SAP · BTP, Integration & Extensions
SAP is one system in an estate. The work is the joins.
Noble builds on SAP Business Technology Platform and connects SAP to the rest of the enterprise: extensions that keep the core standard and upgradeable, integration flows on the SAP Integration Suite, APIs with a managed lifecycle, and event-driven interfaces where the process is asynchronous. The measure of the work is that an upgrade does not break it and an interface failure does not lose a document.
Why the core stays clean
Every customisation written inside the SAP core is a promise to re-test it at every upgrade for as long as the system lives. The alternative is to build beside the core: an extension on BTP that reads and writes through released interfaces, a workflow that orchestrates standard transactions rather than modifying them, a Fiori application that presents the standard differently rather than changing what it does. SAP calls this a clean core, and the discipline behind it is simple to state and hard to keep — every departure from standard has to justify itself against the cost of carrying it through every release to come.
Integration has the same shape. A point-to-point interface written for one purpose becomes, five years later, a dependency nobody documented. Noble builds integration on an integration layer — the SAP Integration Suite where the estate is SAP-centred, an API management layer where it is not — so that an interface is designed, published, monitored and retired as a thing with an owner, and the estate can be drawn.
The core, and what is built beside it
Read from the bottom: the standard core, the released interfaces it exposes, the platform that extends it without touching it, and the estate beyond, reached through the integration layer.
- 01The wider estate — non-SAP systems, partners, devicesAPIs, events, files
- 02Integration layer — Integration Suite, API managementDesigned, published, monitored
- 03SAP BTP — extensions, workflow, Fiori applicationsSide-by-side; upgrade-safe
- 04Released interfaces — APIs, events, CDS viewsThe only way in
- 05S/4HANA core — standard, configured, cleanUpgradeable on SAP’s cadence
What the service covers
Applications and extensions on BTP
Applications built on SAP BTP using the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model and the Cloud Application Programming Model, and extensions that run beside the core and reach it only through released interfaces. The choice between RAP and CAP is made per case — by the skills the organisation has, the systems the application must reach, and where it will be operated.
- Side-by-side extensions that survive the core’s upgrades
- RAP and CAP applications, chosen per case
- In-app extensibility used where SAP provides it, before custom code
- Workflow and approval applications over standard transactions
ABAP and the custom code that remains
Custom development where the standard genuinely falls short, written to the clean-core rules — released objects, no modification of SAP code, and every enhancement documented with the reason it exists. Existing custom code is analysed at every upgrade and retired where the standard now covers it.
- ABAP development to clean-core rules
- Custom-code analysis and retirement at each release
- Enhancements documented with their reason
- Performance review of custom objects on HANA
Fiori, SAPUI5 and the mobile case
The interfaces people use: standard Fiori applications activated and configured, custom SAPUI5 applications where a process needs a screen the standard does not have, and the launchpad arranged around roles rather than around modules. Mobile is treated as a case of its own — a field engineer’s screen is not a desktop screen made smaller.
- Fiori activation, configuration and launchpad design by role
- Custom SAPUI5 applications on released services
- Mobile and offline-tolerant interfaces for field and shop-floor work
- Bilingual interfaces, composed rather than translated
Integration Suite and Cloud Integration
Integration flows on SAP Cloud Integration for SAP-to-SAP and SAP-to-everything-else, built from the standard content where it fits and from the ground up where it does not. Each flow has an owner, an error-handling path that keeps the document, and monitoring that reaches a person before the business notices.
- Cloud Integration flows, standard content and custom
- SAP-to-SAP integration across S/4HANA, Ariba and SuccessFactors
- Interfaces to non-SAP systems, files and partners
- Error handling that keeps the document and its context
- Interface monitoring and alerting with an owner on call
APIs and their lifecycle
APIs designed as products: versioned, published on an API management layer, secured with the estate’s identity, rate-limited, and retired on notice rather than silently. An API is how a mobile application, a partner and an AI agent reach SAP without becoming a dependency on its internals.
- API design, versioning and publication
- API management — security, quotas, analytics on use
- Authentication aligned with enterprise identity
- Deprecation and retirement on notice
Event-driven integration
Where a process is asynchronous — an order is confirmed, a goods receipt is posted, a supplier changes — the interface publishes an event and the systems that care subscribe to it. This decouples the estate from SAP’s transaction timing and lets an integration be added without touching the source. Noble designs the event model, the topics and the consumers, and keeps the ordering and replay behaviour explicit.
- Event model and topic design against the business process
- SAP event enablement and the consumers beyond it
- Ordering, idempotency and replay made explicit
An interface, over its life
The stages every interface passes through when it is treated as a thing with an owner. Two are gates: it is not published until it is secured, and it is not retired until its consumers have moved.
- 01DesignContract, owner, error path
- 02BuildFlow, API or event
- 03SecureIdentity, quotas
- 04PublishVersioned, documented
- 05MonitorFailures reach a person
- 06RetireOn notice, consumers moved
Where this connects
- Automation, AI & Intelligent EnterpriseWorkflow, document processing and AI reach SAP through the same released interfaces and the same BTP services described here.
- Security, BASIS & OperationsEvery interface and extension is authorised, transported and monitored by the disciplines on that page.
- Managed SAP ServicesInterface monitoring and integration support after go-live are part of the managed service, not an afterthought to it.
The services alongside
- Software & Web EngineeringThe same engineering team builds the non-SAP side of an interface — the portal, the mobile application, the service that consumes the API.
- Digital TransformationIntegration across the whole estate, and the master data agreed once so that two systems mean the same thing by a customer.
- SecurityAPI security, authorisation and rate control are Security’s subject; the interfaces here are built to its rules.
SAP BTP, SAP Integration Suite, SAP Cloud Integration, ABAP, RAP, CAP, SAP Fiori and SAPUI5 are products and technologies of SAP SE, named to identify what the work is done on. All marks belong to their owners.
Bring the interface list.
The interfaces an estate already has, and the ones it needs, are the shortest route into this work. A list with owners is better; a list without them is where the work starts.