SAP NetWeaver AddOn for Event Enablement - now also released for S/4HANA

[martin_bachmann]

Last year this Blog announced the availability of a new add-on for older releases of SAP NetWeaver (SAP NetWeaver, add-on for event enablement), allowing the customers of SAP ECC and similar SAP products based on SAP NetWeaver to enable own events as needed for their integration and extension requirements. This add-on received a lot of attention, many customers started with this add-on their journey to the Event-driven architecture. But customers were also asking the question why we are not supporting the usage of this add-on also for S/4HANA? Of course, there are already events exposed for S/4HANA. But it was not possible to extend these built-in events and create new events for other objects.

Listening to your feedback we are now also releasing the add-on for event enablement on S/4HANA for all customers with a valid support contract without any additional costs. This will help on the one side all the customers who already created own SAP ECC events (especially events with own additional customer specific logic). They can now re-use most of the coding on S/4HANA. And on the other side it will help those customers who are starting today fresh on S/4HANA and who have requirements going beyond the already published events. The add-on will be able to send and receive events from the SAP Event Mesh service.

The Events already available on S/4HANA will continue to be available and will also receive additional enhancements over time. Customers will be able to use both approaches in parallel to send Events over to the SAP Event Mesh service. A migration from one technology to the other will not be possible as both technical implementations are quite different.

More details about the (not so) new AddOn are available here:

• https://blogs.sap.com/2020/10/02/sap-enterprise-messaging-for-sap-erp-howto-guide-part-1-connectivit...


• https://blogs.sap.com/2020/10/08/sap-enterprise-messaging-for-sap-erp-howto-guide-part-2-first-use-c...

 

[AntonPierhagen]

Hi Martin

Thanks! That will help us very much.

I am curious, what was the reason for SAP not to add the functionality so that users can create their own custom events/ topics in S4 and ECC at first hand when Event Messaging was brought as a product for S/4 and ECC ?

Besides the default ones from SAP itself?

Kind regards,

Anton Pierhagen

[kevin_wilson2]

Anton,

I am not aware that you are not able to create a custom event to be triggered out of ECC. If you create a custom event in SWO1 and then configure it to be sent, it should be... At least that was our experience when we POC'd it.

[Vijay]

Wonderful.. we had been waiting for this for quite some time now. Time to explore 🙂

[taranam]

Hi Martin ,

Thanks for sharing this information.But this is confusing for S/4HANA Customers as SAP gave framework for Event handling and had been mentioning that same will be enhanced for custom events .

With some automation and changes ; setting up Custom Topics can be easily enabled and that will mean one framework for customer as only constraint is entry in table BEH_I_EVENT(As its system table ) . Otherwise purpose of giving Event Mesh using Topics is defeated and customers will end up following 2 options one using ADD ON and one for standard in S/4HANA .

What's SAP direction for S/4HANA Customers beyond 2020 version as I don't find much details on Roadmap . Have you enabled add on for S/4HANA Customers for time being and eventually SAP plans to follow one approach or we always have to follow 2 options in S/4HANA going forward  ?

tobias.griebe : Tobias ; tagging you in this thread too as we had prior discussions .

Regards

Taranam

[former_member81638]

Hi Taranam / SMEs

Can you please kindly shed some light on what steps are required to set up custom 'topic filters' in S4 Hana (on-premises)? I am trying to send an event from S4 Hana (on-prem) to Event Mesh when an EAM (PM) Maintenance Order has been created (or changed) but I do not see a 'topic filter' for EAM Maintenance in transaction /IWXBE/OUTBOUND_CFG (please see below). How does one add a custom 'topic filter' in transaction /IWXBE/OUTBOUND_CFG (Outbound Binding Configuration). Thank you.

Kind regards,

Brendon

[taranam]

hi Brendon ,

You need to check first if Event Mesh is supported for this scenario in SAP API Business Hub or check in View V_BOEEVENT . If its not there you cannot use it in Topics.

SAP is suggesting to use add on for scenarios where we need custom events ; for using in topics otherwise we need to maintain entry in V_BOEEVENT in addition to many configurations which I tried as part of Customer requirement . But as table of events is System table ; changes are not recommended as they will be lost after upgrade.

I am also waiting for SAP response on what's their direction to use ADD ON or they plan to add custom events in next release. Probably you can ask the same in Event Mesh Community as that has broader acceess

Regards

Taranam

[former_member81638]

Hi Taranam

Thanks for the feedback. I was hoping to get EAM (PM) Maintenance Order events working without the add-on.

Thanks and regards,

Brendon

 

[ttrapp]

Hi Martin,

I have two questions. Do we need additional licenses?

Is MQTT supported? This is necessary for high volume scenarios.

Best Regards,
Tobias

[martin_bachmann]

Hello Tobias,

no additional license is required for using the new AddOn. And the communication between ABAP and BTP is using REST protocol (the AddOn is available down to NW 7.31...). The SAP Event Mesh service is then supporting MQTT.

