Enabling an Out-of-the-box (Simple Content) Repository for Storing Images in SAP Marketing Cloud

[susheelkc]

With the SAP Marketing Cloud 1902 release, we are excited to announce the availability of the simple content repository feature. This simple content repository feature enables you to choose and upload images from your local drive to a simple content repository.

This feature enables you (for a marketer) to upload images directly from Content Studio while designing marketing content. These images are then also available to any email recipient when they choose to open an email in their respective email clients. It is also possible to map the repository to any of the Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers like Akamai CDN for efficient marketing content delivery.

If you also have the role of marketing administrator on SAP Marketing Cloud, you can use the Content Repository Configuration app to enable the simple content repository feature and maintain the configured CDN Domain name in the app. For more information, see: Configure Simple Content Repository.

Generally, enterprises these days depend on CDN for efficient content delivery over the internet, whether it is general web content, higher resolution images, and promotional videos, or for a web-shop supporting business.

Before you proceed with this set-up, check with your IT Administrator, the IT landscape and get to know the CDN which may likely or already is being in use.

You can choose from a vast array of CDN providers. If you are looking at a global presence, then you could go with Akamai, MaxCDN, AWS CloudFront, Cloudflare, Edgecast, Fastly, or choose among many others.

The set-up is simple and the configuration should be complete in a day or two for both CDN provider’s console and SAP Marketing Cloud.

Here’s a list of the some of the quick help links from different CDN providers:

• Akamai help page.


• Fastly help page for initial setup.


• AWS CloudFront help page.

Do try out this feature and let us know your feedback.

[former_member602840]

Helpful 🙂 Thank you!

 

Have you come across Amplience?

[stefan_wenzel]

Hello Celine,

Amplience is a CMS.

What is your question about?

In addition to the above mentioned simple image library there is a generic API to integrate with any CMS or DAM system. This one could be leveraged to integrate with Amplience.

https://api.sap.com/package/SAPHybrisMarketingCMSDAMIntegration?section=Artifacts

BR

Stefan

[former_member355106]

Hello together,

we dont use any content management system. As in production system it has to be configured kind of a cdn domain what in production system (SAP Marketing Cloud 1902) has to be inserted here?

BR/

[stefan_wenzel]

Hello Oliver,

typically every company uses a CDN to power e.g., their web domains.

You may ask your IT administrator which CDN your company has. He will give you the right domain to enter here.

In case you do not have a CDN in your company you may choose to subscribe to a CDN service.

A short selection of vendors you find above. Some of the vendors also have a very easy step-by-step guide to subscribe and set this up.

 

Hope this helps

Stefan

 

 

 

[PraveenT1]

Hi Susheel,

We are using Amazon S3 with the SAP Marketing Cloud. We have two options based on the features described.

1. Configuring Simple content repository: Enable to upload and view the content


2. Custom CDN integration with Amazon S3.

For Option 1: We are centrally using the Amazon S3 for website and all other areas and SAP Marketing cloud assets is associated with one Amazon S3 Bucket. We already a CDN domain name associated with Amazon S3.

I am not able to follow the instruction saying the "Use the Content Repository URL in your Content Delivery Network (CDN) Provider's Console. This generates CDN Domain Name.".

We are not able followup this step to link the Content Repository URL to CDN Provider console to do it Amazon S3.

 

What would be the best case in this scenario to go for an Option 1 or OPtion 2.

 

[former_member211799]

Hi Praveen,

These are the options to use pictures in the email editor (content studio) of SAP Marketing Cloud (SMC)

1. The SAP managed repository, which has been described in this blog. Every SMC tenant, now has a default repository, in order to use it productively, we expect that this repository is mapped to a CDN domain. Therefore, step-1 here, allows you to enable this repository and copy the URL to this repository.
   
   
   
   1. Step-2, is where the URL of repository is used to generate a CDN Domain, here you can use AWS Cloud Front
   
   
   
   


2. Integrating with SAP Document Center (a cloud service in SAP Cloud Platform). This allows you to bring in the SAP Document Center subscription and integrate with SMC. The corresponding integration scenario is SAP_COM_0050, refer the corresponding integration documentation


3. Generic integration to any CMS/DAM systems using SAP Cloud Integration - Here you can use the integration template as a reference and build integration to any CMS/DAM system.
   
