Untangling SAP for Serverless Deployment

There are few technology trends that are a better fit for the current moment than serverless computing – particularly with its benefits of greater scalability, faster development, more efficient deployment, and lower cost. 

But it can be difficult to harness the power of serverless when critical data and workflows are housed in the powerful, widely used enterprise resource planning (ERP) system SAP. Organizations typically rely on SAP to centralize data management and optimize critical business functions like accounting, financials, human capital management, enterprise performance management, etc.

Apache Kafka and SAP ERP Integration Options

A question I get every week from customers across the globe is, "How can I integrate my SAP system with Apache Kafka?" This post explores various alternatives, including connectors, third party tools, custom glue code, and trade-offs between the different options.

After exploring what SAP is, I will discuss several integration options between Apache Kafka and SAP systems:

Industry 4.0: You’ve Already Missed Your Integration

The industrial systems found in factories often have nothing to do with the systems that are known in IT. No REST API, no database (or few), and obviously no default message bus. However, it is necessary to be able to connect this small world together in order to collect data that will be used for analysis on Big Data or to do machine learning. However, this dream of solutions such as Microsoft Azure's IoT suites and AWS GreenGrass to connect your plant is totally unrealistic if you don't simply connect to industrial systems to recover data.

What are these industrial systems?

Forget about REST API, JDBC, BAPI, File, and all the other known means of exchange in a classic IT. Our new friends are called: