SAP RF Setup: SAP- or Webconsole?

[Former Member]

Dear experts,

we are planning to use RF in conjunction with SAP. We are on 4.6C. Our pilot installation will be in Thailand while the servers are hosted globally in CH. A local server for the middleware (SAPConsole/ Webconsole/ Terminalsever etc.) however, would be ok if advantageous.

Still I'm having some questions regarding a successful setup:

a) Should we go for Webconsole or SAPConsole? What is the advantage of using Webconsole?

b) If we go for SAPConsole: Which terminal server do you recommend? I've seen a scenario with Georgia Softworks before, but I guess others are available as well?

c) If we go for WebConsole: What other software do we need?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Gunter,

Here is the difference between the two:

SAPConsole

SAPConsole translates GUI (Graphical User Interface) screens to character based screens used on a wide variety of data-collection devices. SAPConsole does not contain business logic, databases or external functionality. Its sole function in life is to translate SAP GUI screens in your SAP environment to its character based equivalent.

Basically, a SAPConsole session allows you to connect to SAP in real-time, exactly like a SAP GUI session. All the functionality and business logic resides within the SAP Application.

WebConsole

The standard way to deploy patches and versions of mobile applications to a mobile device in production environments is using the Web AS. Applications are assigned to users in the MI Web Console and are installed automatically on the mobile device during synchronization. Thus, the MI Web Console is the central tool for managing application deployment. It offers system administrators the following features:

Upload of mobile applications

Upload of MI pathches,addons

Role based applications

Trace files

WebConsole -- It is in the J2EE Stack of SAP WAS (Java + ABAP Stack provided if there is the MI Component).

Webconsole is part of MI where as SAPCONSOLE..I am not sure....

I never used SAPCONSOLE...i preffer Webconsole to upload applications to MI client.

Hope this is useful

Cheers,

Karthick

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi and thanks for your reply,

however I would like to have some feedback regarding the usage in the warehouse in conjunction with RF devices (pros/cons).

Regards,

Gunter

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

WebSAPConsole will give you browser based user interface with all of its pros and cons while SAPConsole will provide character based user interface. In my experience the SAPConsole's character based interface is a much better match for RF devices because it is much easier for the users and results in better productivity. Please remember that a RF device is not your MS Windows desktop and a sharp looking web interface is very likely to prove to be very cumbersome to use on a small RF screen in a dark warehouse. And ... there is a number of other minuses of the WebSAPConsole based user interface, e.g. what will prevent your users from navigating away from your company's web application to disney.com or somewhere else. We use the Georgia SoftWorks SSH Server and client and I have a good feeling that we get all we can from SAP and our RF devices. As an additional benefit (really a requirement for us) we get very strong 256-bit AES encryption under SSH2 protocol. Do not get me wrong, I am not blind to pluses which a mature locked down browser-based solution might offer - I just think that Microsoft's web browser for Windows CE 5.0 or WM 5.0 is not a good solution for SAP - where is the lockdown feature, scanner support, Zebra printer support...

Regards,

Rodney