SAP BC (SAP Business Connector), SAP BC Server, SAP BC Developer, WebMethods, B2B Integration Server, XML (eXtensible Markup Language), HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), SSL (Secure Socket Layer), RFC (Remote Function Call), IDoc (Intermediate Document), EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), Mapping.

The SAP Business Connector is a middleware product based on webMethods’ B2B Integration Server. It allows you to integrate with R/3 using open and non proprietary technology. SAP BC uses the Internet as communication platform and XML/HTML as data format. Thus it seamlessly integrates different IT architectures with R/3.

SAP BC allows for full bi-directional communication to and from R/3. On the one hand all SAP functionality accessible using BAPIs and IDocs can be made available to business partners over the Internet as secure XML-based services. On the other hand applications and information running on a remote web site can be instantly invoked by a simple SAP function call thus making the information of the Web available to an R/3 System.

SAP BC provides an XML layer on top of R/3 functionality so that other applications do not need any understanding of R/3 internal data structures or protocols. You can deploy SAP BC to simply but effectively achieve business-to-business integration between trading partners, thereby extending the reach of your SAP infrastructure to customers, partners and suppliers. Examples for applications may include real-time integration between supplier inventories and your SAP System or multi-vendor product, price and availability information and your purchasing application.

Deployment of SAP BC happens in a matter of days rather than months. By re-using existing infrastructure and know-how the cost of deployment is low. SAP BC allows you to increase efficiency across the supply chain and customer loyalty by tightly integrating your business infrastructure with theirs. SAP BC will be shipped bundled with SAP’s mySAP.com product and is also available separately to SAP customers. It is a vital part of the mySAP.com portal infrastructure.

• Complete R/3 Integration
  SAP BC incorporates a fully fledged RFC server and client which allows for real-time inbound and outbound communication to and from the R/3 System. It transparently supports both the synchronous RFC and asynchronous tRFC protocol. SAP BC may be used to connect two R/3 Systems over the Internet. It transparently manages communication between different R/3 System versions.
  Within R/3, little or no coding is needed to extend your business processes using SAP BC over your corporate firewalls. In an ALE scenario SAP BC leverages the partner data contained in the distribution model. It does all the routing and mapping based on the receiver and message type customized in ALE. Thus the ALE distribution model can easily be extended for Internet scenarios.

• Web Automation
  Web Automation is a unique feature of SAP BC. It allows you to retrieve information directly and in real time from Web sites over the Internet. No browser or manual intervention and no software integration on your partners’ side is needed. You may process several Web-pages and even provide input to forms automatically. Even web sites that use scripts can be handled. A typical application is to download information from several catalogs and then aggregate the results to pass them back to R/3.

• XML enabling of SAP solutions
  The SAP proprietary RFC format is converted to XML (or HTML) so that no SAP software is needed on the other end of the communication line and developing applications does not require SAP R/3 knowledge. SAP BC has built in support for SAP's specification of IDoc-XML and RFC-XML. Whenever you deal with messages conforming to these standards, integration is supported out of the box. For cases where other XML formats are required you can create maps with a graphical tool or insert your own mapping logic.

• Flexible and extensible architecture
  SAP BC architecture makes it easy to incorporate additional functionality in the form of server-side service modules which may be written in a variety of programming languages (JAVA, C/C++ and VB). These modules are organized in packages and can easily be distributed and updated independently of the SAP BC core. Because the application logic is separated from the representation layer you may make changes to message and document formats without affecting any client-side applications.

• Comprehensive Internet security
  Security is crucial when it comes to opening your R/3 System to the Internet. All functionality you want to access within R/3 must be registered on SAP BC first and can be secured by an access control list. Access to SAP BC can be generally restricted to specific ports and user profiles.
  On request a version of SAP BC including additional state of the art Internet security can be obtained. It uses the well-established Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology for secure document exchange over the Internet. Besides encrypting the communication you can enforce server and client side authentication of the communication partners by using X.509 certificates.

• Enhanced development support
  With the SAP BC Developer, SAP delivers a powerful tool to help with creating and maintaining services. The SAP BC Developer supports client and server code generation, graphical definition of the flow of information and graphical mapping for name-, structural-, value transformations. Thus you can implement a powerful flow including maps, branches and loops with no coding as well as seamlessly add your own function logic.