Mainstream maintenance for SAP Process Orchestration (SAP PO) 7.5 ends at the end of 2027, and SAP's cloud counterpart is SAP Integration Suite. The real work of the migration is not copying interfaces but deciding, for each one, whether a tool moves it or it is redesigned.
Migration steps
Analysis
An inventory of the existing SAP PI/PO and SAP NWBPM systems is taken: the interfaces, adapters and protocols in use, and the message frequency and volume of each integration. Processes that are unsuitable for migration or will not be continued are identified, and the integrations to be moved are split into phases.
Assessment
The Migration Assessment capability of SAP Integration Suite extracts data from the SAP PO system, evaluates the scenarios and estimates the effort. Scenarios are flagged "Ready to migrate", "Adjustment required" or "Evaluation required". According to SAP, "Ready to migrate" does not mean the migration tool will do everything automatically. The project plan is finalised with this effort estimate.
Choosing the approach
In the standard approach each scenario becomes its own iFlow and error handling comes only as a stub. The pipeline approach uses generic flows, the Partner Directory and shared JMS queues, and brings ready-made restart handling with a single XI and IDoc endpoint.
Migration
The migration tooling is part of SAP CPI (Cloud Integration) and moves ICO and receiver determination objects based on patterns. On the SAP PO side it needs 7.31 SP28, 7.40 SP23 or 7.50 SP06 and later; the ESR and Integration Directory are reached through SAP Cloud Connector.
Testing and go-live
We test the migrated flow with the same test messages as the SAP PO scenario and switch off the old scenario only once the results match.
Items the tool does not move and that are rebuilt by hand
The known limitations SAP publishes for the migration tool show where the effort goes:
- Standard and custom adapter modules are not taken over automatically; they are rewritten as Groovy or JavaScript scripts.
- A JDBC sender that selects and updates records in the same transaction is not supported; it is usually redesigned with a stored procedure and status flags.
- JDBC and RFC lookups are rebuilt by hand.
- 1:N, N:1 and N:M mappings are not moved by the tool.
- EOIO ordering is not preserved by itself; it is built with a JMS queue in Exclusive access mode.
- Java mappings are moved with a Groovy wrapper or rewritten.
- SAP NWBPM processes are outside the tool's scope; for the cloud target see our SAP NWBPM article.
Adapter equivalents
Based on SAP's migration guide for SAP PO and the current adapter list, the standard adapters map as follows:
| SAP PO | SAP Integration Suite |
|---|---|
| AS2 | AS2 or AS4 adapter |
| File | FTP, SFTP or SMB adapter; NFS adapter on Edge Integration Cell |
| IDoc (AAE) | IDoc adapter; IDocs arrive over HTTP |
| JMS | AMQP, Advanced Event Mesh, IBM MQ or JMS adapter |
| REST | HTTP adapter plus flow steps |
| SOAP (XI 3.0) | XI adapter |
| RFC sender | Only in Edge Integration Cell; in the cloud tenant the call is switched to a SOAP outbound proxy on the ABAP side |
| OFTP | OFTP2 adapter in Edge Integration Cell |
| X.400 | Listed as planned in the guide |
When Edge Integration Cell comes into play
For scenarios built with SAP PI between two on-premise systems, SAP positions Edge Integration Cell as a migration path. The flow is designed and monitored in the cloud and runs on the company's Kubernetes cluster; messages do not pass through the internet. It is used for data that must not leave the company network, for NFS file transfer and for the RFC sender adapter. In countries such as Türkiye, where regulations require some data to stay in the country, it is the most suitable option for that data.
With this option the customer operates the cluster, the database (PostgreSQL or SAP HANA in production) and the updates. The SAP HANA licence is not included.
Differences in monitoring and operations
In SAP CPI (Cloud Integration) the Monitor and the message processing log replace the SAP PO message monitor; SAP calls the log Message Processing Log, MPL for short. Monitoring data is kept for 30 days by default; for longer retention it is moved to a CMIS-compliant archive. With the log level set to Trace, the message content at each flow step can also be seen. For central monitoring and alerting SAP points to SAP Cloud ALM.
SAP operates the cloud tenant and updates it with regular software increments. Those updates can create work on the customer side too: with the move to the Groovy 4 script runtime some import statements can cause compilation errors, and SAP provides an Upgrade Readiness Check for this.
Licensing
SAP Integration Suite is bought on a subscription or consumption-based model and some capabilities depend on the edition. Availability of Migration Assessment and the migration tooling also depends on the service plan. We have collected the details in our SAP PI/PO and SAP Integration Suite licensing article.
We describe how we run migration projects on our SAP Integration Suite consulting page.