SAP Solution Brief
SAP® EXCHANGE
The SAP® Exchange Infra-
structure (SAP XI) component
provides open integration
technologies that enable
process-centric collaboration
among SAP and non-SAP
components, both within
and beyond your enterprise.
A component of the SAP
NetWeaver™ platform,
SAP XI supports business
processes that are spread
across heterogeneous
systems, providing seamless
integration at sustainable –
and reduced – costs. In so
doing, SAP XI removes the
barriers associated with true
integration.
INFRASTRUCTURE
SIMPLIFYING TODAY’S COMPLEX IT ENVIRONMENT
COPING WITH COMPLEXITY
Today’s IT landscapes are increasingly complex and difficult
to integrate. You need a solution that makes new levels of
collaboration and connectivity possible among all the systems
and applications within your enterprise and across your entire
value chain. In addition to integrating these heterogeneous
system environments, you want to leverage your existing legacy
systems – in today’s environment, a “rip and replace” solution
is not feasible. You also want your implementation to support
the goal of standardizing on a services-based architecture.
The answer is the SAP® Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI) com-
ponent, a powerful integration broker that works well within
your IT landscape and with its various connectivity, format, and
protocol requirements. A component of the SAP NetWeaver™
platform, SAP XI runs on the SAP Web Application Server (SAP
Web AS) component.
SAP XI reduces integration and maintenance costs of IT systems
by providing a common, central repository for interfaces. It
supports cross-component business process management (BPM)
within the same solution. And, it offers an integrated tool set
to help organizations build their own integration scenarios by
defining the appropriate messaging interfaces, mappings, and
routing rules.
SAP XI is based on a native Web infrastructure that leverages
open standards and supports multiple communication
approaches, including central hubs and peer-to-peer connections.
It protects your technology investment by seamlessly integrating
all existing components from both SAP and third-party vendors
without any disruption. SAP XI takes full advantage of SAP’s
extensive knowledge of business processes, including the need
to capture and share collaborative knowledge during the entire
software life cycle.
HOW SAP XI MEETS YOUR INTEGRATION NEEDS
SAP XI reduces integration complexity by providing an open
integration platform that drives collaborative business processes.
The following key capabilities of SAP XI help you simplify and
operate your heterogeneous IT landscape at sustainable costs.
Standards-based process integration – SAP XI lets you inte-
grate collaborative processes across multiple applications both
within and beyond the boundaries of the enterprise. Processes
are integrated using standards-based XML messaging. All related
information is described using Web services standards.
Integration knowledge management – SAP XI features a
central integration repository and an integration directory that
store all your shared collaboration knowledge across all compo-
nents throughout a solution’s life cycle – from design through
configuration and deployment. Integration definitions are
separately maintained in the integration repository, away from
functional application coding. This means you can upgrade
functional coding without affecting the repository definitions.
The repository contains shared collaboration knowledge from
SAP, your partners, and third-party vendors.
Prepackaged integration content – Business content from
various sources is available for SAP XI. All mySAP™ Business Suite
solutions and SAP NetWeaver components quickly deliver prede-
fined business content like data types, messages types, interface
description, business scenarios, and process patterns. And, SAP
offers business packages that are complete solutions for business
problems: business applications, technical infrastructure, and
business content are delivered to match industry standards and
all three items are tuned to work as one. Companies can leverage
this combined capability to gain a head start in integration
projects. The SAP XI integration repository is open to third-
party and custom content, allowing the component to serve
as the centralized instance for all integration content.
Cross-component BPM – SAP XI allows you to model cross-
component business processes and scenarios. This way, you can
drive and control complex business processes across business
applications and enterprise boundaries. SAP XI covers the full
process life cycle, including design, automation, execution, and
monitoring. The collaboration knowledge in SAP XI allows you
to describe integration processes from a top-down, high-level
perspective, rather than having to hard code them into attached
components.
Heterogeneous landscape connectivity – SAP XI helps you
integrate heterogeneous applications. You can integrate business
applications running on SAP Web AS by using SAP XI messaging
proxies, without the need for additional adapters. And, SAP XI
can directly call an application that offers a Web services inter-
face. SAP XI, with its Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
Connector Architecture (JCA)-based adapter framework, allows
you to integrate with virtually any application or system, includ-
ing packaged applications and those requiring a particular proto-
col, by using the appropriate adapter from SAP or a certified
partner.
B2B integration – SAP XI stores your collaboration partner
profiles in its integration directory, allowing you to communi-
cate with your partners based on these data. Support for
industry-standard protocols, such as those used for RosettaNet,
UCCnet, or CIDX, is provided through adapters and corre-
sponding mappings.
Web-service management – SAP XI handles the Web-service
calls you send or receive in an advanced manner, and can add
value-added services. SAP XI is able to evaluate Web-service calls
based on the content and definitions you have placed in the inte-
gration directory. SAP XI selects the appropriate definition and
sends it on as a Web service, or transforms the Web-service call to
the format and protocol that the receiving destination expects.
RUNNING COLLABORATIVE BUSINESS PROCESSES
To run your collaborative business processes, SAP XI features
a robust and high-performance integration server. SAP and its
partner supply all the adapters you need to access other applica-
tions, files, and databases and to connect using various protocols
and industry standards.
Integration Engine and Integration Directory
The integration directory manages all the information relevant
to a specific customer IT environment and uses this dedicated
shared-collaboration knowledge to drive the SAP XI execution
environment – the integration engine of SAP XI. The inte-
gration engine provides a runtime infrastructure for secure
XML-based communication between the instances of the
various components as well as for mapping and routing.
Security and Partner Agreements
For both B2B transactions and communications along your
value chain, you have extensive individual and special require-
ments that concern execution and security. Individual agree-
ments between you and your business partners must be man-
aged centrally so that they can be made available across your
entire landscape. This is the job of the SAP XI integration
directory. Agreements regarding connectivity, security, and
other essential operations that take place between you and your
business partners are kept in the integration directory. On the
other hand, at design time, integration knowledge – such as
business scenarios or interface descriptions – is maintained in
the integration repository. Together, the integration directory
and the integration repository allow you to manage all your
integration tasks and scenarios in a single location.
Business Process Engine
The business process engine (BPE) is tightly connected with
the integration engine and fully integrated into the integration
server. During message flow between heterogeneous systems,
the engine makes use of all the shared collaboration knowledge
needed to execute a business process. An easy-to-use graphical
modeler gives you access to the message types and interfaces in-
volved in a process. It lets you define the series and sequence of
steps and actions required to run the process. During execution,
the BPE also correlates and links related messages based on a
unique, user-defined identifier.
 www.sap.com /contactsap

