What Is Graph in SAP Integration Suite?

Graph is a capability that’s available within SAP Integration Suite and enables organizations to access their data assets in a secured and scalable fashion.

It provides harmonized data access to complex business processes in a secure manner, utilizing data points from various sources and provisioning a single, structured data entry point using APIs. Graph creates a virtual web for data objects that represent data points from different systems. With this capability, Graph hides the complexity of data extraction, enrichment, and transformation from a business data con­sumer while keeping the openness of data entry points and the integrity of represented data.

Graph exposes data through harmonized data access to backend APIs. Some of the common data objects from various origins are as follows:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud (both public and private cloud)
• SAP SuccessFactors
• SAP Ariba
• SAP Cloud for Customer
• SAP Sales and Service Cloud

It’s worth noticing that Graph also facilitates the consumption of data objects from third-party data sources and blends them together with SAP sources, providing a wrapper around different data sources and masking the complexity of integrated architecture from business users and consumers.

Graph provides integrated consumption of business objects called entities, represented as a graph, where entities can be associated with one another by means of association or relation­ship. This capability helps developers explore application data by using Graph queries, which can be sent to multiple APIs to enrich data content. These queries enable the following:

• Extract the request context
• Prepare data for extraction
• Transform and harmonize extracted data
• Provide response in an organized metadata format
• Cross integrations by consuming Graph API withing in Cloud Integration flows and other artifacts

The following includes some key benefits of utilizing the Graph capability:

• Simplicity of creating data integrations: Graph avoids the complexity of integrating data models from different sources. Since the core of its capability is based on APIs, Graph enables citizen developers to easily create and expose data without having to understand the complexity of system integrations.
• Reduced time to integrate with other data sources: With a single unified API to access data across system integrations, external systems and analytical applications can be delivered in reduced time, and developers can focus on deliv­ering a common entry point for various data entities.
• Scalability: Graph can represent data from various sources and support API patterns, allowing organi­zations to introduce new scalable applications with ease.
• Business context: Graph creates and exposes data that keeps business context in mind and business users as the main driver.

Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Graph in SAP Integration Suite by Gaurav Nautiyal. Gaurav is an SAP integration architect with more than 19 years of experience. His focus on the integration space has spanned solutions including SAP Exchange Infrastructure, SAP Process Integration/SAP Process Orchestration, and SAP Integration Suite.