Remote Function Call
(RFC) is an SAP implementation of the Remote Procedure Call. RFC allows
access to R/3 from external applications, such as SAS or other SAP
systems.
The following figure
provides an overview of the RFC method. The ABAP Function module and
the ABAP Report module (provided with the interface), attach to the
R/3 system. Communication between the ABAP Function module and the
interface itself uses RFC over a TCP/IP connection. In addition to
the components in the previous figure, in a
z/OS environment a SAS
RFC Server is deployed between the SAP system and the SAS Server to
provide access to data in the SAP system.
In general, the RFC
method consists of generating a SAS DATA step to access the SAP data.
It then uses the DATA step to create one of these items:
-
a data set that is a SAS copy of
the SAP data
-
a view that reads the SAP data
each time it is required