Cloudy with a Chance of …Interfaces

…with a chance of good Interfaces!

Good interfaces are robust, reliable, maintenance-friendly and also support independence!

We see more and more cloud applications appearing and also several cloud platforms which enable us to build new apps and business processes. Connected applications have to interact with each other and this is the topic here:

What is good application integration (in general and in the cloud)?

Queue vs. API / Synchronous vs. Asynchronous / REST vs. AMQP

(1) Synchronous APIs (OData/REST/SOAP)

• Direct, synchronous interaction ideally happens via OData APIs. This is used when a UI is built on top of services running somewhere (SAP S/4HANA Cloud / SAP ERP On-Prem / …).
• Characteristics:
  • Direct responses, easy to consume by application
  • Does not work when one of the services is not available (strong dependency)
  • Process can not continue before call is finished
• APIs are great to provide an entry point (e.g. for B2B communication). The usage can be controlled through API Management functionality (access, throtteling, monetarization, monitoring, reporting)!

(2) Asynchronous Queues (AMQP/JMS)

• Mediated, asynchronous integration allows maximum decoupling 
• Characteristics:
  • Sender acts independently from Receiver
  • Ideally Real-Time, Event-driven
  • The static Queue Integration can be enhances via Topics (using a Publish & Subscribe mechanism)
• Queues/Topics are great to allow decoupling and support runtime independence between applications, systems and partners.

Message Queue based Integration between a Cloud Application and an SAP Middleware (On-Premise or Cloud) looks like this:

Using SAP Process Orchestration:

Using SAP Cloud Integration:

Due to the need and great advantages, it is no surprise that each Cloud Platform vendor provides a message queue system to enable this integration:

• Microsoft Azure: Service Bus & Event Hub
• Amazon Web Services: Simple Queue Service (SQS) & Simple Notification Service (SNS)
• Google Cloud Platform: Pub/Sub
• Alibaba Cloud: Message Service
• Oracle Cloud Platform: Messaging

We are building adapters for SAP´s middleware solutions to enable a smooth integration between the SAP World and a Multi-Cloud Platform Universe… We provide cloud connectivity and integration content into the SAP world: we connect SAP.

Our Connectivity Products for Message Queue based Integration:

• WHINT AMQP Adapter for SAP Process Orchestration
  • supports Microsoft Azure Service Bus and RabbitMQ
• WHINT AWS SQS Adapter for SAP Process Orchestration
  • Amazon Web Services: Simple Queue Service (SQS) & Simple Notification Service (SNS)

We are currently working on adapters for SAP Cloud Integration and SAP Process Orchestration for the following platforms:

• Google Cloud Platform: Pub/Sub
• Alibaba Cloud: Message Service
• Oracle Cloud Platform: Messaging