SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (PI) is SAP's implementation of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) middleware service bus. It facilitates the integration of business processes that span different software components, departments, and organizations. Since Process Integration server is the heart of integration in an enterprise, it is very important to maintain high availability of the system for uninterrupted data exchange across the landscape.

Central PI monitoring in SAP Solution Manager provides unified alert notifications, exceptions and status of PI components from a single-entry point. It also provides options to navigate to details of such exceptions in the respective host system. It becomes easier for addressing the issues more quickly and efficiently.

• Monitor availability of PI component in entire PI domain (distributed across multiple technical systems in your global landscape)
• Monitor PI communication channel availability for all central and de-central adapter engines in the entire PI domain from central SAP Solution Manager
• Monitor PI messages (errors, backlog and message flow) on all PI components in the PI domain
• Search for payload in PI messages across multiple PI components in the PI domainAlert erroneous PI messages based on PI alert rules (also single PI message

Continuous Business Availability – Centralized monitoring of PI domain helps to accelerate the problem resolution process. This leads to high availability of Process Integration server and the data exchange between the systems are uninterrupted,  hence the high availability of the application.

Central Entry Point – Growing PI landscape complexity and distribution leads to growing requirements towards a central monitoring approach.

Reduced TCO – Simplification of operations processes by providing one single entry point for all component monitors for overall PI domain status. Additional drill down option provides detailed information up to the host level. This reduces the overall problem resolution time and the number of resources involved in the investigation of issues.

Integration – Tightly integrated with other SAP Solution Manager tools such as System Monitoring and Root Cause Analysis, Alerting Infrastructure, Notification, and Incident Management.

Production Resources Freed – Central collection of monitored data relieves the production system from additional burden of monitoring.

Self Check – Self-check feature provides availability of monitored components.

Message Monitoring – Operations support must be able to monitor and query all interfaces based on the date and time triggered, the sender and receiver systems, processing time, errors (if any), and other attributes. Messages will need to be uniquely identified so that they can be traced easily.

Payload Query – The system administrator and any other relevant business/support personnel should be able to query messages based on the contents of the payload. For example, search for messages that have been sent to a procurement system by the Purchase Order Number or Vendor ID within a given date & time interval.

The new Central PI Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager 7.2 supports SAP PI Administrators, Application Support Users, and Operation Control Center Users to monitor theirs PI Landscapes. The main use cases are as follows:

1. Proactive monitoring – Receive notifications and incidents for PI related issues. E.g. PI channel errors, PI component not available, erroneous PI message for interface xyc, in status abc, in component 123.
2. Check the overall status of multiple PI Domains in one screen (components, channels, messages, etc.) by selecting them in an easy and fast way.
3. The Component Monitor provides you with an overview about all important PI components (cross PI domains) such as: Adapter Engine, Mapping Run-time and Integration Directory. Additionally, you can execute Ping and/or PI Self-Test for all components.
4. The Channel Monitor provides you with an overview about all PI Channels (cross PI domains). Additionally, you can Start, Stop, and Ping the PI Channels in a central place.
5. The Message Monitor provides you with an overview about the PI message statistics. You can restart and cancel PI messages and use a graphical visualization to analysis the PI message over time.
6. The Message Search Monitor helps you search for payload in PI messages across multiple PI components in the PI domain.
7. The Message based alerts helps you alert erroneous PI messages based on PI alert rules.

Available features for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 Central PI Monitoring depending on PI system release. All the features mentioned in older releases are included in the newer ones.

Example: SAP PI 7.31 would have Central User-Defined Search and Enhanced Component-Based Message Alerting plus all the features indicated for SAP PI 7.11 releases.