This reality applies to the Ariba ITK (Integration Toolkit), a Java-based desktop application for file transfers and other tasks. SAP, the Ariba product team, has since decided to discontinue the ITK, citing several reasons.
Unfortunately, the answer for what is replacing SAP Ariba ITK depends on the specific situation. As an SAP ERP customer, you will transition to SAP's Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway (CIG) for integrating ERP with Ariba solutions. In comparison, for users of non-SAP ERP systems or those with ad-hoc integrations with SAP Ariba or Intelligent Spend and Business Network solutions, SAP offers three options: SAP Integration Suite on BTP, Integration toolkit on BTP for SAP Ariba applications or any other third-party tool for file transfer between ERP and SAP Ariba applications. Follow along as we look at the intricacies of each.
More information on SAP BTP’s Integration Suite is available up on the BTP Discovery Center at sap.com/disco – here. For context, the discovery mission can be found here.
For guidance on what solution is right for you, book a 15-minute no-obligation consultation with our VP Solution Management.
For SAP ERP customers, transitioning to the Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway (CIG) is relatively straightforward. However, for non-SAP customers, the situation becomes more complex when it comes to adopting the Business Technology Platform (BTP).
BTP is not a singular entity like CIG; it encompasses a suite of SAP solutions, products, and services that fall under the Business Technology Platform umbrella.
To navigate this transition, it is crucial for your organization to conduct a thorough assessment of your current system. This evaluation will help determine if migrating to BTP is the right choice and what specific requirements your organization has as a non-SAP customer within the Business Technology Platform framework.
To facilitate the decision-making process, SAP has created a decision tree to navigate the available options:
In addition to the above options, SAP Integration Suite provides a wide range of benefits for businesses like yours. It enables you to integrate multiple systems and data across different applications, devices, and data sources, expanding beyond the application layer and incorporating an added data layer.
The Integration Suite, particularly the Standard Edition, offers sophisticated value-add various additional services, such as API management, open connectors, and capabilities to monitor & notify, transform, and map data in multiple fashions. With over 2000 integration maps and APIs, it accelerates integration between SAP and non-SAP solutions. Currently, more than 15,000 customers utilize the Integration Suite, and SAP has been recognized as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud integration platform as a service. SAP's strategy is to connect all applications within the ecosystem.
Moving on to SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) serves as the foundation for developing SAP, non-SAP and custom applications that cover your business processes. BTP focuses on four crucial areas: accelerating the move to the cloud, facilitating integrations while keeping the core clean of any SAP applications, integrating business processes, and establishing a unified data management strategy. The platform offers around 100 cloud services for extensibility, application development, integrated workflows, data management, data analytics, RPA, and integration.
The Challenge with legacy Integration Methods: Traditionally, organizations relied on the SAP Ariba Integration Toolkit (ITK) to transfer CSV-based files containing master and transactional data from their ERP systems to the SAP Ariba Cloud solution. The ITK had two main components: the DB connector for extracting ERP data into CSV files and the Data Transfer Tool for converting and uploading the CSV files to the SAP Ariba Cloud.
However, the ITK presented certain challenges. First, it required periodic reinstallation to incorporate updates and new fields, making it time-consuming and cumbersome. Second, the ITK operated in an on-premise environment, limiting scalability & flexibility and increased TCO. To address these limitations, SAP Ariba introduced the Cloud Integration Gateway and later the Integration Suite Managed Edition (aka 'Cloud Integration Gateway/CIG') for integration between Ariba and other SAP systems.
The SAP Integration Suite offers significant advantages over the ITK by moving integration to the cloud and providing seamless updates and scalability. With Integration Suite, organizations no longer need to worry about manually updating their integration tools or managing on-premise deployments. Instead, they can focus on leveraging the benefits of cloud-based integration for their ERP(s) and SAP Ariba Cloud solutions.
By adopting the Integration Suite, they witnessed a remarkable reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) due to several key factors.
Firstly, the use of a unified integration environment enabled other companies to streamline its integration processes. The Integration Suite's low-code capabilities provided a visual and intuitive development environment, allowing them to complete integration tasks in a fraction of the time with fewer resources. This efficiency gain translated into faster data availability for analysis, often in real-time, as compared to the previous time-consuming batch routines with significant latency. Many of these same companies experienced reduced license costs by utilizing a single integrated environment for both SAP and non-SAP integrations. This simplified architecture not only optimized their operations but also eliminated the need for additional middleware. Leveraging the Integration Suite allowed them to harness the full potential of their existing systems while benefiting from enhanced performance and improved cost-effectiveness.
The successful adoption of the BTP Integration Suite demonstrates how organizations can achieve significant TCO reduction, improved integration performance, and simplified architecture. By leveraging the power of this comprehensive integration solution, businesses can unlock new levels of efficiency, agility, and cost savings while seamlessly integrating their SAP and non-SAP environments.
For additional support, contact a member of our team to get started.