WHAT SAP XI CAN DO FOR YOU Integration Scenarios

SAP XI provides open integration technologies that drive collab- You can build your own integration scenarios using the inte-
orative business processes, reducing one of your major IT infra- grated tool set in SAP XI. The tool set defines the appropriate
structure problems – complexity. SAP XI also offers the follow- messaging interfaces, mappings, and routing rules needed to
ing benefits to you and your organization. connect application components or create collaborative
processes that involve business partners.
Lower TCO
SAP XI reduces the cost of integration and lets you reuse existing Support for Open Standards
components such as your investments in electronic data inter- Because it is based on a native Web infrastructure that leverages
change (EDI). SAP XI protects your investment by seamlessly open standards, SAP XI allows you to make use of current
integrating components from both SAP and third-party vendors. industry standards and has the built-in flexibility to support
future standards.
Process-Centric Integration
With SAP XI, you can integrate business processes within and MEETING THE CHALLENGE
across organizational and technical boundaries. The component By making SAP XI one of your essential IT technologies, you are
takes full advantage of SAP’s extensive knowledge of business able to deal with the challenge of integrating your IT landscape.
processes, including capturing and sharing collaborative knowl- Through its powerful integration capabilities, SAP XI enables a
edge during the entire software life cycle. The process-centric new level of adaptive business solutions while making possible
information model in SAP XI is based on Web services: It follows process-centric collaboration across your entire value chain.
the principles of Enterprise Services Architecture, the SAP blue-
print for services-based, enterprise-scale business solutions that FOR MORE INFORMATION
offer the increased levels of adaptability, flexibility, and openness For more information about how you can use SAP NetWeaver
required to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). and SAP XI for your integration and application platform, visit
www.sap.com/netweaver, www.sap.com/xi,
Process Automation or service.sap.com/xi
SAP XI orchestrates message flow the way you define it for
each of your individual business processes. You can automate
processes according to your unique needs across heterogeneous
systems and beyond enterprise boundaries.

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