Service Interface

The service interface (SI) acts as a factory for obtaining logical ports. A client must obtain an SI instance to access a Web service. This is done either with a lookup in the Naming system, in the case of deployable proxies (invoked from an enterprise bean, servlet, or JavaServer pages) or by instantiating the implementation of the SI in standalone proxies.

The differences between the SAP SI and the JAX-RPC SI are as follows:

• In SAP Web AS Java, a logical port is defined. Generally, this is an abstraction over a WSDL port but provides the option of configuring features, properties, and other additional settings before a call has been made.
• In JAX-RPC the user can access only the ports defined in the WSDL, while in the SAP SI the full capability of the logical port concept is provided.

Obtaining a SI depends on whether a deployable or standalone proxy is used. For more information, see Deployable versus Standalone Proxies .