Edge Integration Cell on Hyperscalers
In today's enterprise landscape, organizations are under increasing pressure to modernize their integration strategies. They must connect a growing mix of SAP and non-SAP systems, deployed across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments — all while adhering to strict data security, regulatory compliance, and performance expectations.
SAP Integration Suite – Edge Integration Cell (EIC) emerges as a strategic solution to these challenges. It enables customers to deploy integration capabilities within their private infrastructure, while still benefiting from the centralized governance and design-time tools of the cloud-based SAP Integration Suite.
This architecture document explores the rationale, design considerations, and business value of adopting SAP EIC.
Architecture
Flow
The architecture diagram above illustrates the high-level setup of the Edge Integration Cell (EIC). To deploy EIC in your private landscape, follow these steps:
Hyperscaler Setup
- Set up an isolated network environment within your private hyperscaler landscape.
- Provision a Kubernetes cluster to serve as a secure and scalable runtime for EIC.
- Configure storage services to manage runtime data.
SAP BTP Setup
- Activate EIC in your SAP BTP subaccount and assign the necessary roles for accessing Edge Lifecycle Management (ELM).
- Configure a technical user and set up Single Sign-On (SSO) for repository access, monitoring, and logging.
- Add an Edge Node and bootstrap it to the Kubernetes cluster in your private landscape.
Problem Statement and Relevance
Let’s consider an enterprise using SAP Process Integration (PI) or SAP Process Orchestration (PO) for core application integration and message processing across on-premise systems. As the business grows and expands into cloud-based applications and digital channels, it needs to integrate its legacy on-prem systems with:
- Cloud-based analytics or workflow services on SAP BTP
- Modern event-driven architectures powered by SAP Integration Suite - Advanced Event Mesh for real-time, decoupled communication
- External partners, logistics providers, or third-party cloud services
However, they face three key roadblocks:
- Data Residency & Compliance: Data compliance laws restrict the processing of sensitive data outside national borders, including but not limited to financial and customer information.
- Security Policy: Security policies prohibit inbound access from external networks or cloud regions.
- Network Latency: Latency when executing integration flows in distant cloud regions, especially when the nearest SAP BTP region is far from the on-premise systems, affects time-sensitive operations.
The enterprise needs a solution that enables secure, compliant, and reliable integration while maintaining operational efficiency, ensuring seamless connectivity across on-premise and cloud environments.
Solution Overview: What is SAP Edge Integration Cell (EIC)?
SAP Edge Integration Cell (EIC) offers the ideal solution to the above challenges by providing a seamless balance between local execution and cloud-level agility. It enhances the capabilities of SAP Integration Suite by enabling integration flows to be executed locally, within a private cloud or on-premise infrastructure, while maintaining centralized design, monitoring, and governance through SAP BTP.
- Design & Governance in the Cloud: Integration artifacts (iFlows) are modeled using the web-based Integration Suite tooling in SAP BTP.
- Secure Communication: The EIC runtime communicates with SAP BTP over secure, outbound-only channels, avoiding any inbound exposure to the public internet.
- Execution at the Edge: These integration flows are deployed to the EIC runtime within the enterprise's secure network — either in a private hyperscaler VPC or on-premise.
With EIC, businesses can modernize integration while meeting strict data protection, security, and performance requirements.
Value Proposition
i. Security & Compliance by Design
In regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing, enterprises must demonstrate full control over data processing. With EIC:
- Data never leaves the corporate network unless explicitly allowed.
- Sensitive information (e.g., personal health data, financial records, IP-related manufacturing data) can be integrated and transformed without cloud exposure.
- Supports data residency and localization laws, especially in countries where SAP BTP is not available or not approved for regulated workloads.
- Avoidance of performance bottlenecks due to geographic distance between cloud regions and operational systems.
ii. Hybrid Deployment Flexibility
Architects can modernize their integration architecture incrementally:
- Bridge legacy and cloud: Connect SAP ECC, PI/PO, and legacy apps with new SAP BTP services.
- Central governance, distributed execution: Maintain unified visibility and control via SAP BTP, even as execution happens locally.
