SAP Netweaver Gateway 2.0 vs. Web Services

[Former Member]

Hello,

I want to ask about SAP Netweaver Gateway 2.0. I understand its usage but why do we need it when we can create (globally compatible) web services and use SOa Manager? I want to implement Gateway add-on but I need to know differences between web services and Gateway before making last decision.

Thank you.

[SergioFerrari]

Hi Kerimmkilic,

SOA with SOAP Web Services is still a good option and it will not be managed by SAP NetWeaver Gateway that instead has been introduced into the SAP architectures in order to support REST and OData.

I recommend to study OData (start at [http://www.odata.org/|http://www.odata.org/] ) that is much more than a simple way to format the XML documents.

It looks like building SQL statements via HTTP and Gateway will support you not only for a single execution (e.g. GetInvoiceList) but for the complete navigation within business data (e.g. GetInvoiceList and for each Invoice it will prepare a GetInvoice and for each Invoice a GetCustomerMasterData and so on so forth).

In a nutshell, risking also to be a bit wrong, plan to adopt Gateway if you plan to adopt OData that includes REST). Obviously plan to adopt Gateway if any other SAP product you're going to adopt requires it as a prerequisite (e.g. MS Duet Enterprise, SAP standard Sybase SUP based Apps).

Sergio

[martin_bachmann]

Hello,

as this questions pops up from time to time I would like to spend a few lines on this topic...

'Gateway vs WebServices' is not really correct - the protocoll produced by Gateway is OData. So if you Google for OData and WebServices you will already find various Blogs and posts about this topic.

OData ([www.odata.org|www.odata.org]) is a quite new approach to connect User Interface technologies to backend-systems u2013 cross vendors - via a REST-ful and standardized protocol

SAP is supporting the standardized protocol to allow the easy usage of additional / alternative user-interface technologies.

In addition other companies (Adobe, Microsoft, u2026) provide OData support as part of their products.

OData is not replacing WebServices, ESOA Services, u2026. OData is a new protocol dedicated for a certain class of use-cases.

OData is sometimes described as the ODBC of the Web, so it provides querying or filtering options. In addition relation between various objects can be modelled inside OData. This eliminates the need of the UI programmer to know the details of the backend system.

[www.odata.org|www.odata.org] is a very good starting point to explore the possibilities of OData.

Martin