Microservices to build REST-APIs with SAP

What are Microservices? 

Microservices are an architectural approach to building applications where each core function, or service, is built and deployed independently. Microservice architecture is distributed and loosely coupled, so one component’s failure won’t break the whole app. Independent components work together and communicate with well-defined API contracts. 

Challenge

The task from the customer was to break out business logic from its current backend system SAP and expose it to external systems and users. However the current SAP system was limited in its features to offer a modern way of sharing information such as REST or GraphQL.

Solution

The solution to break free from the monolith was to off load data from SAP and transform logic in a service layer (Azure AKS) and expose the data via REST APIs (Azure APIM). Azure came as a natural platform to easily and securely handle this sensitive data and expose it to the outside world.

Value

With the current solution, version control and repository is managed via Github and also CI / CD through Git actions and workflows. The infrastructure is built entirely on Infrastructure as Code (Iac) with Azure Bicep as the main language, meaning that environments can be taken down and created in a fast and efficient way. This has a strong effect on the entire DevOps delivery, from the development teams as they themselves, with the help of tags and runbooks, can quickly and easily get a safe and efficient environment for testing and launching their services and products.