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RFC vs. Webservices for communication of RF devices with SAP Backend system

Former Member
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WHich is the more preferable way to communicate between SAP and an RF enabled Mobile device to be used for warhouse operations. If somebody has done such an anlysis already, it could be useful to share. I see one article in SAP Professional Journal July 2006 issue, but donot have access for the moment to it as not a registered user.

If others can share and throw some light on some analysis done, it would be useful.

Thanks.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi,

It's depend on your requirements:

If you are working with webdynpro java or abap it's more easy to use RFC instead WS. If the WS is ready and there is not RFC use the WS. There are many options, can you give to me some detail about your requirement?

Regards,

David Faustini

Former Member
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In our scenario of WMS implementation we have a need to use RF device to perform the warehouse activities. For this one option is to use the standard SAP Console and its inbuilt task assignment feature. For different reasons the standard features are not sufficing our needs. Our Specific needs other than the functional gaps are ....

- WM activity Task assignment to a group of people based on customized logic

- Guiding storekeepers to execute several tasks in a predefined sequence

- Customized Web Interface UI to perform the warehouse activities

To fulfill the above, we have chosen to use ...

- the SAP Workflow for the task assignment

- WebDynpro for Java to build the UI for RF device.

For Connecting application (built using WebDynpro for Java ) from frontend to backend there are two approaches....

- Adaptive RFC

- Adaptive WebServices

Now we need some help to understand which one is better than other for good reasons.

Former Member
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AFAIK, RFC is lighter than Web Services. Generally, if the same amount of data transferred via RFC and WS, RFC will send lesser number of bytes on the wire (i.e. lesser bandwidth).

This should be more true for non-textual data (since SOAP will incur the additional hit of converting such data into printable characters). You can read more about this here:

[http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/02/26/binaryxml.html#2]

I also think an RFC library will be lighter on a device than Web Services would.

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

Former Member
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Hi

Application developed with WebDynpro Java can use either RFC or WebServices as data model. In addition you can run those directly on RF enabled mobile devices. You can also capture the data through special RFID element available in WebDynpro Java and directly pass to SAP backend system.

Regards

Vidyadhar

Former Member
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In our scenario of WMS implementation we have a need to use RF device to perform the warehouse activities. For this one option is to use the standard SAP Console and its inbuilt task assignment feature. For different reasons the standard features are not sufficing our needs. Our Specific needs other than the functional gaps are ....

- WM activity Task assignment to a group of people based on customized logic

- Guiding storekeepers to execute several tasks in a predefined sequence

- Customized Web Interface UI to perform the warehouse activities

To fulfill the above, we have chosen to use ...

- the SAP Workflow for the task assignment

- WebDynpro for Java to build the UI for RF device.

For Connecting application (built using WebDynpro for Java ) from frontend to backend there are two approaches....

- Adaptive RFC

- Adaptive WebServices

Thanks to feedback if for such a context, it makes sense to go with RFCs or explore Web Services?