The expanse and criticality of SAP ecosystems make them one of the most important systems for organizations, especially from an access management standpoint. One of the most pervasive issues is sprawling identities and controlling their access to key applications, which can create security and compliance gaps. Understanding the role of identities, the associated challenges, and implementing best practices to secure them is critical to strengthen enterprise SAP security postures.
Why identity security is a challenge for SAP environments
One of the challenges with SAP environments is their complexity. Siloed application governance makes it difficult to manage identities across both SAP systems and non-SAP applications. Additionally, massive data volumes make it difficult to define and manage role assignments, which could potentially lead to separation of duties (SoD) conflicts and compliance violations.
The SAP landscape is also undergoing a major transformation primarily driven by the move to SAP S/4HANA public cloud and the end-of-life for SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC), as well as SAP Identity Management (SAP IdM). These changes underscore the need for stronger support and are forcing customers to rethink their identity security strategies to:
- Ensure that diverse SAP environments are protected.
- Prevent unauthorized access to SAP systems.
- Maintain compliance with audit requirements.
- Conduct proper access certifications during transition.
- Secure access to non-SAP enterprise applications.
Requirements and best practices for SAP identity security
Organizations should consider the following requirements and best practices to address identity security and access management challenges in enterprise SAP environments, which can also apply to securing access to non-SAP enterprise applications.
Align SAP identity security functions with all other systems and applications
It is crucial that SAP functions and access controls are aligned with an organization's overall identity security protocols and governance policies to manage access across an organization's total digital footprint. Organizations must also establish effective communication channels between SAP administrators and security teams.
The alignment of security functions should be implemented so that organizations can:
- Maintain compliance with regulations and standards by making it easier to demonstrate proper access controls and audit trails with comprehensive reports on user access, including tracking changes to roles and permissions.
- Strengthen security postures through consistent enforcement of access controls via centralized identity management and provisioning access based on roles.
- Improve SoD management with automated SoD analysis and enforcement to prevent users from having conflicting access rights.
- Streamline user provisioning and deprovisioning by automating the provisioning of new users with the correct SAP access based on their role within the organization and automatically modifying or revoking access when their role changes.
Secure access across all SAP environments
SAP enterprise identity security and access controls must also consider legacy, on-premises, S/4HANA public cloud, RISE private cloud, and hybrid environments. It should also extend to key SAP platforms, such as SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and SAP Identity and Access Governance (SAP IAG), as well as SAP GRC. Additionally, identity security and access controls should also include key SAP cloud applications and services, such as SAP Concur, Ariba, Fieldglass, and others.
Comprehensive secure access controls need to:
- Enable effective access certifications and centralized SoD checks.
- Provide the flexibility to support the identity security and access requirements of future SAP applications, services, and infrastructure.
- Secure access across all the SAP environment's lifecycle (i.e., development, test, QA, pre-production, production, and decommissioning).
- Support enterprise transition from legacy to cloud environments as well as future SAP cloud applications.
Address GRC concerns
Identity security must address governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) concerns by providing the controls and visibility needed to manage access to SAP and other enterprise resources, ensure compliance with regulations, and mitigate risks associated with unauthorized or inappropriate access.
Identity security should support GRC requirements with capabilities to:
- Provide a central repository for managing user identities and access rights across the organization and ensuring consistent access policies and controls across different systems and applications.
- Enforce role-based access control (RBAC) policies and SoD.
- Automate access request, approval, and provisioning processes to streamline access management and ensure that access is granted in a timely and controlled manner.
- Analyze user access rights to identify potential risks.
- Provide granular control over privileged accounts
- Use adaptive authentication techniques, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and risk-based authentication, to verify user identities and prevent unauthorized access.
- Facilitate regular access certifications.
- Maintain comprehensive audit trails of user access activities, including access requests, approvals, and changes to access rights.
- Offer reporting and analytics capabilities that provide insights into user access patterns, potential risks, and compliance status.
Offer a viable replacement for SAP identity management (SAP IdM)
With SAP IdM maintenance ending at the end of 2027, many organizations are looking to transition to comprehensive identity security solutions that offer coverage for both SAP and non-SAP application ecosystems. The new identity security solution should:
- Extend beyond SAP to support critical enterprise applications, such as Workday, Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle.
- Be based on a cloud-native architecture for enhanced scalability, flexibility, and agility.
- Provide comprehensive identity governance capabilities, such as access certifications, access requests, SoD management, and RBAC.
- Offer included and specialized connectivity to a broad range of applications, systems, and data sources beyond SAP.
- Leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate identity governance tasks, detect anomalies, and provide insights into user behavior.
Why SailPoint to secure access to the SAP enterprise
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and help organizations secure access to SAP and non-SAP environments and applications. With support for thousands of enterprise, custom/homegrown and legacy applications, SailPoint makes it possible for enterprises to extend, connect, and integrate core identity security capabilities with SAP and other critical business applications. These solutions not only address the complex issues related to identity security, governance, and digital transformation in SAP environments, but also extend coverage to non-SAP application ecosystems.
Identity security coverage for new SAP cloud infrastructure services
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ are also ideal SAP IdM replacements that offer comprehensive coverage for the SAP ecosystem and beyond. With specific, tailored, end-to-end identity security for enterprise SAP environments, SailPoint’s expansive integrations for SAP cloud, on-premises and hybrid solutions are aligned with SAP's reference architecture for identity and access management.
