SAP Cloud Integration with May 2022 release provides a simplified feature to consume the integration adapter from SAP API Business Hub in your Integration Suite tenant.

To understand how the integration adapter consumption experience is simplified, lets us try to understand the current consumption model along with a simple scenario.

Scenario – SAP publishes the Dropbox integration adapter in the shipment channel. ABC Corp customer would like to consume the integration adapter in the Integration Suite tenant which is based on the premium edition.

Current Consumption Approach – Adapters in SAP Software Download Center

You would have consumed many integration adapters content from the SAP Software Download centre. Nevertheless, let us understand the workflow in a brief

• SAP/SAP Partner (OEM Partner) publishes the integration adapter in SAP Software Download Centre by following SAP internal governance process.
• Customer ABC Corp downloads the integration adapter from SAP Software Download Centre.
• Customer ABC Corp imports the integration adapter in SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling workspace of Integration Suite and deploy the same on the tenant
• Consumes the Integration Adapter and configure in an integration flow.

Disadvantages

The current consumption model for consuming the integration adapter from SAP Software Download Centre has certain drawbacks and let us try to understand.

1. Context switches across toolsets – Integration developer downloads the integration adapter from SAP Software centre Download and then switch to SAP Cloud Integration web tooling to import the adapter and consume the same in the integration flow. Switches across different toolsets doesn’t lead to a good developer productivity.
2. Break in the lifecycle – For a new patches/release for the Integration Adapter, there is no proactive notification for the integration developer in the SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling. He must again switch to SAP Software centre, download the patched version of integration adapter, and consume in the integration flow. This leads to a tedious consumption experience.
3. No common place to manage connectors – There is no common place in the SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling to manage all the available integration adapters

New Consumption Approach – Adapters in SAP API Business Hub

In the new approach, we replace SAP Software Download Center with SAP API Business Hub.

Let us understand the above workflow in a brief.

• SAP/SAP (OEM) Partner publish the Integration Adapter content in SAP API Business Hub by following SAP internal governance process.
• Customer ABC corp explore the Integration Adapters in SAP API Business Hub and/or in the embedded discover view of the Integration Suite tenant which is based on the standard/premium edition
• Customer ABC Corp experience the integration Adapter in the Adapter selection dialog of the Integration flow
• Customer ABC Corp selects the Integration Adapter in the integration flow which essentially imports and deploy the integration adapter as well.
• Configures the adapter in the integration flow, deploys the integration flow and message is processed.

Now lets us infer the benefits from this new consumption model

Advantages

1. No context switches across toolsets – Integration developer would consume the integration adapter from SAP API Business Hub in his SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling of Integration Suite tenant. There are no switches across different toolsets.
2. Harmonized consumption experience just like any other pre-packaged integration content where content is consumed in SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling of Integration Suite tenant.
3. Patches/new releases will be easy to consume via update notification from SAP API Business Hub. For any new patched version for integration adapter, update notification indicator will be experienced by integration developer.
4. Integration adapter is categorized based on the Type. Some of the examples of Type are Technical, Storage, CRM, HCM etc. This will help to group the integration adapters.
5. Logo will be available for the integration adapters for a better visual experience.

Now let us experience the new consumption experience for consuming integration adapter from API Business Hub in SAP Integration Suite by taking Dropbox adapter as an example

Prior that let us understand how to explore integration adapters in SAP API Business Hub and embedded discover view of integration suite tenant.

Exploring Integration Adapters in API Business Hub

You can connect to New SAP API Business Hub  api.sap.com and explore the categories. One of the categories would be “Adapters”.Image 1: Select Category “Adapters”

In this category, you can explore all the adapters from SAP and SAP Partners(SAP OEM Partners). As of now we have Dropbox adapter. But many more integration adapters will come in near future.

Image 2: Dropbox Adapter Tile

Each tile represents the adapter and on click of the tile, it will open the adapter viewer which will provide the details such as overview, documentation, Type of Adapter, Vendor, Service plan and Application.Image3: Dropbox adapter viewer

Overview – It will contain the key highlights of the integration adapter for an e.g., which connectivity solution, the adapter is going to offer and another configuration aspects.

Adapter Type – Integration adapter is categorized based on the Type. Some of the examples of Type are Technical, Storage, CRM, HCM etc. This will help to group the adapters based on Type.

Vendor – This field signifies whether the offering is from SAP or from its Partner.

