Why SAP Edge Integration Cell is the New Hybrid Standard

The mandate for SAP professionals has traditionally been Cloud First. However, for those in highly regulated industries or industrial manufacturing, that mandate often collides with the fact that some of their data is too sensitive, or some operations are too critical, to rely solely on public cloud. This tension between wanting the latest SAP Integration Suite innovations and needing to maintain a ground-to-ground posture has created a strategic bottleneck for these industries.

This is why the SAP Integration Suite’s Edge Integration Cell (EIC) is rapidly becoming the new centerpiece for hybrid architecture. As the logical successor to legacy SAP Process Integration/Process Orchestration (PI/PO), EIC offers a best of both worlds compromise for organizations.

The Bridge Between Innovation and Control

The core innovation of EIC lies in its decoupled architecture. It allows organizations to design their application programming interfaces (APIs) and other integration content in SAP cloud leveraging the full power of a web-based, modern IDE, but then deploy and manage that content directly on-premise.

For a CIO, this solves the sovereignty versus agility conundrum. Organizations get the latest integration tools, but their sensitive data never has to leave the local security framework. Additionally, EIC provides a consistent bridge between the custom applications that organizations are required to keep on-site and the valuable tools that can only be accessed from the SAP cloud.

Resilience for the Disconnected Enterprise

Beyond compliance, there is the issue of operational uptime. In sectors like utilities or heavy manufacturing, a network outage could mean a production halt. However, since the EIC offers the ability to run disconnected, it provides a level of service resilience that purely cloud-based models cannot match. It ensures that if the link to the headquarters’ cloud core flickers, the local integration logic keeps the shop floor humming.

Finally, understanding the strategic value of the EIC is only winning half the battle. To achieve the resilience and security that EIC offers, organizations need a foundation that can handle the rigors of the solution. In the second part of this series, we will shift from the what to the how, and explore the technical orchestration required to scale this hybrid model using Red Hat OpenShift.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Prioritize data residency without sacrificing cloud innovation. SAPinsiders can design complex integration logic within the cloud while keeping actual data processing on-premise, ensuring sensitive information remains within local security frameworks.

De-risk operations with disconnected capability. Deploying the EIC locally provides service resilience for mission-critical workloads, ensuring local applications remain connected even during network outages.

Modernize legacy PI/PO workloads via a hybrid migration path. The EIC provides a logical migration path for SAP Process Orchestration customers, allowing them to adopt the newest SAP Integration Suite features while maintaining a hybrid posture.