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Jaspreet Bagga

A Practical Guide to SAP Integration

Suite
SAP’s Cloud Middleware and Integration Solution
Jaspreet Bagga
Texas, TX, USA

ISBN 978-1-4842-9336-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9337-9

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9337-9

© Jaspreet Bagga 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
I dedicate this book to my valued customers, who have entrusted me with
the important task of integrating their SAP systems with other critical
applications. It has been my absolute privilege to work with you on
hundreds of successful integration projects over the years, and I am
grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of your digital
transformation journey. Your trust, collaboration, and feedback have
been instrumental in helping me grow and improve as a consultant.
Introduction
Welcome to the world of SAP Integration! Over the past few years, SAP
has emerged as one of the leading providers of ERP solutions for
businesses of all sizes. With its suite of powerful tools and applications,
SAP has become the go-to choice for organizations looking to
streamline their operations and improve their bottom line. However, as
businesses grow and evolve, they often find themselves working with
multiple SAP or non-SAP systems that need to be integrated seamlessly
to increase efficiency, improve user experience, avoid duplication, and
reduce errors.
That’s where the SAP Integration Suite comes in. This suite of tools
and technologies enables businesses to connect different SAP and non-
SAP systems and applications, allowing for real-time data exchange and
streamlined workflows. As an SAP Integration consultant to hundreds
of businesses, I have spent years working with different SAP systems
and helping businesses set up seamless integrations. I have been
fortunate to work with some of the best minds in the industry. However,
I also know that mastering the SAP Integration Suite can be a daunting
task, especially for those who are new to the field. Therefore, I wrote
this book to provide a comprehensive guide that covers all aspects of
SAP Integration Suite Cloud Integration, from the basics to advanced
concepts.
This book is the culmination of my experience and expertise,
providing a comprehensive guide to the SAP Integration Suite and the
different integration options available. This book covers the entire
spectrum of knowledge required to gain mastery over the subject and
get hands-on knowledge to work on the latest SAP BTP-based
Integration technology—SAP Cloud Integration.
This book is designed for anyone who wants to understand the SAP
Integration Suite, regardless of your level of experience. Whether you
are a business owner, IT professional, or consultant, you will find
valuable insights and practical advice in these pages. The book is
divided into chapters that cover different aspects of the SAP Integration
Suite Cloud Integration, and each chapter includes real-world examples
that illustrate how to use this technology in practice.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on GitHub
(https://github.com/Apress). For more detailed information, please
visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the SAP Integration community for sharing their
knowledge, expertise, and passion with me. Your contributions have
inspired me to keep learning and pushing the boundaries of what’s
possible in this exciting field.
I also want to express my deep appreciation to my family and team,
who have supported me throughout this journey. Your unwavering
encouragement, sacrifice, and hard work have enabled me to deliver
the best possible results to our clients. I couldn’t have done it without
you.
Finally, this book would have not been possible without the help of
my editors, technical reviewers, and publishing team at Apress, who
worked relentlessly with patience to ensure that the book is well
written and on time.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Introduction to Integration
1.​1 What Is System Integration?​
1.​2 Examples of Integration in Real Life
1.​3 Types of Integration
1.​3.​1 Process Integration
1.​3.​2 Data Integration
1.​3.​3 Business-to-Business Integration
1.​4 Patterns of Integration
1.​4.​1 Star Integration
1.​4.​2 Horizontal (ESB) Integration
1.​4.​3 Point-to-Point Integration
1.​4.​4 Hub and Spoke Integration
1.​5 Advantages of Integration
1.​5.​1 Automation and Simplification
1.​5.​2 Availability, Correctness, and Coordination
1.​5.​3 Effectiveness and Productivity
1.​5.​4 Cost-Effectiveness
1.​5.​5 Scalability
1.​5.​6 Availability of Performance Insights
1.​5.​7 Security
1.​6 Disadvantages of Integration
1.​6.​1 Security Issues
1.​6.​2 Issues in Upgrades or Maintenance Updates
1.​6.​3 High Cost
1.​7 The Role of Integration in Enterprise
 1.​7.​1 Sharing Important Information
1.​7.​2 Streamlining IT Procedures
1.​7.​3 Expanding Possibilities
1.​7.​4 Benefits of Enterprise Integration
1.​7.​5 Enterprise Integration Scenarios
1.​8 Legacy System Integration
1.​8.​1 Key Challenges of Legacy System Integration
1.​8.​2 Legacy Integration Methods
1.​8.​3 Modern Methods of Integration
1.​9 Integration Technologies (Middleware)
1.​9.​1 On-Premises Middleware
1.​9.​2 Hybrid Middleware
1.​9.​3 Cloud Middleware
1.​10 Summary
Chapter 2:​SAP Integration Suite
2.​1 What Is SAP BTP?​
2.​2 Overview of the SAP Integration Suite
2.​3 Capabilities of the SAP Integration Suite
2.​3.​1 Cloud Integration
2.​3.​2 API Management
2.​3.​3 Open Connectors
2.​3.​4 Integration Advisor
2.​3.​5 Trading Partner Management
2.​3.​6 Integration Assessment
2.​3.​7 Migration Assessment
2.​4 Features of the SAP Integration Suite
 2.​5 Benefits of the SAP Integration Suite
2.​6 SAP BTP Integration Suite Landscape
2.​7 The SAP Integration Suite and Security
2.​7.​1 Transport and Message Level Security
2.​7.​2 Access SAP BTP Cockpit
2.​7.​3 Access SAP BTP Integration Suite
2.​7.​4 Creating Custom Roles
2.​7.​5 Create a Custom Role Collection
2.​7.​6 Assigning Role Collections to Users
2.​7.​7 Access Management for Cloud Integration
2.​8 Trial Account Setup:​The SAP Integration Suite
2.​8.​1 Setting Up the BTP Trial Account
2.​8.​2 Create a Space with Cloud Foundry
2.​8.​3 Managing Entitlements
2.​8.​4 Subscribing to the Service
2.​8.​5 Assigning a Role Collection
2.​8.​6 Provisioning Capabilities
2.​8.​7 Booster:​Automatically Build Service Instances and
Assign Roles
2.​9 Setting Up the Process Integration Runtime (Optional)
2.​9.​1 Creating a Service Key
2.​10 Common Errors (Installation)
2.​11 Recent Updates
2.​12 Accessing the Integration Suite:​Bookmark URLs
2.​13 Summary
Chapter 3:​SAP Cloud Integration:​Features and Connectivity
 3.​1 What Is Cloud Integration?​
3.​1.​1 Key Features of SAP Cloud Integration
3.​1.​2 Compatibility with Process Orchestration
3.​1.​3 Integration Capabilities
3.​2 Overview of the SAP Cloud Integration Web UI
3.​3 Sample Interface Development:​Practical Example
3.​3.​1 Start Timer
3.​3.​2 Content Modifier
3.​3.​3 Outbound OData Channel
3.​3.​4 Groovy Script
3.​3.​5 Deploy and Monitor
3.​4 Adapters—Sender and Receiver
3.​4.​1 Configuration of the JDBC Adapter:​Practical Example
3.​4.​2 Connectivity Options and Communication Security
3.​4.​3 Connecting Inbound and Outbound Systems
3.​4.​4 Connecting a System to Cloud Integration
3.​4.​5 Supported Protocols
3.​4.​6 Inbound Communications
3.​4.​7 Outbound Communications
3.​5 Summary
Chapter 4:​SAP Cloud Integration:​Development Part I
4.​1 Integration Content
4.​1.​1 Packaging Integration Content:​Practical Example
4.​1.​2 Creating an Integration Flow Artifact
4.​2 Iflow Design Object Elements
4.​2.​1 Participant
 4.​2.​2 Process
4.​2.​3 Events
4.​2.​4 Message Transformations
4.​2.​5 Mapping
4.​3 Summary
Chapter 5:​SAP Cloud Integration:​Development Part II
5.​1 Iflow Design Object Elements
5.​1.​1 Call
5.​1.​2 Routing
5.​1.​3 Security and Message-Level Security Use Case
Configuration
5.​1.​4 Persistence
5.​1.​5 Validator
5.​2 Version Management:​Practical Example
5.​2.​1 Version Management:​Restore/​Revert
5.​3 Externalized Parameters:​Practical Example
5.​3.​1 Externalization Editor
5.​3.​2 Create a New Parameter
5.​3.​3 Reusing Existing Parameters
5.​3.​4 Removing Parameters
5.​3.​5 Managing Externalized Parameters
5.​3.​6 Configure Externalized Parameters
5.​3.​7 Error-Handling Strategies
5.​4 Develop API-Based Integration Artifacts
5.​4.​1 SOAP, REST, and OData API Artifact:​Practical Example
5.​4.​2 OData API Project in SAP Cloud Integration:​Practical
Example
 5.​5 Process Direct Adapter:​Practical Example
5.​5.​1 Configuring the Process Direct Sender Adapter
5.​5.​2 Configuring the Process Direct Receiver Adapter
5.​5.​3 Basic Configuration for the Process Direct Adapter
5.​6 Configuring the SFTP Adapter:​Practical Example
5.​6.​1 Configure the SFTP Receiver Adapter
5.​7 Summary
Chapter 6:​SAP Cloud Integration:​Monitoring and Operations
6.​1 Monitoring Message Processing
6.​1.​1 Message Logs
6.​1.​2 Message Processing Logs:​View Content
6.​1.​3 Log Level Setup
6.​2 Managing Integration Content
6.​2.​1 Integration Content Detail
6.​2.​2 Runtime Status
6.​2.​3 iflow Endpoint View
6.​3 Managing Security
6.​3.​1 Create Security Material
6.​3.​2 Manage Keystore Entries
6.​3.​3 Manage PGP Keys
6.​3.​4 Access Policy Management
6.​3.​5 JDBC Material Management:​Practical Example
6.​3.​6 User Roles
6.​3.​7 Connectivity Test
6.​4 Managing Stores
6.​4.​1 Manage Data Stores
 6.​4.​2 Manage Variables
6.​4.​3 Manage Message Queues
6.​4.​4 Manage Number Ranges
6.​5 Using Access Logs
6.​5.​1 Access Logs in the Neo Environment
6.​5.​2 Access Logs in the Cloud Foundry Environment
6.​6 Managing Locks
6.​6.​1 Message Locks
6.​6.​2 Designtime Artifact Locks
6.​7 Summary
Chapter 7:​SAP Cloud Integration:​Security
7.​1 Security Cloud Foundry Environment
7.​1.​1 Certificate Management
7.​1.​2 Technical Landscape and Identity Access Management
7.​1.​3 Data Storage, Protection, Privacy, and Security in Cloud
Foundry
7.​1.​4 Types of Stored Data in Cloud Foundry
7.​1.​5 Message Logs, Contents, Storage, and Retention in
Cloud Foundry
7.​1.​6 Malware Scanner
7.​1.​7 UI Security
7.​2 Security in the Neo Environment
7.​2.​1 Data Protection and Data Flow for Cloud Integration in
Neo
7.​2.​2 Identity Access Management
7.​2.​3 Data Storage Security
7.​2.​4 Types of Stored Data
 7.​2.​5 Specific Data Sets
7.​2.​6 UI Security
7.​2.​7 Remote API Security
7.​3 Summary
Index
About the Author
Jaspreet Bagga
is an executive consultant with expertise
in SAP and non-SAP integrations. He is a
hands-on SAP architect who does,
solution architecture, development
work, leads the delivery of complex
integration programs, manages global
teams, and ensures successful project go
live/goals. Jaspreet has made a lasting
impact on more than 73 global
businesses, delivering more than 200 IT
projects for Fortune 500 clients,
including Walgreens, McKinsey &
Company, the state of Nevada, Discovery
Channel, Aflac Insurance, the city of San
Diego, Siemens, and more.
Jaspreet graduated from the State University of New York, Buffalo
Engineering School and was inducted as an official member of the
Forbes Technology Council.
His latest interests are in building and integrating SAP Business
Technology Platform applications, developing interface-monitoring
software like DOST Add-on®, and mentoring SAP community
newcomers regarding integration topics.
About the Technical Reviewer
Miguel Figueiredo
is a passionate software professional
with more than 30 years of experience in
technical solution architecture. He has a
degree in information systems and an
MBA from Mackenzie University, as well
as an international MBA in business
administration from the FIA Business
School, in partnership with Vanderbilt
University.
Miguel gained his experience
delivering business intelligence solutions
for a number of Fortune 500 companies
and multiple global corporations. As the
SAP HANA Services Center of Excellence
leader, he was responsible for the
evangelization and best-practice
adoption of data management and
business intelligence in his region.
Currently, as a customer success partner, he advises companies to
maximize value realization in their digital transformation journeys and
move to cloud initiatives.
Miguel is dedicated to supporting his family and encouraging the
development of good habits for a healthy body and mind.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2023
J. Bagga, A Practical Guide to SAP Integration Suite
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9337-9_1