   
   
   1. Here you can utilise AWS S3 as well. You will have to care about the authorisation as well, when SMC makes a call to AWS S3 via the SAP Cloud Integration
   
   
   
   

I hope this helps

Best regards, Prasad

[PraveenT1]

Thank you Prasad for the information

[former_member608955]

Hi Prasad,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

We have a requirement to integrate SMC with AWS S3 for consuming the
multimedia contents in SMC.

Please let us know if the standard Iflow package SAP Marketing Cloud Content Management System Integration & ODATA API-Integration
Content is sufficient to consume files from S3 to SMC,or else if we
need to any additional adapter (eg Amazon connector) ?

Thanks,

Kapilan M R

[janakiram_lakkapragada3]

We have the same issue - our client uses Akamai but the instructions "Use the Content Repository URL in your Content Delivery Network (CDN) Provider’s Console. This generates CDN Domain Name" - are pretty confusing according to them. Is there anyway you can provide more details on this? I am pretty sure SAP would've done some configuration in your systems.

[susheelkc]

Hi Janakiram,

The Content Repository URL is available in the Content Repository Configuration app in SAP Marketing Cloud. Please copy this link and ask the client to enter the same in their CDN provider console. Hope this helps!

 

Also, here's the link to the documentation link for Akamai CDN: https://learn.akamai.com/en-us/webhelp/cloud-embed/cloud-embed-implementation-guide/GUID-17593129-05...

 

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Susheel

 

 

[sai_hoa_nguyen]

Hi Susheel,

We have already enabled Content Repository in our SMC. The link Content Repository URL is automatically displayed and we used it for CDN configuration in AWS Cloudfront. As a result, we could upload the images in Content Studio from local machine, and we could view these images in content studio, even download it by using the source URL in content studio.

However, we are concerning how can we manage (view/delete) the files (images, attachments,…) which we already uploaded? We accessed the Content Repository URL then it forwarded us to SAP Document Center (SDC) and it’s required an account to login but we don’t know which account. We don’t configure to integrate with SDC in Communications System App yet, so why we have the Content Repository URL persisted?

Could you please advice us?

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards,

Hoa Nguyen

[arunapai]

Hello Hoa Nguyen,

With SAP managed repository (described in this blog), it is not possible to manage the content.

The Content Repository URL is a read only field, just to indicate the automated procedure for this integration has run successfully.

An option to delete the uploaded content is currently not available.

You could refer to this blog - https://blogs.sap.com/2019/10/17/content-repository-for-images/ for various options available to connect with DAM systems.

Thank you.

Regards
Aruna

[janakiram_lakkapragada3]

Hi Susheel - sorry for the belated response. We are still struggling with Akamai people and their understanding of how it works. I am trying to make them follow the Akamai help guide you provided - no luck so far. Bigger issue is this is not a skill we possess functionally to guide them correctly. It would be good if SAP can provide some screenshots of how ya'll internally configured this using CDN route.

Just the two steps - take content repository URL, copy it, paste in CDN console and it generates a domain - this is pretty high level and vague.

[susheelkc]

Hi Janakiram,

Can I get your email address, I could send across a document, which may help you!

Regards,

Susheel

[janakiram_lakkapragada3]

You can reach me at janakiram.lakkapragada@centerpointenergy.com.

 

[susheelkc]

Hi Janakiram,

Tried sending you an email, however, due to restrictions imposed by your organization, the email was received. Any other email id to reach you on to?

 

Regards,
Susheel

[susheelkc]

Hi Janakiram,

You can access a doc which has been compiled for your use: https://sap-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/p/susheel_kumar_c/EucBxrAhmjpJnK1iZ9_rDvoBr7zkteMePFhxhhezWYhVTw?e...

Also, read through the below before you start the steps in the documentation:

SAP Marketing Cloud provides integration with SAP Document center with the Simple Content Repository feature.

Pre-requisite for using this feature

• The domain name from the Content Delivery network.

Why we need this?

• Faster load times of content for users.


• For Quickly scalable during times of heavy traffic

Steps to be performed to enable this integration

 On the SAP Marketing Cloud system:

1. Go to Content Repository Configuration.


2. Select Simple Content Repository, in the Content Repository section, you will see an active checkbox which you can toggle and Repository Domain details. Activate by checking the checkbox to Active.


3. Next, there is a free text field called – CDN Doman name that needs to be entered – the value for which we will fetch from the CDN provider (here Akamai).


4. Now go to the Akamai CDN configuration console and set up the site configuration as shown in the screenshots in the document.

 

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Susheel

[janakiram_lakkapragada3]

Can you try jvlakkap@us.ibm.com?

