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Author's profile photo Shruthi M Arjun

SAP API Management – Managing 3rd Party services via Open Connector Instances

Introduction

SAP Cloud Platform Open Connectors is a recent addition to the Integration and Orchestration suite of services that simplifies and accelerates the connectivity to third-party cloud applications. It provides prebuilt connectors to an extensible library of over 170 of the most popular non-SAP cloud applications. If you are unfamiliar with the offering, I would suggest that you check the documentation here.

Now let’s think of a use case where you have used Open Connectors and created an instance to establish connectivity to any one of the 3rd Party applications like HubSpot CRM. Often, you would want to manage this instance that you have just created, for example by adding a quota limit to it. This is exactly what API Management will help you do. This blog will tell you how you can discover your Open connector instances in API Portal and then create API Proxies for these instances which you can later strengthen using the rich policy set available to you.

 

Pre-requisite

You need to create an instance for HubSpot CRM in Open Connectors following this blog.

Keep the Organization secret, User secret from the Open Connectors service page handy.

 

Create an API Provider

In the API Portal, you have an option in the Configure page to create API providers that help you establish connectivity to a backend system. In this case, the Open Connectors service is our backend system. We create an API Provider with the type ‘Open Connectors’. Choose the region where your Open connectors service in running. Enter the Organization secret and User secret that you retrieved from the cockpit. Save the API Provider.

 

Create an API Proxy

Switch to the Develop page in the API Portal. Start creating an API Proxy. In the create dialog, select the API Provider you just created and click on Discover and wait for the magic ?

This will display all the Open Connector instances you have created, and you should see your HubSpot CRM instance as well.

Select the instance. This will automatically pull all the details from the instance including Name, Title, description, Base path (which you can optionally modify). Remove any spaces in the Name.

On confirming the create dialog, you will be navigated to the API Proxy that got created. Explore the various tabs; observe the target endpoint and resources. They are automatically taken over from the Open connector instance that you chose.

 

Save the API Proxy.

Navigate to the Policy editor to see that there is a new Policy called ‘Open Connectors’ that is attached to the postflow of the target endpoint. This is responsible for passing on the authorization header to the Open Connector instance for successful connectivity.

Under the Key Value Map section of the API Proxy you will see a new entry. That holds the instance token securely.

You don’t have to modify anything at this point in time, just deploy the API Proxy.

Now, copy the API Proxy URL to a browser window and append it with any of the resource paths – say /contacts. You should see the result from the HubSpot CRM API!!

 

Summary

In the above steps, we saw how we could create an API Provider in API Portal to generically connect to an Open Connector service and then create API Proxies corresponding to the various connector instances. Once the API Proxy is created, you can add the rest of the policies of your choice. All this, without leaving your API Portal. This was easy, isn’t it?

 

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      9 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Nabheet Madan
      Nabheet Madan

      Thanks for the blog. This is another example of how easy it is to connect/integrate different services. It is more like pick and choose come up with a final working scenario.

      Author's profile photo Emmanuel Afolabi
      Emmanuel Afolabi

      Thanks for the blog. Was easy to follow.

      Author's profile photo Rodrigo R. Salinas Torres
      Rodrigo R. Salinas Torres

      i did everything it was easy, but in the very end i get this error when i tried to deploy the API

      Invalid Accept-Language: 'es-419'.
      [Request ID: 034954e0-e45c-473e-9075-d6969e0ae6d8]

      Author's profile photo Rodrigo R. Salinas Torres
      Rodrigo R. Salinas Torres

      I managed to solve it, i just delete spanish language from my chrome in settings then i reload the page.

      Author's profile photo Mohammed Siddiq Uzzaman
      Mohammed Siddiq Uzzaman

      While in the step creating API Proxy I select API provider as openConnectorTrial and click discover.

      Unable to fetch data from the catalog due to incorrect credential of selected API Provider. Check the credential and try again.

      I tested the API provider and got this message 403 that susytem is up and running.

      System is up and reachable. However, the ping check responded with code : 404; Message : Not Found

      Author's profile photo Shruthi M Arjun
      Shruthi M Arjun
      Blog Post Author

      Hi,

      Could you  recheck the credentials on the API Provider? You need to enter the correct Org & User secret.

      Thanks

      Shruthi

      Author's profile photo Claudio Andrés Hermosilla Geldres
      Claudio Andrés Hermosilla Geldres

      Hi Shruthi,

      I am following the same example to validate the potential of open connectors, but it gives me the same error, I checked the credentials of Integration Suite (Org & USer) again, the test is ok but it does not display the associated instances. is there an alternative? if you can help me with this, thanks.

      Author's profile photo Pankaj Yadav
      Pankaj Yadav

      Hi Shruthi M Arjun

      I hope you are doing well.

      Can you please suggest some solution for the issue mentioned in below link?

      Link: Error while connecting AmazonS3 open connectors to Fiori App via API Management | SAP Community

      Looking forward to hear from you.

       

      Author's profile photo Liyana Liyana
      Liyana Liyana

      Hello Shruthi,

      Trust you doing great,

      Thanks for providing clear step-by-step for managing open connectors. This blogs really helpful.

      One query,  regarding API Proxy Creation. While enter API Provider as describe previously and click Discover, found an error occurs at below screenshots. 

       

      FYI, API Provider Test Connection works fine without error

       

      Is anything miss from my configuration? 

      Thanks in advance.