SAP Integration Suite Intro
SAP Integration Suite is SAP's modern, cloud-based integration platform. It runs on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and provides every tool you need to connect SAP systems to each other and to third-party applications. Instead of buying and maintaining separate integration software, companies use SAP Integration Suite as a subscription service hosted in the cloud.
The suite combines several integration capabilities into one platform. This means one contract, one interface, one place to monitor all integrations. Before Integration Suite existed, companies needed multiple separate products to do what this one platform now handles.
The Capabilities Inside SAP Integration Suite
SAP Integration Suite is not a single tool. It is a collection of capabilities, each solving a different integration problem:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ SAP INTEGRATION SUITE │ │ │ │ ┌───────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Cloud │ │ API Management │ │ │ │ Integration │ │ (Build & protect APIs)│ │ │ │ (CPI / iPaaS)│ └─────────────────────────┘ │ │ └───────────────┘ │ │ ┌───────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Event Mesh │ │ Open Connectors │ │ │ │ (Pub/Sub │ │ (Pre-built 3rd-party │ │ │ │ messaging) │ │ connectors) │ │ │ └───────────────┘ └─────────────────────────┘ │ │ ┌───────────────┐ │ │ │ Integration │ │ │ │ Advisor │ │ │ │ (B2B mapping)│ │ │ └───────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Cloud Integration (CPI)
This is the core and most-used capability. CPI stands for Cloud Platform Integration. It is where you design, deploy, and run integration flows. Most of this course focuses on CPI. You build graphical workflows called iFlows that define how data moves from one system to another.
API Management
API Management lets you publish, protect, and monitor APIs. If SAP exposes an API that external partners should call, API Management acts as a security gate in front of it. It controls who can call the API, how often they can call it, and tracks every call for analytics.
Event Mesh
Event Mesh provides a message broker service. Systems publish events, and other systems subscribe to receive them. No direct connections exist between the publisher and subscriber — they are fully decoupled. This is ideal for real-time, event-driven architectures.
Open Connectors
Open Connectors provides pre-built connectors to hundreds of third-party cloud applications — Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Dropbox, and many more. Instead of building a connector from scratch, you pick the one you need from the library, configure your credentials, and start using it.
Integration Advisor
Integration Advisor helps design and generate message mappings for B2B (business-to-business) scenarios. It understands industry standards like EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and automatically suggests mappings between SAP messages and partner messages. This saves days of manual mapping work for complex B2B integrations.
How SAP Integration Suite Fits in the Landscape
┌────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ SOURCE SYSTEM │ ──→ │ SAP Integration │ ──→ │ TARGET │ │ (Salesforce, │ │ Suite │ │ SYSTEM │ │ Shopify, │ ←── │ (Receives, routes, │ ←── │ (SAP S/4 │ │ Bank, etc.) │ │ transforms, sends) │ │ HANA, etc.)│ └────────────────┘ └──────────────────────┘ └──────────────┘
How to Access SAP Integration Suite
You access SAP Integration Suite through a web browser. No software installation is needed on your computer. Here is the high-level path to get started:
- Log in to your SAP BTP account
- Navigate to your BTP subaccount
- Open the Integration Suite subscription
- Activate the capabilities you need (Cloud Integration, API Management, etc.)
- Open the Integration Suite home page and start building
For learners without a paid account, SAP provides a free trial on BTP. You can activate SAP Integration Suite in the trial and build real integration flows at no cost. The trial gives you access to all capabilities for 30 days, which is enough time to complete many of the exercises in this course.
Pre-Built Integration Content
One of the biggest advantages of SAP Integration Suite is the SAP Business Accelerator Hub (formerly known as the SAP API Business Hub). It contains thousands of pre-built integration packages, API definitions, and event specifications.
For example, if you need to integrate SAP S/4HANA with Salesforce, a pre-built integration package already exists. You download it, configure it with your system credentials, and deploy it. The core mapping and routing logic is already done. You focus only on company-specific customizations.
This dramatically reduces the time needed to build common integrations. A project that would take weeks from scratch might take days using pre-built content.
SAP Integration Suite vs SAP Process Orchestration
Many companies currently run SAP Process Orchestration (SAP PO), the older on-premise integration platform. Here is how they compare:
┌─────────────────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐ │ Feature │ SAP PO (Old) │ SAP Integration Suite│ ├─────────────────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤ │ Hosting │ On-premise servers │ Cloud (SAP BTP) │ │ Setup │ Weeks of install │ Minutes (subscription│ │ Maintenance │ Customer manages │ SAP manages │ │ Upgrades │ Manual, disruptive │ Automatic │ │ Pre-built content │ Limited │ Thousands of packages│ │ API Management │ Separate product │ Built-in │ │ Event-driven │ Limited │ Full (Event Mesh) │ └─────────────────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────────────┘
SAP officially plans to end mainstream maintenance for SAP PO in 2027. Companies running PO today are actively migrating to SAP Integration Suite. This migration is one of the busiest areas in the SAP consulting market right now, making Integration Suite skills very valuable for your career.
Licensing and Editions
SAP Integration Suite is sold as a subscription. You pay per message processed or per monthly active users, depending on the edition. SAP offers several editions:
- Standard Edition – Includes Cloud Integration and basic API Management
- Premium Edition – Adds Event Mesh, Open Connectors, and Integration Advisor
- Enterprise Edition – Full access with higher message volume limits
For this course, you only need access to the Cloud Integration capability. The free BTP trial provides this at no cost.