How SAP interacts with other systems

For now, there are 3 main ways that SAP interacts with other systems, namely, the intermediate table, the RfC, and the Web service approach.

The 1th intermediate table, that is, the use of intermediate database as an interactive way. The SAP system uses DBCO to establish an association with an intermediary database, using SQL or TSQL to manipulate the database directly. The other system also operates on the intermediate table. The most important advantage of this method is that the implementation is simple, the learning cost requirements of other existing systems are relatively low, there is no need to have too much transformation to connect with SAP. However, the use of the intermediate table alone may result in less interaction, i.e. only polling and refresh to obtain new data, real-time is not high enough.

The 2nd is RFC, which means that SAP's function is set to RFC form and can be called by other systems in the form of RFC. Call the RFC for SAP, there are JCO available in the Java EE Project (other languages also have similar DLL packages), you can invoke the RfC and return the results. This approach can be used in other systems as long as it is familiar with similar jco, and has better real-time capability than the intermediate table. But because fuction in SAP belongs to the pure process language, many times the function is not very strong, in addition, only one-way invocation, usually with the Web service at the same time (in the C++/c# project, you can also establish the RFC, but not sure that SAP can invoke other system RFC).

The 3rd is Web service, which is how the system interacts with the Web service. In general, SAP calls other systems of Web service is more common, in fact, SAP can also provide Web service, which is the same time, with the so-called SOA is involved. The benefits of this approach are all in accordance with the WS standard, any other system has implemented the corresponding interface, in real-time and interactivity are guaranteed. It is important to note that the format requirements of SAP for Web Service publishing are strict, and many times it cannot be called because of the format, but it is generally found when establishing a Web service proxy.

Most of the time, these 3 methods are mixed together to increase the robustness and stability of the system, especially by using the following two ways. For the intermediate table because the learning cost is lower, so the use is more.