- Support for diverse topologies: EIC runs on Kubernetes (e.g., AWS EKS, Azure AKS, GCP GKE, or on-prem clusters), fitting into the customer's existing infrastructure choices.
iii. Latency & Performance Optimization
By deploying the integration runtime close to the source systems (e.g., within the same data center or VPC), EIC ensures:
- Low-latency integration between critical systems like SAP S/4HANA and manufacturing systems.
- Improved performance for real-time use cases, such as production line automation or supply chain synchronization.
Some Strategic Use Cases Enabled by EIC
i. SAP PI/PO Modernization through Hybrid Integration
Organizations transitioning from SAP Process Integration (PI) or Process Orchestration (PO) to SAP Integration Suite can use SAP Edge Integration Cell (EIC) to support hybrid integration scenarios while maintaining full control over local execution.
EIC can be leveraged in the following ways:
- Secure Cloud Connectivity: Enables integration between on-premise SAP systems and cloud-hosted applications via secure, outbound-only communication.
- Event-Driven Architecture: Supports real-time, decoupled communication using Advanced Event Mesh integrated with managed event brokers.
- End-to-End Monitoring: Delivers full visibility into integration flows — from ingress to egress — whether processed locally or in the cloud.
- Message-Oriented Middleware: Connects seamlessly with existing enterprise messaging systems to support reliable message exchange without added latency or operational risk.
This approach enables a phased modernization strategy, allowing enterprises to transition from legacy middleware while preserving data locality, compliance, and governed integration.
Example: A financial services firm retires its on-prem PI system and uses EIC to move to cloud-managed design-time with local execution.
ii. Latency Optimization and Regional Availability Constraints
EIC addresses latency and data residency concerns when SAP BTP is not locally available or when integration flows are subject to cross-border data transfer limitations.
Example: Regional Availability and Data Residency
SAP BTP is not currently available in all regions where RISE with SAP is offered. For example, organizations operating in the GCP Canada region are required to run their SAP Integration Suite workloads from Iowa, USA.
This setup introduces increased network latency and results in sensitive data crossing national boundaries — posing significant compliance and data residency concerns.
By deploying SAP Edge Integration Cell (EIC) within the same data center as their RISE environment, organizations can execute integration flows locally.
This ensures adherence to security policies, performance expectations, and regulatory requirements — without compromising their cloud strategy.
iii. On-Premise & Private Cloud Integration
Organizations with data center-based SAP systems (e.g., S/4HANA, ECC) can use EIC to connect these securely to other on-premise or cloud applications — without punching holes in firewalls or exposing sensitive data.
Example: Integrating on-prem SAP S/4HANA with a supplier portal hosted in Azure, using secure edge processing.
iv. Regulatory Compliance in Data-Sensitive Regions
EIC is a critical enabler for global enterprises operating in regions with no local SAP BTP region or with strict data sovereignty laws.
Example: A healthcare provider in the Middle East uses EIC to process patient integration flows locally, complying with national data protection laws.
v. Edge Processing for Industrial & IoT Scenarios
In factory settings, integration often involves machine data, IoT events, or shop-floor applications. EIC brings processing closer to the source, reducing reliance on external networks.
Example: A logistics hub uses EIC to process sensor data from conveyor systems and sync it with SAP EWM systems without any internet dependency.
Non-Functional Requirements Addressed
| Requirement | How EIC Meets It |
|---|---|
| Security | No inbound traffic, runs in private network, integrates with enterprise IAM |
| Compliance | Supports data residency, regulatory mandates (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.) |
| Reliability | Deployed on high-availability Kubernetes clusters with local failover options |
| Performance | Reduced network hops, optimized for low-latency integration |
| Scalability | Kubernetes-native deployment allows horizontal scaling based on workload needs |
| Observability | Integration monitoring via central SAP Integration Suite tools |
Conclusion: Architecting for Control and Agility
SAP Edge Integration Cell represents a powerful architectural pattern for hybrid enterprises.
It empowers integration architects to:
- Maintain security and compliance
- Improve integration performance
- Enable future-ready modernization
- Adapt integration strategy to regional constraints and global growth
By deploying EIC, organizations don’t have to choose between the control of on-premise and the innovation of cloud.
They can have both — with a hybrid integration platform designed for the modern enterprise.