Introduction to RFC (Remote Function Call)

What is RFC?
For business applications, it is necessary to communicate and exchange information (in pre-defined
formats) with other systems. Hence, there are well defined mechanisms to enable this communication.
SAP has also provided us with such mechanism called RFC, which stands for Remote Function Call.

RFC is a SAP protocol to handle communications between systems to simplify the related programming.
It is the process of calling a function module which is residing in a different machine from the caller
program. RFCs can be used to call a different program in the same machine as well, but usually it is used
when calling and called function modules/ programs are running on separate machines.

In SAP, RFC Interface system is used for setting-up RFC connections between different SAP systems,
and also between an SAP and an external (non-SAP) system.

Must Know Details About RFC

SAP Uses CPIC (Common Programming Interface for Communication) Protocol to transfer
data between Systems. It is SAP Specific protocol. Remote Function Call (RFC) is a
communications interface based on CPI-C, but with more functions and easier for application
programmers to use
The RFC library functions support the C programming language and Visual Basic (on
Windows platforms)
RFC connections can always be used across the entire system. This means that an RFC
connection you have defined in client 000 can also be used from client 100 (without any
difference).
RFC is the protocol for calling special subroutines (function modules) over the network.
Function modules are comparable with C functions or PASCAL procedures. They have a
defined interface through which data, tables and return codes can be exchanged. Function
modules are managed in the R/3 System in their own function library, called the Function
Builder.
The Function Builder (transaction SM37) provides application programmers with a useful
environment for programming, documenting and testing function modules that can be called
locally as well as remotely. The R/3 System automatically generates the additional code
(RFC stub) needed for remote calls.
You maintain the parameters for RFC connections using transaction SM59. The R/3 System is
also delivered with an RFC-SDK (Software Development Kit) that uses extensive C libraries
to allow external programs to be connected to the R/3 System.
The only difference between a remote call of a function module to another server and a local
call is a special parameter (destination) that specifies the target server on which the program
is to be executed.

The RFC Advantages

RFC helps to reduce the efforts of programmers, by letting them avoid the re-development of modules
and methods at remote systems. It is capable enough to:

Convert the data into the format understandable by the remote (target) system.
Convert the data into the format understandable by the remote (target) system.
Call up certain routines which are necessary to start communication with remote system.
Handle errors that might occur in the process of communication.
Types of RFC

Synchronous
Requires both the systems (client and server) to be available at the time of communication or data
transfer. It is the most common type and is required when result is required immediately after the
execution of sRFC.
sRFC is a means of communication between systems where acknowledgements are required. The
resources of the Source System wait at the target system and ensure that they deliver the message/data
with ACKD. The Data is consistent and reliable for communication.
The issue is if the target system is not available, the source system resources wait until target system is
available. This may lead to the Processes of source system to go into Sleep/RFC/CPIC Mode at target
systems and hence blocks these resources.
Used for
For communication between systems
For communication between SAP Web Application Server to SAP GUI
Asynchronous
It is communication between systems where acknowledgements are not required (it is similar to post card
delivery).It doesnt require both the systems to be available at the time of execution and the result is not
immediately required to be sent back to calling system.
The Source System resource does not wait for the target system as they deliver the message/data without
waiting for any acknowledgement.
It is not reliable for communication since data may be lost if the target system is not available.
Used for
For communication between systems
For parallel processing
Transactional
It is a special form of aRFC. Transactional RFC ensures transaction-like handling of processing steps that
were originally autonomous.
Transactional RFC is an asynchronous communication method that executes the called function module
in the RFC server only once, even if the data is sent multiple times due to some network issue.

The remote system need not be available at the time when the RFC client program is executing a tRFC.
The tRFC component stores the called RFC function, together with the corresponding data, in the SAP
database under a unique transaction ID (TID).
tRFC is similar to aRFC as it does not wait at the target system (Similar to a registered post). If the
system is not available, it will write the Data into aRFC Tables with a transaction ID (SM58) which is
picked by the scheduler RSARFCSE (which runs for every 60 seconds).
Used for
Extension of Asynchronous RFC
For secure communication between systems
Queued
Queued RFC is an extension of tRFC. It also ensures that individual steps are processed in sequence.
To guarantee that multiple LUWs (Logical Unit of Work/ Transaction) are processed in the order
specified by the application. tRFC can be serialized using queues (inbound and outbound queues). Hence
the name queued RFC (qRFC).
Used for
Extension of the Transactional RFC
For a defined processing sequence
Implementation of qRFC is recommended if you want to guarantee that several transactions
are processed in a predefined order.
Types of RFC Connections SM59

