ILM (MIIS) and the Microsoft ERP Management Agent - Part 3

In my previous post, I provided an overview of how we communicate within .NET to SAP Systems. Now, let’s take a look at how this relates to ILM (MIIS). The ERP MA provides a tool called to build the connector space. (Yes, you must build out your connector space by (1) defining the schema of attributes and (2) declaring what BAPIs to invoke and where (add, replace, delete, setpassword). This is accomplished through the ERP Configuration Tool. The document recommends using the provided template files to get started; however in my experience they were much harder to customize. IMHO it was much easier to build my connector space from scratch.

Once you’ve completed, you can create the SAP MA which to do so, you need to input the XML configuration file that is created by the ECT. You should then be able to see the entire attribute list with all the normal functions of any other management agent.

How do my previous posts relate to where we are now; well here is how the MA works.

1. Building the ERP MA configuration file using the ECT; the configuration of the MA is performed by discovering the SAP environment using the SAP connector for Microsoft .NET 2.0 and generating an XML. This essentially discovers all the BAPIs and stores them in a local cache file.
2. Configuration UI communicates with SAP to discover the BAPIs and other configuration for display.
3. XML configuration, proxy assemblies and schema definition file generated by the UI. You are building out your connector space.
4. Creation of the MA happens in MIIS and consumes schema file which MIIS uses to synchronize with SAP.
5. ERP MA SAP assembly consumes XML configuration and proxy assemblies at run time provides wrapper to RFC calls directly to SAP Server
   The diagram below (provided from the CHM) details what happens under the covers.

Now that you understand the process for communication, you can now proceed to determine what to do with the data you import/export. Key things to understand when using the Microsoft ERP MA are the following:

***Understand the process of Alias and Alias-referencing. That is the core of how the MA works.