SAP Integration Suite Reviews

I have worked with SAP S/4HANA Cloud's end system. I did not completely work on the S/4HANA development, but I have worked with the integration.

I have mostly been working with SAP Integration Suite where I work as a middleware developer for developing the integration between SAP and non-SAP applications. I have worked with S/4HANA and other non-SAP applications such as Salesforce and some other cloud applications as well.

The features in SAP Integration Suite, such as the API management and the feasibility to connect with the on-premise systems using the Cloud Connector configuration in BTP Cockpit, are very flexible to work with. API management is very easy to use to connect with third-party systems without the flow, allowing us to connect using the API itself. These are the features I find very feasible and easy to work with.

Automation using SAP Integration Suite has been beneficial. I have another team to automate the processes and integration flows using Integration Suite. Automating the flows using Integration Suite is possible.

Regarding how SAP Integration Suite can be improved, we have something called pre-packaged content, such as standard flows or inbuilt adapters. If we had something called Groovy script for most of the scenarios, it would be very useful. We have some standard scripts for the basic scenarios, such as payload logging, that are frequently usable. For such things, if we had the pre-built scripts, it would be very easy for the developers to reuse them in very common scenarios or requirements and make the work very fast. That would be really helpful for the developers.

Regarding additional features for SAP Integration Suite, I think it is good as of now and nothing much needs to be improved because we can see all the expected features. We have the open connectors, cloud connectors, API management, and everything is there. We have the Integration Advisor, and I feel it is good. The only thing I was expecting is pre-built scripts, Groovy scripts, which would be helpful for the developers to speed up the work. Since coding is not manual and we are getting it from ChatGPT and it is all AI, if that is integrated into the tool, it would be very nice and easy for the developers.

I have been an Integration Suite developer and I have been doing it for the last five years.

I have faced a few issues with the CPI Helper, which is an extension I was using to enable the trace and check the step-by-step flow and simulation inputs and outputs. The trace is not always active.

I am working with SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP Cockpit, and SAP Integration Suite. I would rate this review as a 9.

The main use cases for SAP Integration Suite are popular because its predecessor, PIPO, is going to sunset in two years, prompting companies to move to Integration Suite to integrate their cloud solutions.

The most popular use case is to create hybrid integrations between cloud solutions and some on-premise solutions which customers are still using.

The best features of SAP Integration Suite include being up-to-date because SAP invests heavily to support the most current technologies, and it's more flexible than its predecessor.

The popularity contributes significantly because there are many resources developed by partners, SAP, and the community, so development does not start from scratch.

SAP Integration Suite's event-driven architecture has helped automate processes by providing better scalability, performance, and organization compared to point-to-point methods.

Areas that could be improved with SAP Integration Suite include tools for monitoring and separated error analysis.

Some reports contain everything, leading to difficulty in finding particular messages, requiring custom fields to filter out.

The reporting should be improved, and currently, performance metrics, statistics, and other essential features require Cloud ALM.

In PIPO, there were complex and effective tools to measure performance and how messages were processed, but Integration Suite still does not have solid reports that are useful for evaluating and understanding possible bottlenecks.

It is essential to predict potential problems in advance, not just react to errors after they occur.

I have used SAP Integration Suite for more than three years.

I evaluate the suite's integration patterns as getting more mature, as they are evolving.

Five years ago, there was less content and limited support for some adapters, but currently, SAP has fixed this.

I rate SAP support for their Integration Suite an eight out of ten.

Positive

I used other solutions for integration and API management before, including Google Apigee and SAP PIPO.

The main differences between Google and SAP are that for API management, they are quite similar, but Google has more sophisticated reporting for API usage, while SAP adds additional reports and features.

With Google, you manage APIs but do not orchestrate or have a cloud integration engine.

You deal with proxies rather than flows, which are usually more complicated because a flow can contain calls to external systems, enrichment, and splitting and routing, making Apigee perfect for API management, though it lacks the orchestration part.

The initial setup of SAP Integration Suite is very easy.

I have not had experience with Teradata, Boomi, or SnapLogic; however, Boomi is also a powerful integration tool but not specifically SAP focused.

I work in consulting with experience across different industries, including retail, banking, mining, and manufacturing.

SAP Integration Suite is more popular for large enterprises.

SAP is less popular for medium businesses in North America, but in Europe, SAP is popular for middle enterprises as well.

I leverage pre-packaged content from the SAP API Business Hub, which sometimes fits perfectly, while at other times custom development is necessary.

SAP Integration Suite's support for connecting legacy systems with modern applications is effective and flexible.

SAP encourages customers to use the most up-to-date technologies rather than staying with older ones, but the support remains comprehensive.

Machine learning capabilities will play a significant role in testing, as considerable effort is spent testing integrations and providing regression tests.

Machine learning is used for API anomaly detection and sometimes for creating integration flows.

