.NET Connector - SAP ES Explorer and Visual Studio 2008 Express

[Former Member]

Hello,

I've got a task to integrate a scale into our SAP EWM. The Scale as a serial output. Therefore I intend to write a small programm based on the Microsoft .NET-Technology to transmit the result of the scale via RFC to SAP. As far as I learned now there was a component called .NET Connector. But this component doesn't work with Visual Studio.NET 2008. The SAP-sites say in that case you have to use the SAP ES Explorer. As far as I understood the ES Explorer is based on SOA and WebServices and you have to register a SR-User to work with that solution. At the moment a flinch from using something complex like WebServices and SOA for programming a relativly simple programm which only purpose is to take a serial input transfer it into RFC and send the data to SAP.

Isn't there a more easy way to provide such a behavior with .NET or do I have to use the ES Explorer? Is it necessary to use a webservice and SOA to provide my goal or does the ES Explorer offer me a more simplier way?

I'm gratefull for every hint you can gave me.

Markus

[Andre_Fischer · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

The best way for you to proceed is to publish the RFC function module that you planned to call via the .NET connector as a web service.

Please have a look at the following article:

Utilizing State Oriented Communication for Web Services Based on Business APIs (BAPI) with Microsoft...

Though it describes the special case of state oriented communication it especially describes how to publish a RFC function module as web service and the consumption using Visual Studio.

Best regards,

André

[Former Member]

Thanks for your reply.

I've decided that the whole .NET thing with web services is too complicated for my purpose. So I'm using the JCO yet.

[Former Member]

webservice are easy to use....and how you connect you JCO with your .net ap^pllication ?

[Former Member]

But using a webservice for my problem is overkill. I just want to connect a scale with sap-ewm. No need to create a webservice. No need to use SAP ES Explorer. No need to register a special user at SAP for Explorer. And also SAP ES Explorer requieres Visual Studio Professional and I'm using the Express Edition.

Now I'm writing the whole thing in java and try to wrap it with jsl to use it as a windows service.

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

It sounds indeed that the usage of SAP ES (Explorer) would be overkill for you. The concept of SAP Enterprise Services is for business services, typically a composition of multiple lower level service calls which you want to perform as a single LUW.

For your case I think that exposing the involved SAP BAPI / RFC function module to outside SAP-environment via a basic web service is sufficient. In this NetWeaver development environment you can achieve that easily (given sufficient authorizations) via the SAP Web Service wizard, and next activating the generated BAPI web service. The document Andre referred to, contains a stepswise example of this, including NetWeaver screenshots.

Best regards, William.

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

although the NCo is only provided by SAP for .NET 1.x; there is a documented approach on SDN how to use it from within VS 2005/2008 with .NET 2.0 or later: [Using SAP Connector for MS .NET (NCO) in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/92333e6b-0b01-0010-9cbf-fecd62d6c895].

But be aware that the NCo is not continued by SAP; so using it for any new development is not advisable if that new development has to be future proof. In that case, indeed the advice is to apply web services; either SAP generated webservices on top of BAPI or RFCs, or SAP Enterprise Webservice if available for your required functionality. Only in the latter case you can apply the SAP ES; in the former you can connect from .NET client via WCF, in fact standard W3* webservices.

Best regards, William.