In modern enterprise environments, the ability to integrate backend systems with external applications and services is not just a convenience—it’s a necessity. SAP systems, which often serve as the digital core for many organizations, hold valuable business data and functionality that external systems need to access securely and efficiently. However, directly exposing backend services, such as OData APIs from an SAP S/4HANA or ECC system, can pose challenges related to security, scalability, and lifecycle management.

SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) offers a solution to this through API Management, a capability within the SAP Integration Suite. By using SAP BTP API Management, organizations can expose, manage, and monitor their internal SAP services as secure, consumable APIs—without compromising backend integrity. This acts as a controlled gateway, enabling external systems—whether they are cloud applications, mobile apps, or third-party integrations—to interact with SAP data and processes.

This blog focuses on showcasing the final API artifacts built using the guided steps provided in the SAP Developer tutorial: “Connect an SAP System to SAP Integration Suite – Part 1: API Management”. For a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough of the backend configuration, destination setup, and API proxy creation, please refer to the official tutorial here. The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate how the resulting API looks, behaves, and can be further utilized once the initial setup is complete.

In SAP Integration Suite, API Management leverages three core components to expose APIs effectively:

• API Provider: Acts as an abstraction layer for the connection to the backend or target system, simplifying integration setup.
• API Proxy: Represents the actual API interface. It defines how the backend is accessed and includes logic for routing, applying security policies, message transformation, and threat protection (e.g., content injection checks).
• API Product: Groups together one or more API proxies into a bundle that is published to the API Developer Portal, making it easier for developers to discover and consume available APIs.

Prerequisites

1. Get a Free Trial Account on SAP BTP
2. Enable the SAP Integration Suite, API Management capability
3. Create an Account on the Gateway Demo System

Enabled Integration Suite

API Portal

Once the Integration Suite is enabled, properly configured, and the necessary user roles are assigned in the subaccount, the API Portal becomes accessible.

Note: APIs can be created through either the Integration Suite or the API Portal, as the necessary capabilities are already enabled during the activation process. However, for the purpose of this blog, we’ll be performing all actions directly within the Integration Suite.

API Provider

The SAP ES5 Gateway Demo system was configured as an API provider for this solution. Similarly, any S/4HANA or ECC system can be integrated as an API provider using the same approach.

API Proxy

All API’s related tasks can be done from the Integration Suite or API Portal. Within Integration Suite, navigate to the Configure section, select APIs, and proceed to add a new API proxy in the “API Proxies” tab.

Add API Proxy to Product

Secure Your API Proxy with App Key Verification

Open your API Proxy, navigate to Policies, and add the CheckAPIKey policy to the PreFlow section.

Create Application and Application Key

Within Integration Suite, navigate to the Developer Hub-> My Workspace, create a new application, and associate it with a product.

Test API from Integration Suite

For the ES5 API

1. Select the API
2. Add Basic Authentication
3. Add APIKey as Headers
4. Send the request

Test using Postman

Enter the request URL, use basic auth for the ES5 Gateway, include the app key in the headers, and send the call.