Application – Adapter are meant to solve some connectivity issue. With the Application, you can make out with which application the adapter is going to offer connectivity.

Service plan – This is alias which will educate user whether the adapter is available in the standard and onwards editions or Basic and onwards editions. You can refer the SAP Note to know the exact mapping between the service plan alias and integration suite editions.

Documents – This section contains the documentation/help link/readme/changelog to provide more insight on the integration adapters.

Exploring Integration Adapters in Embedded discover view

You can also explore the integration adapter from the embedded discover view of your integration suite tenant if it is connected to the SAP API Business Hub.

Open embedded discover view in your integration suite tenantImage1: Embedded discover view of Integration Suite tenant

Search the Dropbox integration adapter

Image 2: Search dropbox adapter in the discover view

Open the Dropbox adapter package and understand the key feature of the dropbox adapter. Support information field in the overview section will guide you to get an appropriate support from SAP regarding the adapter.Image 3:  Dropbox adapter overview section

Explore the overview and documents section to know more about Dropbox adapterImage4: Dropbox adapter documents

Once you are done with the exploration of the Integration adapter from SAP API Business Hub and embedded discover view, you would like to consume the integration adapter in your integration flow to address your integration use case.

In this section, I will explain you how to consume the integration adapter in the integration flow without any context switch.

Consuming Integration Adapter in Integration flow

To consume the integration adapter in SAP Integration Suite tenant, you must follow the below mentioned steps

Create an Integration package in your Integration suite tenant.

Image 1: Create integration package

Create an integration flow in the integration package.

Image 2: Create integration flow

Edit integration flow to consume a dropbox adapter

Image 3: Integration flow edited to draw a connector

Draw a connector between Sender and Integration Process and select the Dropbox adapter from the Adapter selection dialog. As you know this dialog contains the pre-bundled adapters such as SOAP, HTTPS, AMQP, JMS etc. In addition to this, it will show all the integration adapters from SAP API Business Hub as well. Please note, if your Integration suite tenant is not standard and premium, you will not notice Dropbox adapter in the selection dialog. Select the Dropbox adapter.

Image 4: Adapter selection dialog containing Dropbox Adapter

On selection, Dropbox adapter package will be automatically copied/imported in the design workspace, and Dropbox adapter artifact will be deployed on the tenant. Both these operations will happen back-to-back automatically to avoid any context switching for you.Image 5: Automatic import of the Dropbox adapter package in the design workspace

Image 6: Automatic deploy of the Dropbox adapter on the tenant

Now you can configure the Dropbox adapter in the integration flow and later you can deploy integration flow for message processing.Image 1: Dropbox adapter general properties

Image 2: Dropbox adapter connection properties

Image 3: Dropbox adapter processing properties

Similarly, you can configure the scheduler properties of dropbox adapter and later deploy the integration flow.Image 4: Integration flow deployed for message processing

As you know that the selection of the integration adapter in the integration flow will automatically import adapter package in the design workspace and deploy the adapter on the tenant.

You will notice Dropbox adapter package in the design workspace.Image 1: Dropbox adapter package in the design workspace

Image2: Dropbox adapter in the monitoring view

I hope you were able consume the Dropbox adapter in your integration flow as depicted in the above steps.

Points to remember

• Integration adapters published in API Business Hub are intellectual property. These adapters are restricted to download or edit from SAP Cloud Integration Web tooling of Integration Suite tenant.
• Versioning is supported for the integration Adapter.
• Integration adapter from API Business Hub is consumable in Integration Suite and SAP Cloud Integration of multi-cloud environment tenants.
• Consumption of integration adapter from SAP API Business Hub is based on the integration suite edition. Refer the SAP Note to know the availability of the integration adapters in the Integration Suite editions.
• SAP Software Download Center will be available and supported as it contains the existing integration adapters from SAP. However, we have a plan to move these integration adapters gradually to SAP API Business Hub to simplify the consumption experience.
• New integration adapters will be always published in SAP API Business Hub.

Future Increments

• Central place in the design workspace to manage integration adapters.
• Logo for integration adapter for a better usability experience.
• Some usability improvements in the adapter selection dialog of integration flow
  • Version of adapter
  • Search capability.
• Improvements in the SAP API Business Hub to group the adapters based on the Type.

I hope, you will benefit from the feature presented in this blog post.

In case of questions or feedback, please feel free to comment on this blog.