topic Re: EDI, ALE ? in Application Development and Automation Discussions

EDI, ALE ?

Former Member — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:24:11 GMT

what is the difference between EDI, ALE ?plzz explain ?

Re: EDI, ALE ?

varma_narayana — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:29:20 GMT

Hi..Akash..

EDI - Electronic Data interchange

It is used to Exchange the Business documents lile Purchase Order, Invoice etc with the External Business partners like Vendors , Customers.

EDI uses 3rd party Tools.

ALE- Application Link Enabling

It is used to distribute the data between different SAP or NON SAP systems within the Organization (EG: From Head office to Plants)

ALE is SAP Proprietary Tool.

In both ALE and EDI the common interface to exchange the Data is IDOCs.

reward if Helpful.

Re: EDI, ALE ?

Former Member — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:33:51 GMT

Application Link Enabling (ALE)
You distribute data using ALE if you want to communicate from one system to one or more other (mostly internal) systems. ALE transfers data in IDoc format and uses the methods of tRFC for data transfer.

· ALE enables the integration of business processes across several SAP or non-SAP systems.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

You use EDI if you want to exchange business application documents with an (external) partner system (for example, a customer or vendor). The SAP system sends EDI messages in IDoc format to an EDI subsystem, where they are converted to a universal EDI standard (UN/EDIFACT or ANSI/X12). This enables communication with non-SAP systems.

· By definition, two partners are involved in the process in an EDI application scenario: The sender and the recipient of an EDI message.

Re: EDI, ALE ?

paruchuri_nagesh — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:35:14 GMT

EDI

electronic data inter change used to send data from sap to nan-sap systems

ALE: application link enabling

used bet ween sap to sap systems

we can send data sap to non sap but it uses memory to memory

it is quite expensive in terms of memory not flexible comparitively EDI

regards

Nagesh.Paruchuri

Re: EDI, ALE ?

Former Member — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:16:20 GMT

Hi,

ALE (Application Link Enabling) refers to the losely coupled systems whereas the EDI speaks about the Electronic Document Exchange. We need to enable ALE in order to use the EDI feature. ALE builds the bridge and EDI is the means by which the data moves in and out of the SAP system just like vehicles moving over the bridge. IDOC(Intermediate Documents) are the data containers which will be moving in and out of SAP carrying data.

Thus summarizing we need to establish ALE between the systems in order to use EDI between them. In case we need to use EDI between SAP and some other target system then we need a EDI subsystem which understands these IDOCs and converts into the format understood by the target system.

Regards,

Ferry Lianto

Re: EDI, ALE ?

Former Member — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:19:12 GMT

Hi,

1)EDI

Electronic Data Interchange

Cross-company exchange of electronic data (for example business documents) between domestic and international business partners who use a variety of hardware, software, and communication services. The data involved is formatted according to predefined standards. In addition to this, SAP ALE technology is available for data exchange within a company.

Refer

http://www.erpgenie.com/sapedi/index.htm

2) ALE

A means of creating and operating distributed applications.

Application Link Enabling (ALE) guarantees a distributed, but integrated, R/3 installation. This involves business-controlled message exchange using consistent data across loosely linked SAP applications.

Applications are integrated using synchronous and asynchronous communication - not by using a central database.

ALE consists of the following layers:

Application services

Distribution services

Communication services

Refer

http://www.sappoint.com/abap/ale.pdf

http://www.sappoint.com/abap/ale2.pdf

Refer

Regards,

Priyanka.

Re: EDI, ALE ?

Former Member — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:32:46 GMT

SAP will genearte Idoc which will have actual data to send, it goes through an EDI serevr which is converted to an international standard and send to another partner, where it is received by an EDI serrver decodes it and provided data to the ERP system(SAP/Non SAP)

Exchanges data between two systems (SAP/Non SAP) , there is no standardisation of exchanged data , it is SAP propietory