1. Introduction to Integration
Jaspreet Bagga1
(1) Texas, TX, USA

This chapter discusses the idea of integration and its significance in

modern business operations. To enable data exchange and workflow
automation, various systems and applications must be connected
through the integration process.
Businesses use a number of systems and applications to handle
various parts of their operations in today’s globally connected
environment. The fact that these systems frequently work in isolation
results in inconsistent data, a need for manual intervention, and
ineffectiveness. The key to utilizing these technologies and applications
to their full capacity is integration, which enables organizations to link,
automate, and improve workflows. This chapter explains the
fundamentals of integration, together with its advantages, varieties, and
challenges. iPaaS, ESBs, and other essential technologies and tools for
integration are covered. By the end of this chapter, you will have a clear
understanding of integration, as well as understand how it can support
your company in the digital era.
To understand what integration is, the next section digs into the
concept of system integration.

1.1 What Is System Integration?

System integration, very broadly speaking, is the act of joining various
sub-systems (components) into a single bigger system that works as a
single unit. System integration is often referred to as the process of
connecting disparate IT systems, services, and/or software to make
them functionally compatible software solutions.
System integration is used by businesses to increase output and
raise the standard of their operations. Through integration, multiple IT
systems can speak to each other across the organization, thus
accelerating information flow and lowering operational expenses.
System integration can also be utilized to link an organization’s external
business partners, not just its internal systems.
The next section looks at some examples and approaches to
integration that you may encounter and use.

1.2 Examples of Integration in Real Life

Examples of integration include ordering something online from
Amazon or another e-commerce site, booking a hotel, purchasing a
flight ticket, and many more.
Let’s look at how a flight ticket is purchased to get a better
understanding of the complete integration process in practice:
1. Booking a flight ticket from Google.
You first enter the source and destination, let’s say New York
(source) and Tokyo (destination), when you purchase a ticket
using Google.com (see Figure 1-1). You typically receive the ticket
price after entering those details. The integration application’s
input comes from these sources and destinations. Google
supplies you with information from every airline company. See
Figure 1-2.
Although Google does not operate the airplanes nor sell the
airline tickets, it helps you book a ticket from any of the airline’s
websites due to integration.
On a business website, you can make a reservation just like you
would on Google. Additionally, those businesses use integration
for their ticketing systems.
When you purchase a flight ticket from any airline company, the
airline company integrates using its own system. But when
Google integrates, it does so from a variety of airline company
 that provide the data from their systems. This is known as
layered integration (integration on integration).

Figure 1-1 Home page of the Google Flights website

Figure 1-2 Getting the price of the flights
2. Online shopping from an e-commerce website.
When you shop online, say at Amazon or any other website, you
select the required product and add it to the cart, then add your
address details, and so on. When you proceed to the payment, there
is again an integration happening with your bank or payment
provider. Only after the payment is deemed successful is the order
shipped, and many integrations comes into play.
For example, if you search for tires on Amazon.com (as
illustrated in Figure 1-3), you get the price of the tires, which means
the integration has happened in the backend. You see the price of
the tires that you searched for, as shown in Figure 1-4.
Figure 1-3 Home page of an e-commerce website

Figure 1-4 Amazon.com giving the price of the tires

1.3 Types of Integration

1.3.1 Process Integration
Process integration refers to the practice of connecting and
harmonizing different processes within an organization. It involves the
seamless exchange of data, information, and activities across various
systems, departments, and stakeholders. To get better results,
companies can use PI to coordinate their internal processes as well as
those of their partners, clients, and suppliers.
 As a business expands, processes become more complicated. For
example, one vendor can manage purchase orders without too much
difficulty. To address this process, you might add software as you work
with more providers. You could then add software for managing your
accounts, paying bills, and keeping track of inventories. Sooner or later,
a single process may involve several different technologies. Because the
data is siloed, this might reduce productivity and obstruct your
automation processes.
According to the IT and the engineering leaders, Integration and
retrieving external data are the most significant obstacles to process
automation. Businesses need a process integration solution to integrate
their systems and provide uniform access to reliable, consistent data
from all sources. Lack of business integration can result in high
production costs.
The P2P cycle is the greatest example of the process integration.
The procure-to-pay (P2P) cycle is a business procedure that entails
acquiring products and services from suppliers and paying for those
products and services respectively. P2P integration is the process of
integrating several P2P cycle systems and processes to automate as
much of the manual labor as possible.
The process of acquiring products or services from a third-party
supplier involves a series of actions that a business needs to follow.
These actions include purchasing goods, making payments to the
supplier, and considering any available discounts. This cycle outlines
the step-by-step procedures that businesses must undertake to
successfully obtain the desired goods or services from the supplier
while ensuring timely and accurate payments.
In Figure 1-5, each line represents the process integration between
a tire manufacturer and its retailers.
Figure 1-5 Example of process integration in the P2P cycle

Three Types of Process Integration

There are generally three types of process integration, as follows:
Native integration—Data is effortlessly transferred between
software applications. The program has these integrations built-in,
making the setup procedure simpler. All you have to do is provide
permission to connect to the applications
An example of native integration is the SuccessFactors Employee
Central Payroll (ECP)/benefits programs that read data files from
ECP SFTP or IDOCS being exchanged between two SAP systems, such
as SAP CRM and S/4HANA.
Application programming interface (API) integration—Data is
exchanged between two or more applications. If there are no native
integrations, you might develop a custom API to link your online
store to a payment processor to take orders.
For example, you can create a SAP S/4HANA Sales Order and call
the PayPal API to process the payment.
Third-party integration—Businesses with specific requirements
frequently create their software. However, using an existing tool to
add a particular feature is often more helpful. Instead of creating a
feature from scratch in these circumstances, you can use third-party
 connectors. An example of third-party/custom integration is
developing adapters or modules to fulfil a specific requirement.
For example, developing custom AWS S3 buckets or Salesforce
adapters to be deployed on SAP Process Orchestration, SAP does not
deliver these adapters out of the box.

