RFC start on explicit host - fast sync interface options to iSeries

[Former Member]

Hi all,

Sorry if this is going to be a bit long..

Back on my old stomping grounds, times change, so do backend systems, we're now running SAP on Unix/Oracle with iseries SAP systems being phased out. This also meant that I moved from hardcore as400 techie to a more intermediate figure between application and real basis. Oh well.

I have an interesting situation though. We need to establish an ATP check interface between Unix/Oracle CRM 5.0 and our legacy iseries application. ATP check is basically checking if stock is present for a customer order. The check is performed during ordering so it should be realtime and fast.

A number of people with more money than knowledge decided the best bet was to implement a biztalk webservice between CRM and iseries. The webservice would call a stored procedure via jdbc. It'll work I'm convinced.

We have been given until monday to come up with a good alternative (which basically means the weekend..)

From an infrastructure point of view I do not want this at all for several reasons.

Our main applications are SAP and legacy as400 with SAP XI in the middle, so at least if we use a intermediate system we should use XI. Introducing a new platform is foolish and bad for maintenance and support

Since the interface should be lean and mean I'm thinking maybe bypass XI as well. Basically these are the options for this interface:

1: CRM HTTP (RFC) to XI to as400 stored procedure

2: CRM HTTP (RFC) to XI to apache webserver

3: CRM HTTP RFC directly to iseries apache webserver

option 2 could be useful if we have to do a lot of mapping in the interface (which I do not expect)

Apache webservers call a iseries program which will (probably) send back back a XML with the stock info

Then I looked into my old iseries on as400 redbook and found these two further options:

4: Using a CPI-C connection from CRM to iseries for direct program call (SG244672 12.7.1)

5: using a RFC connection from CRM to iseries for direct program call (SG244672 12.7.2)

I'm not too familiar with cpi-c so I investigated the RFC option a bit. The tests I have done sofar have either failed because of firewall issues or because this option is not supported in certain system implementations (SAP on iseries 46d does not allow it

The one issue I'm not certain about yet is whether the receiving iseries system needs a SAP gateway. Since it is completely legacy at the moment it has no SAP components at all. If I would have to install a SAP gateway for this I'm not sure if we're still lean and mean.

So questions: is there any experience with option 5 to iseries? If option 5 does not seem feasible I'll probably advice to go to option 3, we have some experience with that and will also definitely work.

Any other comments on these infrasructure scenario's are very welcome too!

Thanks

Tom

Edited by: Tom van Rooyen on Apr 24, 2010 4:28 AM

Edited by: Volker Gueldenpfennig on Apr 24, 2010 11:10 AM

[Former Member]

Update:

The standard program isworking like a charm. The last hurdle before it started to work was changing the activation group to something else than the default.

When it finally worked it was very sweet..and also very fast...

Now I'm starting on changing the program to take multiple parms and also integrating it in our standard landscape.

Thanks especially to Volker for quick and valuable support and insight.

Tom

[Former Member]

Hi Tom,

I tried to edit as well, but was not able to understand the issue ...

it didn't help ...

volker

[Former Member]

Hi Tom,

tja, what shall we say ?

if you are really interested in a VERY fast and "rock-stable" solution, RFC should be your friend ))

We are having lots of eperience with your "option 5" ...

We even support that

You can have a look at:

http://www.consolut.net/en/s/download/contool.html

There are tools available, that could help you ... and they do work ... but I think, there is no documentation attached to that ...

The biggest issue in my eyes is your timeframe and the current weekend ...

We could definetely help you here and make it to a fast and reliable solution ...

Regards

Volker Gueldenpfennig, consolut international ag

http://www.consolut.net - http://www.4soi.de - http://www.easymarketplace.de

[Former Member]

Hi Volker,

Thanks a lot for the reassurance that RFC can work in this way, I have reasonable hope that I'll get it to work or have a good case anyways.

So far:

I found an As400 were there were no firewall problems, I went from a timeout to a connection refused. Then I started TCP *REXEC and now I'm already at rexec failed...

But do i need a gateway or not?

Thanks

Tom

[Former Member]

Why doesn't it take my formatting? this is unreadable

[JanStallkamp]

Hi Tom.

>

> Why doesn't it take my formatting? this is unreadable 

There is a limit for the maximal length of postings in the forums for formatting. As far as I know this was introduced due to performance reasons. There have been discussions about this in the [suggestions and comments forum|; in the past.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

Jan Stallkamp