New in this release

The IBM® InfoSphere® Information Server Pack for SAP Applications has the following new capabilities.

Version 8.1.0.0

Security
  • SNC support for all stages is available, encrypted data transfer is enabled and also certificates instead of userid and password can be used for authentication in design and runtime phases.
  • A registered SAP namespace is available for SAP objects which are provided by IBM reg. Packs for SAP Applications. Objects cannot be modified by customers anymore. That prevents from accidental overwriting objects.
  • Stronger encoding logic to store SAP connection password in encrypted form.
Usability
  • ABAP stage provides dynamic gateway functionality. With this functionality stage run time will dynamically decide on the gateway host or service to be used for registering RFC server for RFC data transfer.
  • Simplified connection management: The edit function for connection management is available in SAP Administrator only. This function was removed from the individual stages. In the stage editors the connections can be selected only.
  • Extended Environment variables support:
    • With DS_DELTA_EXTRACT_DATA_FETCHMODE the mode selected in GUI can be overwritten.
    • DSR3_ENABLE_UNICODE_TRANSITION can be used for jobs which are migrated from Non-Unicode to Unicode SAP connection.
Maintainability
  • Additional information is written to log files: Information about SAP version, more details on Delta Extract and IDOC stages, code page information.
Documentation
  • Updated documentation in Knowledge Center.
  • Updated related Technotes

Version 8.0.0.3

ABAP Stage
  • With bgRFC it is now possible to transfer data adhering to the data package sequence. This capability is due to the newly supported bgRFC with qRFC protocol in the ABAP stage.
  • Two listeners are now started by default, improving performance and reliability of the data transfer from SAP to DataStage when the stage is used in sequential mode.
Delta Extract Stage
  • Improved handling for SAP DataSource selection.
  • Clarified which SAP DataSources are supported. Details were added in the documentation, the stage user interface, and the job runtime logs.
IDOC Stage
  • Automatic log deletion can now be configured through environment variables.
Documentation
  • Updated documentation in Knowledge Center.
  • Updated related Technotes

Version 8.0.0.2

ABAP Stage
  • Support protocol bgRFC: Stability and performance improvements for extracting a large amount of data.
  • Multi-instance job support: Instances of the same job can run with different parameters.
  • Row count check: Data inconsistencies can be detected early and easily.
BAPI Stage
  • Support table parameter: TYPE. New function to extract / load data of format TYPE.
  • Support dynamic memory allocation for Load/Extract/Table parameters.
Delta extract Stage
  • Maintenance and operability improvements regarding logging and out of memory situations.
IDOC Stage and reg. RM/RG
  • Minor quality issues resolved.
DataStage SAP Administrator
  • A user authorization concept regarding connections provided.
Documentation
  • Updated documentation in Knowledge Center.
  • Updated related Technotes

Version 8.0.0.1

  • Replacement of development SAP C-RFC SDK by SAP Netweaver RFC SDK as the former is being deprecated by SAP.
  • The ABAP extraction is improved to detect listener conflict on the same RFC destination (JR50473).
  • Updated documentation in Knowledge Center, including links to external technotes.

Version 8.0

  • A new Delta Extract Stage is introduced which allows you to extract full or delta data from SAP DataSources.
  • Enhancements to the functionality and fixes in the existing stages.

Version 7.1

  • Major enhancements to the user interface of InfoSphere Rapid Modeler for SAP Applications and InfoSphere Rapid Generator for SAP Applications.

Version 7.0

ABAP stage
  • CPI-C is no longer supported as a data transfer method for ABAP.
  • tRFC cleanup functionality.
IDoc Connector stages
  • IDoc Connectors are new active stages with improved error handling.
  • Unified column interface with same technical fields for IDoc Connector Load and IDoc Connector Extract stages.
  • Parallel canvas support for both IDoc Connector stages and parallel engine support for IDoc Load Connector.
  • No server engine support.
BAPI stage
  • BAPI stage can now issue more than one BAPI call within one transaction.
New tools
  • IBM InfoSphere Data Architect Rapid Modeler for SAP Applications can be used to extract the selected metadata from an SAP system and import it to an InfoSphere Data Architect Logical Data Model.
  • The IBM InfoSphere Rapid Generator for SAP Applications is an extension of IBM InfoSphere Data Architect that generates DataStage jobs that extract data from or load data to an SAP system.
  • CPI-C to RFC migration tool is used to migrate ABAP jobs that were previously configured to use the CPI-C data transfer method.
  • IPv6 support.