1.3.2 Data Integration

Data integration is the process of incorporating data from various
sources into a single, coherent perspective. Starting with the ingestion
procedure, integration encompasses cleaning, ETL mapping, and
transformation. Analytics can now produce relevant, actionable
business knowledge because of data integration.
Data integration involves the process of combining data from
various sources in different ways. It can be achieved through different
methods and techniques. Clients accessing data from a central server, a
network of data sources, and other shared components form the basis
of data integration systems.
Clients typically request data from controller servers as part of the
data integration process. The relevant data is then ingested by the
controller server from internal and external sources. The information is
compiled into a thorough data collection after being acquired from a
variety of sources. This is given to the customer, who uses it. Figure 1-6
shows the data transformation of the source data and the target data.

Figure 1-6 Data integration architecture

 Companies that develop data integration skills have a considerable
competitive advantage, including:
Reduction of the need to manually alter and merge data sets, which
increases operational efficiency.
Improved data quality by applying business rules to data through
automated data transformations.
A comprehensive perspective of the data and more accessible
analysis, which leads to more insightful information.
A digital business is based on data and the algorithms that process
it. It derives the most value from its information assets by accessing
them whenever and wherever needed across the whole business
ecosystem. Data and related services move freely yet safely across the
IT landscape in a digital organization. Data integration prepares your
data and provides a complete view of all the information moving
through a business.

Advantages of Data Integration

Companies need access to reliable, current information to stay
competitive. Systems that use real-time integration can improve every
aspect of their performance. Not only will gathering data and
transforming it be more efficient and accurate, but it also provides real-
time intelligence, agility, and actionable insights. Advantages include:
Data quality and data integrity
Quick, simple, and accessible links between data storage
Seamless system-to-system knowledge transmission
Improved cooperation
Real-time, comprehensive business analytics, intelligence, and
insights
Improved ROI and efficiency

Disadvantages of Data Integration

Numerous products are available on the market to assist you with these
issues. Even with so many resources at your disposal, there are still
frequent problems to avoid when developing an effective data
integration plan, including these:
 Different data sources and formats
Data not being accessible when it should be
Poor or out-of-date information
Use of inappropriate integration software
Excessive data

1.3.3 Business-to-Business Integration

B2B integration is the process of integrating several corporate
applications and systems to allow information and data exchange. This
kind of integration can increase productivity, lower errors, and expedite
company procedures. It is frequently used to promote communication
and collaboration between enterprises. B2B integration frequently
includes the use of specialized software and technology to link systems,
and its setup and maintenance may call for the assistance of IT
specialists, as shown in Figure 1-7.
Figure 1-7 Representation of B2B integration
Using APIs to allow multiple systems to connect and using
electronic data interchange (EDI) systems to exchange invoices,
purchase orders, and other business documents are two typical
examples of B2B integration.

Components of B2B Integration

There are two types of components of business-to-business integration:
Data-level integration—This entails automating the interchange of
documents between trading partners and converting paper
documents to digital ones. This kind of B2B integration has its origin
in electronic data interchange, or EDI.
 People-level integration—This enables trading partners to
collaborate and communicate effectively to carry out end-to-end
business processes. It include the features like partner onboarding
and community management.

Advantages of B2B Integration

The main advantages of B2B integration involve enabling cooperative
partnerships and new work practices that support modern supply
chains, in addition to the cost, speed, and productivity increase of
completing digital transactions.
Every company needs to collaborate with the other enterprises, and
B2B integration represents the digital transformation of these external
collaborations. A fully integrated end-to-end B2B integration solution
offers several advantages, many of which were previously impossible,
such as:
Manual processing time and cost are reduced.
Make fewer mistakes when processing company documents.
Automate critical company operations, such as order-to-cash and
procure-to-pay, to increase efficiency.
Increased supply chain automation boosts productivity and lowers
inventories.
Increase your supply chain’s visibility to all activity and transactions.
Improve cooperation among your commercial partners.
Manage trading partner performance more effectively.
Promote innovation by developing tighter ties with your trading
partners.
Better visibility and control over your B2B data to provide actionable
insights that will enhance decision-making.

Challenges in B2B Integration

The so-called “100 percent trading partner enablement” is the main
obstacle to use this integration. Your company will be more efficient
and reap more rewards if you can interact with more of your trading
partners electronically. The old business strategy, however, has led to
businesses concentrating on the 20 percent of partners that produce 80
percent of the income. Businesses must develop methods to collaborate
closely with all their partners, as the 80/20 rule becomes less
applicable to businesses as they become increasingly digital.
Here are the following challenges of B2B integration:
There are many types of business documents that can be exchanged,
for example, Mapping of EDI 810, 850, 820, 834, 997, and so on,
which makes design and development of integration complex.
Working with many trading partners requires the support of
numerous B2B standards, including ANSI, EDIFACT, and XML.
The B2B standard is likely to be interpreted differently by each
business partner.
There are many communications protocols (AS2, SFTP, FTP, VAN)
that can be used.
Smaller business partners might not have the necessary funds,
internal resources, or business needs to develop a complex B2B
connectivity solution.
Smaller trading partners may be reluctant to alter the way things are
done.
Partner onboarding can be laborious and slow, creating backlogs that
hinder company productivity.
EDI messages are not easy to read and interpret by business users
unless they are transformed into readable, XML, file, or database
tables.

1.4 Patterns of Integration

System integration involves combining different systems, parts, or
subsystems to create a larger and more complex system. This process,
known as patterns of system integration, focuses on the design and
integration of multiple systems into a cohesive whole. These patterns
encompass the techniques, approaches, and communication methods
used to integrate system components, as well as the overall design of
the integrated system. By following these patterns, organizations can
successfully integrate diverse components into a unified and functional
system.
While there can be many patterns of integration, the following
sections describe some of the most commonly used patterns in the
business world.
1.4.1 Star Integration
A collection of point-to-point system connections make up a star
integration. In other words, when multiple basic connections are joined
into one, a star connection is created. As the number of connected
subsystems rises, so do the number of points at the beginning and the
lines that follow. Figure 1-8 illustrates this.

Figure 1-8 Representation of the star integration pattern

The network of links created by this system integration method may

under ideal circumstances resemble a star polyhedron when
integrating each system into the remaining subsystems. The basic
system integration diagram is more likely to resemble a plate of
spaghetti, which is why star integration is sometimes called spaghetti
integration. When a company focuses on system integration in this way,
the initially well-structured IT architecture can quickly become
complex and difficult to navigate. This complexity arises from the need
to manage multiple integrations, resulting in greater capability
compared to a single point-to-point connection. However, the
management of these integrations becomes more challenging due to
the increased complexity of the overall system. An effective Enterprise
Integration Strategy can prevent the systems integrations of an
enterprise from taking a giant Star Integration pattern which can
become complex to operate.

Advantages of Star Integration

It is incredibly dependable; even if one interface breaks, the others
will still function.
Since there are no data collisions and middleware resource sharing,
it performs well.
Simpler to integrate and robust in nature.
Simple defect identification because the relationship is frequently
simple to identify.
There are no network hiccups when adding, unplugging, or
disconnecting systems.
Each system needs one port to connect to the hub.
Best suitable for scenarios where there are minimum integration
points or systems to be connected.

Disadvantages of Star Integration

More connection is needed than with a enterprise service bus (ESB).
The singular interface monitoring becomes challenging and tedious
at application level.
It poses security risks to open individual system connections to the
internet.
Scaling the architecture becomes challenging or impossible due to
vast number of distributed connections.
Because the interfaces typically do not use middleware, it needs
more resources and ongoing upkeep.
The need for additional software, like adapters or certificates, raises
the price of implementation.
Performance is dependent on a single concentrator or hub.

