API Composition in SAP Integration Suite FAQ

API Composition is the new unified and consolidated API for SAP-managed data. Developers use API Composition to build applications that access a business data graph of SAP-managed data, regardless of where this data resides.

SAP Business Accelerator Hub is the central catalog of APIs from SAP and selected partners for application developers to search, discover, test and consume these APIs to build extensions or integrations using SAP BTP.

API Composition is a capability of API Management within SAP Integration Suite. Extending traditional API Management, API Composition enables you to expose all your business data in the form of a semantically connected data graph, accessed via a single unified and powerful API.

There is some latency when using API Composition, but is often offset by the fact that fewer queries are required to achieve the same goal, due to efficient navigation. From initial testing, latency is insignificant (percentage-wise), since the majority of the elapsed time is spent in the data source itself. API Composition is not intended for system-to-system integration but rather for extension-app usage (where a ‘user’ is typically a human being).

API Composition does not persist anything. API Composition does not copy or store data; all calls are forwarded to the underlying data source systems.

API Composition allows you to create, read, update and delete data, considering any existing access rights and data source boundaries.

Extensions to the data source APIs are automatically taken over into API Composition. Customers can additionally define custom model extensions to the out-of-the-box business data graph.

API Composition also supports REST services and custom OData services. 

For more information, see: 

• REST Services
• Custom OData Services

API Composition supports SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) content which has been prepared and exposed as an OData service. To create the service interface, you can use Gateway Builder starting from SAP Gateway version GW_FND 7.52 and the latest SP (refer to SAP Note 2217489 - Maintenance and Update Strategy for SAP Fiori Front-End Server Information published on SAP site) or OData Provisioning.

• An SAP BTP subaccount, used for configuring the landscape used by API Composition.

• The SAP Integration Suite service, where the API Composition functionality is available as part of API Management.

• Most customers would use the security services as well (IDP).

     For more information, see Initial Setup.

Yes, the landscape owner uses SAP Integration Suite on SAP BTP to configure a business data graph.

Security is actually enhanced by using API Composition. The extension application can only access the API Composition API with a landscape (secret) key, which can be revoked at any time. Business user authorization is the responsibility of the source system.

Authorization is managed in the data source system itself. API Composition does not override the existing authorization configuration on the sources.