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Martin-Pankraz
Active Contributor








This post is part of a series sharing service implementation experience and possible applications of SAP Private Link Service on Azure.

Find the table of contents and my curated news regarding series updates here.

Looking for part 3?

Find the associated GitHub repos here.









📢Update 22.08.22: SAP published an official guide to connect SAP BTP PaaS/SaaS apps via SAP Private Link. Check out harutyun.ter-minasyan2's blog and the SAP samples repos.

Update: SAP enabled the CloudFoundry approuter to act as the waypoint into the SAP PLS. As of the release 11.2.1 you can replace my provided proxy app with an officially SAP supported option. I already replaced the Java proxy app on fig.2 to reflect that.

Dear community, 

You seem to be one of those brave folks, because you made it to part two of this Private Link Service Beta series. Last time I introduced the new service and shared my views on the implementation. Today we will build on top of that and hook it up with SAP Integration Suite. 

Quick intro: Integration Suite gets you everything you need for standard integration with SAPs SaaS portfolio, Connectors, API Management etc. Formerly the SAP Cloud Connector played its role at making private SAP backends available to SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). Let’s bridge that with the new private link service too.






🛈Note: For http based integration I would advise to read SAP's official guidance that we co-developed. For non-http like JMS, SFTP etc. you might still consider my example Java app as described here and in this post.

“Rock on” as they say.


Fig.1 pinkies “swearing” some more 


I extended the architecture overview from the first post with the Integration Suite service and potential “callers” of the deployed iFlows. That involves C/4Hana for instance. Basically, every app that can reach your Integration Suite instance – or going forward API Management – will be able to communicate with your SAP backend on Azure through a private connection.

Speaking of API Management: Have a look at the post from miroll on how to setup Azure AD with S4 including Principal Propagation with BTP API Management for further details on that aspect. Have a look here to look into the setup from Azure API Management perspective. 


Fig.2 architecture overview 



Standard integration pattern stays the same 


All developers may continue with the practices and technologies they are used to. Like with the Cloud Connector setup, you would add the URL of your BTP backend app to your iFlow. 

During my first post I showcased two implementation variations. One in Java with SAP Cloud SDK and one using CAP. In this example I fed the CAP implementation as target for the OData connector.


Fig.3 iFlow OData connection with SAP Private Link for Azure 


The path was derived from the routing config in the CAP application. It masks “sap/opu/odata/sap/epm_ref_apps_prod_man_srv” behind “product”. Depending on your implementation this might look different. If you did everything correctly, the OData EntitySets will show up on the wizard: 


Fig.4 OData Entity discovery via private link 


Once finished this will create the EDMX file on your iFlow. Next you should verify on the connection tab of the connector that the URL was taken properly from the wizard (see fig.3). Find my iFlow package here. 

Great, let’s deploy and test this.


Fig.5 Postman request to iFlow for products on S4 on Azure via private link 


Cool, that concludes the initial groundwork to get started with SAP Private Link for Azure and CPI 😊 

For the time being we need to integrate with the private link service from iFlows via the “relay” app or the SAP-supported CloudFoundry approuter. Any upvotes to get it done through the connectivity service directly?

Final Words 


Linky swears are not to be taken lightly. I believe SAP is making good use of the Azure portfolio creating another integration scenario that will become popular going forward. Today we saw the setup process for SAP Integration Suite with this new private link service and verified the usual integration development approach can be applied. 

In part three of this series, we will look at the deployment styles in more detail. Any other topic you would like to be discussed in that regard? Just reach out via GitHub or on the comments section below. 

Find the mentioned Java, CAP projects etc. on my GitHub repos here. Find your way back to the table of contents of the series here.

As always feel free to ask lots of follow-up questions. 

 

Best Regards 

Martin 
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