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SAPPHIRE NOW 2019 announcement


As announced at SAPPHIRE NOW 2019, SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory – the cloud-native extensibility framework for the Intelligent Enterprise - is now available as an integral part of SAP Cloud Platform and on SAP C/4HANA Foundation. One of the great benefits for you is that the Extension Factory reduces the number of steps, for example, required to set up standard connections between SAP systems and SAP Cloud Platform. After you've connected your systems to SAP Cloud Platform, developers can access all available APIs and events in a central catalog.

Setting up trust between your systems is fast and straightforward meaning you can start building cloud-native extensions quickly and can concentrate on the all-important development logic to bring added value to your customers.

Why are extensions so important?


Many of our IT landscapes are fragmented. They comprise best-of-breed products from different vendors, which results in gaps between the solutions. To make the transition to a true intelligent enterprise, it’s important you fill these gaps without disrupting your core business processes. Your cloud solutions need to provide a consistent end-to-end experience, made possible by lightweight, event-driven applications that extend the digital core while keeping it clean. This is where SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory and Enterprise Messaging come to the fore.

SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory provides a simplified extensibility concept while SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging provides the messaging and event-driven capabilities to decouple communication and share event data reliably across your hybrid system landscapes. Use SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging to create responsive applications that work independently and participate in event-driven processes inside your company and across your business ecosystem for greater agility and scalability.

Event-driven extensions


SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging enables you to extend core lines of business with responsive applications that can consume and react to event at their own pace. You can publish events to SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging from SAP and non-SAP sources, for example, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP C/4HANA. Events are published from sources like SAP S/4HANA Cloud to a topic in Enterprise Messaging from where extension applications can subscribe to receive all events published like, for example, the event from SAP S/4HANA Cloud when a Sales Order is created (BO/SalesOrder/Created).

Fig. 1: SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging for your integration and extension scenarios



Simplified system registration and event exposure


Let me outline the 3 simple steps required to register your systems to SAP Cloud Platform, set up entitlements, and create a service instance to prepare the usage of APIs and events.

Step 1: Register your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system to enable extensibility with SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory



  1. Open your global account on SAP Cloud Platform

  2. Choose Systems from the menu

  3. Press the Register System button

  4. Enter the system name and select the system type from the dropdown list

  5. Press the Register button

  6. Copy the integration token generated to your clipboard

  7. Press the Close button


Enter the newly generated integration token in your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system

  1. Open Maintain SAP Cloud Platform Extensions

  2. Press the New button

  3. Copy the integration token into the Integration Token field

  4. Enter a description

  5. Press save to complete the system handshake and wait for the status to change to Enabled. This will take a few seconds.

  6. Return to SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit and refresh the Systems overview. The status of your system should change to Registered


Step 2: Set up entitlements



  1. In your global account, choose Entitlements, Subaccount Assignments.

  2. In the Subaccounts dropdown list, select your subaccount and choose Go.

  3. In the Subaccount Entitlements dialog box, select the service SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensibility.

  4. In the Service Details: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensibility screen area, select your newly registered system from the dropdown to list the available service plans for this service.

    1. Service plan: 'messaging' to consume SAP S/4HANA Cloud events and create event-based extensions using the event bus from SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging.

    2. Service plan: 'api-access' for generic access to SAP S/4HANA Cloud APIs



  5. Select both service plans and press the Add 2 Service Plans button to add these entitlements  to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system registered to your subaccount.

  6. Press Save.


Step 3: Prepare usage of APIs and events in extensions by creating service instance for registered system



  1. In SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit, open your subaccount

  2. Choose Spaces from the menu

  3. Open your space

  4. Choose Services, then Service Marketplace from the menu

  5. Navigate to S/4HANA Cloud

  6. Open Overview

  7. Choose Instances from the menu

  8. Press the New Instance button

  9. In the Choose Service Plan box, select your system name from the dropdown list

  10. Press Next

  11. In the Specify Parameters box, enter or upload your configuration settings, and press Next



  12. In the Assign Application (Optional) box, press Next

  13. In the Confirm box, enter the instance name

  14. Press the Finish button

  15. A Create Instance message is displayed, press OK

  16. Service instance is created


After you have created a service instance, you can bind it to a Cloud Foundry application (via Open Service Broker). The developer gains access to the registered systems and can use any APIs or events from this system. SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging enables customers to access all events that have been exposed for their subaccount.

All SAP S/4HANA Cloud events can be published to SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging to create event-based extensions.

Event-driven scenarios


If you want to set up an event-driven scenario, you will also need to configure entitlements for the SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging service in your SAP Cloud Platform subaccount.

For more information about how to set up your SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging service instance, see Enable Enterprise Messaging Service for Your SAP Cloud Platform Subaccount

Boost your productivity!


SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory and SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Messaging boost productivity for developers thanks to the ease at which you can extend solutions and start developing innovative event-driven extensions and applications. As of SAPPHIRE NOW 2019, you can enjoy a standardized way to register SAP systems on SAP Cloud Platform, benefit from a central catalog with their APIs, events, and credentials, and a consistent developer experience.

For more information about the availability of SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory, see this blog post from Rui Nogueira.

For more information about how SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory and cloud-native extensibility fits in with SAP C/4HANA Foundation, see this blog post from Thomas Hertz.

Try it out for yourself and see just how easy it is to start developing cloud-native extensions!