SAP API Management

With SAP API Management as part of the SAP Integration Suite, you can publish, promote and monitor APIs on the fly in a secure and scalable environment. At first glance, this sounds very different. We will explain to you exactly what that means. But for this we should understand the term API as a basis. API stands for Application Programming Interface. A programming interface can either be integrated in the form of an SDK (Software Development Kit) or via certain open and proprietary protocols such as RFC or HTTP. In the SAP context you will typically deal with SOAP, OData and REST APIs.

Imagine you have hundreds of these APIs. Sounds unrealistic to you? However, this is a living example from the SAP Business Suite and SAP S/4 HANA. Each SAP Fiori app uses one or more OData APIs. If the APIs are only consumed internally, monitoring the APIs during operation is often neglected. If you want to make the APIs available to external developers for use in their own apps, requirements such as documentation, billing, security and monitoring suddenly come into focus. This is exactly where SAP API Management helps you. It enables you to provide your interfaces centrally, document them and monitor ongoing operations.

Switching your on-premise SAP Fiori apps to consume the OData APIs via SAP API Management basically makes little sense, since SAP API Management is only offered in the SAP BTP and the entire network communication would therefore run via the SAP BTP. This makes sense for mobile apps or SAP Fiori apps that are provided via SAP BTP. For us, the most important advantage is the central monitoring. You have an overview of all APIs and can immediately identify errors and problems.

SAP API Management consists of two main components – the API Designer and the Developer Portal. With the API Designer you create and model your APIs. You can create products and integrate one or more APIs from one or more providers into them. You can intervene in the data flow and, for example, check an API key or cache data. The number of requests within a certain period of time can also be limited with a spike arrest.

The introduction of SAP API Management is basically very simple. All you have to do is activate the capability in the SAP Integration Suite and you’re good to go. Of course, you should think about security and the planned scenarios beforehand! ERP Savvy’s Business Team is happy to support you throughout the lifecycle of SAP API Management projects.