JCO vs ARFC vs Web Service vs EC

Question

Hi all,
In our project we will be calling BAPI's in a R/3 backend system. I've allready done this through importing the BAPI's as a model in NWDS (aRFC) because it's the used method in the Web Dynpro tutorials.
Now i'm wondering. What's SAP's recommended method to communicate with a R/3 backend system? Everybody is talking about webservices these days... and webservices are also an option for calling BAPI's in R/3. But what is SAP's opinion about this? Do they recommend it? (webservices are the future)
What is recommended, what is better, what gives the most options (security, transaction management, ...) when i can choose from all methods for calling BAPI's in R/3? ( JCO, aRFC, EC, webservices)
Kinds regards,
J.

Answer 1

Hi,
First of all, I'm not SAP and I'm not an architect.
The choice between BAPI's (RFC's) or webservices depends your specific situation. In most cases it is easiest to use available RFC's or BAPI's when present. These contain the backend logic that will eventually be called, even when webservices are used (at least in most cases).
For that reason, there are people that promote usages of RFC's BAPI's because of performance reasons and/or speed of implementation.
However, the future promise of CAF where functional consultants can create their applications knotting webservices together assumes it may be desirable to 'webservice-enable' your technical infrastructure.
If you (plan to) use other SAP products it also may be desirable to use XI. With XI you can easily convert RFC's or BAPI's to webservices. Without XI, you will have to write your own webservices that implement a BAPI call through JCO. I would rate that as the least desirable way for accessing the backend.
I don't know much about the difference in technical possibilities of BAPI's and webservices, but I suspect the differences are slight if any.
Hope this is helpful.
Good luck,
Roelof