Release Notes for Version 5.4.0 of the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapter for mySAP.com (for SAP R/3, Version 4.x)

These release notes cover release information for version 5.4.0 of the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapter for mySAP.com (for SAP R/3, Version 4.x). They contain the following sections:
New in this release Installation, migration, upgrade, and configuration information
Product fix history WebSphere Business Integration Adapters API and run time
Backward compatibility Known problems and workarounds
Hardware and software requirements Documentation updates

Note: Important information about this product may be available in Technical Support Flashes issued after these release notes were published. These can be found on the WebSphere Business Integration support Web site, http://www.ibm.com/websphere/integration/wbiserver/support. Select the component area of interest and search the flashes section.

New in this release

This section lists the new features and improvements made in this release.

Refer to the Adapter for mySAP.com (SAP R/3 V. 4.x) User Guide for detailed information about the adapter and the new features.

Product fix history

Between releases 5.3.0 and 5.4.0, the following CRs, based on customer-reported cases, were fixed.

CR number Description
20165 The connector restarts as an Object Activation Daemon (OAD) on Solaris and AIX. Changes have been made to the start_sap.sh script to pass in the library path. Also, if InterChange Server is the integration broker, this fix requires InterChange Server patch version 4.1.1.6. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
20328 The Extension Module now supports objects with hierarchy levels greater than eight. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
20700 The RFC Server module is required to logon to the SAP system.  For multi-byte languages, the character set of the SAP system is needed to correctly interpret the data.  Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22073 For the AIX platform, changes have been made to the ALE Module to allow newer versions of jCO to work. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22130 The Extension Module now handles an object key that has name-value pairs in which a key has no value. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22220 Generating objects from IDoc types that have non-alphanumeric characters results in an error stating that a child object attribute cannot be created. Non-alphanumeric characters, for example the forward slash ( / ), are not replaced with an allowable character. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22314 The RFC Server Module needs a change to the generated code in order for data to be returned properly when the return status code is VALCHANGE. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22390 The ALE Module has improved performance for service call request processing by archiving the successful TID management messages to the file system. This keeps in check the growth of the SAPtid queue. A new configuration property, ArchiveDays, determines how long to keep the TID management messages in the file system. The default is seven days. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22406 The Extension Module has been improved to handle a larger volume of events when the connector runs in multi-threaded mode. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22469 The BAPI and RFC Server Modules had DATE and TIME field values prefixed to subsequent attribute values. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22476 The connector no longer creates an MQ session for connection to an MQ queue manager if only the RFC Server Module is specified. An MQ session is needed only for the ALE Module. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22606 Events for the ALE Module are now retrieved properly from the Event queue when using WebSphere MQ 5.3 rather than remaining on the Event queue. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
22926 For all modules, the connector now handles the Java exception IllegalMonitorStateException if the number of concurrent flows is greater than the number of connections to the SAP system. Fixed in Patch 5.3.1.
23653 The BAPI and RFC Server Modules now accept DATE and TIME field values with their formatting delimiters. See Backward compatibility for more details. Fixed in Patch 5.3.2.
24151 The ALE Module now removes a leading space that was prepended to the values of the control record object. Fixed in Patch 5.3.2.

Backward compatibility

Beginning with adapter version 5.2.3, formatting delimiters were removed from the DATE and TIME field values of objects for the RFC Server and BAPI Modules. This was done so that values accurately conform to their maximum lengths specified in the business object: 8 for DATE, 6 for TIME; the delimiters inaccurately extended both of these by 2.

If you wish to maintain the delimiters (for example, existing map/collaboration content that expects this format), set the new configuration property, DateTimeFormat, to "Legacy" so that DATE and TIME field values retain their formatting delimiters.

Hardware and software requirements

Hardware and software requirements are included in the product documentation. See Installation, migration, upgrade, and configuration information for links to those guides.

