In the world of enterprise application integration, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) remains a widely used protocol for exchanging structured information in web services. SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI) provides robust support for SOAP-based communication through its SOAP adapters, enabling seamless connectivity with SOAP web services in both cloud and on-premise systems.
This article explores the essentials of configuring SOAP adapters in SAP CPI, including their key features, configuration steps, and best practices to ensure reliable and secure SOAP message processing.
A SOAP adapter in SAP CPI serves as a communication channel that sends or receives SOAP messages between the integration flow and external web services. It supports both synchronous and asynchronous message exchange patterns, making it suitable for a variety of integration scenarios.
SAP CPI offers two main types of SOAP adapters:
Within your integration flow in the SAP CPI Web UI, add a SOAP sender or SOAP receiver adapter depending on the direction of communication:
For the SOAP Receiver Adapter, specify the target service’s endpoint URL. For the Sender Adapter, CPI will expose an endpoint URL that external clients can consume.
You can upload or link the WSDL file that defines the SOAP service contract. CPI uses this to validate message structure and generate the necessary message headers.
SOAP adapters support WS-Security standards to secure message exchange:
You can upload certificates and configure key stores directly within the SAP CPI tenant.
Within your integration flow, you can use content modifiers, mappings, and scripts to transform the SOAP message payload as needed before sending or after receiving messages.
Once configured, test the SOAP endpoint with sample payloads. Use SAP CPI’s Monitoring Dashboard to track message processing status, failures, and performance metrics.
SOAP adapters in SAP CPI provide flexible and powerful mechanisms to integrate SOAP-based web services in hybrid cloud and on-premise environments. Proper configuration of these adapters is essential to ensure secure, reliable, and performant communication between systems.
By understanding the key configuration steps—from setting endpoints and WSDLs to enabling security and advanced options—developers can build robust integration scenarios that leverage the full potential of SAP CPI’s integration capabilities.