Type 3 entries specify connection between ABAP systems. Here, we must specify the host name / IP
address. You can, however, specify logon information if desired. This is applicable for both type of RFCs,
between ABAP systems and external calls to ABAP systems

Type I - entries specify ABAP systems connected to the same data base as the current system. These
entries are pre-defined and cannot be modified. Example entry name: ws0015_K18_24
ws0015=host name
K18=system name (data base name)
24=TCP-service name
Type T destinations are connections to external programs that use the RFC API to receive RFCs. The
activation type can be either Start or Registration. If it is Start, you must specify the host name and the
pathname of the program to be started.

How to Configure and Test RFC

This tutorial is divided into 4 sections
1.
2.
3.
4.

Setup a RFC connection

Trusted RFC connection
Testing a RFC connection
Error Resolution

Procedure to setup an RFC connection

Enter Transaction Code SM59

In the SM59 screen, you can navigate through already created RFCs connection with the help of option
tree, which is a menu based method to organize all the connections on the basis of categories.

Click the CREATEbutton. In the next screen, Enter RFC Destination Name of Destination (could be Target System ID or anything relevant)
Connection Type here we choose one of the types (as explained previously) of RFC
connections as per requirements.
Description This is a short informative description, probably to explain the purpose of
connection.

After you SAVE the connection, the system will take you to Technical Settings tab, where we provide
the following information:
Target Host Here we provide the complete hostname or IP address of the target system.
System Number This is the system number of the target SAP system.
Click Save

In the Logon and Security Tab, Enter Target System information

Language As per the target systems language
Client In SAP we never logon to a system, there has to be a particular client always,
therefore we need to specify client number here for correct execution.
User ID and Password preferably not to be your own login ID, there should be some
generic ID so that the connection should not be affected by constantly changing end-user IDs
or passwords. Mostly, a user of type System or Communication is used here. Please note
that this is the User ID for the target system and not the source system where we are creating
this connection.

Click Save. RFC connection is ready for use

Note: By default a connection is defined as aRFC. To define a connection as tRFC or qRFC go to Menu
Bar -> Destination aRFC options / tRFC options; provide inputs as per requirements. To define qRFC,
use the special options tab.
Trusted RFC connection
There is an option to make the RFC connection as Trusted. Once selected, the calling (trusted) system
doesnt require a password to connect with target (trusting) system.
Following are the advantages for using trusted channels:

Cross-system Single-Sign-On facility

Password does not need to be sent across the network
Timeout mechanism for the logon data prevents misuse.
Prevents the mishandling of logon data because of the time-out mechanism.
User-specific logon details of the calling/trusted system are checked.

The RFC users must have the required authorizations in the trusting system (authorization
object S_RFCACL).Trusted connections are mostly used to connect SAP Solution Manager Systems with
other SAP systems (satellites)

Testing the RFC Connection

After the RFCs are created (or sometimes in case of already existing RFCs) we need to test, whether the
connection is established successfully or not.

As shown above we go to SM59 to choose the RFC connection to be tested and then we expand drop
down menu Utilities->Test->. We have three options:
Connection test: This attempts to make a connection with remote system and hence validates IP address /
Hostname and other connection details. If both systems are not able to connect, it throws an error. On
success it displays the table with response times. This test is just to check if the calling system is able to
reach the remote system.

Authorization Test: It is used to validate the User ID and Password (provided under logon and security
tab for the target system) and also the authorizations that are provided. If test is successful, then same
screen will appear as shown above for the connection test.
Unicode Test: It is to check if the Target system is a Unicode or not.

Remote Logon: This is also a kind of connection test, in which a new session of the target system is
opened, and we need to specify a login ID and Password (if not already mentioned under Logon and
Security tab). If the user is of type Dialog then a dialog session is created. To justify the successful
connection test, output will be the response times for the communication packets, else error message will
appear.

What went wrong?

If somehow the RFC connection is not established successfully, we can check the logs (to analyze the
issue) at OS level in the WORK director.
There we can find the log files with the naming convention as dev_rfc<sequence no.> and the error
description can be read from such files.