Connecting to SAP using the .Net Connector
I have just started on a small project that will display information retrieved from SAP on a web page which means I got my first chance to play around with the SAP .Net Connector. I have to say I was amazed how simple it was and also it was interesting to see so many different technologies working together.
Once you have installed the prerequisites, you install the .Net Connector. N.B: There is a version for VS 2002 and VS 2003 so it is important you install the right one. The process is now similar to creating a web services : using a wizard you select the SAP functions you wish to call and then the wizard creates the proxy. Once the proxy code has been created then you just program against the relevant classes. Interestingly, in order to create proxy code you need to have a Java JVM installed on your machine. But this is only required for development and not for deployment.
It am amazed how fast I was able to write a web page that retrieved the customer table from SAP and display it in a datagrid. We are talking less than 30 minutes from start to finish. I found this forum really useful. For example, when I had made a mistake and giving the client number as -1 or learning how to create an SAP connection by hand rather than through the wizard.