Harness the Power of API Integration with A Low Code Approach to Create a Simple, Connected Digital Experience

A Low Code Approach to Create a Simple, Connected Digital Experience with API Integration

For those looking to unleash the potential of API integration and low-code platforms, SAP Integration Suite is a one-stop solution. This product goes beyond mere SAP Cloud Integration; it encompasses API management and Open Connectors for a powerful, interconnected digital experience. By leveraging all the components of the SAP Integration Suite, you can optimize your investment and significantly boost your API integration efforts.

What is API Integration? An overview

API integration is essentially the link between two or more applications, enabling them to communicate, exchange data, and foster seamless integration. Today’s dynamic business environment is powered by API integration, contributing to data synchronization, enhanced productivity, and revenue generation. Therefore, it’s no surprise that many companies have multiple API gateway providers to address their diverse API Integration needs.

API Integration’s Role in Business Enhancement

Companies invest heavily in various integration products based on their specific needs, like the systems they need to connect with and their underlying platform requirements. Despite the prevalent usage of on-premise SAP Process Integration (PI) and SAP Process Orchestration (PO) products, there’s a widespread desire to lower costs and modernize with cloud-based API integration solutions. The growing necessity for integration across SAP systems, third-party systems, and various line-of-business applications underscores the rising importance of API integration.

SAP BTP for Streamlined API Integration: Why Choose It?

As much as API consumption is standard in software development, API providers grapple with challenges like securing access to sensitive data in the cloud and on-premise systems, managing APIs across diverse landscapes, and monetizing from internal and external usage. For developers, SAP’s API business hub is a valuable resource offering OpenAPI specifications, business documentation, and an API sandbox for testing and response checking. Despite its robustness, the tool presents difficulties in API discovery, especially for developers unsure where to start.

The SAP BTP platform, through the SAP Integration Suite’s business hub enterprise, provides a comprehensive set of platform APIs for developers to craft integration solutions. It offers a unified catalog powered by workflows and event-based integration with non-SAP API management software. Through its automated billing process, developer onboarding, and tailored UX, a citizen developer can significantly enhance content and learning journeys by integrating the SAP Integration Suite with other SAP BTP services.

Educating Yourself about SAP’s API Integration Solutions: Where to Start?

For those keen to develop a low-code API developer portal with SAP’s low code approach for all APIs regardless of where they are managed the Discovery Center mission ‘Create simple, connected digital experiences with API-based integration’ is an excellent resource. The mission details services like SAP AppGyver, SAP Integration Suite, SAP Process Automation, SAP BTP Kyma runtime (optional), and SAP Cloud Identity Services’ Identity Authentication service (optional).

Breakdown of the services:

• SAP AppGyver: SAP’s no-code app development platform that allows you to create applications for the Web and for native mobile use.
• SAP Integration Suite: Allows you to connect and contextualize processes and data while enabling new content-rich applications to be assembled faster with less dependence on IT.
• SAP Process Automation: Combines capabilities from SAP Workflow Management and SAP Intelligent RPA with a powerful, yet intuitive no-code development experience to drive automation.
• SAP BTP, Kyma runtime (optional): SAP’s fully managed Kubernetes runtime based on the open-source project “Kyma”. This cloud-native solution allows you to extend SAP solutions with serverless Functions and combine them with containerized microservices. The offered functionality ensures smooth consumption of SAP and non-SAP applications, running workloads in a highly scalable environment, and building event- and API-based extensions.
• SAP Cloud Identity Services’ Identity Authentication service (optional): The Identity Authentication service provides you with controlled cloud-based access to business processes, applications, and data. It simplifies your user experience through authentication mechanisms, single sign-on, on-premise integration, and convenient self-service options.

With these tools, developers can:

• Create a unified API catalog for both external and internal developers. Similar to API business hub with a few unique and distinct requirements.
• Have full control over the user experience and the branding of the catalog. Benefiting from the robust back-end provided by the Integration Suite
• Create and maintain a fully customized experience. This is where SAP’s low code solutions like SAP AppGyver and Process Automation are a great fit.
• You can make your new portal a one-stop shop for all APIs, and make the portal available to guest users (unauthenticated) with a governed path to onboarding and requesting access to individual APIs.
• Documentation for SAP and non-SAP integrations, regardless if the API is managed by SAP or by third party. (Federation of API gateways).
• The ability to monetize based on rate plans with Stripe, and pluggable with payment provider of choice.

In conclusion, this mission offers insights on how to create a single point of access for all APIs, operationalize access requests, federate APIs from various gateways, and monetize the usage of your API integration-based solutions..

By implementing this use case, you empower your developer ecosystem with self-service access to APIs supported by secure digital processes. You’ll also be introduced to reference architectures for the federation of remotely managed API, a customized developer portal, and billing and invoicing of rate plans with Stripe.

This use case is one of our highlighted TechEd 2022 use cases. You can find the full list of all use cases being presented at TechEd 2022 on the Discovery Center here.

Visit our BTP use case community page for related TechEd 2022 sessions, and further dive into the world of API integration and low-code platforms with SAP.

Link to GitHub repository.