While it isn't crucial for developers to create and design integration flows themselves, machine learning will play a role in automated testing, especially in generating test data.

Integration involves dealing with SAP and the external world, including Salesforce, WMS software, custom solutions, partner software, or EDI.

Understanding the other side and specifications is crucial while elaborating the architecture that allows scaling and avoiding errors.

Beyond Integration Suite, I am primarily familiar with S/4 and ECC, older solutions such as PIPO and Solution Manager, and have applied Cloud ALM for monitoring.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) manages the entire lifecycle of an application, serving as the next version of Solution Manager.

It provides templates and guidelines to organize implementation.

My primary focus is configuring monitoring to get alerts and notifications regarding incidents.

With integration, alerts must be aggregated wisely without receiving thousands of emails about the same problem.

It's important to group metrics and understand system functionality beyond simple up or down status, as certain components may experience bottlenecks during high requests.

Monitoring helps reduce manual oversight and automates many processes.

I rate SAP Integration Suite eight out of ten.

I often use SAP Integration as an integration tool to connect SAP applications with non-SAP applications. This helps streamline processes and ensure seamless data flow between different systems, improving overall efficiency and security.

The most beneficial feature of SAP Integration Suite for our operation is its capability to enable API-based cloud applications to integrate seamlessly with SAP S/4HANA. This enhances our data management by denormalizing and standardizing data from various sources into a format that can be easily integrated across different applications, whether they are cloud-based or on-premise.      

I believe there are areas where SAP Integration Suite could be improved, such as enhancing message transformation capabilities and simplifying conditional routing features compared to the on-premise tool SAP PO (Process Orchestration). Over the past five years, Integration Suite has evolved rapidly, but there is room for improvement, especially in message transformation techniques and graphical mappings. These improvements would make the application even more robust and user-friendly.

I have been using SAP Integration for the past 10 years

In terms of stability, SAP provides its own cloud infrastructure support through SAP HANA Cloud Platform, and clients can also opt to install the suite on their preferred cloud infrastructure such as Azure, Microsoft, or Google, ensuring stable performance without issues.

As for scalability, the product offers high scalability with expanding capabilities to connect with various systems and applications on the cloud. 

SAP Integration Suite's responsiveness can vary depending on the type of license, with premium licenses offering quicker responses and standard licenses taking three to four days for ticket responses. 

The initial setup of SAP Integration Suite on the cloud was straightforward. We just needed to activate the instance on the BTP cloud, and it's quite simple as SAP provides predefined standard documents for deployment. The overall deployment process doesn't take much time, mainly involving administrative tasks related to assigning roles and managing users, which can be completed within two to three weeks. Once set up, there is minimal maintenance required as SAP handles patching and maintenance as part of their cloud offering.

The ROI for SAP Integration Suite has been quite positive. Due to SAP maintaining their own cloud infrastructure, we don't incur maintenance costs or need dedicated admin resources. This results in minimal downtime for applications, with patching and upgrades handled seamlessly by SAP during non-business hours. This plug-and-play nature allows for easy integration with multiple applications, leading to increased efficiency and significant time savings, making it a valuable investment for us.

I'm not well-versed in the details of pricing and standard licensing for SAP Integration Suite as I primarily focus on technical aspects. As far as I know, clients can choose between different levels of offerings based on their messaging frequency and business requirements, with premium levels offering more features and customization options.

I would recommend SAP Integration Suite for organizations with a significant number of SAP applications integrated into their landscape, as it is well-suited for such environments. However, for those new to SAP or without existing SAP applications, it may not be the best fit due to its multi-faceted usage geared towards SAP integration scenarios. In terms of business integration trends, there's a noticeable shift towards AI-based integration tools like Workato, MuleSoft, and SnapLogic. SAP is also investing heavily in AI for automating integration services, aligning with this trend towards AI-driven integration solutions.

I would rate SAP Integration Suite an eight out of ten.

The SAP Integration Suite has been used in various projects to streamline business processes. For instance, we integrated with banks and different ERP systems, including SAP and HR platforms. We also integrated with governmental platforms in Saudi Arabia for personal ID verification services. This allowed us to access all the necessary information for candidates or employees.

Additionally, we can use it for health certificate verification, ensuring compliance with governmental regulations. Overall, the product can integrate with different systems based on the organization's specific needs.  

The SAP Integration Suite can work with different authentication methods. It supports physical authentication, certificate-based integration, and mTLS authentication. This allows customers to choose the best integration approach based on their policies and procedures. Additionally, the suite offers both push and data integration capabilities.

The SAP Integration Suite has different add-ons and services that are easy to activate. You can create chatbots and integrate them with websites and apps. You can also build custom customer apps from scratch using various technologies. These apps can be based on databases or programming languages like Java. The suite also supports special intelligence like machine learning, although we haven't used it yet.

