Is your SAP BTP environment quietly accumulating hundreds of unmanaged credentials?
As organizations move to RISE with SAP, build extensions, adopt SAP Build, integrate third-party SaaS platforms, or automate processes, API usage has exploded. Each integration creates a new credential: service keys, OAuth clients, certificates, destination secrets, automation identities, and more.
Individually, they seem harmless. Collectively, they form one of the SAP ecosystem’s least-governed and most critical risks: API Sprawl.
API Sprawl is the rapid, uncontrolled spread of credentials across BTP subaccounts, projects, and landscapes. It grows silently—no alerts, no dashboards, no lifecycle owners—creating a massive blind spot.
This article explains why API Sprawl happens, why RISE accelerates it, and why it’s now one of the top governance gaps in SAP BTP.
What is API Sprawl?
Traditionally, SAP teams focus on managing human identities—employees, contractors, admins, and developers. But in today’s cloud-first SAP landscapes, non-human identities (NHIs) have become far more numerous than human ones.
An NHI is any identity used by applications, integrations, or automations to call APIs or access systems. Common examples include:
- Service keys
- OAuth clients
- Certificates
- Technical users
- Destination credentials
- App-to-app secrets
Every time a developer deploys an app, a consultant tests an interface, or automation is built, a new digital credential is created.
Over time—weeks, months, and years—these credentials accumulate, sometimes reaching hundreds or even thousands within a single BTP landscape.
This uncontrolled growth of digital credentials is the essence of API Sprawl.
Why Has API Sprawl Exploded in SAP BTP Landscapes?
As organizations adopt SAP BTP and move to RISE, every new app, workflow, or integration generates digital credentials. These non-human identities accumulate quickly, often without clear ownership, driving the rapid growth of API Sprawl, let’s take an even more closer look at it:
RISE Accelerates API Growth
The shift to RISE with SAP decentralizes enterprise architecture. Cloud services, new apps, multiple extensions, integrations using SAP Build, BTP destinations, and event-driven automations all increase the number of API touchpoints. Every new touchpoint requires a credential, and each one adds to the growing web of non-human identities.
The Multi-Project Reality
Large enterprises typically run dozens of SAP projects every year, such as:
- S/4HANA extensions
- Integration Suite pipelines
- BTP Workflows
- Automation bots
- Analytics Cloud integrations
- Industry cloud apps
Each project generates new service keys, OAuth clients, certificates, and technical users, further expanding API Sprawl.
The 80 Percent Fact
Our recent evaluations across customer landscapes show that 80% of identities in SAP BTP can be non-human identities (NHIs).
And this number continues to rise.
This rapid accumulation of credentials makes API Sprawl not the exception, but the default state in modern SAP BTP landscapes.
Why API Sprawl Is a Bigger Problem Than You Think?
API Sprawl isn’t just a technical nuisance that you can overlook, but it quietly creates challenges that can snowball into serious issues:
- No Visibility
- Unknown Ownership
- No Rotations
- No Lifecycle Management
- Zero Audit Readiness
Together, these issues make API Sprawl a growing risk to security and compliance within your SAP BTP environment. Our upcoming posts will unpack each of these challenges in detail and outline practical ways to address them.
Also Read: What is Policy-Based Access Control? Is it the Future of Access Governance?
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is API Sprawl in SAP BTP?
API Sprawl is the uncontrolled and often invisible accumulation of non-human identities—such as service keys, OAuth clients, certificates, and automation credentials—across SAP BTP landscapes. Over time, these credentials multiply, creating security, compliance, and operational risks.
- Why is API Sprawl increasing in SAP BTP environments?
API Sprawl grows as organizations adopt RISE with SAP, build extensions, integrate third-party SaaS applications, and enable automation. Each new project or integration generates additional credentials, which accumulate quickly without proper governance.
- What risks does API Sprawl pose for SAP teams?
Unchecked API Sprawl can lead to security vulnerabilities, compliance gaps, audit failures, and operational inefficiencies. Key issues include lack of visibility, unknown ownership, unrotated credentials, unmanaged lifecycles, and poor audit readiness.
- How can SAP teams manage or reduce API Sprawl?
Effective management involves tracking all credentials, assigning clear ownership, enforcing rotations, implementing lifecycle management, and continuously monitoring access. We’ll dive deeper into these practices and tools in our upcoming blogs.