WebSphere Adapter for SAP Software
WebSphere® Adapter for SAP Software provides the means for clients (J2EE components) to send requests to the SAP server (for example, to update a customer record in an SAP table or to query data from that table) or to receive events from the server (for example, to be notified that a customer record has been updated).
A BAPI is an SAP-standardized application programming interface that enables third-party systems to interact with an SAP server. The adapter models SAP BAPI function calls as business objects. These function calls create, update, or retrieve data on an SAP server. The BAPI interface of the adapter is used for outbound processing only. The client can call the SAP server through the BAPI interface.
ALE integrates business processes between SAP systems and external applications as well as between SAP systems. ALE uses IDocs (SAP Intermediate Document structures) for data exchange. The data is exchanged asynchronously. The ALE interface is used for both outbound and inbound processing. The client can call the SAP server through the ALE interface and receive events from it.
The SAP query interface retrieves data from SAP application tables. The tables are modeled as hierarchical business objects, which are generated during the enterprise service discovery process. The SAP query interface is used for outbound processing only. The client can call the SAP server through the SAP query interface.
The following figure shows how clients use outbound interfaces to send requests to SAP applications. The adapter provides request and response interfaces for BAPI and SQI. The request originates at the client, and the request is returned by the SAP application. For the ALE interface, the outbound request is one-way. The figure also shows how the inbound interface for ALE originates at the SAP application and is sent to one or more endpoints or to an event-recovery disk.
Last updated: Mon 30 Oct 2006 03:34:55
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