Web services publishing scenario

[Former Member]

Hi all,

In my current project there is a choice to make about the integration scenario. Any advice, idea, etc, to move in the best direction will be greatly appreciated.

Current scenario:

In ECC RFCs are published as webservices in SAP CE (CAF), and consumed by a third party application.

Possible scenarios:

1. RFC published as webservices in SAP CE (CAF) - Original

2. RFC published as webservices in ECC SOAMANAGER (no middleware)

3. RFC published as webservices in PI

4. RFC published as webservices in ECC SOAMANAGER (no middleware) and also published in PI service registry to have a centralized services catalog.

Main concern of the client is performance, webservices will be accessed by a maximun of aprox. 2000 concurrent users at the end of the month. Also, client wants to stop using CAF since at the moment its only purpose is publishing those webservices. Is there any performance or queue control advantatge in using CAF instead of publishing services from ECC itself?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Ivan.

[Former Member]

Hi Ivan,

Ok, I have to say that you're using the word 'published' very loosely.

I think you also need to factor into account where the client is headed towards with webservices & SOA in general, e.g. are there plans for webservice orchestration? or BPM functionality which allows you to change business processes on the fly with changing conditions. SAP CE with Netweaver BPM offers this.

My personal opinion:

Obviously going the no middleware ECC web-enabled RFC route is the path of least resistance so you would have a reduced latency with webservices calls (in theory), this could depend entirely on how Basis/Architecture configures the environment & how load balancing is managed, you could end up with very poor response times anyway with this approach.

I would use route all webservice calls through SAP PI as a routing / mapping / modeling & additional security mechanism. Then publish webservices in the SAP PI Services Registry & maintain SAP CE (with Netweaver BPM) for Service Orchestration & business agility. You would have slightly slower response times (could be managed with a load balancing act) but you would have a more robust & secure architecture. It is just my opinion though

Best Regards, Trevor