Why use a RFC in XI?

[Former Member]

I see that I can pull RFC interfaces into XI from my target system.....OK so I can match up the interface to the message but what does this buy me....in other words what use is it....could someone give me an example of the use of this?

Thanks

Patrick

[Former Member]

Patrick,

You are right about the usage of RFC interface; in that it eases Message mapping etc. The real benifit, however is, as Vaijayanth explained earlier, in the "Inside-out" approach. If you have just SAP systems in your landscape it doesn't make sence. But then one won't get the real ROI from XI if you have a homogeneous SAP environment.

Hence, RFC adapters are used to make the SAP RFCs visible & usable for non-SAP systems via XI.

Hope this helps.

Homiar.

[Former Member]

Hi Patrick,

Let us say you already have a RFC function module doing a particular task.You could also write a fresh RFC module to do some task.At this point only application system (e.g another R/3) which understand RFC can make a call to it.Now,if you import this RFC into XI system and intern create a interface you actually make it available to all application system which uses XI.Any application irespective of its environment/platform can make use of this RFC module thru XI.Essentially you are making it a (web)service.Of course RFC adapter makes the call to this RFC module but XI takes care of hiding it from user.

Hope this clarifies the benifit of importing an RFC into XI.

Regards,

Bikram

[Former Member]

Hi Patrick,

As you might have observed,with XI we have the oppurtunity to have two development approaches: 'Outside-In' as well as 'Inside-out' approach.

We use RFC interfaces for inside-out approach: i.e,RFCs exist in my SAP system (say R/3 4.6) and then i need to expose them as interfaces in XI landscape for further integration.

Regards,

Vaijayanth