Pass Login details to Backend via SAP Cloud Integration/CPI/Integration Suite

[priyanka_ajn1992_90]

Hello Experts,

I'm working on an IS-U implementation project and we currently have a requirement to integrate few applications to the S4 HANA system via SAP CI/CPI.

From the apps, Login details (Username & Password) are as well passed in a JSON format to SAP CI and then to S4 HANA for authentication. I do not find this approach right as the login details are passed to the public cloud without any security.

I thought of asking the source to encrypt the login data before sending to CPI. But would like to get an idea as to what is the recommended approach in passing the login details securely to the backend? Can we use APIM instead of CPI here? And is it any better approach?

Could you please advise as I have been researching a lot on this topic. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Priyanka

[Martin-Pankraz]

Hi priyanka_ajn1992_90,

I would suggest not to use Basic Authentication (Username + Password) at all. Recommended approach would be to use an Identity Provider like Azure AD or SAP Identity Authentication Service for a secure login on your frontend app.

That login context can be passed on to an API Management (Azure or SAP for instance) solution or an iFlow directly. On the S4 side have a look at Principal Propagation to map the IdP identity to the named SAP backend user. The used authentication flow here would be OAuth2SAMLBearer. Cloud Connector supports that natively.

See this post to get you started on the topic.

Your service call sequence would look like this for an IS-U onprem scenario for example:

app -> APIM -> CPI -> Cloud Connector -> IS-U

Your app is registered with your IdP, APIM validates tokens and passes on context.

Let the community know what you did in the end 🙂

KR

Martin

[priyanka_ajn1992_90]

Hi @Martin Pankraz,

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately I'm still struggling with this. Could you let me know how can the user context be passed on to an iflow directly?

Could you kindly help me with the same?

Thanks,

Priyanka