1.4.2 Horizontal (ESB) Integration

The process of horizontal integration involves connecting all of the
subsystems together by employing one specialized subsystem as the
common user interface layer. In other words, because the subsystems
are connected indirectly rather than directly through the main system,
fewer connections are needed for system integration. If there are five
subsystems, there will only be five connections. If there are ten
subsystems, there will only be ten connections. Because fewer
connections are required to maintain operation, this approach has the
major benefit of requiring less time, effort, and money to develop the
system. This sort of system integration employs an enterprise service
bus (ESB) as an intermediary layer or subsystem, as shown in Figure 1-
9.

Figure 1-9 Representation of the horizontal integration pattern

Pros and cons—One of the best things about ESBs is that since one
subsystem is separated from the others by a “message bus,” it is
possible to replace or modify one subsystem without affecting the
operation of the others. This supports highly scalable architecture.
Such projects are also dependable and straightforward to develop.
The dispersion of integration duties across the systems increases the
complexity of maintenance and troubleshooting. However, well-
orchestrated middleware products by vendors like SAP Integration
Suite, Process Orchestration, Dell Boomi, and so on, take care of the
 scalability and stability of the software components and can be
effectively utilized as an Enterprise level Service Bus (ESB).
Usage circumstances—Large projects like enterprise application
integration (EAI) are best implemented using an ESB model since it
enables them to scale as necessary. If a business has to put it together
onsite, it fits well.

1.4.3 Point-to-Point Integration

Point-to-point integration/connectivity is not system integration in its
purest form. Despite the system functioning, complexity is limited. A
1:1 link, or one system to another system, is best served by this type of
system integration, because it typically handles one business function
at a time. Figure 1-10 shows how point-to-point system integration
quickly becomes unmanageable as more systems are used and there
are more links between them.

Figure 1-10 Representation of a point-to-point integration pattern

 In point-to-point integration, data is extracted from one system,
changed or formatted, and then transferred to another system using a
point-to-point link. The logic for data translation, transformation, and
routing is implemented by each application while considering the
protocols and supporting data models of other linked components.
Pros and cons—One of the key benefits of point-to-point integration
is that the IT team may swiftly construct a small-scale integrated
system. On the other hand, the model is challenging to scale, and
managing all the integrations becomes extremely difficult as the
number of applications increases. Say you need to run 15
integrations to connect six modules. In this case the so-called
star/spaghetti integration comes into play.
Usage circumstances—This strategy is appropriate for businesses
with straightforward business logic that rely primarily on a small
number of software components. Additionally, it is the best choice for
companies connecting to SaaS services.

1.4.4 Hub and Spoke Integration

Hub and spoke integration involves connecting multiple systems to a
central hub. The hub then manages the flow of information between the
different systems. This type of integration is typically used when many
systems need to be connected. Figure 1-11 shows the different number
of systems connected to a central hub, which is called the integration
hub.
Figure 1-11 Representation of a hub and spoke integration pattern
Pros and cons —The model offers several advantages over the point-
to-point pattern, including greater scalability. Things improve in
terms of security and design simplicity because each system has one
connection to the central hub. Meanwhile, a drawback of this strategy
can be the hub’s concentration. The only integration engine that
powers the entire infrastructure is susceptible to become the main
bottleneck as the workload increases.
Usage circumstance—The hub and spoke model is frequently used
in payment processing, financial operations, and e-commerce.
Additionally, it is the preferred architecture for heavily regulated
industries with high-security risks.

1.5 Advantages of Integration

Any new software system must be implemented slowly throughout the
business. Why would you want to disrupt the post-implementation
balance that your company has established? Running several software
programs simultaneously without integrating them has many
disadvantages. This section covers the advantages of system integration
and explains how it helps resolve issues brought on by disorganized
systems.

1.5.1 Automation and Simplification

Gathering relevant and connected data is one of the process’s most
important results. This translates to considerably simpler and more
straightforward retrieval and processing for all subsystems. If the
development company you choose performs a fantastic job with your
integration process, you will have an integrated system with correctly
designed data flow channels. That will enable you to automate and
streamline your business activities.

1.5.2 Availability, Correctness, and Coordination

The integration process often involves collecting data from numerous
sources and storing it in one place. As a result, there is no longer a need
to manually wait for data to sync across several systems over extended
periods. Instead, the data is immediately updated for all other systems
when one subsystem updates it. As a result, the real-time availability
and accessibility of data is one of the essential benefits of system
integration.
As consumers are less likely to access out-of-date data, automatic
updating and synchronization of data results in higher accuracy.
With simple access to the most recent data, all subsystems can
engage with one another and improve overall teamwork. It is also
simpler to train users on a more straightforward system. Additionally,
fast data accessibility speeds up decision-making across all
departments, enhancing the entire company process. Employees will be
constantly informed of previous events and will act appropriately in the
future.

1.5.3 Effectiveness and Productivity

Low-quality performance might result from divisions between an
organization with multiple departments and segmented roles
(functions). If one subsystem alters its piece of the data, the other
subsystems may need to catch up by manually inputting the revised
data into their respective data stores.
By eliminating time-consuming manual data entry, an integrated
system improves efficiency. As a result of the system’s automatic update
of the main database, employees can receive accurate data for further
processing. There is a significant time-saving result. Each department
can concentrate on its responsibilities without having to worry about
keeping up or being in sync with other departments’ operations. The
resources that were saved might subsequently be used for crucial
business processes. System integration, therefore, results in two
important benefits: it boosts worker productivity and efficiency.

1.5.4 Cost-Effectiveness
The necessity for repetitive tasks is eliminated by an integrated system,
as I talked about in the last section. As a result, crucial jobs can now be
finished more quickly while utilizing the same resources, cutting down
on needless expenses.
Central storage eliminates the necessity for many data stores to
store the same data. Each subsystem’s specific data can be stored there,
and any data overlaps can be categorized appropriately. As a result, the
price of underutilized data storage space is less.
When you realize the need for a better coordinated organization-
wide software system, system integration enables you to avoid building
a new, expensive, and complicated system from the beginning.
Alternatively, you might employ an expert to combine the current
systems to operate in concert. In addition to saving you money, doing
this also saves the time and effort that would be used to train staff
members on a new system.

1.5.5 Scalability
Integrated systems increasingly rely on the cloud due to technological
developments in data storage. Massive resources are needed if each
subsystem has its own storage or processing platform. Each
subsystem’s capacity must be raised independently as data volume
increases.
 When a system is integrated, this repetition is eliminated. All
subsystems can use shared resources as necessary. You can quickly ask
the cloud provider for more resources as your company’s computing or
storage needs increase. Thus, scalability is one of the main advantages
of integration.

1.5.6 Availability of Performance Insights

When data is dispersed over numerous departments or subsystems, the
ever-growing volume of data makes it challenging to monitor the
organization’s overall operation closely. It takes a lot of work to gather
and combine data and produce the analytics report. You might need to
carry out several imports and exports to ensure there are no
inconsistency.
With an integrated system, you always have access to all essential
data and can determine the effectiveness of each department using a
central dashboard. An integrated dashboard can access the core data
repository. Your ability to examine relevant data as required will
enhance the clarity of your analytical and performance reports. By
choosing the proper parameters, you can evaluate departmental
progress or conduct a comprehensive analysis of your company all in
one spot.

1.5.7 Security
In isolated systems, it is challenging for attackers to simultaneously
compromise all subsystems, especially when each system use a
different level of security. It could be challenging for you to manage
security for various platforms.
With a centralized system, your data is equally vulnerable to theft.
However, by using a more potent security tool or algorithm, this
problem can be resolved. Thus, it becomes considerably simpler to
handle the security of a single platform.

1.6 Disadvantages of Integration

Even though you might want to believe that system integration services
are an ideal choice for any business, there are a few disadvantages to
consider.

1.6.1 Security Issues

It’s preferable to have multiple programs than a single integrated
system regarding security issues. After completing system integration,
any hack or fraud could access all your data rather than just a portion of
it.
Because of the pathways through which data moves from one
program to another during system integration, your information is
more exposed than it formerly was.

1.6.2 Issues in Upgrades or Maintenance Updates

Upgrading can be a time-consuming procedure if your company uses
multiple integrated systems. Each module refreshes while you wait.
Additionally, you need to test, upgrade, and maintain separate patches
for each program. The more space they occupy, the more time and
effort it takes.

1.6.3 High Cost

The cost to integrate and update the company’s systems will vary
depending on several variables. These factors include the scope and
complexity of the enterprise, the number of programs that must be
integrated, and the degree to which each program needs support.
Additionally, businesses must consider the costs of switching programs
following integration.
The upfront cost of IT system integration services may be
significantly more than your typical monthly operational expenses.

