SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons

to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and

Intelligent Business Operations) Chalk
and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
Posted by Owen Pettiford Apr 28, 2015
Lets face it, integrating IT systems / automating processes (often referred to as Middleware) isnt
considered as eye grabbing / interesting as mobile user interfaces.
So to grab some attention and prove that UI has a place in middleware, there is a screenshot below from our
SAP Process Orchestration server, exposing the processes available using the Fiori launchPad.

Like security, middleware is a specialised area of IT, which if done well, enables the real-time data exchange
and governance that is key for the business models demanded by Digital Transformation. If you want to
understand this in more detail, I can recommend this OpenSAP Course it is critical to get the middleware
right first, in order to get the most from S/4HANA.
For example - Do you think Uber batches up your taxi requests! Your customers expect the same
service level competition is a click/tap/swipe away.

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
Operations) Chalk and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
As I have discussed in this blog, SAPs middleware portfolio has grown massively in features and
maturity since it was introduced as XI in early 2000, I now regularly see SAP Middleware winning
against pure play middleware vendors.
The purpose of this blog isnt to demonstrate the long list of newer features, such as; Real-time
KPI monitoring with OpInt, Complex Event processing on high volume data streams using ESP/
SDS, Monitization of APIs outside your organization with SAP API Management by APIGEE or
Cloud Integration using HANA Cloud Integration.
I want to focus on how you can build the case to move from SAP Process Integration - PI (or any other
Middleware solution) to SAP Process Orchestration - PO.

What is SAP Process Orchestration

First lets make sure we all understand what these two products are:
SAP Process Integration This is an integration broker which uses BOTH ABAP and Java stacks
to enable Message Based integration between IT systems using a number of adaptors to get
messages into and out of these systems.
SAP Process Orchestration This is the combination of SAP Process Integration (as above), SAP
Business Process Management (used to create workflows between people and systems), SAP
Business Rules Management (used to enable user defined business logic required in any business
process e.g. sign off limits). It also has lots of helpful technical components like the Composite
Application Framework (for creating data persistency), Enterprise Content Management (used for
document management) and a light weight version of SAP Portal capabilities (used for role based
access to content), all only running on the SAP Java Stack.
Simply put, SAP Process Orchestration encompasses all the tools you need to create
business logic, applications and integration required to plug any gaps between your IT
systems an on-premise Extension Platform

License Conversion
If you have PI, BPM and BRM licenses, you can get a credit for the full value from SAP to put towards your
PO license.

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
Operations) Chalk and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
You have to discuss with SAP about how this is turned into a license credit and how much PO
will cost you. Also as the move from PI to PO is a migration (cant do an in place upgrade) you
might want to do this over a period of time (to reduce risk), so again you need to discuss with
SAP about running both in parallel for the period of the migration.
Note to SAP: A clear policy on parallel running during migration would be really helpful.

Migration
Many customers I speak to are disappointed that they have to migrate from PI to PO. In my
experience PI systems are often seen as something that you dont touch as long as they
work and customer side PI skills can often be low as the integration was done during an
implementation project by the SI engaged at the time the customer team can often be in
support not development mode.
I would encourage you to look at the migration as an opportunity to spring clean your middleware
landscape implementing problem interface using state-of-the-art techniques. You can look at
this blog to see the huge variety of Integration Patterns that are supported by PO.

Migration Tool
SAP provide a migration tool that moves/converts the PI content that can be migrated from the PI
system to the PO system. The key items that cant be moved are ccBPM logic (which is replaced
by BPM in PO) and ABAP mapping logic (as you dont have an ABAP stack!).
Once migrated you can take advantage of the 13 reasons I have listed below You can easily
build your business case from these.

13 Reasons to Migrate from PI (or other

middleware product) to PO
1. B2B add on With PO you can use the SAP B2B adaptors and trading partner management
and remove the need for 3 party solutions to EDI or costly 3rd party adaptors (this alone can justify
the business case). Read this blog by Agnieszka Domanska for more details.
rd

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
Operations) Chalk and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
2. Simplified IT Landscape by running on only SAP Java stack your IT landscape is simpler to
manage.
3. More Throughput The move to Java only architecture means we get a massive boost in the
performance throughput.
4. Human to System / Workflow With PO we get access to SAP BPM which allows for great
Human (screen) integration and workflows, this means we automate integrations where
possible and involve Human steps which need review or additional data (e.g. make mapping
errors into a business task instead of a IT one). See the screenshot above to see the type of
processes that can be enabled.
5. Native Business Rules Business rules allow you to empower business users to be able to
flex the behaviour of integrations / processes. These can be maintained in production so
changes can happen at the speed of business not the speed of IT. Examples might include
look up value, sign off limits, % change etc.
6. Modern User Experience As can be seen above, Fiori has made its way into PO, so where
human interaction is required this can be done using HTML5 user interfaces that work
on Desktop / Tablets / Phones and Watches. The best example being the My Inbox Fiori
Application.
7. Easier to Develop Having all the tools in PO in one box it is much easier to develop
complete solutions.
8. Easier to Configure / Monitor / Tune Because the tools are all running on one technical
platform, it is much easier to configure / monitor and tune a PO system vs PI. See this great
server overview available in PO.

9. Value Help The value help framework allows easy integration to Business Suite systems for
reference data (e.g. Company Codes, Plants, Customer Groups etc.) which you might want
to use in your applications. Read this blog by Kate Burcham for more details.
10.Java Gateway / Rest Adaptor These technical tools allow for fast integration with SAP Fiori
services and other modern restful architectures
11.Ready for Cloud The iFlows used in the PO system use artefacts that can also be used
in the HANA Cloud Integration product so if/when you choose to use that tool for cloud
cloud or cloud on-premise integration, you can re-use work you have put into interface
definitions and mappings.

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
Operations) Chalk and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
12.Ready for HANA With PO you can run your middleware on HANA (PI will not be released for
HANA) which means you can get real-time insight from the system tables, plug Operational
Process Intelligence directly into the process / integration events and use HANA Smart Data Streaming
for high volume IoT scenarios.

13.SAP are not developing PI dual-stack anymore By not being on PO you are locked out of new
features. So PI isnt a burning platform (perhaps smouldering a bit), but you will be locked in
the past when it comes to new features.

I hope that using the above list you can find the value required to go through the hassle of negotiations with
SAP and the migration. With state of the art SAP middleware (including PO) you can be sure that you will not
hit any bottlenecks getting data into and out of your S/4 HANA landscape.
One of my longer term PI colleagues goes white when I tell her she has to work on just PI now
she is used to the PO.
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sap_netweaver_process_integration, process_integration, sap_netweaver_platform,
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process_orchestration_technologies_from_sap, s4hana

sunil marwal
Aug 11, 2016 5:24 PM
Thanks Owen for this Blog .. this is really helpful blog for me to understand PO dominance over PI .
Stefan Ressing
Feb 10, 2016 3:04 PM
Hi Owen,
I would disagree with this:
With PO you can run your middleware on HANA (PI will not be released for HANA
As of 7.40 you can install PI on HANA and we have an instance, e.g .an AAEX running as 7.50 SP1 on HANA
right now, without the PO, e.g. the SWPM has an option for PI to install on HANA.
Thanks
Stefan

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
Operations) Chalk and Cheese Key for S/4 HANA
Owen Pettiford in response to R-jay Galbizo on page 7
Jan 22, 2016 10:58 AM
R-jay,
If a customer has no need for any of the 13 reasons I have quoted above you are right why move. The last
reason will be the most compelling in the end as customers will be forced to migrate in the end. My experience
is that it is something you should consider the next time you think about upgrading/re-platforming your PI
system. Often it is a chance to relook at the why things have been done and do them in better more modern
ways which should lead to lower ownership costs.
Owen
suman lakkimsetty in response to Owen Pettiford on page 7
Jan 19, 2016 12:25 PM
Hello Owen
Your blog says 'Ready for Cloud' from PO7.5, in our landscape we have PI7.4(Java only -not PO). If we
upgrade it to PI 7.5(not PO), still this option of 'Ready for Cloud' can be supported or will it be available only
with PO(PI+BPM).
Also same question applicable for User experience/Java Gateway.
Kindly provide your valuable input!
Owen Pettiford in response to Nicolas Pauwelyn on page 6
Jan 14, 2016 9:12 PM
Nicolas,
I don't know of any tools that exist to migrate processes from CE (I has asked the question and will add the
answer when I get it).
What you can do is upgrade your CE systems to PO, they way you don't need to migrate the BPM processes.
Owen
Nicolas Pauwelyn
Jan 14, 2016 4:44 PM
Hi Owen
Great blog on covering the migration from PI to PO.
But do you have any idea if there's a standard tool available to migrate CE processes to the BPM part of PO?
As with a migration, you could have some running processes on the old CE that should be migrated to the new
PO. I was wondering what SAP's best practices would be on that.