These integrations include SAP BTP and SAP Identity Directory/IAS, for centralized user administration and provisioning to more than 40 SAP cloud applications through SAP Cloud Integration Services (CIS), in alignment with SAP's reference architecture. SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ also include integrations for SAP SuccessFactors, SAP HR, SAP GRC, S/4HANA, SAP BTP Cockpit, SAP Identity Directory, plus various line-of-business cloud applications like SAP Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, Analytics Cloud, Integrated Business Planning, and Commerce Cloud.
Integrations for identity security continuity during the transition to the SAP cloud
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ provide comprehensive identity security coverage for on-premises SAP Business Suite applications and the S/4HANA cloud. They also support ECC applications moving to SAP RISE and integrate with SAP GRC and SAP IAG to perform SoD checks.
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ have also achieved SAP certification for our RISE integration for SAP S/4HANA 2023 Private Cloud via the SAP add-on deployment for RISE integration scenarios.
The ability for enterprises to manage and secure access to SAP S/4HANA applications hosted on SAP RISE is critical as organizations migrate existing ERP data, processes and capabilities from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to S/4HANA.
SailPoint’s SAP certified integration for RISE gives SAP customers significant leverage by streamlining identity and access management across hybrid SAP environments. This integration gives organizations seamless, secure data flow and compliance between SailPoint’s identity security platform and SAP systems—enabling automated user provisioning, role management, and risk mitigation.
Deep security and governance coverage for SAP on-premises and hybrid environments
SailPoint delivers governance capabilities for SAP ECC, S/4HANA, and SAP GRC for risk analysis, provisioning, and access certifications. SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ also provide SoD checks that span hybrid SAP landscapes, centralizing identity security with end-to-end transparency into access.
How to implement identity security for the SAP enterprise with SailPoint
SailPoint offers targeted integration packages for SailPoint Identity Security Cloud and IdentityIQ to help organizations manage access to critical SAP applications. Several options are available to meet the specific needs of different organizations, regardless of transformation stage.
Basic SAP integration package
This integration package establishes connectivity and basic user management for organizations adopting individual SAP cloud applications (e.g., SAP Ariba, Concur, and Fieldglass). Key functionality includes:
- User account synchronization.
- Automated account creation, modification, and deletion of user accounts in SAP based on changes in the authoritative source.
- Password Synchronization to enable password changes in SailPoint to be reflected in SAP, and vice versa.
- Ability to discover existing roles in SAP and import them into SailPoint.
- Basic reporting on user accounts and role assignments in SAP.
Core SAP integration package
For those organizations that require additional access management coverage for SAP ecosystems, this integration package covers the functionality of the Basic package, along with:
- Coverage for applications that run on SAP cloud infrastructure platforms (e.g., SAP BTP, SAP IAG, SAP CIS, and SAP RISE.
- Ability to create, manage, and assign SAP roles within SailPoint, simplifying role management and reducing the risk of excessive privileges.
- Access request management, which allows users to request access to SAP resources through SailPoint's self-service portal, with automated approval workflows.
- Automated access certification for reviewing and certifying user access rights in SAP, ensuring that access is still appropriate and compliant with policies.
- Enhanced reporting on user access, role assignments, and access certification results.
Advanced SAP integration package
The Advanced integration package includes Basic and Core capabilities as well as access to SailPoint’s Access Risk Management solution to manage SoD coverage for SAP applications, including:
- Integration with SAP GRC or other SoD analysis tools to detect and prevent SoD conflicts in SAP.
- Automated SoD remediation with workflows that automatically remediate SoD conflicts, such as reassigning roles or implementing compensating controls.
- Real-time monitoring of user activity in SAP to detect and respond to suspicious behavior.
- Advanced analytics to identify trends, patterns, and anomalies in SAP access data.
Centralized governance across the enterprise
- Gained a single view of all identities and access rights for SAP and non-SAP applications.
- Enabled consistent enforcement of security policies and access controls across the entire organization.
Enhanced security posture
- Improved SoD controls to prevent conflicts of interest and reduce the risk of fraud.
- Minimized the attack surface by removing unnecessary access and enforcing the principle of least privilege.
- Automated AI-driven anomaly detection to identify and respond to suspicious user behavior.
Increased operational efficiency
- Automated user provisioning and deprovisioning, reducing manual effort and improving user onboarding/offboarding.
- Enabled self-service access requests, reducing the burden on the IT help desk.
- Accelerated deployment and time to value.
Maintained compliance throughout transformation
- Deployed centralized governance that provides continuous monitoring and complete audit trails that can assist with satisfying regulatory requirements at every stage of the cloud journey.
- Replaced manual controls with automated SoD enforcement that ensures real-time monitoring across the SAP ecosystem.
- Expedited audit response with centralized access data, automated reporting, access certifications, and comprehensive audit trails.
Conclusion
SAP customers are undergoing major transformation with the move to S4/HANA public cloud and transition from SAP ECC, as well as the end-of-life for SAP IdM.
SailPoint has proven solutions that help organizations manage access to their SAP ecosystem, improve security postures, address compliance requirements, deliver a clear view of access across the organization, and achieve identity security continuity as businesses transform.
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