Introducing Bowdark Fuse

Here at Bowdark, we’re on a mission to digitize. We want to take broken business processes and completely transform them using modern technology innovations. From simple apps and bots to full-scale automated solutions, our goal is to break down barriers and data silos so that we can deliver information into the hands of the right people at the right time.

For many of our customers, a lot of vital information is locked away in SAP business systems. Indeed, SAP estimates that 77% of the world’s transaction revenue eventually touches an SAP software system. That’s a LOT of useful data — and most of it rarely ever sees the light of day again. We’re here to change all that. That’s why we’re proud to announce the general availability of Bowdark Fuse.

What is Bowdark Fuse?

At its core, Fuse is three things:

1. A cloud connector that unlocks secure access to SAP backend systems of all kinds — whether you’re on the latest and greatest with SAP S/4 HANA or still running legacy ECC and/or other Business Suite systems.
2. A security gateway that makes it easy to implement Single Sign-On (SSO) scenarios using modern security protocols such as OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0.
3. A protocol translator service that makes it easy to consume OData services from your preferred development environment (e.g., React, Angular, Blazor, ASP.NET, MAUI, or even low-code development platforms such as the Microsoft Power Platform).

How Does Fuse Work?

The architecture diagram contained in Figure 1 below illustrates the positioning of Fuse within a typical customer IT landscape. Currently, Fuse is hosted on your Microsoft Azure cloud tenant account, although we are exploring options to port it to run on AWS and GCP environments, too. Once deployed to the Azure cloud, Fuse securely connects to your SAP backend systems using Azure Hybrid Connections technology. Much like the SAP Cloud Connector used within the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), Azure Hybrid Connections enables you to facilitate a secure connection/relay between Azure and your on-premises SAP system(s) without requiring you to open up holes in your firewall.

Figure 1: Bowdark Fuse Architectural Diagram

From a security perspective, Fuse works closely with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to enable secure access to SAP APIs using familiar security protocols like OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0. The upshot of this is that we can ensure that all transactions processed through Fuse are processed by the logged-on user and not a generic communication or system user account.

Why Should I Care About Fuse?

These days, there are many ways to connect to SAP systems. Whether you’re using SAP tools such as SAP BTP or the SAP Integration Suite, 3rd-party tools such as MuleSoft or Layer7 API Gateway, or even lower-level connectors based on SAP’s proprietary RFC protocol, there are many options to choose from.

With Fuse, we were by no means looking to reinvent the wheel by tossing yet another connector onto the technology pile. Our primary objective with Fuse is to simplify the way that consumers access SAP data. Here, it’s important to point out that “consumers” in this context could include citizen app maker types that don’t speak ABAP or SAPese (e.g., those 5-character German abbreviations such as BUKRS or KUNNR).

As you can see in Figure 1, this simplification unlocks access to SAP APIs from web/mobile apps, Microsoft 365 apps including Teams, Microsoft Power Platform, and much more. To put this into perspective, consider the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) app development experience shown in Figure 2. With our Fuse adapter for Microsoft Dataverse, app makers can build solutions on top of SAP without having to write a single line of code.

Figure 2: WYSIWYG App Development with Fuse and Microsoft Power Apps

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some frequently asked questions we have received from customers interested in learning more about Fuse:

• Question: How secure is Fuse? Are we opening up security holes in our backend SAP systems?
• Answer: The network/security architecture utilized by Fuse mirrors the architecture utilized by SAP with their SAP Cloud Connector and Microsoft with their On-Premises Data Gateway. Here, the use of a relay-based architecture guarantees a highly secure connection between the Azure tenant account and the backend SAP system. On top of that, Fuse works in concert with SAP Gateway and the host SAP NetWeaver system, building on top of SAP’s pre-existing security stack to facilitate secure end-to-end principal propagation. Customers also have the option to add services to a whitelist and even protect them on the frontside using Azure API Management.
• Question: For Power Platform access, why wouldn’t I just use Microsoft’s new SAP ERP connector?
• Answer: Microsoft’s new SAP ERP connector certainly has its place within a developer’s tool bag. However, given its reliance on RFC/BAPI technology, there are certain limitations you have to account for. For example, would a citizen maker understand how to call a BAPI to create a purchase requisition or process a leave request? Bear in mind that SAP’s proprietary RFC protocol is based on the old mainframe CPIC protocol, so this is pretty low-level stuff at the end of the day. SSO can also be quite tricky here. Overall, our position is that Fuse is focused on simplifying API consumption, so the two solutions are complementary at the end of the day.
• Question: How does hosting work?
• Answer: Fuse gets installed in your Azure tenant account. Although Bowdark provides support for installation and deployment, we do not have access to your Azure tenant or your SAP systems/data.

Where Can I Learn More?

If you’re interested in learning more about Fuse, please feel free to reach out to us at sales@bowdark.com. Or, you can schedule a live demo with us here. We’re happy to talk through specific use cases and explore the art of the possible with your business.