Best regards,

Martin

[martin_bachmann]

Hello Taranam,

I would suggest to check also with the ABAP RAP community for the roadmap to support also RAP based Events as this could be next step in event definition on ABAP without the AddOn.

Martin

[taranam]

Thanks Martin

[vidyadhar2k2]

Hi Martin, Thank you for the nice blog!

Does this add-on support connectivity with any message broker (Azure ESB, Rabbit MQ etc ) or only with SAP Event Mesh?

Regards,

Vidyadhar

[martin_bachmann]

Hello Vidyadhar,

The add-on will be able to send and receive events from the SAP Event Mesh service

From the SAP Event Mesh service or the Integration Suite you can then connect to Azure, Kafka, ...

Martin

[former_member105215]

Hi Martin! Thank you for the response! I guess if Netweaver Addon supports REST protocol then it might be possible to directly connect with Azure ESB or any message broker that supports REST protocol.

I need to dig into this more and if I find more then I will keep you posted.

Thanks,

Vidyadhar K

[Former Member]

Hello martin.bachmann and thanks for this information. What is strangely not clear with your statement that "we are now also releasing the add-on for event enablement on S/4HANA for all customers", is whether this includes S/4 Cloud Customers ?

If this AddOn will also be available for Cloud customers, then it would appear the concept of 'Clean Core' has been somewhat abandoned by SAP, and if not, then this AddOn is only available for On-Prem customers, despite SAP's insistence that everyone should adopt a Cloud-first strategy.

If I guess correctly, customers wanting to move beyond SAP's former "API-first" mantra to adopt EDA(-first) -- who will ALWAYS have a need for at least a few custom Events and therefore a need for this AddOn -- must therefore necessarily remain On-Prem should they wish to go full EDA ?

Regards, Cameron

[benjamin_kaiser]

Hello martin.bachmann , where can i find the add on package for ECC ? In SAP Support Portal i didn'f found any download link (we use Netweaver 7.5)

Regards,Benjamin

[martin_bachmann]

For me it is this URL: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/products/73554900100900005152, is this working for you?

 

[benjamin_kaiser]

Of course the Link is working fine, but for me the Download Area is empty.

[martin_bachmann]

You need also a license for the SAP Event Mesh service, like CPEA. As the SAP Event Mesh is the only possible connection for the Event AddOn, we are checking in the download area if this entitlement is available.

[benjamin_kaiser]

Thanks for the information, we'll check it.

[Former Member]

Hello martin.bachmann, can I ask what happens if customers install this Add-On throughout their Landscape, and then eventually decide to discontinue their POCs with Event Mesh.

Given they will no longer have an Event Mesh licence, does this mean they will be legally obliged to uninstall the Add-On throughout their Landscape (even if they no longer make use of it) ?

Regards, Cameron

[martin_bachmann]

Hello Cameron,

I don't see an issue here as you are no longer using the software. But having unused AddOns in the system should be avoided, so this note describes the de-installation: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2927040 .

Of course we would be interested to learn more, why you are discontinuing the PoC with Event Mesh...

Best regards, Martin

[Former Member]

Hello again martin.bachmann. Could you please answer my question, given its fundamental importance.

As an Integration consultant, I absolutely need to know whether "the add-on for event enablement on S/4HANA for all customers", is equally planned for 'S/4 Cloud' Customers ?

[CH06]

Hello martin.bachmann, would you please be so kind as to state publicly whether or not SAP has any plans to include "the Add-on for Event Enablement on S/4HANA" (Private and/or Public) CLOUD?

If this is indeed planned, please also be so kind as to provide the estimated timing for delivery?

This question is fundamental to what your customers can or cannot do with S/4HANA CLOUD in the future, so I would very much appreciate a response to my question from November 2021.

Regards, Cameron

 

 

 

 

[LouisHuang]

Hi. Martin.

How are you? It`s really a nice blog.

I do know that Netweaver addon for event enablement is fine for S4HANA and ECC.

However I can only see standard erp event list for S4HANA from sap api hub website.

Will ECC have the same event list as S4HANA if I install Netweaver addon for event enablement in ECC?

Or where can I get standard event list for ECC?

Thanks a lot.

BR.

Louis Huang.

[lynap]

Hi,

Is there a plan to support other event providers than only the BTP Event Mesh? If not, is there a possibility to write a user-exit or badi to use our own abap code and send the event to other event providers such as Kafka?

Thanks,
Ly-Na

[S0019300750]

Hello martin.bachmann ,

Thank you for informative blog.

In Product Availability Matrix, I see that SAP NetWeaver, add-on for event enablement  is supported only until end of 2027.

 

What is future for this solution especially for S/4HANA customers?

 

Regards,

Vinod Patil

[cordialsarthak]

Hi vinod.patil,

As mentioned by martin.bachmann in the comment on 29 June 2021, RAP Business Events will probably be the future. The good news is that in on-premise deployments RAP Business Events can now be created from S/4HANA OP 2022.

Probably because of which the maintenance stream for the add-on will end by Dec 2027.

Best regards,
Sarthak Gupta

[mig1]

@cordialsarthak, can you point to an official link that maintenance will end by Dec 2027?