Hybrid Integrations with SAP Integration Suite on Azure

Hybrid Integrations with SAP Integration Suite on Azure

| Shilpa Vij | Jannis Maier | Martin Pankraz |

Integration Suite AKS

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Episode #309

Introduction

In episode 309 of our SAP on Azure video podcast we talk about SAP Edge Integration Cell running on Azure Kubernetes Service.

A month ago, the SAP Expert Lecture “Accelerating Hybrid Integrations with SAP Integration Suite on Microsoft Azure” launched — and it has been great to see the response from the community.

The idea behind it is simple: your teams should be building SAP integrations, not babysitting the infrastructure underneath them. With SAP Edge Integration Cell running on Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure helps with the platform foundation — from cluster operations, patching, and scaling to monitoring with Azure Monitor and the Azure SRE Agent.

So in today’s episode, I am happy to welcome Shilpa and Jannis from SAP and out own Martin Pankraz to talk about this new lecture.

Find all the links mentioned here: https://www.saponazurepodcast.de/episode309

Reach out to us for any feedback / questions:

#Microsoft #SAP #Azure #SAPonAzure #SAPIntegrationSuite #AKS #AIOps #SRE

Summary created by AI

  • Edge Integration Cell Hybrid Runtime:
  • Jannis explained that SAP Integration Suite’s Edge Integration Cell provides a customer-managed runtime on Azure, while SAP Integration Suite remains the design environment; Holger and Martin connected this model to low-latency, private, and flexible SAP landscapes.
    • Customer-Managed Runtime: Jannis described Edge Integration Cell as the customer-managed runtime option alongside SAP’s managed cloud runtime. Customers can run integration flows in their own Azure landscape while continuing to design them in SAP Integration Suite.
    • Security And Residency: Jannis said deployment within the customer’s Azure network provides control over network policies and firewall rules, supports keeping flows off the public internet, helps meet data-residency requirements, and can reduce latency by placing integrations near workloads.
    • Flow Reuse: Integration flows modeled for the SAP Integration Suite cloud runtime can also be deployed to the Edge runtime, so Edge Integration Cell complements rather than replaces SAP Integration Suite.
    • SAP Workload Proximity: Holger noted that customers running SAP or RISE on Azure can place Edge Integration Cell in the same Azure region and network as their SAP systems, combining modern BTP design capabilities with a local runtime.
  • Azure Accelerator Deployment:
  • Martin and Holger explained that the open-source Azure accelerator uses Terraform to automate a repeatable Edge Integration Cell foundation, enabling faster pilot deployments and providing configurable infrastructure, connectivity, monitoring, and security defaults.
    • Terraform Foundation: Martin identified the accelerator as a collection of Terraform files describing recommended default settings for the underlying infrastructure, connectivity, monitoring, and security baseline.
    • Pilot Deployment: The accelerator is intended to bring an Edge Integration Cell environment up within minutes for proof-of-concept scenarios, reducing the need for customers to configure each Azure component manually.
    • Customization And Production: Holger clarified that the open-source scripts can be adjusted by customers. The resulting foundation is designed to support testing and provide a path toward production use rather than being limited to a disposable demonstration environment.
    • Community Feedback: Martin asked customers and partners to continue using the GitHub project and share required features so the accelerator can evolve, particularly around production-grade capabilities and repeatable infrastructure-as-code deployments.
  • SAP Expert Lecture Course:
  • Shilpa presented the approximately three-hour intermediate SAP Expert Lecture, launched in August and available in self-paced mode, while Martin and Jannis described its end-to-end coverage from Azure setup and piloting through production operations and best practices.
    • Course Access: Shilpa said learners can find the course, titled “Accelerating Hybrid Integration with SAP Integration Suite on Microsoft Azure,” through learning.sap.com by browsing the catalog and courses. The course started on 17 August and remains available after the live period in self-paced mode.
    • Prerequisites: The stated prerequisites are fundamental knowledge of SAP Business Technology Platform, basic integration concepts, and basic Kubernetes knowledge; no additional prerequisites were identified.
    • Course Structure: The course covers hybrid integration and Edge Integration Cell, Azure Kubernetes Service, use of the Microsoft accelerator for piloting, moving from pilot to production, Edge-side configuration including PostgreSQL, Redis, and HANA, creation of an Integration Suite artifact, and operation on Azure.
    • Learning Assistance: Shilpa showed that the learning platform provides AI-powered assistance, including interactive guides, FAQs, podcasts, and related learning material. The course also includes a discussion forum and a final quiz that can lead to a Record of Achievement.
    • Feedback Channels: Shilpa and Jannis invited participants, customers, and partners to use the course contacts and discussion areas to ask questions, report missing content, and suggest course or product enhancements.
  • Production Best Practices:
  • Martin outlined how the course combines Microsoft’s Azure Well-Architected Framework with Edge-specific production requirements, covering reliability, monitoring, performance, HA/DR, and services such as PostgreSQL and Redis.
    • Well-Architected Foundation: Martin explained that the production guidance reuses Microsoft’s Well-Architected Framework rather than creating a separate model, applying established practices for reliable, robust, and high-performance cloud workloads.
    • Edge-Specific Requirements: The course adds Edge Integration Cell-specific configuration on top of the generic Azure foundation, including PostgreSQL and Redis services and the associated database and runtime settings.
    • Operational Pillars: The best-practices material addresses multiple operational pillars, including monitoring and performance, and explains how to evaluate the platform strategically when preparing an Edge Integration Cell environment for production.
    • Alternative Runtime: Martin noted that customers can use Azure Kubernetes Service or Azure Red Hat OpenShift as the managed Kubernetes platform, with the latter serving organizations invested in the Red Hat ecosystem.
  • AI-Assisted Azure Operations:
  • Martin demonstrated how Azure SRE Agent and Azure Monitor can diagnose an AKS container failure, correlate alerts and telemetry, explain likely causes, and suggest remediation to reduce the operational burden of running Edge Integration Cell.
    • OOMKilled Incident: The demonstration showed an AKS warning for a container terminated because of an out-of-memory condition. Related indicators included CPU spikes, node-pool activity, and unhealthy URLs, signaling disruption to integration operations.
    • Diagnostic Context: Azure SRE Agent accesses Azure Monitor data, logs, and related sources to build context around the incident rather than presenting a generic response. It explains the problem and provides investigation guidance in natural language.
    • Suggested Remediation: The agent identified caching issues and suggested increasing relevant sizes to avoid crossing the memory threshold. Operators retain control over whether to apply the proposed action.
    • Operational Simplification: Martin positioned the agent as a way to reduce the Kubernetes learning and troubleshooting burden shared by SAP integration and Azure operations teams, helping restore integration workloads more quickly.
  • Product Roadmap And Managed Options:
  • Jannis shared upcoming Edge Integration Cell capabilities, including MCP support and a managed service through RISE, while Holger committed to linking the course and roadmap resources for customers.
    • MCP Support: Jannis said SAP plans to bring MCP support, already introduced for the cloud runtime, to Edge Integration Cell so MCP servers can run in a customer’s private environment rather than only in a public cloud context.
    • RISE Managed Service: Jannis said SAP plans to offer Integration Cell as a managed service within RISE, including for SAP on RISE with Azure, so customers can use an Azure-based implementation without managing the underlying infrastructure themselves.
    • Roadmap Access: Jannis pointed participants to the SAP roadmap resources for additional planned capabilities, and Holger said the course and Roadmap Explorer links would be included in the episode’s show notes.

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