openSAP course about the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology

Many enterprises have expanded their IT landscapes by buying point solutions to solve specific business needs. This has resulted in fragmented stacks, disconnected business processes which slows down innovation: For being able to tackle this integration challenge SAP has introduced the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology (ISA-M) which is an integral part of SAP’s integration strategy in the context of the intelligent enterprise.

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Wondering how to get started with ISA-M? We are pleased to inform you that we are about to launch an openSAP course about the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology on February 15^th 2021. As part of this free four weeks online course you will learn all about the four use cases of this methodology:

The openSAP course is also a perfect opportunity for introducing new aspects and topics to the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology. Let’s look at some examples along the use cases of the methodology:

Week 1: Assess your integration strategy

At the beginning of this week (unit 1 of week 1) you will learn which role the SAP Integration Solution Advisory Methodology plays as part of SAP’s Integration strategy in context of the intelligent enterprise. As part of the introduction to the methodology we will also look at ist benefits and business value: For this purpose we will explore an example about how a SAP customer has adopted ISA-M along a digital transformation journey (2 of week 1).

Week 2: Design your hybrid integration platform

The scope of this use case has been enhanced to also include guidance about how to implement the hybrid integration platform you have just designed: This includes the identification of integration scenarios such as out-of-the box integrations (unit 3 of week 2) and choosing the right interfaces when developing custom integration scenarios (unit 4 of week 2). Very likely you already know SAP API Business Hub for discovering out of the box integration content for SAP and third party applications and APIs for building custom integrations. In addition to that, we will look at SAP Activate which is SAP’s solution implementation methodology. SAP Activate also covers integration aspects. As an example, we will explore the fit-to-standard analysis which also includes integration planning and design:

Week 3:  Define integration best practices

In addition to the enhancements of this use case with the ISA-M template 3.3 version – such as integration do’s and don’ts and architecture blueprints – we also explore how to leverage integration templates (unit 3 of week 3). Such templates are available for many SAP integration technologies like SAP Data Intelligence. Furthermore, you can learn how to prepare integration guidelines by reusing generic and product specific integration best practices (unit 4 of week 3). The figure below shows design guidelines of the Cloud Integration capability of SAP Integration Suite (fka SAP Cloud Platform Integration) which you can find at SAP API Business Hub:

The openSAP course also includes a demo which shows how to configure, deploy and test the SAP delivered samples of these integration flow design guidelines.

Week 4: Enable a practice of empowerment

This openSAP course is a perfect opportunity for expanding the scope of the last use case of ISA-M which elaborates the organizational dimension of enterprise integration. For instance, we have introduced a new emerging integration role which is the Chief Integration Officer (unit 1 of week 4). For a sneak preview of what this new role is about you may also check out the blog Chief Integration Officer – Are you the next Jane? Next, you can learn all about an Integration Center of Excellence (unit 2 of week 4), its responsibilities and organizational setup options and get to know how it differentiates from traditional kinds of Integration Competence Centers.

Last but not least we will look at a topic which is a hot topic for many customers: How to introduce integration governance and integration quality assurance. As part of the openSAP course you can exploer a simplified example about how you can run an integration governance process with the help of ISA-M:

As a kind of “food for thought” we will also explore a new option for introducing a more agile and lightweight approach for integration quality assurance. Curious to know more? Enroll in the course at https://open.sap.com/courses/int2.

An opportunity to practice ISA-M

This openSAP course will give you also the opportunity to learn how to apply ISA-M. My colleague Ivo Droesser prepared a case study for you which is based on a real customer example.

The figure below shows the envisioned application landscape of BestRun Retails, a fictitious Germany based retailer, looking to expand in other countries in a highly competitive environment:

At the end of every course week you can walk through exercises where you can practice what you just have learned before: At the end of week 1 you can define the integration strategy for BestRun Retails followed by defining a hybrid integration platform – including a decision matrix for the integration technologies – at the end of week 2. In week 3 we you can create an architecture blueprint of integration use case patterns which are relevant for BestRun Retails. Finally, you can decide on the best organizational setup of an Integration Center of Excellence at BestRun Retails at the end of week 4.

Kindly note, that the exercises are defined as optional for the course, meaning that they will not count for the record of achievement.

Looking forward to seeing you soon at the openSAP course!