1.7 The Role of Integration in Enterprise

Enterprise integration connects different systems and applications to
streamline business processes. It allows for data exchange between
systems, which can then be used to make better-informed decisions.
Enterprise integration has many benefits, including increased
efficiency, improved decision-making, and reduced costs. However, it is
essential to note that enterprise integration is not a one-size-fits-all
solution. Each organization is unique and will have different
requirements for their integration solution.
Enterprise integration is essential for the design, execution, and
distribution of crucial applications, as well as the improvement of
internal business processes and activities. Companies may improve
their operational scalability, broaden their customer base, and boost
their revenue by sharing crucial information, streamlining procedures,
and seizing chances. The Role of Integration in Enterprise are as
follows:

1.7.1 Sharing Important Information

Enterprise integration facilitates the transfer of data between operating
systems and complex information by providing a middleware layer to
serve as the common interface between each application, design, and
service. Application developers can easily share data and expose
interfaces without the need to understand other applications, their
locations, or anticipate future issues. Furthermore, it simplifies the
exchange of data between multiple programs and the various
consumers who rely on that data.

1.7.2 Streamlining IT Procedures

Enterprise integration combines functionality and information
transmission across several applications to facilitate fluid cooperation.
Their interconnectedness makes it easier for individuals and
organizations to use IT processes by helping to streamline them. It
speeds up user access to data and aids IT businesses in streamlining
data integration and services. This simplification modernizes the
development and use of enterprise integration patterns such gateway
services, message queues, file transfer, and enterprise service bus by
making it possible for them to be created, deployed, operated, and
maintained through Agile and automated processes (ESB).

1.7.3 Expanding Possibilities

Additionally, enterprise integration enables teams to act proactively in
order to seize opportunities and address new and evolving company
needs. Teams can immediately recognize and respond to time-sensitive
events, such as unanticipated policy changes or new application
management procedures, by taking control of all data access points
without having to modify the apps themselves. In the end, teams are
given the tools they need to design, develop, and streamline various
integration solutions by utilizing a standard method for communication
and collaboration.

1.7.4 Benefits of Enterprise Integration

Automating and streamlining corporate procedures—Customers
and staff get a seamless, personalized experience across many digital
touchpoints. Businesses are concurrently delivering exciting
consumer experiences by streamlining and automating dispersed
internal business operations.
Providing client insight—Today’s market leaders must use data
from inside and outside their enterprises to predict client
preferences and demands. To foster loyalty and expand their
competitive edge, businesses can develop a 360-degree
understanding of their audiences and customers.
Creating a future-proof IT environment—Often, a successful
digital strategy necessitates adapting existing systems to
accommodate new business models. With an API-first strategy,
cohesive enterprise integration solutions can maximize your current
investments.
API economy facilitation—Businesses are unlocking exclusive
services and developing fresh company ideas for a competitive edge.
By utilizing digital channels to create a nearby ecosystem of
customers, partners, and suppliers, businesses can propel these
economies within and beyond their immediate organizational
bounds.

1.7.5 Enterprise Integration Scenarios

An organization can benefit from integrating various critical systems,
processes, data, and applications from all business lines. Figures 1-12
shows some of the commonly used integration types.
Consider an example of a company called Abusiness, as shown in
Figure 1-12. This company sells groceries using integration scenarios.
Process integration occurs to support its purchase ordering to the
supplier. The AWS data lake, which receives the bulk records,
demonstrates data integration. Following the sale of the goods to the
customers, Salesforce records the customer reviews, demonstrating
cloud integration. The POSDM database is application integration; it
sends the daily sales receipts to Abusiness. A separate company
provides the API Integrations and tweets about grocery store discounts.
Finally, by connecting to the warehouse management system, another
company obtains the cold storage temperature and modifies the
warehouse temperature, demonstrating device integration.

