Core Infrastructure

Innovations and enhancements to the inner workings of the SAP Ariba Platform receive our constant attention, leaving you to focus on operating a best-run business supported by SAP Ariba solutions and services.

A strong core of intelligent search, security, and services

SAP Ariba Platform Extensibility and Configurability

The core infrastructure of the SAP Ariba Platform delivers these advanced and critical capabilities:

Semantic search: Our semantic search engine enhances the user experience by applying the latest machine learning technologies to analyze each query, better understand searcher intent, and deliver more relevant, higher quality results.
Security: From multi-factor authentication to data encryption to compliance with numerous security standards and audits, SAP Ariba Platform offers a high degree of protection for your business.
Microservices: The SAP Ariba Platform is evolving to a microservices based architecture that will simplify the task of building and maintaining applications to meet your needs with greater productivity, speed, and flexibility.
Master Data Services: With the power of SAP HANA, you’ll be able to manage master data for your SAP Ariba apps quickly and easily within its centralized data store.

Core Infrastructure Features

Semantic Search

Using machine learning, the SAP Ariba Platform’s semantic search engine gathers search-feedback data by tracking of the number of actions users take to find what they need. Training and retraining search algorithms over time, it continuously improves its ability to match catalog content with user intent. Search-feedback data can also be used by your suppliers to improve the content and quality of their catalogs.

By helping buyers quickly find what they need from approved vendor catalogs, SAP Ariba semantic search not only boosts user satisfaction, but it also reduces maverick spending to get more spend under management.

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Security

SAP Ariba Platform security features provide your organization with optimal protection so transactions can be executed with a high degree of safety and confidence. Security starts with guarding access via multi-factor authentication and continues with end-to-end encryption throughout SAP Ariba's solution infrastructure to help keep your data safe, both at rest and in transit.

Encryption-at-rest encodes data using AES-256 standards before being persisted in the SAP Ariba servers, inclusive of PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data, customer data, and PCI data.

Encryption-in-transit encodes data when transmitted into, between, and out of SAP Ariba applications using TLS 1.2 standard.

See table of security features

Microservices

The SAP Ariba Platform core infrastructure is evolving into a microservices architecture. This improves scalability, facilitates quicker deployment, and enhances efficiency in system diagnostics. The microservices architecture is an assimilation of loosely coupled elements – each having a specific purpose and goal – to enable highly agile application development and maintenance.

This makes it much easier for us to build and maintain the apps your business needs, because updating one service in an app doesn’t require changes in any other. Put another way, you experience greater uptime in your business processes because if a single microservice needs maintenance, the entire application isn’t impacted.

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Master Data Services

Master Data Services powered by SAP HANA make it simple to manage your master data for the SAP Ariba procurement and supply chain apps. All master data is maintained in a centralized data store and can be managed through a single user interface to simplify your master data integration processes. SAP Ariba Master Data Services already provide some APIs for easy publishing and use of master data, with more to come.

Bolstered by SAP HANA processing speed, integration of the data across your SAP Ariba apps is fast, consistent, and available to end users with minimal latency across your solutions. Search and publishing performance are quicker and more efficient because master data is stored independently from your solutions and is accessed from a single point of reference. What’s more, when changes are made only incremental data is impacted and managed, not the full dataset. This, too, makes data maintenance faster, easier, and cleaner.

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Resources

Make sure you’re protecting procurement

While you’re evaluating procurement solutions, be sure to refer to this guidebook for a concise, high-level look at the critical characteristics that can maximize security and minimize risk.

Download now