SAP Integration Suite

Not all integration is the same. It takes place on different domains (see figure). In order to implement truly end-to-end processes, these different domains must be taken into account. Systems, data, applications and people must be integrated.

With the help of SAP Integration Suite, companies have the opportunity to realize this diverse integration efficiently and quickly. In addition to best practices, SAP Integration Suite also provides standard content and documentation.

Due to the increasing use of cloud applications and the consumption of services outside the on-premise system landscape, cloud-to-cloud and on-premise-to-cloud integration is becoming more and more necessary. SAP Integration Suite natively supports this requirement, providing a wide range of benefits:

• Seamless integration with SAP and non-SAP software solutions such as Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint, and more

• Easy and intelligent management and publishing of APIs

• Integration and compatibility with most on-premise applications (standard content, standard adapters, continuous delivery of additional content)

• Self-service integration for end users

• Ability to build in complex transformation logic for data mapping and transformation

• Real-time monitoring with instant notification and recovery options in the cloud

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are programming interfaces for applications. They are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. APIs are particularly important because they dictate how developers must build new applications that will access large web services and social networks.

APIs facilitate interaction by selectively exposing certain functionality so that different applications, websites, and devices can communicate effectively with each other.

SAP API Management is a new, multifaceted product in the SAP portfolio. It is part to an SAP initiative to create a more open and agile enterprise by moving toward an “API-first methodology”.

SAP API Management is intended to complement the SAP API Business Hub in terms of providing secure, managed governance for API usage.

In light of this radical shift in operations, many questions arise around APIs and API Management.

API Management is about the process of publishing, promoting, and monitoring APIs in a secure and scalable way. SAP API Management provides secure management of APIs based on open standards such as SOAP, REST, and OData, and provides enterprise-grade security. This simplifies the way developers approach integration with their SAP and non-SAP applications and reduces costs to drive innovation and participate in the larger API economy.

Technology landscapes are increasingly hybrid and heterogeneous, with some systems and products sourced from the cloud and others on-premise. SAP user companies expect the various products and software solutions to work together seamlessly out of the box to enable connected digital experiences across omnichannel activities. But with SAP’s growing product portfolio and vision of the intelligent enterprise, where end-to-end processes are enabled by a combination of products, it’s easy for companies to lose sight of the bigger picture.

With the ever-increasing heterogeneity of IT landscapes, integration should be the top strategic priority for enterprises in the digital age.

Integration is the key that bridges the gaps between individual systems and offers companies the promising opportunity to become smart enterprises and create exactly the connected digital experiences their customers want.

Best-practice scenarios facilitate integration

SAP delivers comprehensive pre-packaged integration content to help you get started quickly. These integration packages consist of the integration scenarios most commonly used and needed by users. For example, these include integration flows, value mappings, documentation, etc. By using this content, you can get started right away with minimal effort from the integration developer.

As a component of SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Integration Suite is a combination of applications, tools, integration scenarios and products that work together in the sense of complete integration − regardless of whether SAP, non-SAP, on-premise, cloud or hyperscaler. In this way, SAP Integration Suite makes it possible for companies to digitize their E2E processes and make their organization more connected and intelligent.

APIs and pre-packaged integrations of SAP shorten development times

• Out-of-the-box integration: 2000+ pre-built integration flows, 150+ value mappings

• APIs: 1500+ APIs from SAP and from partners

• Open Connectors: 170+ connectors to third-party applications

• Integration Content Advisor: machine learning to simplify integrations

With SAP Integration Suite, you can extend the capabilities of the standard integration content provided by SAP. This approach enables you to implement specific integration scenarios relevant to your business use case without changing SAP’s standard content.

SAP (or SAP partners) provide pre-packaged integration content (standard content) that covers a variety of integration requirements. This content typically consists of a set of integration flows, value mappings, and other integration artifacts that cover a standard integration use case.

If you want to customize these features to meet specific business requirements, you can directly edit and modify the corresponding integration flows that are included in the standard integration package. However, this is not recommended due to the following disadvantages:

• You will not receive any further updates to the modified standard integration content.

• If you copy the updated standard package from the SAP Integration Content Catalog to the design workspace of your client, you will overwrite any changes you have made to this package.

To avoid such negative impact, we recommend that you decouple the modifications that are required for your specific business scenario from the standard content that SAP provides.

To support this pattern, SAP Integration Suite has specific concepts and functions. Using these features, an organization can specify requirements in one or more custom integration flows without tangentially affecting integration flows from the standard content. Both the standard and custom integration flows are deployed on the same tenant and processed together, communicating with each other via a special adapter (ProcessDirect adapter).

Not every use case has standard content that can be used. Sometimes a company deliberately wants to deviate from the standard or the standard is not sufficient for a specific overall scenario.

For such cases, we have extensive experience from numerous integration projects and can provide the best possible support. If desired, we can also take over the complete management of your customized project.

Thanks to our close partnership with SAP, we realize ideal solutions that have only a low risk for later scaling and adaptation and are in line with SAP roadmaps and SAP product management.