Figure 1-12 Abuisness is using all the enterprise integration scenarios

Some of the commonly used enterprise integration scenarios
include:
Application integration—Using enterprise application integration
(EAI), processes and data can be upgraded, integrated, and
exchanged among different software programs in real time to
increase visibility, productivity, and insights across the organization.
For example, integration of a CRM system (SAP CRM, Salesforce,
Sugar CRM) with an ERP financial system (Oracle, S/4HANA).
Data Integration—The process of merging data from various
sources into a single, cohesive view is known as data integration.
This enables firms to understand their data more thoroughly and
precisely. It can be applied to many tasks, including analysis,
reporting, and decision-making. An organization needs to build its
data warehouse cloud by integrating daily sales data into a data lake
(Amazon S3, Azure).
Cloud integration—To create a unified IT infrastructure that
handles data, processes, system architectures, and enterprise
applications, numerous hybrid cloud environments (public and
private clouds) are brought together through cloud integration. For
example, an enterprise needs to integrate its Amazon Marketplace.
Customer review data is integrated with the Salesforce cloud.
API integration—Application programming interface (API)
integration connects two (or more) enterprise applications through
their respective APIs, enabling the exchange of data sources between
the systems. These vital connections enable workflows and processes
across the organization, syncing data to improve productivity and
spur growth. For example, a website can use an API to connect to a
service that handles payments, or a mobile app might use an API to
connect to a service that provides weather forecasts.
Platform integration—Platform integration allows IT professionals
to create secure integration flows that connect and control many
cloud-based applications, systems, services, and data sources using
various software solutions. Integrated platform as a service (iPaaS)
and platform integration go hand in hand.
Process integration—Process integration is the process of
integrating various company operations, alignment of business
processes across departments/ teams, and integration of various
systems, technologies, and data sources. Process integration seeks to
increase productivity, decrease waste, and help businesses provide
their clients with better goods and services. An organization needs to
integrate its purchasing and sourcing system with its financials.
Device integration—Device integration connects various devices so
they can interact, communicate, and work together to meet corporate
goals and boost productivity. For example, an enterprise has the
requirement to integrate its warehouse sensors or RFID devices with
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 In incident and character-drawing the play is rather elemental.
Sartorius is the stock capitalist of drama—a figure as invariable as
the types in Jerome K. Jerome’s “Stageland.” And the other persons
of the play—Harry Trench, the altruist with reservations; William de
Burgh Cokane, his mentor in orthodox hypocrisy; Lickcheese,
Sartorius’ rent-collector and rival, and Blanche herself—all rather
impress us as beings we have met before. Nevertheless, an
occasional flash reveals the fine Italian hand of Shaw—a hand albeit,
but yet half trained. That Blanche is a true daughter to Sartorius,
psychologically as well as physically, is shown in a brief scene
wherein she and a serving maid are the only players. And the
“grand” scene at the close of the play, between Blanche and Harry,
smells of the latter-day Shaw to high heaven. Harry has come to her
father’s house to discuss their joint affairs and she goes at him
savagely:
“Well? So you have come back here. You have had the
meanness to come into this house again. (He blushes and retreats a
step.) What a poor-spirited creature you must be! Why don’t you go?
(Red and wincing, he starts huffily to get his hat from the table, but
when he turns to the door with it she deliberately gets in his way, so
that he has to stop.) I don’t want you to stay. (For a moment they
stand face to face, quite close to one another, she provocative,
taunting, half-defying, half-inviting him to advance, in a flush of
undisguised animal excitement. It suddenly flashes upon him that all
this ferocity is erotic—that she is making love to him. His eye lights
up; a cunning expression comes into the corner of his mouth; with a
heavy assumption of indifference he walks straight back to his chair
and plants himself in it with his arms folded. She comes down the
room after him.)...”
It is too late for poor Harry to beat a retreat. He is lost as
hopelessly as John Tanner in “Man and Superman” and in the same
way.
The scene savors strongly of Nietzsche, particularly in its frank
acceptance of the doctrine that, when all the poets have had their
say, plain physical desire is the chief basis of human mating. No
doubt Shaw’s interest in Marx and Schopenhauer led him to make a
pretty thorough acquaintance with all the German metaphysicians of
the early eighties. “Widowers’ Houses” was begun in 1885, four
years before Nietzsche was dragged off to an asylum. In 1892, when
the play was completed and the last scene written, the mad
German’s theories of life were just beginning to gain a firm foothold
in England.
 “THE PHILANDERER”
SHAW calls “The Philanderer” a topical comedy, which describes it
exactly. Written in 1893, at the height of the Ibsen craze, it served a
purpose like that of the excellent revues which formerly adorned the
stage of the New York Casino. Frankly, a burlesque upon fads of the
moment, its interest now is chiefly archeological. For these many
moons we have ceased to regard Ibsen as a man of subterranean
mystery—who has heard any talk of “symbolic” plays for two years?
—and have learned to accept his dramas as dramas and his
heroines as human beings. Those Ibsenites of ’93 who haven’t
grown civilized and cut their hair are now buzzing about the head of
Maeterlinck or D’Annunzio or some other new god. To enjoy “A Doll’s
House” is no longer a sign of extraordinary intellectual muscularity.
The stock companies of Peoria and Oil City now present it as a
matter of course, between “The Henrietta” and “Camille.”
But when Shaw wrote “The Philanderer” a wave of groping
individualism was sweeping over Europe, the United States and
other more or less Christian lands. Overeducated young women of
the middle class, with fires of discontent raging within them,
descended upon Nora Helmer with a whoop and became fearsome
Ibsenites. They formed clubs, they pleaded for freedom, for a wider
area of development, for an equal chance; they demanded that the
word “obey” be removed from their lines in the marriage comedy;
they wrote letters to the newspapers; they patronized solemn pale-
green matinées: some of them even smoked cigarettes. Poor old
Nietzsche had something to do with this uprising. His ideas
regarding the orthodox virtues, mangled in the mills of his disciples,
appeared on every hand. Iconoclasts, amateur and professional,
grew as common as policemen.
 Very naturally, this series of phenomena vastly amused our
friend from Ireland. Himself a devoted student of Ibsen’s plays and a
close friend to William Archer, their translator, he saw the absurdity
and pretense in the popular excitement, and so set about making fun
of it.
In “The Philanderer” he shows a pack of individualists at war with
the godly. Grace Tranfield and Julia Craven, young women of the
period, agree that marriage is degrading and enslaving, and so join
an Ibsen club, spout stale German paradoxes and prepare to lead
the intellectual life. But before long both fall in love, and with the
same man, and thereafter, in plain American, there is the devil to
pay. Julia tracks the man—his name is Leonard Charteris—to
Grace’s home and fairly drags him out of her arms, at the same time,
yelling, shouting, weeping, howling and gnashing her teeth.
Charteris, barricading himself behind furniture, politely points out the
inconsistency of her conduct.
“As a woman of advanced views,” he says, “you determined to
be free. You regarded marriage as a degrading bargain, by which a
woman sold herself to a man for the social status of a wife and the
right to be supported and pensioned out of his income in her old age.
That’s the advanced view—our view....”
“I am too miserable to argue—to think,” wails Julia. “I only know
that I love you....”
And so a fine temple of philosophy, built of cards, comes
fluttering down.
As the struggle for Charteris’ battle-scarred heart rages, other
personages are drawn into the trenches, unwillingly and greatly to
their astonishment. Grace’s papa, a dramatic critic of the old school,
and Julia’s fond parent, a retired military man, find themselves
members of the Ibsen club and participants in the siege of their
daughters’ reluctant Romeo. Percy Paramore, a highly respectable
physician, also becomes involved in the fray. In the end he serves
the useful peace-making purpose delegated to axmen and hangmen
in the ancient drama. Charteris, despairing of eluding the erotic Julia
shunts her off into Paramore’s arms. Then Grace, coming out of her
dream, wisely flings him the mitten and the curtain falls.
It is frankly burlesque and in places it is Weberfieldian in its
extravagance. It was not presented in London in 1893 because no
actors able to understand it could be found. When it was published it
made a great many honest folk marvel that a man who admired
Ibsen as warmly as Shaw could write such a lampoon on the
Ibsenites. This was the foundation of Shaw’s present reputation as a
most puzzling manufacturer of paradoxes. The simple fact that the
more a man understood and admired Ibsen the more he would laugh
at the grotesqueries of the so-called Ibsenites did not occur to the
majority, for the reason that an obvious thing of that sort always
strikes the majority as unintellectual and childish and, in
consequence, unthinkable. So Shaw got fame as a paradoxical
sleight-of-hand man, as Ibsen did with “The Wild Duck” in 1884, and
it has clung to him ever since. At present every time he rises to
utterances a section of the public quite frankly takes it for granted
that he means exactly the opposite of what he says.
It is unlikely that “The Philanderer” will ever take the place of
“East Lynne” or “Charley’s Aunt” in the popular repertoire. In the first
place, as has been mentioned, it is archaic and, in the second place,
it is not a play at all, but a comic opera libretto in prose, savoring
much of “Patience” and “The Princess Ida.” In the whole drama there
is scarcely a scene even remotely possible.
Every line is vastly amusing,—even including the sermonizing of
which Mr. Huneker complains,—but all remind one of the “I-am-
going-away-from-here” colloquy between “Willie” Collier and Miss
Louise Allen in a certain memorable entertainment of Messrs. Weber
and Fields.
 “CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND’S
CONVERSION”
CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND’S CONVERSION” is a fantastic comedy,
written with no very ponderous ulterior purpose and without the
undercurrents that course through some of Shaw’s plays, but
nevertheless, it is by no means a bit of mere foolery. The play of
character upon character is shown with excellent skill, and if the
drama has never attracted much attention from aspiring comedians it
is because the humor is fine-spun, and not because it is weak.
The scene is the coast of Morocco and the hero, Captain
Brassbound, is a sort of refined, latter-day pirate, who has a working
arrangement with the wild natives of the interior and prospers in
many ventures. To his field of endeavor come two jaded English
tourists—Sir Howard Hallam, a judge of the criminal bench, and
Lady Cicely Waynflete, his sister-in-law. Lady Cicely is a queer
product of her sex’s unrest. She has traveled often and afar; she has
held converse with cannibal kings; she has crossed Africa alone.
