Question on ERP ECC 6.0, Netweaver and .NET

[Former Member]

Hi gurus,

I'm about to install SAP ERP 6.0 ECC with the idea of having a development system I can use to create ABAP objects and integrate them with .NET objects that belong to another application.

I checked on the master guide for ECC 6.0 that I can define in Netweaver the system type for my ECC 6.0, as AS ABAP to develop in ABAP and also as EP ( Portal ) to be able to use the PDK 2.5 for Visual Studio 2005.

Is this correct?, Do I need to take anyhting else into account?

Another question is once my SAP ERP and .NET are integrated via Netweaver & PDK 2.5, I guess Web Services is the channel for comunicating both applications, meaning, if I create a table in SAP ABAP, and I want to see data from that table in the .NET application, I guess a Web Service will be created in both applications to connect them, right? Is that what PDK 2.5 does?

What if I'm logged in SAP ERP 6.0 and want to navigate to a transaction that has it's own logic and data in the .NET application, is this feasible?

Thanks in advance.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

a lot of questions but let me try to give some answers:

"I checked on the master guide for ECC 6.0 that I can define in Netweaver the system type for my ECC 6.0, as AS ABAP to develop in ABAP and also as EP ( Portal ) to be able to use the PDK 2.5 for Visual Studio 2005.

Is this correct?, Do I need to take anyhting else into account?"

ECC 6.0 are the Enterprise Core Components and they are running on the AS ABAP. You can install the NetWeaver Portal in addition, e.g. as Portal for your SAP system. In this case you would have AS ABAP and AS Java installed If you use the PDK you can develop portlets (iViews) for the SAP NetWeaver Portal by using VS 2005 as development environment. If you want to connect from .NET to the SAP system (ECC 6.0, AS ABAP) you have a couple of choices:

- the .NET Connector, only supported in VS 2003 with the desing time, runtime works also in VS 2005/VS 2008. Supported until 2010 and in extended maintenance until 2013.

- Web Services, you can expose every BAPI/RFC as Web Service, for more information see the whitepaper Andre and I wrote on this topic at http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/2/8/a287c141-b72e-4e9e-aac5-826e3f0d6d76/StatefulNetWeaverC...

- Enterprise Services by using the Enterprise Service Explorer, see her in this forum for more information about this topic

- Connecting via a middleware layer (by using BizTalk or SAP PI) and exposing the functionality via Web Services to the .NET app

- using the WCF LOB Adapter from Microsoft which connects via BAPI/RFC/tRFC to the SAP ABAP system, see http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/adapter-pack.aspx

"Another question is once my SAP ERP and .NET are integrated via Netweaver & PDK 2.5, I guess Web Services is the channel for comunicating both applications, meaning, if I create a table in SAP ABAP, and I want to see data from that table in the .NET application, I guess a Web Service will be created in both applications to connect them, right? Is that what PDK 2.5 does?"

Web Services are recommended for the communication between an ECC 6.0 and .NET, this is absolutely the future directions. The other possibilities I have listed before. Take a look to the paper Andre and I published, it will give you a good starting point how to build a Web Service based communication between the AS ABAP and .NET. The PDK is for building portlets, it does not cover the connectivity to the SAP backend system.

"What if I'm logged in SAP ERP 6.0 and want to navigate to a transaction that has it's own logic and data in the .NET application, is this feasible?"

Sure, same way of communication, you can call a Web Service from the SAP system, so if you expose the .NET app as Web Service you are able to integrate in this way. You can also use the .NET connector or the WCF LOB Adapter, both can be called from the SAP system.

Hope this helps,

Juergen

PS: Pls provide points if the answer was helpful!!