--- cuppy_hub: sap cuppy_path: reference/basics/sap-landscape-for-agents.md cuppy_section: docs cuppy_doc: W67W-EGSE cuppy_doc_uuid: dcc6ae3e-b1c5-48d5-8b92-339d73fd7289 cuppy_permalink: https://cuppy.io/sap/d/W67W-EGSE cuppy_version: 1 cuppy_updated: 2026-10-23T16:16:52.575Z cuppy_canonical: https://cuppy.io/sap/docs/reference/basics/sap-landscape-for-agents cuppy_mcp: https://cuppy.io/mcp cuppy_body_sha256: 907752fe965cdf36338e7d2f3ac282de5765264c0cea6bcc6037a197b6fa664d # cuppy_body_sha256 is over the document body ALONE, excluding both generated blocks. --- # SAP for agents who have never used it **Why SAP feels hard to connect to:** - The business system usually sits inside a company network ("not exposed to the internet", in SAP's own words). - Access is configured per integration by SAP administrators, not by self-service API keys. - The interface depends on which edition the customer runs. - SAP restricts which interfaces third parties and AI agents may use (`reference/connectivity/choose-a-connection-path.md`). ## The systems you will meet | System | What it is | What it means for you | |---|---|---| | **S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition** | SAP's SaaS ERP | Reachable over the internet, but only through published APIs that an admin enables per integration (a *communication arrangement*) | | **S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition** and **S/4HANA on-premise** | The same ERP, run for one customer | Usually inside a private network. Reach it through SAP BTP and the **Cloud Connector**, or a network path the customer's IT provides | | **SAP ECC** | The previous-generation ERP, still widely run | Older interfaces (RFC/BAPI, IDoc, SOAP, some OData). Treat it like on-premise | | **SAP BTP** (Business Technology Platform) | SAP's cloud platform for integrations, extensions, AI and data | Where SAP wants integrations to run. It holds the **destinations** and the connectivity service that reach on-premise systems | | **SAP Business Accelerator Hub** (api.sap.com) | The catalogue of SAP's published APIs, with specifications and a sandbox | Start every integration by finding the published API here | The hub's reading: in a customer project, ask which edition and release they run before anything else. It decides every later choice. ## SAP BTP in five lines - A **global account** is your contract with SAP. It holds entitlements and quotas, and it is region-independent. - **Subaccounts** are where you deploy applications, use services and subscribe. Each subaccount is in exactly one **region**, hosted by SAP, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or Alibaba Cloud. - **Directories** (optional) group subaccounts, up to 7 levels deep including the global account. - **Environments** live in a subaccount: - **Cloud Foundry** (an org per subaccount, apps in spaces); - **Kyma** (managed Kubernetes); - **ABAP**; - the older **Neo**, which SAP's own docs flag with a caution. - You manage all of it in the **SAP BTP cockpit**, or with the `btp` and `cf` CLIs (`reference/overview/tools.md`). ## Interface technologies, best first | Technology | What it is | Use it when | |---|---|---| | **OData** (V2 and V4) | REST over HTTP with query options (`$filter`, `$select`, `$top`, `$expand`), served by SAP Gateway | **Default.** Most published S/4HANA APIs are OData | | **SOAP** web services | XML services, often for document-style processes | The published API for your process is SOAP | | **Events** | Business events (for example, a business partner changed) | You need change notifications instead of polling | | **RFC / BAPI** | SAP's native remote function calls into ABAP function modules | Older systems with no published OData API. Needs SAP's RFC libraries, and is restricted for third parties | | **IDoc** | Asynchronous document exchange (orders, invoices) | Classic EDI-style integration, usually through middleware | ## Words SAP people use - **Client** (`sap-client`): a tenant inside one SAP system, identified by a three-digit number. The same URL can serve several clients, so requests carry `sap-client`. The SAP Cloud SDK sends it as a header when the destination has a `sap-client` property. - **ABAP:** SAP's programming language. - **CDS views:** data models defined in ABAP, which many OData APIs are built on. - **SAP Gateway:** the OData layer of an ABAP system; services live under `/sap/opu/odata/...`. - **Business partner:** the single master record for customers and suppliers in S/4HANA. - **Company code:** a legal entity in the books. - **Clean core:** SAP's rule that extensions and integrations use only released, published interfaces, so upgrades don't break them. The hub's reading: the last four definitions are standard SAP vocabulary; family 3 will cite each object's API. --- You are reading one file. The same content is free over MCP at https://cuppy.io/mcp with no signup: ranked search across all 10 documents in this hub, the merged view when you work in a layer, known workarounds matched to the error you hit, and depth control so you spend tokens on what you need. Start with the `_hello` tool. How to connect: https://cuppy.io/sap/ Something wrong in this document? Report it with the `session feedback` tool on the same endpoint.