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In today’s digital landscape, businesses rely on multiple interconnected systems to manage operations, from finance and supply chain to customer relationship management. However, maintaining consistent and accurate master data across these systems can be challenging. SAP Master Data Integration (MDI) addresses this challenge by providing a unified framework for seamless data synchronization across SAP and non-SAP applications. By leveraging MDI, organizations can ensure data consistency, improve efficiency, and reduce integration complexities.
What Is SAP Master Data Integration (MDI)?
In the era of the Intelligent Enterprise, seamless data connectivity is essential for ensuring operational efficiency. SAP Master Data Integration (MDI) is a powerful, multi-tenant cloud service designed to act as a central hub for managing and synchronizing master data across various applications.
By integrating with SAP MDI, applications can maintain consistency by syncing their local master data repositories with a centralized master data database. Typically, each enterprise landscape is assigned a single MDI tenant, ensuring a unified and consistent view of master data across all connected systems.
Unlike traditional master data management solutions, SAP MDI focuses exclusively on integration. It facilitates the replication of master data records, allowing applications to perform initial data loads and continuously stay synchronized with the central database. Administrators have full control over data synchronization, enabling them to define integration rules, monitor replication processes, and ensure compliance with data protection and privacy regulations.
With SAP Master Data Integration, businesses can eliminate data silos, improve data accuracy, and create a streamlined digital ecosystem where applications communicate effortlessly.
Current Architecture
** Utilize SAP Integration Suite when ready-to-use integration is not available
*** Current integration of CX solutions mostly via SAP Integration Suite (direct integration on roadmap)
SAP Master Data Integration (MDI) is designed to act as a central hub for seamless master data synchronization across various enterprise applications. Its architecture ensures that both SAP and non-SAP systems can efficiently exchange master data while maintaining consistency across the entire IT landscape.
Direct Integration with SAP Cloud Applications
MDI directly integrates with several SAP Cloud applications using pre-built SAP MDI Adapters. These adapters enable a smooth and standardized data flow between MDI and the following SAP solutions:
- SAP Field Service Management (FSM)
- SAP SuccessFactors
- SAP S/4HANA (Public & Private Cloud)
- SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) Cloud
- SAP Fieldglass
- SAP Ariba
- SAP Customer Experience (CX)
Since these applications are built to work with SAP MDI, they can directly exchange master data without requiring additional middleware.
Integration with Non-SAP Applications and SAP ECC Systems
For legacy SAP ECC systems and non-SAP applications, direct connectivity to MDI is not available. Instead, SAP Cloud Platform Integration (CPI) acts as a middleware, facilitating communication between these systems and MDI. SAP CPI includes an MDI Adapter, which enables:
- Secure and scalable integration of ECC and third-party applications with MDI.
- Transformation and enrichment of master data before synchronization.
- A flexible approach to integrate on-premise and hybrid cloud landscapes.
This hybrid architecture ensures that both modern cloud-based applications and traditional on-premise systems can participate in a unified master data strategy, reducing data silos and improving consistency across the enterprise.
Feature Scope Description can be found here: MDI Feature Scope
Information on Pricing can be found here: MDI Service Pricing
System Limitations can be found here: MDI System Limitations
More Feature info can be found here: MDI Features
What is SAP One Domain Model?
SAP One Domain Model is a standardized, common model for business objects across various SAP solutions. By aligning master data structures across SAP applications, ODM facilitates deep, out-of-the-box integration, simplified extensions, and consistent APIs for the SAP Intelligent Enterprise.
Key Features of SAP One Domain Model
✅ Unified Data Structure: Provides a harmonized representation of business objects, ensuring consistency across different SAP applications.
✅ Standardized Integration: Enables seamless data exchange between applications like S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, Ariba, Fieldglass, and Customer Experience solutions.
✅ Core Data Services (CDS) Based Definitions: The model definitions are written in Core Data Services (CDS), forming the foundation for a consistent data view across hybrid landscapes.
✅ Foundation for Integration & Analytics: Aligns configurations, master data, and transactional data, enabling robust integration, extension, and analytics scenarios.
By adopting SAP One Domain Model, organizations can eliminate data inconsistencies, streamline integration efforts, and create a cohesive digital enterprise where applications interact seamlessly.
All supported Integration Models can be found here:
Integration Models
Getting Started with SAP Master Data Integration (MDI): A Simple Guide
SAP Master Data Integration (MDI) helps businesses ensure seamless master data synchronization across multiple applications. While the technical implementation requires expertise, understanding the initial setup helps organizations plan and prepare for MDI adoption.
Pre-requisites
Before setting up MDI, the following are required:
✅ SAP BTP Global Account – This is the foundation for accessing SAP cloud services.
✅ SAP BTP Sub-account – A sub-account in the appropriate region where MDI is available:
- Europe (Frankfurt) – EU10, EU11
- US East (Virginia) – US10
- Australia (Sydney) – AP10
- Singapore – AP11
- China – CN40
✅ Spaces in Sub-account – Organizational units where services like MDI are deployed.
Initial Setup Steps
1️⃣ Create a Tenant
- Each sub-account can have one MDI tenant.
- A tenant is created when you subscribe to the SAP Master Data Integration Tenant application.
- Each service instance within a sub-account connects to a client (e.g., S/4HANA, SuccessFactors).
- Best Practice:
- For production, create one MDI tenant to ensure data consistency.
- For a three-system landscape (Development, Test, Production), use three separate tenants to prevent unintended data sharing.
2️⃣ Create a Service Instance
- For every application you connect, a dedicated service instance must be created from the SAP BTP marketplace.
- After creating a service instance, set up a service binding to generate credentials for connectivity.
- You can generate multiple credentials for an application by creating additional service bindings.
3️⃣ Configure the Client
- Define configuration details for each connected application.
- Key attributes include:
✅ Business System ID
✅ Write Permissions
✅ Global Tenant ID
✅ logSys (Logical System)
4️⃣ Generate Service Keys
- After configuring the service instance, generate a service key.
- The service key is needed for authentication and establishing connectivity between SAP MDI and applications like S/4HANA, SuccessFactors, or Ariba.
5️⃣ Configure Master Data Orchestration/Business Data Orchestration
- Use Business Data Orchestration to manage master data replication.
- This allows you to:
✅ Define distribution models for data replication.
✅ Add extension fields to customize data attributes.
✅ Monitor the distribution status of master data.
Please note, additional steps would be required to SOAP Applications, like additional distribution models in MDO, creating and configuring Destinations. This would be required for objects like Business Partners.
Also for connecting S/4HANA Cloud or Cloud Applications Based on the SAP BTP ABAP environment, we would require to create communication arrangements (SAP_COM_0659) , (SAP_COM_0594) , Create destinations for MDO and Setup Distribution Models.
What’s Next?
Once MDI is set up, your applications can start synchronizing master data efficiently. To ensure smooth operations, businesses should work closely with their IT teams or SAP partners for technical implementation, monitoring, and optimization.
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