Home › CaRD Connector
SAP S/4HANA® does not need to know where your documents live — it only needs to be able to work with them. The CaRD Connector speaks ArchiveLink and CMIS 1.1 outwards and files inwards wherever you want: SharePoint, Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, STACKIT or a file system. Storage thus becomes a decision you make — and can revisit at any time.
Document archives are chosen once and then paid for twenty years. Anyone wanting to switch supplier discovers that the problem is not the technology but the lock-in — and keeps paying.
Classic archive systems charge by volume or document count. Cloud storage costs a fraction of that — but only if SAP can work with it.
As long as filing is tied to the archive product, every switch is a project. Tied to an open standard, it is a configuration change.
Every transition raises the same question: does the archive come along? With open interfaces the answer is yes — regardless of where SAP moves.
ArchiveLink for classic SAP scenarios, CMIS 1.1 for modern document applications — both on the same documents. Per installation you enable what is needed.
One installation can serve several archives, each with its own storage and rules — invoices in Azure, engineering documents in SharePoint, test data in a file system.
Both are enforced on every change: deleting, overwriting and altering are refused while the hold applies — including when somebody tries to delete the parent folder.
The connector has passed the official SAP certification. For your IT that is the difference between a promise and a completed test catalogue.
In your own data centre on Windows, in Azure as a web app, or on a Cloud Foundry platform. No intervention in the SAP core, no modification.
Because CMIS is an open standard, other applications can work on the same holdings — for instance the CaRD Workspace as a web interface for users without SAP access.
The most common reason for the connector is an archive system that has become too expensive. The path is unspectacular and viable precisely for that reason: put the connector alongside, set up the new storage, let new documents flow there. The legacy holdings can stay where they are until you decide about them.
Take the annual fee of your current archive and set it against the cost of the same data volume in cloud storage. In most organisations there is an order of magnitude between the two figures — and that difference recurs every year.
The connector is what makes that calculation possible in the first place: without it, the cheap storage is simply not addressable by SAP.
SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud and private cloud, RISE with SAP, S/4HANA on-premise and SAP ECC. Integration runs through SAP ArchiveLink and/or CMIS — which of the two applies depends on the deployment model and the scenario, not on the connector.
It sits between SAP and your storage. Outwards it speaks the two languages SAP knows for documents — ArchiveLink and CMIS 1.1 — inwards it files documents in the storage you have chosen. To SAP it looks like an archive system; to you it is the point at which you decide the storage freely.
SharePoint, Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, STACKIT and the local file system. Several at once are possible: one connector can serve several repositories, each with its own storage — invoices in Azure and engineering documents in SharePoint, for instance.
Yes, it has passed the official SAP certification. That is not a marketing badge but a completed test catalogue — for IT the difference between “claims to be compatible” and “demonstrably tested”.
No. The connector handles both and can be limited per installation to what you need. Classic SAP scenarios run through ArchiveLink, modern document scenarios through CMIS — and both can work on the same data.
The connector understands holds and retention periods and enforces them on every change: deleting, overwriting and altering are refused while the hold applies — including when deleting a parent folder. For true immutability at storage level, combine this with your platform’s WORM features.
In your own data centre on Windows, in Azure as a web app, or on a Cloud Foundry platform. It needs no database from your SAP system and no intervention in the SAP core.
That is the most common reason it is used. You put the connector alongside your legacy archive, set up the new storage and let new documents flow there. How and when the legacy holdings move is your decision — day-to-day operation does not depend on it.
We quote per customer — by repositories, document volume and operating model. Request an individual quote; we are happy to show you a no-obligation live demo first.
Tell us which archive you use today and where you want to go — we will sort out the rest in a conversation.
