Webservices Vs FTP protocol

[Former Member]

Hi Experts ,

We have a business scenario where we have to create a new interface for around 80 odd fields , whose frequency is multiple times a day( whenever a invoice creates in SAP)

The approach has to be between 2 ie webservice real time call and SFTP batch jobs . we are recommending the SFTP protocol to follow because of the huge data structure and frequency and can cause some performance issue .

Please help with some inputs on what should be the better approach ? Also what are the limitations of Web service in processing huge messages .

Any additional input for using which approach to take would be really helpful .

[iaki_vila]

Hi Abhishek,

Jörg Thiessmann has explained severak good reasons to choose one or another scenario. I want to add the follow factor decisions:

- Do you need any transformation?, if the answer is not the FTP protocol is a good idea, you can leave out the ESR development

- Is the scenario synchronous?, is it necessay a confirmation in real-time?, with webservices are easier to develop a sync scenario, however with async scenario the FTP protocol is more appropriate.

Regars.

[Former Member]

Hello Abhishek,

in my opinion, 80 fields is not that much. Your message should be smaller than 1 MB then, right? I don't think your webservices - if properly programmed - would run into timeouts because of the load. Multiple times sounds like under 100 messages a day - that is not much.

FTP vs. Webservice is still a valid question, though. My line of thought would be as follows:

- Is this sensitive data that must not be manipulated by anybody?

- Is this time-critical? For example, is there a user waiting for a result in front of a screen? Does he want to proceed quickly with some business case?

- Do you have a safe DMZ architecture for webservice calls if this is a B2B case?

If you can answer those with "yes", you can go with the webservice. If you have doubts, or if you know that, for example, the other side doesn't have a proper system to support webservice calls, you can still go back to FTP. It is a bit old-fashioned and less safe, but easier to implement.

Regards,

Jörg