Delta between Business Connector 4.8 and 4.7

[Former Member]

This seemed like the most logical place to put my post so here it goes..

We are assessing our options for replacing/upgrading existing Business Connector installations that will shortly be out of support (OSS Note 571530).Whilst researching our options I have come across OSS Note 1094412 which describes a new version of 4.8 becoming available in July 2008.

Information on BC4.8 is virtually non-existent on the web - can anyone provide me with details of the delta between 4.7 and 4.8, licensing structure, hardware requirements, support/maintenance strategy and ease of migration from 4.6/4.7 to 4.8?

As an aside it is very interesting that SAP has chosen to provide BC 4.8, presumably to ensure BC can continue to runs on supported O/S' and Java environments, when SAP XI/PI is being touted as the de facto integrator for companies with a significant SAP presence. Maybe customers are not quite as keen to move on/remove their BC instances as SAP would hope...

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Daniel,

We have been on this topic for years (some vested interest through product development).

What seems to have happened, from what we can gather, is that Netweaver XI/PI uptake hasn't happened as fast as initially hoped (SAP was looking at an intial end of life of Dec 2004 for BC).

The case is quite simple. BC is free, easy to install and maintain. XI/PI, new product, takes a while to stabilize, much more feature rich, but at the same time more complex and less performing (and did I mention the license cost?).

What we know about BC 4.8 and this is purely based on talking to people and reading about it, we have not seen / tested BC 4.8 ourselves - Mainly a platform upgrade, no significant changes. Most likely free as well (the original contract states that if SAP charges money for BC they have to pay extra to Webmethods / Software AG) accordingly. I would expect to see a few new built-in function and hopefully some hooks into standard SAP monitoring tools.

I think you hit the nail on the head. We have seen customers panic and move to non-Netweaver platforms from BC to be on a supported solution (back when EOL was imminent before 4.8 was released). Why non-Netweaver? Because many customers use non-SAP Integration Products as well and they tend to drift to known solutions instead of trying to manage the risk of migrating to a unfamiliar product.

I would not expect any major changes that would make migration to 4.8 hard. If there would be some major issues then that would signal some significant developments from SAP and that would be a strange thing at this point of the product lifecycle.

End of life for BC 4.8 is in 2012 or thereabouts if I remember correctly, this was part of some note which was released/updated towards the end of last year.

You might want to make some design calls if you continue developing your integration scenarios on BC. The best format to allow for an easy / relatively painfree migration to PI one day is by using BC graphical MAPS where possible, NOT XSL maps as wrongfully indicated in so many previous posts and articles. XSL is the hardest format to migrate to PI even though it might look superficially as a compatible format...

Cheers

Kalle

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Kalle,

I absolutely disagree with the fact that it would not be easy to migrate an XSL to PI.

I have done a lot of them last years, without any pain.

If you don't use any XSLT extensions it is very easy to reuse!

If you do use the extensions, you will have to take care of that part, because you have to import the java extensions into PI or rewrite them in ABAP

if you want to use an ABAP-XSLT mapping.

I don't understand that you say that it is easier to migrate the SAP BC graphical maps to PI.

Regards,

Mark

[Former Member]

Hello Christian,

where can I find the Transfer package? I can't find it on the SAP Market Place under http://service.sap.com/connectors.

Best regards,

Rainer

[Former Member]

yes, the transfer package is a bit hidden. You find it under "Documentation", and then under SAP BC Transfer Tool and SAP BC Migration Guide

CSY

[Former Member]

Many thanks for the replies. The documentation on SAP BC4.8 has also been updated so I will work through that to see if I can establish the deltas.

Interestingly OSS Note 1094412 has been updated and confirms support of SAP BC4.8 out to 31st March 2016 - this is a big shock in my eyes and really removes some of the incentives to move to SAP XI/PI.

[Former Member]

I would not call that a shock, but good news

You can reward answers if helpful.

CSY

[jrgen_utecht2]

Hi Daniel!

The most interesting delta is the support till 2016....

4.8. will be shipped with Java VM, so there is no need to find ans install the right version...

One reason for missing documentation might be the new book from Gallileo Press..

"SAP Business Connector u2013 Applications and Development "

I´m searching since 2 hours for a way to get the new software - no luck so far...

Regards

Juergen

[Former Member]

Hello,

there may be other ways, but here is how you can access the BC 4.8 download:

http://service.sap.com/connectors

Login to marketplace.

you should see now on the left side the Connectors tree view.

Choose SAP Business Connector and below: Tools and Services.

Full path in tree:

SAP Netweaver / SAP Netweaver in detail / Application Platform / Connectivity / Connectors / SAP Business Connector

CSY

[Former Member]

Hello Daniel,

4.8 will be released in 2.July (at least this was the plan), so you can download it soon. There will be a Migration Guide document on the SAP marketplace which describes how to proceed for migration. One of the goals of 4.8 was to keep migration as easy as possible. Because of Java 5 and JCo 3 reasons, some work may be needed for Java Services, depends on your implementation.

There will also be a Transfer package, which allows you to transfer existing configuration data from 4.6/4.7 to 4.8.

If you have more questions, contact me. I was part of the development team for 4.8, and wrote a book on BC 4.8, but this will be available only in German for the first edition.

Hardware sizing is comparable to 4.7

Performance for large IDocs will be better because of optimized memory management.

4.8 is a maintenance release to lift BC to current OS/JDK versions.

CSY