SAP integration strategy update: SAP Community Call Highlights

On January 28^th we kicked off a series of SAP Community Calls in cooperation with Knowledge Transfer for SAP User Groups about SAP’s integration strategy in the context of the intelligent enterprise. We got started with an introductory webinar “Intelligent enterprises are integrated enterprises: An update on SAP’s integration strategy” which refers to the integration paper published by SAP CEO Christian Klein.

This blog summarizes the key highlights of this webinar. The full webinar recording and presentation are publicly available.

SAP integration strategy

In a nutshell, SAP pursues holistic and customer value driven integration strategy aiming at integrated end-to-end business processes which span across SAP, partner and third-party solutions. Suite qualities have been introduced which facilitate an out-of-the box integration of SAP applications shaping SAP’s Intelligent Suite which also includes enhancements by partners:

SAP’s integrated intelligent suite

Suite qualities are technology concepts which are consistently applied to the SAP applications along end-to-end processes in order to form SAP’s Intelligent Suite. The figure below shows the current scope of suite qualities:

As part of this webinar we took a closer look at the following suite qualities in more detail.

E2E process blueprints

With this suite qualit, SAP delivers a reference architecture for the end-to-end business processes which helps you to understand the scope of applications, technologies and integrations used along these processes. These blueprints comprise out of different diagram types serving different needs which are all published at SAP API Business Hub.

The webinar recording includes a demo which shows the different diagram types, their respective scope and purpose (from 10:25 to 16:20 min).
You may also read the blogs Process Blueprints and the SAP Enterprise Architecture Methodology or Navigating through the end-to-end process blueprints of the Integrated Intelligent Suite to learn more.

Aligned domain models

With this suite quality SAP is delivering business objects (such as master data) which are aligned across SAP’s Intelligent Suite. These form the SAP One Domain Model which allows SAP applications to synchronize these objects in a faster, consistent and standardized fashion:

Watch the webinar recording for learning how to explore the SAP One Domain Model at SAP API Business Hub (from 16:25 to 20:40 min).
Further details about the SAP One Domain Models can be found at the blogs SAP One Domain Model – the lingua franca of the integrated intelligent suite and Explore the SAP One Domain Model.

Coordinated lifecycle management

This suite quality covers technologies to harmonize the provisioning, setup and operations of SAP applications along the end-to-end processes. As part of this webinar we looked at the Cloud Integration Automation Service (CIAS) which delivers a guided workflow for configuring and implementing integration scenarios in an optimized and semi-automated fashion (see recording from 20:40 to 23:30 min).
You can find more information about CIAS at the blog Cloud Integration Automation Service – What is it?

Achievements and the road ahead

The integration paper also includes roadmap information about when the suite qualities are supposed to be adopted per end-to-end process. Wondering about where we are now with the strategy and what comes next? You can find the latest information about planned innovations related to this strategy at the SAP Road Map Explorer.

Watch the webinar recording (from 23:35 to 25:00 min) to get to know how to find road map items for integration in general or even on the level of single suite qualities along SAP products, industries or the end-to-end business processes of the intelligent enterprise.

SAP Business Technology Platform for enterprise integration

The SAP Business Technology Platform is the platform for the intelligent enterprise delivering capabilities in the areas of application development and integration, database and data management, analytics as well as intelligent technologies. If you are wondering which how the SAP Cloud Platform relates to the SAP Business Technology Platform we have some news for you: The “SAP Cloud Platform” product name has recently been sunset to avoid confusion with the SAP Business Technology Platform brand. As a consequence, its capabilities have been renamed such as SAP Cloud Platform Integration Suite which is now just simply SAP Integration Suite. SAP Integration Suite delivers all capabilities needed for integrating SAP, partner and third-party applications: More than 1,800 prebuilt integrations along the E2E process of the intelligent enterprise and beyond:

Integration guidance for enterprise architects

Last but not least, SAP also provides comprehensive guidance for enterprise architects to define and execute a profound enterprise integration strategy. For this purpose the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology (ISA-M) delivers patterns, architecture blueprints and further best practices for cloud and hybrid landscapes. Furthermore, it also covers the organizational dimension of enterprise integration such as introducing an agile integration practice:

If you are looking for more details and advice regarding SAP integration technologies you may check out the new Integration Architecture Guide for Cloud and Hybrid Landscapes This guide provides comprehensive information on integration patterns including SAP recommendations according to the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology. If you would like to learn more about this methodology you may enroll in the openSAP course about the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology which will start on February 15th. This course will also give you the opportunity to practice ISA-M with exercises along a customer case study.

What’s next?

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog: This was an introductory webinar to a whole series about SAP’s integration strategy. If you would like to know more about the single building blocks of SAP’s integration strategy for the intelligent enterprise stay tuned for more webinars which will be announced at SAP Community Event or Knowledge Transfer for SAP User Group page.