The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)
serves as the foundation for the “Intelligent Enterprise,” but what lies behind its components? A central pillar of BTP is the SAP Integration Suite.
System integration is often the biggest bottleneck in digital transformation. The SAP Integration Suite is the answer to “integration chaos.” It enables smooth, secure, and future-proof data exchange.
The problem: too many interfaces
Many companies today are struggling with an IT landscape in which numerous individual interfaces and isolated applications have developed over the years. These are often classic point-to-point connections or various integration tools that are operated side by side and do not work together optimally.
The consequences of this heterogeneous landscape are serious and costly:
- High maintenance costs: Each individual connection must be maintained. A change in one system can have unforeseen effects on other, differently connected systems.
- Prone to errors: The complexity, especially with a large number of systems, is difficult to manage.
- Security risks: Access and data flows cannot be uniformly monitored or secured.
In short: The current situation is often complex, slow, and therefore very expensive. A better, future-proof solution is needed here.
The solution: SAP Integration Suite – iPaaS in the cloud
The SAP Integration Suite is SAP's official answer to precisely these problems.
It is an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) that is entirely cloud-based and an integral part of SAP BTP. As a customer, you benefit from the fact that SAP takes care of the operation, scaling, maintenance, and security of the services. This allows your company to focus entirely on implementing complex integrations that are specifically tailored to your use cases without having to operate your own middleware infrastructure.
The suite enables you to integrate both SAP applications and non-SAP systems quickly, reliably, and securely, whether on-premises or in the (multi) cloud. It has a modular structure and offers services for all integration scenarios. A huge advantage: SAP already provides highly preconfigured content and best practice templates, which speeds up implementation and saves costs.
The building blocks of the SAP Integration Suite: A modular approach
The SAP BTP Integration Suite has several main components. These work together seamlessly and are tailored to integration challenges.
1. Cloud Integration (CPI)
This is the central middleware in the cloud. With CPI, you develop and operate end-to-end integration flows, known as integration flows (iFlows).
They are essential for communication between applications (application-to-application, A2A) and for scenarios with external partners. Developers use an intuitive graphical modeling environment to define how data is transferred from the source to the target system (including mapping, routing, and conversion).
The platform supports all common protocols such as HTTPS, IDoc, SFTP, JDBC, and OData, which is strongly promoted by SAP. Thousands of ready-made integration contents (Integration Packs) for standard processes are available on the SAP API Business Hub, which greatly accelerates development.
2. API management
While cloud integration controls the actual data flow, API management is about professionally providing and managing your interfaces.
SAP API Management offers a central portal for registering existing SAP and non-SAP backends as APIs (proxies), documenting them comprehensively, and managing their entire lifecycle.
Governance and security play a key role here: you can define policies for authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and caching. SAP provides over 40 predefined security and traffic policies for this purpose. Integrated analysis functions show transparently how and how often APIs are used, which can lead to the monetization of these accesses.
3. Event Mesh
The component for event-driven integration (EDA). In modern architectures, systems should be decoupled from each other as much as possible. Instead of rigid, synchronous dependencies, one system publishes an event (e.g., “order created”) and other systems or services subscribe to this event and respond to it asynchronously in real time.
The event mesh acts as a central event broker. It increases robustness and reliability, as senders and recipients do not need to be online at the same time and events are reliably delivered and cached. This is ideal, for example, for distributing events from SAP S/4HANA to external solutions (CM systems, analytics platforms) or for better absorbing peak loads.
4. The helpers: Integration Advisor and Open Connectors
Two additional tools accelerate integration and reduce the need for complex custom code:
- Integration Advisor: Uses machine learning and crowdsourcing to make suitable suggestions for mappings and interface definitions. Particularly helpful for complex EDI standards.
- Open Connectors: Offers over 170 ready-made connectors to popular third-party applications such as Salesforce, Service Now, and Google. These connectors abstract the specific APIs of external services, which greatly simplifies the connection of cloud services.
Strategy: Governance and operation are crucial
Technology alone is not enough. The success of integration projects depends heavily on well-thought-out governance.
It is advisable to establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) to maintain an overview.
Security is non-negotiable: Since highly sensitive data is being handled, strict security protocols (e.g., OAuth 2.0, SAML, certificates) must be adhered to from the outset. The Integration Suite meets the highest international ISO standards in this regard.
DevOps principles are also important, as interfaces should be treated like software. Changes to integration artifacts must be transferred to productive operation via defined steps (e.g., with the Cloud Transport Management Service) in order to minimize disruptions. To keep an eye on performance and errors, clean monitoring is essential, for example via integrated functions or SAP Cloud ALM.
The strategic path: Migration from PI/PO to Integration Suite
An important strategic issue for many SAP customers is the replacement of the old integration platforms SAP Process Integration (PI) and Process Orchestration (PO). Standard support for SAP PI/PO ends in 2027 (with an optional extension until 2030). Companies must therefore act proactively to modernize their integration landscape. The Integration Suite is the official successor in the cloud.
Our roadmap in 4 phases:
- Assessment and analysis: Use tools such as the SAP Migration Assessment to scan your current PI/PO landscape, identify unnecessary legacy issues, and assess the actual scope.
- Roadmap and strategy: The transition should be gradual and modular, often with both systems running in parallel. Use the migration as a strategic opportunity to integrate modern BTP integration patterns.
- Replication and conversion: Migrate the interfaces to the Integration Suite. The Cloud Integration Content Migration Tool can convert artifacts, but it is an accelerator, not a fully automated “lift-and-shift” solution. Intensive testing of each migrated interface is mandatory, ideally in pilot migrations.
- Go-live and hypercare: After all relevant interfaces have been successfully put into production, the old PO landscape is gradually decommissioned. Plan a hypercare phase for intensive monitoring of the new interfaces.
Important: Avoid replicating old PI/PO integrations one-to-one. The Integration Suite offers new possibilities such as Event Mesh and API Management, which should be used for a future-proof redesign. Intensive testing and the early involvement of all stakeholders are also crucial.
Transform your complex integration landscape into a future-proof cloud platform. Our offer: Smooth and efficient migration of your existing integration landscape to the cloud.
End the integration chaos
The SAP Integration Suite is more than just an integration tool; it is the central hub for data and process flow in your intelligent enterprise. It ensures order, security, and agility by ending the integration chaos and allowing you to focus on your actual business processes.
We look forward to accompanying you on your individual BTP journey. The first step: our BTP assessment questionnaire. Our questionnaire will give you an initial assessment of your individual potential for BTP. Uncover optimization opportunities and lay the foundation for your individual roadmap toward an innovative SAP strategy.
Discover another important BTP building block: the SAP Business Data Cloud. Learn how you can modernize your data management and optimize it for analysis.