Repository Framework Web Service 

The repository framework is a framework that manages and provides access to repositories. A repository is either a store that contains resources or an adapter that makes resources from other stores available. ‘Resources’ means data in general, such as documents in a document store. This was the origin of the repository framework - a content management system for documents. The framework allows different stores to be handled uniquely by a general client API - this Web service exposes this API.

Prerequisites

The Web service of the repository framework requires authentication so that only authenticated users can access the Web service’s methods. By default, the Web service accepts basic authentication with user name and password or SAP logon tickets. If you want to use SAP Logon Tickets between two application servers, you need to configure a trusted relationship between the Application Server on which the Web service is running and the remote Application Server Java or ABAP system.

For more information about configuring a trusted relationship, see the relevant documentation on the Web service infrastructure.

 

Web-Service API

If you call a method through the Web-service API, the Web service maps the call to the original client API of the repository framework. The result of the repository framework is serialized by the Web service, put into an SOAP message, and sent back to the caller. As this process is time-consuming, Web service calls are not as fast as calling the Java API directly. This should be taken into account when designing applications that are built on top of the Web service. The number of Web service calls should be minimized as much as possible. The Web-service API supports you in reducing the number of calls by offering mass calls that enable the execution of an operation on multiple resources with a single call. Every mass call has the extension Mass in its method name.

In addition, each method that returns a resource has FetchGroup as an input parameter. You can use the FetchGroup parameter to specify the aspects of the resource in which you are interested (for example, system properties, all properties, no properties, AccessURL, or DetailsURL). This allows you to get exactly the information you need for a resource with only one Web service call.

Use FetchGroup and mass calls wherever possible.

 

Since Web services do not support streaming for document content, SAP introduced a chunking mechanism to transport large amounts of data through Web services. This allows you to avoid putting the entire document content in the memory and transporting it in one go. Instead you can divide the content into multiple packages and send all the packages with a single Web service call.

 

Web Service Location

The WSDL for the Index Management Web service is located at

http://<server>:<port>/RepositoryFrameworkWS/Config1?wsdl

To get an initial overview of the Web service methods provided, you can use the Web service Navigator, which you  can access through the Application Server homepage. The Web Service Navigator shows all deployed Web services with their methods and allows you to test each method of the Web services.

 

For a complete description of the API, see the technical documentation on this Web service in the Javadocs section under the internet address help.sap.com/javadocs ® SAP NetWeaver 7.0 current ® Knowledge Management APIs.