Installation, migration, upgrade, and configuration information

Installation information

Whether you are installing the software from the CD or downloading it from Passport Advantage and installing it from a local directory, refer to the appropriate guide:

These guides also include general migration, upgrade, and configuration information.

For hardware and software requirements and configuration information specific to this adapter, refer to the Adapter for mySAP.com (SAP R/3 V. 4.x) User Guide.

Upgrade notes

WebSphere Business Integration Adapters API and run time

Make sure that you run adapters with WebSphere Business Integration Adapters (WBIA) run-time version 1.5.0 or later.

Verifying the version of WBIA run time

To check the version of WBIA run time, locate the manifest file (ProductDir\lib\WBIA.jar) and open it in a suitable Java JAR editor. Look for the following lines:

Implementation-Title: "CWConnectorAPI"
Implementation-Version: 1.5.0
Implementation version indicates the current version of WBIA API.

If the version is not 1.5.0 or later, you must download the latest WBIA run time.

Downloading the WBIA run time

To download the latest version of the WBIA run time:

  1. Go to http://www.ibm.com.
  2. Click the Support and downloads tab.
  3. Under the Downloads heading, click All downloads & drivers.
  4. In the Enter search terms field, type "wbia api" and click Submit.

After you download and install the run time, you should see the following files:

lib\WBIA.jar
lib\WBIA\3.0.0\WBIA.jar
lib\WBIA\4.0.0\WBIA.jar
lib\WBIA\4.1.1\WBIA.jar
bin\CWConnEnv.bat (Windows)
bin/CWConnEnv.sh (UNIX)
bin\CWODAEnv.bat (Windows)
bin/CWODAEnv.sh (UNIX)
connectors\messages\CwConnectorAgentMessages.txt

Enabling adapters for earlier versions of Adapter Development Kit and InterChange Server

To enable an adapter to work with various versions of ADK or InterChange Server, follow the appropriate procedure below:

InterChange Server versions 4.0.1 and 4.1.0, ADK versions 2.0.x

Windows: In CWConnEnv.bat, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.X.

set CWVERSION="4.X"

UNIX: In CWConnEnv.sh, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.X.

set CWVERSION="4.X"
InterChange Server versions 4.1.x (except 4.1.0), ADK versions 2.1.x

Windows: In CWConnEnv.bat, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.1.X.

set CWVERSION="4.1.X"

UNIX: In CWConnEnv.sh, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.1.X.

set CWVERSION="4.1.X"
Running an Object Discovery Agent (ODA) against InterChange Server versions 4.0.1 and 4.1.x, ADK versions 2.0.x and 2.1.x

Windows: In bin\CWODAEnv.bat, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.1.X.

set CWVERSION="4.1.X"

UNIX: In bin/CWODAEnv.sh, set the CWVERSION variable to 4.1.X.

set CWVERSION="4.1.X"

Known problems and workarounds

The following problems have been found in this release:

CR number Description
23491 In the SAP ODA, the maximum length for BCD type fields is calculated using the internal length for the field rather than the length described in the table.

Workaround: Use Business Object Designer to correct the maximum length property for the attribute.

23922 In the SAP ODA, fields created in a language other than English may cause a StringIndexOutOfRange exception. If the English language has not been maintained in the SAP system for the field, using the description as the attribute name causes the exception.

Workaround: Use the option of generating attribute names from the field names.

23869 The ALE Module can cause an OutOfMemory error if a large number of events are being processed. This module maintains an internal queue of individual business objects to account for multiple objects that may be in an IDOC packet, that is, in one Event message. If the number of business objects in the internal queue increases faster than the number being processed, memory consumption also increases.

Workaround: Increase the maximum heap size in the start script.


Documentation updates

Product documentation is not included as part of the product package, either by CD or electronic product distribution. The documentation for this product can be found in the following InfoCenters:

To obtain the product documentation, visit the Web site and download the current documentation set for the release that you are using. Follow the instructions provided on the InfoCenter page to complete the installation.

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