Does a mixed .net/sap system make sense?

Question

This might be a bit vague question, but real life is like this.

Our company is rolling out SAP system. I know they now do Web Services so we could simultaneously roll out the .NET thing for anything we know we can do in C#.

What are the pitfalls along the way of SAP - .NET integration? I understand that SAP's logic is quite different from "standard" programming, but I hope to separate "business" part from "presentation" part, to be written in ASP.NET.

Answer 1

I'm a SAP ABAP and Microsoft.NET developer. I work for a company that creates software using SAP and other platforms, such as Microsoft.NET, Java and RoR.

Since your company is rolling out SAP, you should get the ECC 6.0 backend, which can use RFC or Webservices.

SAP has a standard API known as Business API's (aka BAPI's). You can try them out at BAPI transaction.

One good example is this: BAPI_USER_GET_DETAIL.

This BAPI is responsible for returning information about any SAP user. The BAPI requires only a single input parameter, called USERNAME, and returns different data structures with information about the user, such as e-mail, First and Last name, user profiles, etc.

Inside ABAP, a template for calling this BAPI should be something like this:

CALL FUNCTION 'BAPI_USER_GET_DETAIL'
EXPORTING
USERNAME = sy-UNAME
* IMPORTING
* LOGONDATA =
* DEFAULTS =
ADDRESS = L_IT_RETURN1
* COMPANY =
* SNC =
* REF_USER =
* ALIAS =
* UCLASS =
* LASTMODIFIED =
* ISLOCKED =
TABLES
* PARAMETER =
* PROFILES =
* ACTIVITYGROUPS =
RETURN = L_IT_RETURN
ADDTEL = i_Tel
* ADDFAX =
* ADDTTX =
* ADDTLX =
* ADDSMTP =
* ADDRML =
* ADDX400 =
* ADDRFC =
* ADDPRT =
* ADDSSF =
* ADDURI =
* ADDPAG =
* ADDCOMREM =
* PARAMETER1 =
* GROUPS =
* UCLASSSYS =
* EXTIDHEAD =
* EXTIDPART =
* SYSTEMS =.

Now, every BAPI is also RFC (Remote Function Call) enabled. This means that, if you implement the SAP RFC API inside your application, you can call any BAPI or other function inside SAP that is setup as RFC enabled.

In older versions, you could use the standard SAP RFC API, or use SAP Wizard Connectors, like SAP .NET Connector or SAP Java Connector.

On the newer versions, SAP has attached a webserver to it's ABAP Application Server, in order to run services such ITS, BSP and WebDynpro for ABAP. By using this webserver, you can publish any RFC as a WebService.

But, taken from my daily experience, the SAP R/3 performance isn't that good. A simple RFC call to a function that sum two numbers and returns the result may take from 1 to 5 seconds, depending on the avaliability of the server.

This happens mostly because of the many levels of abstraction that happens to get on the way when you are using SAP .NET Connector or WebServices.

So, if you want your system to be avaliable for daily transactions (such as creating 5.000 customers daily from your e-commerce application, or making about 40.000 sells online) I deeply recommend you to use Java Connector, or to implement the RFC API by your own.

Otherwise, if your app will be used internally by fewer people, I recommend you to use SAP .NET Connector or WebServices, just because they are completelly GTD oriented.

Hope this helps!

(please, add the http:// prefix to the links bellow, cause I don't have enough reputation to post links :( )

The RFC API: help.sap.com/printdocu/core/Print46c/EN/data/pdf/BCFESDE4/BCFESDE4.pdf

SAP .NET Connector: help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/Helpdata/EN/e9/23c80d66d08c4c8c044a3ea11ca90f/content.htm

SAP Java Connector: help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/6f/1bd5c6a85b11d6b28500508b5d5211/content.htm

Creating WebServices using ABAP: wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/stage/Service+Enabling+in+ABAP

Answer 2

If your apps dont require SAP Portal integration and your clients dont ask for SAP-like look and feel then you are free to use whatever presentation layer you like.

I disagree with the stance that you have to use sap tools when you choose to do a SAP integration. Products like NWDI or old NWDS are a clear headache (im not gonna elaborate on that here, its a long story), training people to learn Webdynpro is in my opinion not worth the money if you arent a 100% dedicated sap integrator.