without the Integration Advisor?
Boomi, other iPaaS solutions
Does it make sense to use nonSAP solution in case all your business processed using EDI are running on SAP?
Is the topic of skill consolidation important at your company or do you prepare to have different teams/vendors for each part of your internal business processes?
EDI providers like OpenText
What is more important for you at the current stage of your SAP program: EDI/B2B integration delivery speed and accountability of the whole process or cost of EDI transactions?
Are you fine with outsourcing parts of the most important processes of your company (selling, buying, shipping) to a middleman?
Home grown applications
Do you have and will continue to have a very strong internal development team who will always be there to support you?
What is the cost of adding new functions to the home grown application?
Is the topic of skill consolidation important at your company or do you prepare to have different teams/vendors for each part of your internal business processes?
WHEN – when is the time to plan and the move to SAP BTP Integration Suite?
Best way to find out when is to have a look at the Roadmap explorer and put in the “B2B Integration” phrase but the number of new B2B features is overwhelming.
Figure – B2B integration feature roadmap in SAP BTP Integration Suite
HOW – how to simplify the move to SAP BTP Integration Suite?
First thing first – learn!
You need to learn how to work with SAP BTP Integration Suite and the best way to do it is to use SAP community knowledge:
An amazing blog series by Bhavesh Kantilal (link in the reference section)
Automate testing
Testing is 65% of your EDI migration project. If you want to move to SAP BTP Integration Suite, it may be worth making sure your EDI/B2B flows will continue working after the migration so it might be useful to run automated testing for this program. Int4 Shield is not only recommended solution by SAP for this type of programs, but it’s also used by SAP for RiseWithSAP service called “SAP BTP Integration Suite testing” and used by SAP consulting for SAP BTP Integration Suite EDI/B2B migration projects. With Int4 Shield you can easily model the whole EDI message exchange (made of multiple iflows – sender, transformation, and receiver) in a single testable unit and run it as often as you wish as shown in the figures below:
Figure – Combine all iflows of a typical B2B/EDI scenario (sender, transformation and receiver) in one test using Int4 Shield
Figure – results of a EDI file comparison using Int4 Shield
Simulate EDI partners
Do you want to engage your EDI partners a lot for this migration program and literally make the project stop or would you like to simulate your EDI partners and have complete control of the program? If you want to control the speed of this migration project I’d advice to have a look at Unit 2: Simulating EDI partners based on historical transactions and Unit 3: How to virtualize messages from B2B partners and external applications of openSAP course “Avoid SAP S/4HANA Project Delays with Third-Party Systems Service Virtualization”.
Figure – Simulate EDI partners with Int4 Shield
Last but not least – what about the new mappings?
What to do if you migrate from non-SAP system to SAP BTP Integration Suite and you cannot reuse the mappings? Why not automatically generate them from historical messages? Have a look a this video explaining the concept of how generative Test Driven Development can help you generate the mappings automatically with Int4 Shield as per the video from SAP Devtoberfest 2023 below:
Wish you all the best with your SAP BTP Integration Suite B2B migrations!