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
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br,
Nicolas
Owen Pettiford in response to suman lakkimsetty on page 7
Jan 8, 2016 3:48 PM
You are welcome
suman lakkimsetty
Jan 7, 2016 9:15 PM
Owen Pettiford, really a very crisp and perfect blog to understand the real need of PO. Am exactly looking for
these inputs which were covered in a single blog.
Great work !!!
R-jay Galbizo
Dec 3, 2015 6:28 AM
good taught you have Owen Pettiford. But I have a question.
How can you convinced for example an existing customer constantly updating their version of SAP PI?
Meaning, the latest version of SAP PI which is 7.5 SPS00 does have reasons that it can integrate with S/4
HANA (except for usage on Process Intelligence). For customer who have PI 7.31 SPS17, they have updates
as well.
The reasons above for me is very much convincing (which I am currently using as a strategy when customer
would migrate to S4 HANA), but in my own opinion, current customer will still utilize what they have.
Cheers,
R-jay
Arijit Das
Oct 19, 2015 4:50 AM
Hi Owen Pettiford
First of all - an awesome blog! I was hoping that someone tackles this topic; and would like to open up an
opportunity as well - is anyone keen on blogging on another topic - PI is dead; Long live PO! Paresh Mishra
Sascha Wenninger Fons van Nuland
And the Fiori launchpad for SAP PO looks cool!
Regards
Arijit
Charu Kulkarni

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
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Jul 22, 2015 11:02 PM
Hi Owen Pettiford First of all let me say it is a great blog.
My question is same as Rajesh pasupula asked above. How did you manage to deploy the My Inbox ( Fiori)
app using the Java Gateway that is delivered with PO - as seen in screen shot ?
Or did you say Yes to it is planned. I believe the Java Gateway embedded in PO still has limitations, I think we
will still need to use ABAP Gateway to be able to use My Inbox ( Fiori App ).

The Product Capabilities Matrix still shows that PO Java Gateway does not support "Task Gateway Service
Consumption". Also just a note that the Fiori apps can not be deployed on the Java Gateway too.
Thanks again for the excellent blog,
Charu
Owen Pettiford in response to PRABHAT SINGH on page 8
May 13, 2015 8:25 AM
Prabhat,
The ECC side shouldn't matter.
If you have PI dual stack (ABAP and Java), you have to migrate to PO. You can use the migration wizard to do
this.
I would also recommend that you consider putting PO in SAP HANA as you can then co-deploy OPInt and
Smart Data Streaming.
Owen
PRABHAT SINGH
May 12, 2015 4:02 PM
This indeed great blog with Insight of benefits of Migration to PO.
Thanks Owen Pettiford .
Could you please answer my queries as well?
We are exploring options to Migrate to PO. What i would like to know is what is minimum requirement from
ECC side?
Also, We are currently on PI 7.31. Can we upgrade this itself to PO?
Thanks.
Pratyush Kumar

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
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May 6, 2015 8:32 AM
Amazing post Owen Pettiford, I had been looking up for such a concise and informative blog and you have
captured it nicely. Keep iup the good work!!!
Tahir z
May 6, 2015 7:44 AM
Good summarized, thanks Owen.
Daniel Graversen
Apr 30, 2015 12:39 PM
Excellent post. I can only agree with the items it is a much better platfrom.
I'm missing item 13?
Is it the longer you wait the more you will have to migrate.
Jorge Huedo
Apr 29, 2015 11:05 AM
Thanks Owen,
Very good summary of why PO and all the new things that are coming.
Owen Pettiford in response to Rajesh pasupula on page 9
Apr 29, 2015 8:16 AM
CAF and ECM can be leveraged in any scenario. Both have rich API access.
FYI - BPM standard attachments uses ECM.
CAF often used for large contexts in BPM.
Rajesh pasupula in response to Owen Pettiford on page 9
Apr 29, 2015 7:53 AM
Thanks for your responses ...
Can I ask you couple more info on usage of CAF and ECM on PO . How these can be leveraged ..Are these
mainly useful during the BPM scenarios or any other integration scenarios also ?
Thanks
Rajesh
Owen Pettiford in response to Rajesh pasupula on page 10
Apr 29, 2015 6:34 AM
Rajesh,
No I don't mean BPM Inbox, I am referring to the My Inbox Fiori Application

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SAP Process Orchestration: 13 Reasons to Migrate from SAP PI to SAP PO (and Intelligent Business
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I think you are confusing this with Value Mapping - Value Help allows me to cache F4 value help to the PO
server mainly so UI's perform quickly for drop down / look ups
Java Gateway - Yes
Rajesh pasupula
Apr 29, 2015 5:15 AM
Hi Pettiford,
Good info on benefits of switching to PO..
Here I would like to know the details on the points 5, 8 & 9.
Fiori inbox - Are you talking about the BPM inbox here ?
Value Help - What is the new about value help , was this feature not there in PI ? If this is different can you
throw more light on this please.
Java Gateway - Though I can see the Rest Adapter available now in PI , I dont think Gateway is fully
compatible with Fiori based applications..you mean we can expect this in future ?
Thanks
Rajesh

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