Dear community,
As of
yesterday, you may
directly consume* SAP OData APIs via
Azure API Management from any-premise no matter where they live from all Azure regions
🎉: SAP Gateway, BTP ABAP environment, S/4HANA Cloud private or public edition in
RISE or GROW, SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, Commerce Cloud, or SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) etc.🤩
Azure API Management secures and simplifies the
SAP API integration with popular Microsoft services like Power Platform, Azure Functions, Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) and Microsoft Sentinel to name a few.
And of course, you get standard API Management features like fully
private virtual network integration,
multi-location deployment,
hybrid and multi-cloud gateways,
global presence (more regions that any other cloud provider), throttling, quota handling, request validation before it even hits SAP, and
cloud native authentication flows in one central place
🤘.
In case you favor SAP API Management on Azure, find your way to SAP Integration Suite on Azure
here. See
SAP Edge Integration Cell to run your iFlows on any-premise including any Azure region or Edge deployments.
Find your way around the highlighted Azure API Management features, SDKs, quickstart repos, deep-dive blog posts, and more from below.
API Creation, Design & blueprints
Enable modern GraphQL for your OData APIs.
See
this ABAP Cloud scenario from my BTP ABAP environment (steampunk)
blog series.
![](./?url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21tdW5pdHkuc2FwLmNvbS9sZWdhY3lmcy9vbmxpbmUvc3RvcmFnZS9ibG9nX2F0dGFjaG1lbnRzLzIwMjMvMDcvc3RlYW1wdW5rLWdyYXBocWwtb3ZlcnZpZXctMS5wbmc=&__proxy_form=0)
Spin up your SAP app extension powered by the SAP Cloud SDK on Azure with API Management with one command
The
Azure Developer CLI handles the whole app lifecycle including the API create from schema and attaching policies.
![](./?url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21tdW5pdHkuc2FwLmNvbS9sZWdhY3lmcy9vbmxpbmUvc3RvcmFnZS9ibG9nX2F0dGFjaG1lbnRzLzIwMjMvMDcvcHJvamVjdC1vdmVydmlldy1hemQtc3R5bGUucG5n&__proxy_form=0)
Speed up your Azure API Management Policy design with GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT
Since there are many policies published out there the
Large-Language-Model is quite good at creating APIM policies.
Try below prompt either in
GitHub Copilot chat or
ChatGPT to get started:
Create an azure apim policy handling csrf tokens with sap odata apis
Reason about and debug complex policies on Azure API Management using breakpoints from Visual Studio Code
Don’t forget to turn on tracing on APIM! Otherwise, there is no process attach
😉
Check out our
SAP Cloud SDK quickstart repos for more details on injecting APIs into existing API Management instances.
Authentication & Security
Unused days, authentication type, classification of sensitive data in response, and detection of suspicious API traffic patterns, already go a long way in securing your API estate.
![](./?url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21tdW5pdHkuc2FwLmNvbS9sZWdhY3lmcy9vbmxpbmUvc3RvcmFnZS9ibG9nX2F0dGFjaG1lbnRzLzIwMjMvMDcvZW5kcG9pbnQtZGV0YWlscy5wbmc=&__proxy_form=0)
Learn more from this
blog post.
Take a deep dive on the involved SAP OAuth server from
here:
Apply Azure API Management to lift the burden of X.509 client certificate handling for consumers apps integrating with BTP ABAP environment
Utilize Azure API Management Authorization Provider to streamline your auth setup and ease policy design
Use
Azure API Management Authorizations🎥 with apps like Power Platform or SAP Build Process Automation to integrate with SAP faster.
Stay tuned for further simplifications in this space for SAP workloads specifically.
UI-based API creation, modification, and deletion is doable for smaller API estates. However, enterprise scale requires API-as-Code and pipelining approaches with CD/CD.
Use Azure Developer CLI to handle the complete lifecycle of your SAP extension app, including the SAP OData API in Azure API Management
You may choose from Bicep or Terraform. See
this repo for more details.
Apply the
Azure API Management DevOps kit including GitHub Actions. Automate API deployments with
APIOps and Azure DevOps
For the ABAP RAP part of the house have a look at combining the git-based flows via Git-enabled Change and Transport System (gCTS)
Either have Azure Developer CLI (AZD) trigger the gCTS workflow or receive the trigger from gCTS using
AZD hooks.
Connectivity
Connect SAP BTP based apps like SAP CAP, Cloud Integration, Build Workzone Standard Edition, or SAP Build Apps with your APIs via SAP Private Link
Reach your private Azure API Management instance securely via the private link traversing the Azure Application Gateway and the its
web application firewall. Learn more from
this blog post.
![](./?url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21tdW5pdHkuc2FwLmNvbS9sZWdhY3lmcy9vbmxpbmUvc3RvcmFnZS9ibG9nX2F0dGFjaG1lbnRzLzIwMjMvMDcvcHJpdmF0ZS1saW5reS1hcHBndy1vdmVydmlldy0xLnBuZw==&__proxy_form=0)
You may customize this approach to securely expose the private SAP APIs via Azure API Management to the Internet using the
external mode.
The use cases span from multi-cloud, any-premise (your local data center etc.) to the Edge (think factories, oil-rigs, etc.).
Final Words
Only thing left to say: happy integrating everyone
😎
Start your Azure Journey regarding your SAP integration
here for free. See the Azure API Management
serverless and developer tier for cloud credit effective use. For SAP API Management on Azure see
FREE tier and trial plans.
Find the announcement blog post by my Azure APIM colleagues on the
Microsoft TechCommunity here.
Discover additional Microsoft integration scenarios from our
aggregator article.
Reach out to me for a deep dive into SAP integration with APIs
🤝
Cheers
Martin