topic Re: Difference between Webservice and RFC in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Difference between Webservice and RFC

Former Member — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:55:40 GMT

Dear Experts,

We have an application to implement where the application will be called from other NON SAP technology. We got two solutions one is developing RFC's and calling it from other NON SAP Technology OR developing Webservice. Could any one please suggest us to which way do we need to choose?

Regards,

Gopinath A.

Re: Difference between Webservice and RFC

Sm1tje — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:41:57 GMT

That's more or less up to you. In a nutshell: RFC is a known SAP technology for communication between SAP and (NON) SAP systems (both ways, inbound and outbound). Communication is set up quite easily (check SCN for that, work for Basis Administrator).

From an RFC, you can get to a WebService within a few clicks. RFC is basis of a webservice, which is based on known (internet) standards.

You decide, together with NON-SAP system (can it consume or provide RFC requests, or webservices for that matter) and basis administrators.

You can find a lot of info in SCN on both methods about architecture etc. This should help you decide.

Re: Difference between Webservice and RFC

Former Member — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:16:58 GMT

Thanks for the information.

Before moving on, Please give us the pros and cons between RFC and Webservice. As i didnt find about specifically in SCN.

Thank and Regards,

AG.

Re: Difference between Webservice and RFC

brad_bohn — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:12:22 GMT

As Micky suggested, they are simply different protocols, with SOAP (for web services) being the more widely-known/used protocol outside of SAP. You're going to need to know the capabilities of your external system and the development environment used to create it. We don't do any non-IDOC communication with our websites or Windows applications anymore that isn't web serviced based because the latest version of the .Net Developer Studio that our Microsoft team uses does not support new development or changes to RFC-based applications.