Hearing that it is well-nigh suicidal to venture into the Atlas
Mountains, which rear their ancient peaks from the eastern skyline,
she is seized by a yearning to explore them. Sir Howard
expostulates, pleads, argues, and storms—and in the end consents
to go with her.
It is here that Brassbound enters upon the scene—in the
capacity of guide and commander of the expedition. He is a strange
being, this gentleman pirate, a person of “olive complexion, dark
southern eyes ... grim mouth ... and face set to one tragic
purpose....” A man of blood and iron. A hero of scarlet romance, red-
handed and in league with the devil.
 And so the little caravan starts off—Sir Howard, Lady Cicely,
Brassbound and half a dozen of Brassbound’s thugs and thieves.
They have little adventures and big adventures and finally they reach
an ancient Moorish castle in the mountains, heavy with romance and
an ideal scene for a tragedy. And here Brassbound reveals his true
colors. Pirate no longer, he becomes traitor—and betrays his
charges to a wild Moroccan chieftain.
But it is not gold that leads him into this crime, nor anything else
so prosaic or unworthy. Revenge is his motive—dark, red-handed
revenge of the sort that went out of fashion with shirts of mail. He
has been seeking a plan for Sir Howard’s destruction for years and
years, and now, at last, providence has delivered his enemy into his
hands.
To see the why and wherefore of all this, it is necessary to know
that Sir Howard, before reaching his present eminence, had a
brother who fared upon the sea to the West Indies and there
acquired a sugar estate and a yellow Brazilian wife. When he died
the estate was seized by his manager and his widow took to drink.
With her little son she proceeded to England, to seek Sir Howard’s
aid in her fight for justice. Disgusted by her ill-favored person and
unladylike habits, he turned her out of doors and she, having no
philosophy, straightway drank herself to death. And then, after many
years, Sir Howard himself, grown rich and influential, used his riches
and his influence to dispossess the aforesaid dishonest manager of
his brother’s estate. Of the bibulous widow’s son he knew nothing,
but this son, growing up, remembered. In the play he bobs into view
again. He is Captain Brassbound, pirate.
Brassbound has cherished his elaborate scheme of vengeance
for so many years that it has become his other self. Awake and
sleeping he thinks of little else, and when, at last, the opportunity to
execute it arrives, he goes half mad with exultation. That such
revenges have come to seem ridiculous to civilized men, he does not
know. His life has been cast along barren coasts and among
savages and outcasts, and ethically he is a brother to the crusaders.
His creed still puts the strong arm above the law, and here is his
chance to make it destroy one of the law’s most eminent ornaments.
Viewed from his standpoint the stage is set for a stupendous and
overpowering drama.
But the saturnine captain reckons without the fair Lady Cicely. In
all his essentials, he is a half-savage hairy-armed knight of the early
thirteenth century. Lady Cicely, calm, determined and cool, is of the
late nineteenth. The conflict begins furiously and rages furiously to
the climax. When the end comes Brassbound feels his heroics grow
wabbly and pitiful; he sees himself mean and ridiculous.
“Damn you!” he cries in a final burst of rage. “You have belittled
my whole life to me!”
There is something pathetic in the figure of the pirate as his
ideals come crashing down about his head and he blindly gropes in
the dark.
“It was vulgar—vulgar,” he says. “I see that now; for you have
opened my eyes to the past; but what good is that for the future?
What am I to do? Where am I to go?”
It is not enough that he undoes his treason and helps to save Sir
Howard. What he wants is some rule of life to take the place of the
smashed ideals of his wasted years. He gropes in vain and ends,
like many another man, by idealizing a woman.
“You seem to be able to make me do pretty well what you like,”
he says to Lady Cicely, “but you cannot make me marry anybody but
yourself.”
“Do you really want a wife?” asks Cicely archly.
“I want a commander,” replies the reformed Brassbound. “I am a
good man when I have a good leader.”
He is not the first man that has fallen beneath the spell of her
dominating and masterful ego, to mistake his obedience for love, and
she bluntly tells him so. And thus they part—Brassbound to return to
his ship and his smuggling, and Cicely to go home to England.
As will be observed, this is no ordinary farce, but a play of
considerable depth and beam. Shaw is a master of the art of
depicting such conflicts as that here outlined, and Brassbound and
Cicely are by no means the least of his creations. With all the
extravagance of the play, there is something real and human about
each, and the same may be said of the lesser characters—Sir
Howard; the Rev. Leslie Rankin, missionary and philosopher;
Drinkwater, Brassbound’s recruit from the slums of London; the
Moorish chiefs; Captain Hamlin Kearney of the U. S. S. Santiago,
who comes to Sir Howard’s rescue, and the others.
The chief fault of the play is the fact that the exposition, in the
first act, requires an immense amount of talk without action. The
whole act, in truth, might be played with all of the characters
standing still. Later on, there is plenty of movement, but the play as a
whole is decidedly inferior to the majority of the Shaw dramas. The
dialogue lacks the surface brilliancy of “You Never Can Tell” and
“Candida” and the humor, in places, is too delicate, almost, for the
theme. The piece, in fact, is a satirical melodrama disguised as a
farce—a melodrama of the true Shaw brand, in which the play of
mind upon mind overshadows the play of club upon skull.
 “CÆSAR AND CLEOPATRA”
BECAUSE he put it forth as a rival to “Julius Cæsar” and “Anthony
and Cleopatra,” Shaw’s “Cæsar and Cleopatra” has been the football
in an immense number of sanguinary critical rushes. His preface to it
is headed “Better than Shakespeare?” and he frankly says that he
thinks it is better. But that he means thereby to elbow himself into the
exalted position occupied by William of Avon for 300 years does not
follow. “In manner and art,” he said, in a recent letter to the London
Daily News, “nobody can write better than Shakespeare, because,
carelessness apart, he did the thing as well as it can be done within
the limits of human faculty.” Shaw, in other words, by no means lacks
a true appreciation of Shakespeare’s genius. What he endeavors to
maintain is simply the claim that, to modern audiences, his Cæsar
and his Cleopatra should seem more human and more logical than
Shakespeare’s. That this is a thesis susceptible of argument no one
who has read “Cæsar and Cleopatra” will deny.
“The sun do move,” said the Rev. Mr. Jasper. Shaw says the
same thing of the world. In Shakespeare’s day knighthood was still in
flower and the popular ideals of military perfection were medieval. A
hero was esteemed in proportion as he approached Richard Cœur
de Lion. Chivalry was yet a very real thing and the masses of the
people were still influenced by the transcendentalism of the
Crusades. And so, when Shakespeare set out to draw a conqueror
and hero of the first rank, he evolved an incarnation of these far-
fetched and rather grotesque ideals and called it Julius Cæsar.
To-day men have very different notions. In these piping times of
common-sense, were a Joan of Arc to arise, she would be packed
off to a home for feeble-minded children. People admire, not
Chevalier Bayard, but Lord Kitchener and U. S. Grant; not so much
lofty purposes as tangible achievements; not so much rhetoric as
accomplishment. For a man to occupy to-day the position held by
Cæsar at the beginning of the year 44 B.C. he would have to
possess traits far different from those Shakespeare gave his hero.
Shaw endeavors to draw a Cæsar with just such modern marks of
heroism—to create a Roman with the attributes that might exalt a
man, in this prosaic twentieth century, to the eminence attained by
the immortal Julius 1900 years ago. In other words, Shaw tries to
reconstruct Shakespeare’s Cæsar (and incidentally, of course, his
Cleopatra) just as a latter-day stage manager must reconstruct the
scenes and language of Shakespeare to make them understandable
to-day. That his own Cæsar, in consequence, is a more
comprehensible, a more human and, on the whole, a more possible
hero than Shakespeare’s is the substance of his argument.
The period of the play is the year 48 B.C., when Cleopatra was a
girl of sixteen and Cæsar an oldster of fifty-two, with a widening bald
spot beneath his laurel and a gradually lessening interest in the
romantic side of life. Shaw depicts the young queen as an
adolescent savage: ignorant, cruel, passionate, animal, impulsive,
selfish and blood-thirsty. She is monarch in name only and spends
her time as any child might. Egypt is torn by the feud that finally
leads to the Alexandrine war, and, Cleopatra, perforce, is the
nominal head of one of the two parties. But she knows little of the
wire-pulling and intriguing, and the death of her brother and rival,
Ptolemy Dionysius, interests her merely as an artistic example of
murder. The health of a sacred cat seems of far more consequence
to her than the welfare of Asia Minor.
Cæsar comes to Alexandria to take a hand in the affairs of Egypt
and, incidentally, to collect certain moneys due him for past services
as a professional conqueror. Cleopatra fears him at first, as a most
potent and evil bogey-man, and is so vastly surprised when she finds
him quite human, and even commonplace, that she straightway falls
in love with him. Cæsar, in return, regards her with a mild and cynical
interest. “He is an important public man,” says Max Beerbohm, “who
knows that a little chit of a girl-queen has taken a fancy to him and is
tickled by the knowledge, and behaves very kindly to her and rather
wishes he were young enough to love her.” He needs 1600 talents in
cash and tries to collect the money. In truth, he has little time to
waste in listening to her sighs. Pothinus, of the palace—an early
Roman Polonius—is appalled.
“Is it possible,” he gasps, “that Cæsar, the conqueror of the
world, has time to occupy himself with such a trifle as our taxes?”
“My friend,” replies Cæsar affably, “taxes are the chief business
of a conqueror of the world.”
And so there comes fighting and the burning of the Alexandrine
library and the historic heaving of Cleopatra into the sea and other
incidents more or less familiar. Through it all the figure of Cæsar
looms calm and unromantic. To him this business of war has become
a pretty dull trade: he longs for the time when he may retire and
nurse his weary bones. He fishes Cleopatra out of the water—and
complains of a touch of rheumatism. He sits down to a gorgeous
banquet of peacock’s brains and nightingale’s tongues—and asks for
oysters and barley water. Now and then Cleopatra’s blandishments
tire him. Again, her frank savagery startles and enrages him. In the
end, when his work is done and his fee pocketed, when Cleopatra’s
throne is safe, with Roman soldiers on guard about it, he goes home.
“I will send you a beautiful present from Rome,” he tells the
volcanic girl-queen.
She demands to know what Rome can offer Egypt.
“I will send you a man,” says Cæsar, “Roman from head to heel
and Roman of the noblest; not old and ripe for the knife; not lean in
the arms and cold in the heart; not hiding a bald head under his
conqueror’s laurels; not stooped with the weight of the world on his
shoulders; but brisk and fresh, strong and young, hoping in the
morning, fighting in the day and revelling in the evening. Will you
take such an one in exchange for Cæsar?”
“His name? His name?” breathes the palpitating Cleopatra.
“Shall it be Mark Anthony?” says Cæsar.
And the erotic little Cleopatra, who has a vivid remembrance of
Anthony’s manly charms, born of a fleeting glimpse of him, falls into
her elderly friend’s arms, speechless with gratitude.
Unlike most of Shaw’s plays, “Cæsar and Cleopatra” is modelled