[janakiram_lakkapragada3]

Susheel - thank you for the document but I am still having access concerns. Is there anyway you can send the doc to jvlakkap@us.ibm.com?

[MarkusGrant]

Hi susheelkc ,

I'm trying to configure the Simple Content Repository using Fastly and immediately came across an issue. When I enter the Repository Domain ending hana.ondemand.com I get the error message "Domain 'ondemand.com' is already taken by another customer".

Any tips on how to work around this? I'm assuming all SAP Marketing Cloud customers will have the same domain ondemand.com.

Kind Regards,

Markus

[arunapai]

Hello Markus,

It is unclear where you are seeing the error message - in the Fastly configuration or inSimple Content Repository configuration in SAP Marketing Cloud.

Request you to please report the issue to the component, CEC-MKT-API. We could then look into the configurations and provide the right solution.

Thanks and regards

Aruna

[MarkusGrant]

Hi arunapai ,

The error message is in Fastly configuration. I don't see that this could be anything to do with Marketing Cloud but I can create an incident if it helps.

[arunapai]

Hello Markus,

The repository domain smd-*.hana.ondemand.com, should be maintained in Origins section as host.
In the Domains field that is highlighted in the screenshot here, ensure that you provide the custom domain name (unique branded name identifying your brand),such that the file URLs have the custom domain.

Hope this helps.

Thanks and regards
Aruna

[ilonka]

As already some comments here enquiring about the setup of Akamai as CDN respectively the instruction “Use the Content Repository URL in your Content Delivery Network (CDN) Provider’s Console. This generates CDN Domain Name” is there a documentation / How To available what has to be done on Akamai side? My customer is - as many others - struggle with it and lacking documentation.

For those who managed, can you please share some insights?

Thanks and best regards

Ilonka

[joerg_losat]

Hi Ilonka,

the configuration is quite simple. You just have to create you own domain name in your preferred CDN. E.g. ilonka.cdn.aws.com. By the way, in AWS you can have a generated URL where your CDN is accessible. The target host name is the name provided in SAP Marketing Cloud, e.g. smd-xxx.hana.ondemand.com (URL can be different, depending on DC location). You have to set the right setting, that HTTPS is supported by CDN and all path information and URL parameters are just forwarded to the target host.

To make an example:

In the email itself you will have the URL

ilonka.cdn.aws.com/anotherstring/add_info/?parameter1=XYZ&parameter2=abc
is translated to the target host
sdn.xxx.hana.ondemand.com/anotherstring/add_info/?parameter1=XYZ&parameter2=abc

General remark: all used urls are fake.

Hope it makes it more clear.

Best regards,

Joerg

[danny_lipkovski2]

Hi Kapilan,

did you manage to integrate SMC with AWS S3 in regards to integrate AWS-assets to SMC?
I didn't find any API in SMC that could manage the assets of the SMC content repository.

Regards

Danny

[sparko]

Hi Susheel,

Could you please help us we too are struggling to follow the documentation and believe there is a discrepancy in the steps provided as they're exactly the same for Content repo and custom landing  page domain name. https://help.sap.com/viewer/ac1eab4c66bc490da7ac2c378c46b0e7/2111.500/en-US/7de38c63de2644138ca2582b...

It's the custom domain name we're interested in. I assume there isn't a dependancy?

The 'Repository Domain' is showing a URL not a unique domain name (smc-lp.s4hana.ondemand.com/eu) which means we don't have anything valid to add into the CDN service.

Many thanks

Matt

[graeberm]

Hi Matt,

I don't see any discrepancies in the application help documentation at the moment. For both applications, Simple Content Repository and Landing Page Publication, you enter the corresponding domain you have registered with your CDN provider(s) in the "Domain Name" field under “Domain Configuration”.

For your applications you can choose different CDN providers or the same provider with different or the same CDN domain. If you use the same CDN domain for several applications, the configuration of your CDN becomes more complex.

Regarding the repository domain, your CDN provider should support the specification of a path in addition to a domain as endpoint. I am not currently aware of any CDN providers where this is not possible.

Best regards
Michael

[LukeSybit]

Dear susheelkc ,

do you have a idea where I can delete allready uploaded images from content repository?

Thanks and greetings,

Lukas

[graeberm]

Dear Lukas,

unfortunately, there is currently no possibility to delete images from the Simple Content Repository in SAP Marketing Cloud up to and including release 2202.
In urgent individual cases, you could open a corresponding service request via ticket on the application component CEC-MKT-DAM.

Best regards,
Michael