XI with ABAP stack only ?

Question

Looking at some very annoying problems with the XI Java Stack and applications (stability, memory consumption), following question comes to mind:
is it technically possible to run an XI system without the Java stack ? How much functionality do we have in there, can we do customers projects with that ?
In ABAP stack, we have the following functions:
- Business Process Engine
- Integration Engine
- HTTP Adapter
- IDoc Adapter
- ABAP-Mapping (XSL or handmade)
also, we have of course the functionality of using File/FTP,Mail in ABAP. This means the most important adapter types are available in ABAP (without needing the Java adapter engine).
Of course the Integration Builder is not available then. But do we really need it ?? Same applies for the SLD.
Are the pipeline objects (receiver determination, interface determination and so on) stored in the ABAP stack ? I assume that is the case. Does ABAP stack contain the XI message type objects ? Or is that stored in Java ?
Anyone tried that path ? Is it already failing in the installation because some core XI ABAP components require Java parts ? Or would it work ?
Of course the answer depends on "what do we define to be XI". For me it is the core integration engine with the pipeline architecture plus mapping and proxy extension points. Everything else (e.g. tools) needed can be built around it.
Customer benefits would be: focus on ABAP only (Java knowhow not needed), easier administration and more stability.
CSY

Answer 1

Hello Jaishankar,
> there is no transaction to replace Visual Admin (NWA from >PI7.1) functionality.
question: suppose we are not using the J2EE stack of XI, do we need the NWA ? Does NWA also contain important functions which control/configure the ABAP stack ?
>I would say Java and ABAP stacks are very tightly coupled >to each other and it would take ages to understand how >tightly it is coupled.
this would be quite bad design then. But you may be right. Current cross-calls from ABAP to Java I know:
- call Java-Mapping from ABAP pipeline. If we do not need Java mapping, this call is not needed. In ABAP, we have ABAP and XSLT mapping options
- other ? What else ? I am talking about runtime execution (pipeline), not designer tools
>For example XI is a client of SLD which runs on Java stack, >how do you think you can replace the functionality of SLD via
yes. But what does XI need from SLD ? Business systems, target transports, ok. It's a handful of objects types which can easily be maintained in the ABAP stack also. For customers which are using the SAP portal or other Java components (apart from XI), of course, that makes no sense. But for smaller customers which do not use portal: for what do they really need that SLD ? I have seen one customer recently who didnt know about the transport targets and so maintained the IR objects on the productive system manually. More an education issue, but it shows a bit that the SLD for some customers is overkill.
>improvised and will be done in the future versions. The long >term plan is to make XI a complete Java based tool. All the >developers tools will be accessed via NWDS in future"
yes, I heard that also, and it is very interesting in fact. We will see what happens
thanks for your input,
CSY