Creating a supplier in SAP starts with finding the right company information. For users, this is a routine part of their daily work. For IT, however, it often involved an entire project. The integration had to be built, configured and retested after every SAP upgrade. At Altares Dun & Bradstreet, we have supported customers and their SAP partners with this work for many years.
Together with SAP partner Talan, we developed dataxess for SAP.The integration runs on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and is available as a subscription. This also changes our role. As the provider, we manage the application ourselves. What does this mean for the integration, maintenance and access to your data?
What changes when an SAP integration is offered as SaaS?
With a custom-built SAP integration, you have an integration developed specifically for your own environment. After go-live, someone needs to maintain the code, manage the hosting and test whether the integration still works after an SAP upgrade.
When you subscribe to an integration as Software as a Service (SaaS), the provider takes care of hosting, application management and updates. With dataxess for SAP, Altares takes on these responsibilities. Your IT team can focus on configuring and testing the connection to your own SAP environment.
This division of responsibilities matters when working with a system that supports processes such as procurement, invoicing and logistics. A change in SAP can affect multiple teams. That is why you want to know in advance what is required to connect the integration and which processes need to be tested.
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How does SAP BTP support the Clean Core approach?
With SAP's Clean Core approach, you keep the core system as close to standard as possible. SAP BTP provides an environment where extensions can run outside that core. Dataxess for SAP exchanges data with your SAP system through interfaces. This means you do not need to install custom code in the SAP core for this integration.
Altares manages the application from a central SAP BTP account. Within this account, your organisation gets its own subaccount and a dedicated URL to access the application.
How do you connect dataxess for SAP?
- Altares sets up your subaccount and activates the subscription.
- Your IT team provides a technical user account with the permissions required by the integration.
- The connection is configured and tested. For example, you check whether supplier information is transferred to the correct fields in a Business Partner.
- Users log in via your organisation's URL.
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What are the benefits of multitenancy for your SAP integration?
With dataxess for SAP, multiple customers use the same application. Each customer works in their own logically separated environment. This is known as multitenancy and offers seven practical benefits.
- Everyone works with the same up-to-date version: Altares rolls out security patches and bug fixes centrally, so your IT team does not need to plan separate upgrades.
- New features become available faster: Through a single release process, Altares can make new features available to all customers.
- Less disruption during maintenance: By rolling out updates in phases, Altares can minimise interruptions for users.
- Consistent software quality: Altares tests and maintains a single codebase. All customers benefit from the same improvements.
- Capacity scales with usage: If more colleagues use the integration, capacity can be scaled up.
- Faster onboarding of new customers: Altares sets up their environments using the existing infrastructure.
- More efficient use of infrastructure: Sharing server capacity can reduce the number of servers required, potentially lowering energy consumption.
How does dataxess for SAP protect your data?
When using a shared application, you want to know where your data is stored, who can access it and how changes can be traced. This is how we have designed the solution.
- Separate customer data. Each customer has their own database. A unique tenant ID links every request to the correct customer environment.
- Secure connection credentials. Technical login credentials are stored in the secure storage of SAP Integration Suite. Requests to SAP and external data sources are also routed through this service.
- Company information retrieved directly from the source. The application retrieves data when you need it and does not store a separate copy of the source data on SAP BTP. When you transfer data to a Business Partner, it is stored in your own SAP system.
- Role-based access. Through SAP Cloud Identity Services, you determine who can view data, create or update Business Partners and manage the application.
- Traceable changes. The audit trail shows what was changed in a Business Partner through the integration, when the change took place and who made it.
- Hosting in Europe. The application runs on SAP's cloud infrastructure in Frankfurt.
Would you like to discuss how to connect company data to your SAP environment via SAP BTP? Schedule a meeting with our experts.
