JCO vs ARFC vs Web Service vs EC

[Former Member]

Hi all,

In our project we will be calling BAPI's in a R/3 backend system. I've allready done this through importing the BAPI's as a model in NWDS (aRFC) because it's the used method in the Web Dynpro tutorials.

Now i'm wondering. What's SAP's recommended method to communicate with a R/3 backend system? Everybody is talking about webservices these days... and webservices are also an option for calling BAPI's in R/3. But what is SAP's opinion about this? Do they recommend it? (webservices are the future)

What is recommended, what is better, what gives the most options (security, transaction management, ...) when i can choose from all methods for calling BAPI's in R/3? ( JCO, aRFC, EC, webservices)

Kinds regards,

J.

[Former Member]

Hi,

First of all, I'm not SAP and I'm not an architect.

The choice between BAPI's (RFC's) or webservices depends your specific situation. In most cases it is easiest to use available RFC's or BAPI's when present. These contain the backend logic that will eventually be called, even when webservices are used (at least in most cases).

For that reason, there are people that promote usages of RFC's BAPI's because of performance reasons and/or speed of implementation.

However, the future promise of CAF where functional consultants can create their applications knotting webservices together assumes it may be desirable to 'webservice-enable' your technical infrastructure.

If you (plan to) use other SAP products it also may be desirable to use XI. With XI you can easily convert RFC's or BAPI's to webservices. Without XI, you will have to write your own webservices that implement a BAPI call through JCO. I would rate that as the least desirable way for accessing the backend.

I don't know much about the difference in technical possibilities of BAPI's and webservices, but I suspect the differences are slight if any.

Hope this is helpful.

Good luck,

Roelof

[Former Member]

Hello,

Thx for your reply. Are u sure about the following?

<i>> If you (plan to) use other SAP products it also may

> be desirable to use XI. With XI you can easily

> convert RFC's or BAPI's to webservices.</i>

With NW2004s (SAP ECC 6.0) you can create a webservice for every RFC in transaction SE37 (Utilities -> more utilities -> create webservice)

What i'm curious about is what SAP thinks. I would think that if they promote SOA everywhere, they would also suggest the use of webservices in stead of aRFC, because a webservice can be called from anywhere.

Are there limitations when we create webservices from RFC's?

Kind regards,

J.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I don't think there are any specific issues in creating WebServices in R/3 system.

But We have already adpative RFC Model importer in WebDynpro from which you can access BAPIs from backend.

At the same time you can create WebService and can access from WebDynpro.

But Adpative WebService model has been added 04S recenttly.So still we may expect some more features in WebService importer.

But Adpative RFC model importer is stable and you can change your destination very easily and you can reimport the models also.Thats one advantage.

Regards, Anilkumar

[Former Member]

Thx for sharing your thoughts.

I'm still hoping a SAP internal can give his opinion about this, about what will be recommended in the future.

Kind regards,

J.

Message was edited by:

Joren Crauwels