upon sweeping and spectacular lines. In its five acts there are
countless scenes that recall Sardou at his most magnificent—scenes
that would make “Ben Hur” seem pale and “The Darling of the Gods”
a parlor play. And so, too, there is plenty of the more exciting sort of
action—stabbings, rows, bugle-calls, shouts and tumults. What
opportunity it would give to the riotous, purple fancy of Klaw and
Erlanger or the pomp and pageantry of David Belasco!
Shaw makes Cleopatra a much more human character than
Cæsar. In the latter there appears rather too much of the icy sang
froid we have grown accustomed to encounter in the heroes of the
brigade commanded by “The Prisoner of Zenda.” Some of Cæsar’s
witticisms are just a bit too redolent of the professional
epigrammatist. Reading the play we fancy him in choker collar and
silk hat, with his feet hoisted upon a club window-sill and an Havana
cigar in his mouth,—the cynical man-of-the-world of the women
novelists. In other words, Shaw, in attempting to bring the great
conqueror down to date, has rather expatriated him. He is scarcely a
Roman.
Cleopatra, on the contrary, is admirable. Shaw very frankly
makes her an animal and her passion for Cæsar is the backbone of
the play. She is fiery, lustful and murderous; a veritable she-devil;
and all the while an impressionable, superstitious, shadow-fearing
child. In his masterly gallery of women’s portraits—Mrs. Warren,
Blanche Sartorius, Candida, Ann Whitefield and their company—
Cleopatra is by no means the least.
The lesser characters—Brittanus, the primitive Briton (a parody
of the latter-day Britisher); Apollodorus, the Sicilian dilletante;
Ftatateeta, Cleopatra’s menial and mistress; Rufio, the Roman
general (a sort of Tiber-bred William Dobbin); and the boy Ptolemy—
all remain in the memory as personages clearly and certainly drawn.
In view of the chances that the play affords the player and the
stage manager it seems curious that it was so long neglected by the
Frohmans of the day. Between Shaw’s Cæsar and Shakespeare’s
Cæsar there is a difference wide enough to make a choice
necessary. That a great many persons, pondering the matter calmly,
would cast their ballots for the former is a prophecy not altogether
absurd. Just as the world has outgrown, in succession, the fairy tale,
the morality play, the story in verse, the epic and the ode, so it has
outgrown many ideas and ideals regarding humanity that once
appeared as universal truths. Shakespeare, says Shaw, was far
ahead of his time. This is shown by his Lear. But the need for
earning his living made him write down to its level. As a result those
of his characters that best pleased his contemporaries—Cæsar,
Rosalind, Brutus, etc.—now seem obviously and somewhat painfully
Elizabethan.
 “A MAN OF DESTINY”
THAT characteristic tendency to look at the under side of things and
to explore the depths beneath the obvious surface markings, which
Shaw displays in “Cæsar and Cleopatra,” “Arms and the Man” and
“The Devil’s Disciple,” is shown at the full in “The Man of Destiny.”
The play is in one act and in intent it is a mere bravura piece, written,
as the author says, “to display the virtuosity of the two principal
performers.” But its picture of Napoleon Bonaparte, the principal
character, is a startlingly novel one, and the little drama is
remarkable alike for its fantastic character drawing, its cameo
craftsmanship, its ingenious incident and its fairly dazzling dialogue.
There is more of the quality called “brilliancy” in its one scene than in
most three-act society comedies of the day. Some of its episodes are
positive gems.
The Napoleon of the play is not the emperor of popular legend
and Meissonier’s painting, but the young general of 1796, but
recently come to opportunity and still far from immortality. The scene
is the parlor of a little inn on the road from Lodi to Milan and the
young general—he is but twenty-seven—is waiting impatiently for a
packet of despatches. He has defeated the Austrians at Lodi, but
they are yet foes to be feared and he is very eager to know whether
General Massena will make his next stand at Mantua or at
Peschiera. A blundering jackass of a lieutenant, the bearer of the
expected despatches, comes staggering in with the information that
he has been met on the road and outwitted and robbed of them by a
boyish young officer of the enemy’s. Napoleon flies into a rage, very
naturally, but after all it is an incident of the wars and, the papers
being lost, he resigns himself to doing without them.
Almost simultaneously there appears from upstairs a handsome
young woman. The lieutenant, seeing her, is instantly struck with her
remarkable resemblance to the youthful officer who cajoled and
robbed him. Napoleon pricks up his ears and orders the half-witted
lieutenant out of the room. And then begins a struggle of wits. The
young woman and the young officer are one person. Bonaparte
knows it and demands the dispatches. But she is a nimble one, this
patriot in skirts, and it seems for a while that he will have to play the
dragoon and tear them from her bodice. Even when she yields and
he has the papers in his hands, she is the victor. There is one letter
that he dare not read. It is a billet-doux from a woman to a man who
is not her husband and it has been sent from Paris by a well-
meaning blunderer that the husband may read it and learn.
Josephine is the woman, the director Barras is the other man—and
Napoleon himself is the husband.
Here we have Bonaparte the man, facing a crisis in his affairs
more appalling than any he has ever encountered on the field of war.
There is no gleam of a crown ahead to cheer him on and no crash of
artillery to hearten him. It is a situation far more terrifying than the
fight about the bridge at Lodi, but he meets it squarely and
resolutely. And in the end he outplays and vanquishes his fair
conqueror.
She tells the blundering lieutenant that the officer boy who
outwitted him was her brother.
“If I undertake to place him in your hands, a prisoner,” she says,
“will you promise me on your honor as an officer and a gentleman
not to fight with him or treat him unkindly in any way?”
The simple-minded lieutenant promises—and the young woman
slips out and once more discards her skirts for the uniform of a
young officer. Then she reappears and surrenders.
“Where are the dispatches?” demands Napoleon, with heavy
dissembling.
“My sister has bewitched the general,” says the protean stranger.
“General: open your coat; you will find the dispatches in the breast of
it....”
 And lo! they are even there—and all agree that as papers
bearing the gristly finger-prints of a witch, they must be burnt.
Cæsar’s wife must be above suspicion.
“I read them the first thing....” whispers the witch’s alter ego; “So
you see I know what’s in them; and you don’t.”
“Excuse me,” replies Napoleon blandly. “I read them when I was
out there in the vineyard ten minutes ago.”
It would be impossible to exaggerate the humor and delicacy of
this little play. Napoleon, it must be remembered, is still a youngster,
who has scarcely dared to confess to himself the sublime scope of
his ambitions. But the man of Austerlitz and St. Helena peeps out,
now and then, from the young general’s flashing eyes, and the
portrait, in every detail, is an admirable one. Like Thackeray, Shaw is
fond of considering great men in their ordinary everyday aspects. He
knows that Marengo was but a day, and that there were thousands
of other days in the Little Corporal’s life. It is such week-days of
existence that interest him, and in their light he has given us plays
that offer amazingly searching studies of Cæsar and of Bonaparte,
not to speak of General Sir John Burgoyne.
 “THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE”
THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE, or Constancy Rewarded,” a blank
verse farce in two tableaux, is a dramatization by Shaw of certain
incidents in his novel, “Cashel Byron’s Profession.” Cashel Byron,
the hero of the novel, is a prize-fighter who wins his way to the hand
and heart of Lydia Carew, a young woman of money, education and
what Mulvaney calls “theouries.” Cashel sees in Lydia a remarkably
fine girl; Lydia sees in Cashel an idealist and a philosopher as well
as a bruiser. The race of Carew, she decides, needs an infusion of
healthy red blood. And so she marries Byron—and they live happily
ever after.
Bashville is Lydia’s footman and factotum, and he commits the
unpardonable solecism of falling in love with her. Very frankly he
confesses his passion and resigns his menial portfolio.
“If it is to be my last word,” he says, “I’ll tell you that the ribbon
round your neck is more to me,” etc., etc.... “I am sorry to
inconvenience you by a short notice, but I should take it as a
particular favor if I might go this evening.”
“You had better,” says Lydia, rising quite calmly and keeping
resolutely away from her the strange emotional result of being
astonished, outraged and loved at one unlooked-for stroke. “It is not
advisable that you should stay after what you have just——”
“I knew that when I said it,” interposes Bashville, hastily and
doggedly.
“In going away,” continues Lydia, “you will be taking precisely the
course that would be adopted by any gentleman who had spoken to
the same effect. I am not offended by your declaration; I recognize
your right to make it. If you need my testimony to further your future
arrangements, I shall be happy to say that I believe you to be a man
of honor.”
An American pugilist-actor, struck by the possibilities of the story,
engaged a journeyman playwright to make a play of it, and Shaw, to
protect his rights, put together “The Admirable Bashville.” The one
performance required by the English copyright law was given by the
Stage Society at the Imperial Theater, London, in the summer of
1903.
“It was funny,” says James Huneker, who witnessed the
performance. “It gibed at Shakespeare, at the modern drama, at
Parliament, at social snobbery, at Shaw himself, and at almost
everything else within reach. The stage setting was a mockery of the
Elizabethan stage, with two venerable beef-eaters in Tower costume,
who hung up placards bearing the legend, ‘A Glade in Wiltstoken
Park,’ etc. Ben Webster as Cashel Byron and James Hearn as the
Zulu King (whom Cashel entertains by an exhibition of his fistic
prowess) carried off the honors. Aubrey Smith, made up as Mr.
Shaw in the costume of a policeman with a brogue, caused
merriment, especially at the close, when he informed his audience
that the author had left the house. And so he had. He was standing
at the corner when I accosted him.”
Shaw explains that he wrote the extravaganza in blank verse
because he had to hurry over it and “hadn’t time to write it in the
usual prose.” To anyone “with the requisite ear and command of
words,” he says in another place, “blank verse, written under the
amazingly loose conditions which Shakespeare claimed, with full
liberty to use all sorts of words, colloquial, technical, rhetorical and
even obscurely technical, to indulge in the most far-fetched ellipses,
and to impress ignorant people with every possible extremity of
fantasy and affectation, is the easiest of all known modes of literary
expression, and this is why whole oceans of dull bombast and drivel
have been emptied on the head of England since Shakespeare’s
time in this form by people who could not have written ‘Box and Cox’
to save their lives.”
 “The Admirable Bashville” may be seen in the United States
before long. Not long ago the London Daily Mail reported that the
eminent comedian and gladiator, Mr. James J. Corbett, was casting
eager eyes upon it and that Shaw rather liked the idea of his
appearing in it.
“He is a man who has made a success in one profession,” the
dramatist is reported to have said, “and will therefore understand that
there are difficulties to be encountered in making a success in
another. Look at the books written to-day, and then consider which
you would rather have—a man who can do nothing or a really
capable prize-fighter.”
All of which you will find, much elaborated, in “Cashel Byron’s
Profession,” which was written in 1882.