As enterprises increasingly adopt hybrid landscapes—combining on-premise and cloud applications—achieving seamless, secure, and scalable integration becomes a critical challenge. SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SAP CPI) emerges as a powerful integration platform to address this need by enabling advanced hybrid integration scenarios that connect diverse systems across environments.
This article explores the concept of hybrid integration, outlines key scenarios, and discusses how SAP CPI facilitates these advanced integration patterns in the modern SAP ecosystem.
Hybrid integration refers to the process of integrating cloud-based applications with on-premise systems to create unified business processes. This approach combines the flexibility and scalability of cloud solutions with the control and legacy investments of on-premise systems.
Typical hybrid integration challenges include:
- Bridging network boundaries securely
- Handling diverse protocols and data formats
- Maintaining consistent data synchronization
- Ensuring real-time or near-real-time communication
SAP CPI is designed as a cloud-native integration platform with strong hybrid capabilities, including:
- Prebuilt Adapters: Connect SAP on-premise systems like SAP S/4HANA, SAP ERP, and non-SAP systems with cloud apps such as SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, or third-party SaaS platforms.
- Secure Connectivity: Use SAP Cloud Connector and VPN tunnels to securely expose on-premise endpoints to SAP CPI.
- Flexible Integration Patterns: Support for message-based, event-driven, and API-led integrations.
- Centralized Monitoring: Unified dashboards for visibility across hybrid environments.
- Scalability and Reliability: Cloud elasticity with guaranteed message delivery and error handling.
Use case: Synchronizing customer data changes in SAP S/4HANA on-premise with a cloud CRM system in real-time.
- SAP CPI listens to change pointers or IDocs from SAP S/4HANA.
- Data is transformed and routed via CPI to the cloud CRM via REST or OData APIs.
- Changes from the cloud CRM can similarly be propagated back to on-premise systems, ensuring consistency.
Use case: An order-to-cash process involving multiple systems—on-premise ERP, cloud-based warehouse management, and third-party logistics providers.
- SAP CPI orchestrates the workflow across systems.
- It integrates various protocols (IDoc, REST, SOAP) and handles message transformations.
- Provides error handling and compensating transactions for reliable execution.
¶ 3. Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) in Hybrid Landscapes
Use case: IoT devices generating sensor data processed in the cloud, triggering workflows in on-premise systems.
- Events from cloud sources flow into SAP CPI.
- CPI routes event messages to on-premise systems via SAP Cloud Connector.
- Enables near-real-time processing and reaction.
Use case: Exposing SAP on-premise data and processes as managed APIs for cloud or external consumption.
- SAP CPI wraps on-premise functionality as RESTful APIs.
- APIs are secured, throttled, and monitored via SAP API Management.
- Enables reuse, developer enablement, and monetization.
- SAP Cloud Connector: Securely tunnels requests from SAP CPI to on-premise systems without opening inbound firewall ports.
- Adapters: Wide variety including IDoc, RFC, SOAP, OData, SFTP, JMS to connect heterogeneous systems.
- Message Queues and Event Mesh: Supports asynchronous, decoupled communication across environments.
- Integration Flow (iFlow): Graphical modeling of integration logic for complex routing, transformations, and error handling.
- SAP API Management: Complements CPI by managing API lifecycle, security, and consumption.
- Secure All Connections: Always use SAP Cloud Connector or VPN for secure communication.
- Design for Resilience: Implement retry mechanisms, dead-letter queues, and error handling in iFlows.
- Optimize Data Transformation: Minimize payload sizes and use efficient mappings to reduce latency.
- Monitor Proactively: Use CPI monitoring dashboards and alerts to detect and resolve issues quickly.
- Leverage API Management: Expose hybrid integration endpoints as APIs for better governance and reuse.
- Version and Document Interfaces: Maintain API and integration flow versioning for smooth upgrades.
Advanced hybrid integration scenarios are essential for enterprises looking to leverage both cloud innovation and on-premise stability. SAP CPI, with its rich connectivity, security, and orchestration capabilities, enables businesses to implement seamless, scalable, and secure hybrid integrations that drive digital transformation.
By adopting SAP CPI for hybrid integration, organizations can unify their IT landscapes, improve business agility, and deliver superior user experiences across diverse systems and platforms.