APIs
on SAP
Ø An application programming interface (API) is an interface that lets software systems communicate with
each other and exchange data.
Ø By offering an API for your system, we can
define which data should be exposed and thereby maintain control. As the consumer
of an API, we don’t have to know how the other system works. Instead, we can
focus on how it's integrated into your system.
Ø we can use the APIs available for SAP
S/4HANA Cloud for these scenarios:
- Connect business processes across your system landscape
- Integrate with external systems
- Develop your own dependent extensions or custom
applications
Inbound and Outbound Services
Ø APIs can either be inbound or outbound
services.
With respect to SAP S/4HANA Cloud as the source system,
Ø Inbound means that SAP S/4HANA Cloud provides a service that another
system can consume.
Ø Outbound means that SAP S/4HANA Cloud consumes a service that is
provided by another system.
APIs can either be synchronous or
asynchronous services.
Ø Synchronous means that when a system sends a request it waits for the
receiving system to send a response. This approach is useful if an immediate
and real-time response is required. However, both systems need to be online the
entire time and if there’s an error, the request has to be sent again.
Ø Asynchronous means that when a system sends a request it waits for the
receiving system to acknowledge receipt of the message. However, it doesn’t
wait for the receiving system to send a response. This way you can loosely
couple systems and there’s less dependency on the availability of the other
system. Additionally, the sender system isn’t blocked after sending a request
and can send further requests. With this approach, you get no immediate response,
and a response message needs to be implemented and routed separately.
Communication Scenarios
To establish secure
communication between systems, you first need to create a communication arrangement.
Communication arrangements are based on a communication scenario. Predefined
communication scenarios are available for different use cases, for example, the
integration of employee data. In a communication scenario, you can define a set
of inbound and outbound services for a business process. Each API on SAP
Business Accelerator Hub is associated with at least one communication
scenario. With the communication scenario, you get an idea of the best
practices for using the API. For more information, see Communication Management.
Service Categories
APIs created by SAP are categorized according
to the main purpose of the messages being communicated. These service
categories exist:
Application-to-Application (A2A)
A2A services facilitate the
exchange of business information between different systems to connect business
processes within company borders.
A2X services facilitate the
exchange of business information between a system and an unspecified client.
They’re often used to build user interfaces (UIs) based on the back end,
without an intervening communication layer. For this reason, A2X messages
contain all the necessary information for understanding the message, such as
the code names or texts to be displayed on the UI.
Business-to-Business (B2B)
B2B services facilitate the
exchange of business documents across companies.
Source:https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/0f69f8fb28ac4bf48d2b57b9637e81fa/1e60f14bdc224c2c975c8fa8bcfd7f3f.html
No comments:
Post a Comment