Preferred method to talk between ASP.NET and SAP?

[Former Member]

Hi,

What would be the preferred method to pass information to a SAP system from a customer facing website built on ASP.NET in Visual Studio?

We are assuming web services would be the best way rather than function calls as this appears to be SAP's long term integartion approach.

Bearing that in mind would the PDK for .NET provide the necessary tools to consume and utilise SAP's Enterprise web services?

I have read about ES Explorer, is this now available to use and would this be better than using the PDK for .NET?

The site is currently based on .NET 1.1 and developed using VS2003 but a migration to VS2005 or VS2008 is imminent, and will be integrated with SAP Netweaver 7.0.

Cheers,

Andy

[rima-sirich · Accepted solution]

Hi Andy,

On my opinion, the best way would be migrating the existing ASP .NET web site to PDK for .NET. I believe you will find the following blog as usefull [Reusing Code with PDK for .NET|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/4744] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken];. By the way, PDK for .NET 2.5 supports working with SAP Netweaver 7.0 starting from SP 9.

Of course, PDK for .NET enables consuming a standard Web services. There is a [tutorial|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/lw/developercontent/sap%20portal%20development%20kit%20for%20.net%20developer's%20Guide/Using%20Web%20Services.html] on this topic.

As you probably already know, ES Explorer for .NET doesn't come to replace the PDK for .NET. ES Explorer for .NET enables developers to search and browse for SAP Enterprise Web services that are published to SR. After you find the desired service, you just add a Web Reference to it to your project, generate proxies and work with it in any kind of application you want to. You can use it in Windows application, ASP .NET application and of course PDK for .NET application. As far as I know, ES Explorer for .NET sneak preview is planned to be available in the SDN shortly.

Hope this answers your question. If it does, feel free to award points

Regards,

Rima.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the reply Rima, the information you've supplied is a great help.

Unfortunately the articles focus on consuming thrid party web services from a portal project whereas we wish to consuem SAP web services form an application outside of SAP.

Our legacy systems are currently being replaced by SAP so we're having to change the way our website integrates with this. From what you are saying it seems using the PDK is the best way to currently do this as the ES Explorer is not currently out there for use.

I have a couple of questions leading on from this if you or anyone elese can help at all?

Would the SAP web services we wish to use have to be published to the SR in order for us to consume them using the PDK and will PDK for .NET 2.5 allow us to work with SAP 7.0 from an ASP.NET 1.1 website devveloped in VS 2003?

Thanks again,

Andy

Edited by: Andy Rose on Jan 24, 2008 10:12 AM

[rima-sirich · Accepted solution]

Hi Andy,

1. Where is an article that explains [How to Consume Enterprise Services with Microsoft .NET 3.0 and Visual Studio 2005|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/905c28e4-38a9-2910-4db5-d39e4fcbf78b]. Although it demonstrates a concept with Windows Console application and creating WCF ( .NET 3.0 ) reference, it still helps to understand the general process and proves that it is possible.

By the way, ES Explorer for .NET comes to simplify this process.

2. SAP Enterprise Web services have to be published to SR if you want to be able to search for them.

3. PDK 2.5 for .NET is used to develop in Visual Studio 2005. In order to develop in Visual Studio 2003 you need PDK 2.0 for .NET.

Regards,

Rima.