When designing side-by-side extensions, the developer must take account of a wide variety of integration domains.
In the UI domain, developers are able to embed tiles in the SAP Business Technology Platform Launchpad Service that link to applications deployed on an S/4HANA system. In addition, with dynamic rebranding, a customer's specific colors and trademarks can be embedded in the company portal.
In the user domain, developers can execute authentication and authorization logic by utilizing the SAP Business Technology Platform Identity Authentication Service.
In the rules/workflow domain, developers can utilize the SAP Business Technology Platform Business Rules Service and SAP Business Technology Platform Workflow Management
In the process integration domain, developers can utilize the Cloud Connector along with the SAP Business Technology Platform Connectivity Service to create SSL Tunnels for secure data transfer. The SAP Business Technology Platform Destination Service can be used to store details about different backend systems (both cloud and on-premise based) in the system landscape. The SAP Business Technology Platform API Management Service can be utilized to create customer defined APIs.
In the events domain, the SAP Business Technology Platform Event Mesh Service (formally known as Enterprise Messaging) can be utilized to allow communication between applications via asynchronous eventing.
In the data integration domain, developers have access to SAP Business Technology Platform SAP HANA Cloud Service to utilize standalone databases as well as SAP Business Technology Platform Cloud Integration for Data Services which integrates data between an on-premise system and the cloud using a scheduled (batch) methodology.
In the Context of Extensibility
- APIs: SAP releases APIs for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and other SAP Cloud Products to enable customers digitizing their business to securely connect apps to other systems. Published on SAP API Business Hub:
- oData/REST
- SOAP
- CDS Views: SAP releases CDS Views for SAP S/4HANA Cloud to read data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud system, which can be consumed as oData services using custom communication arrangements.
In the Context of Extensibility – Cloud to On-Premise Only
Traditional APIs: released BAPIs/IDocs can be used to connect SAP S/4HANA Cloud with SAP on-premise applications.
Published and released via SAP Note:
- BAPI (SAP Cloud Connector)
- IDoc
- SAP Note 2447593 (Available BAPIs in S/4HANA Cloud for integration to SAP on-premise solutions)
- SAP Note 2506411 (Available IDocs in S/4HANA Cloud for integration to SAP on-premise solutions)
- SAP Cloud Connector: can be used to connect SAP Business Technology Platform with SAP on-premise applications
- RFC
- WS
- OData
- REST
There are sixteen different development patterns listed in the graphic, and the bottom seven specifically deal with the different integration domains in the context of extensibility. Note that with both in-app and side-by-side extensions, all seven integration domain patterns are capable of being implemented.