It offers various methods, such as API management. You can easily access data files in formats like JSON or Excel, depending on your needs.

The setup process for the SAP integration Suite is not straightforward. It involves some technical aspects and can be complex.

The product is stable. 

The tech support is knowledgeable and customer-friendly. Plenty of resources are available, including free online courses that you can easily enroll in.

Based on my experience, I recommend the product, even if you're not using SAP products. It offers a wide range of services that other platforms may not provide, helping you create and sell your products to customers. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

The product's use cases depend on particular user requirements. It helps in integrating mobile applications and web services relevant to client requirements.

They could provide graphical data for over-viewing metrics such as payments, receipts, creditors, and refunds. The users prefer graphics instead of theoretical data.

We have been using SAP Integration Suite for more than five years.

The platform has good stability.

We have small to large enterprises as our customers for SAP Integration Suite. It is highly scalable. It provides quick responses within seconds with just a single click. However, the responsiveness also depends on the speed of the internet connection.

I am a technical consultant. I communicate with our customers and note their requirements for implementing the product.

The initial setup is easy. I have experience deploying it on the cloud and on-premises. It takes around one to two months to complete the process. After the implementation, we conduct the test and present demos to the clients.

The platform's pricing depends on the business size. It is inexpensive for smaller businesses and expensive for larger businesses.

SAP Integration Suite's API features help facilitate business processes for our clients' organizations. The most beneficial feature for our clients is the easy access to their information, achieved effortlessly through integration. We have five years of experience working with the platform's real-time data synchronization capabilities. It has 100% impacted data management and transformation capabilities.

An example of a complex integration challenge involved handling SAP modules related to account receivables and account tables. If one customer has paid the full amount, he doesn't need this service. Here, we will create refund methodologies for providing customers with creating memos. 

I rate it a ten out of ten.

All organizations need HR. We can use it whenever SuccessFactors has to be integrated with SAP. It is useful for payroll, recruitment, onboarding, performance, goal management, and compensation. We have to post all the financials and all the payroll results to the finance department.

We must also integrate with the biometrics to consider the check-in and check-out times and the leaves taken. We have to push and pull the information from SuccessFactors to S/4HANA. So, we have to do some integrations where such replication is needed. That is why we use SAP Integration Suite.

The solution is easy to use. We just have to map the fields. It can give us the complete details of why any error message appears or a particular duplication failed. We get detailed information from the tool. The users must integrate the tool with S/4HANA and SuccessFactors. It is a one-time activity. We can initiate it once the tool is set up.

If there are two or three instances, we have to make integrations for two to three instances. The instances are costly. If we need it for development, quality, and production, the cost is multiplied by three.

I have been using the solution since 2019.

The solution is stable. The stability depends on the edition we have purchased.

The scalability depends on whether we have the enterprise or basic editions. Depending on the edition we purchase, there’s a limit on the number of integrations that happen within a specific duration. If it exceeds, we must go with the higher version.

The installation is very easy. The implementation can be done in three weeks to one month. The solution is very easy to maintain.

We need one consultant from the vendor to set up the baseline for the integration. The fields for mapping are provided by SuccessFactors and S/4HANA consultants. In S/4HANA, we can run the payroll by using the SEM module. We can also run Employee Central for payroll. We need two to three consults to handle the integration. They help with GL mapping and cost center hierarchy mapping.

The product is not that good at producing ROI. Once the integration is done, it should be applicable for seven years. We shouldn’t have to integrate it every year. The product must provide a one-time subscription instead of a yearly subscription.

The price must be reduced. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.

It is a very good solution. People who want to use the solution must use one instance for all their needs. The vendor must design the product in such a way that it links three instances for development, quality, and production from one platform. There should not be a charge for multiple instances. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We use the product for enterprise integration for sending and receiving data from SAP and non-SAP systems. Its Edge HCL feature can allow integration without the necessity of data traveling to the cloud.

The product's UI could be faster. There's a limitation on the amount of logging data that can be generated and stored. There's a one-gigabyte limit for daily logs and a cumulative limit of thirty gigabytes over thirty days. It could be possible to send logs to an external service via HTTP, making it less tied to a specific backend system.

We have been using SAP Integration Suite for three years.

We have 10 SAP Integration Suite users in our organization. I rate its scalability a seven out of ten.

The technical support services are good.

Positive

SAP Integration Suite, particularly, is deployed in a cloud-based environment using hyperscalers like Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and AWS. Most of our job involves debugging and finding bugs in the integration. It includes distinguishing whether an issue is by design or if it requires opening a ticket with SAP for resolution. We handle integration errors and escalate the issues related to the SAP product to support. It requires a team of ten executives for maintenance.  

The price could be higher in other countries than in Europe and US markets. I rate its pricing a five out of ten.

I recommend SAP Integration Suite and rate it an eight out of ten.