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In communication between ABAP and non-ABAP technologies, both synchronous and asynchronous methods are used. SAP offers a variety of standalone components for realizing the conversion of ABAP standards to Internet formats. The following section provides an overview of the available components and their specific application areas.

SAP Business Connector

The SAP Business Connector (SAP BC) enables communication between SAP and non-SAP systems via HTTP and XML. SAP BC has integrated mapping and routing mechanisms that, for example, enable you to transform IDocs to XML messages and send them over the Internet to any receiving system.

You can use the SAP BC to implement the following scenarios:

  • Real-time integration between vendor material stocks and your SAP system.

  • Real-time integration between the product, price, and availability information of any number of suppliers, and your purchasing system.

  • Real-time integration between purchase order monitoring and the internal system of your supplier.

SAP Java Connector

The SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo) is a middleware component that enables the development of SAP-compatible components and applications in Java. SAP JCo supports communication with the SAP Server in both directions: inbound (Java calls ABAP) and outbound calls (ABAP calls Java).

You can use the SAP JCo for integrating Java applications with the ABAP environment of your SAP system. Examples:

SAP Java Resource Adapter

The SAP Java Resource Adapter (SAP JRA) is a J2EE-compatible connector for SAP systems. It enables the integration of SAP systems with J2EE Application Servers. The SAP JRA implements the standard J2EE interfaces for the SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo), thus simplifying communication between J2EE and SAP.

Note Note

As of AS 6.30, the SAP JRA is compatible with the J2EE Connector Architecture 1.0.

End of the note.

The SAP JRA is used in the following scenarios:

  • Developing applications in your SAP system using Enterprise Java Beans.

  • Minimize the implementation workload when writing applications for an SAP system starting from different J2EE Application Servers.

SAP .NET Connector

The SAP .NET Connector is a development environment that enables communication between the Microsoft.NET platform and SAP systems. It supports RFCs and Web services. With the SAP .NET Connector, you can use .NET programs as a client and as a server:

Using a .NET Program as Client, you can:

  • Create Active Server Pages (ASPs) that call a function in SAP system (for example, retrieve and display customer data).

  • Create a Windows form application that enables an interactive user guide (for example, entering customer sales orders).

  • Implement a console application to receive information from the SAP system using NT batch processing.

  • Create a Web service to provide your SAP system (earlier than release 6.20) with a SOAP interface.

Using a .NET Program as Server, you can:

  • Retrieve information (for example, additional customer data) that is required for processing a customer sales order from an external server.

  • Retrieve information (prices, delivery data, flight bookings, and so on) that is required for an evaluation in the SAP system from an external server.

  • Send e-mails from your SAP system.

  • Send IDocs from your SAP system to an external system.

SAP NW Application Server

The Application Server (AS) is a further development of the component SAP_BASIS. With the SAP NW AS as a technology platform for SAP applications, you can develop Web applications in addition to the existing BASIS functions. You can then implement these Web applications directly in SAP business processes.

With the SAP NW Application Server, you can: