For those of you following my drama....

Question

And now for the latest edition of 'As the Code Turns'... If you read the posts to this topic: http://216.26.160.137/Forums/AspNetForums20/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1419 ...then you remember me telling you guys about the consulting team that is here for our SAP upgrade and re-implementation. So here is an update ... Our goal was to have an estimating tool for our sales force that is fully integrated with SAP. We are in the construction industry, and estimating is a VERY complex procedure, so the tool ends up being a semi-fat client, but we still want SAP to be the brains behind the action. From the very beginning, the consulting team was pushing an SAP solution on us that used about 6 servers, a platform based on Visual Basic for Applications, and a communication structure based on MTS/COM/DCOM. Now keep in mind that this project will be an integral part of our company for the next 5-10 years, so those of us in the IT department were not crazy about adopting aging technology for this project. So not only were we told that we HAD to use this solution if we wanted SAP integration, but they also told us that we were totally on our own for developing the actual application, and they would only go as far as setting up the communication links (and CRM module for SAP). That didn't sit well with me, so I started doing some homework and found at least 3 other options ranging from newew SAP solutions to non-standard solutions using Web Services. SAP's NetWeaver provides a standard Web Service (WAS) but it happens to be java based (SAP has a woody for Java, whereas WebSphere and .Net are afterthoughts). After much ranting and raving about the benefits of the .Net platform both for this and for future projects (which are already being planned), the management has decided to go with a .Net solution utilizing a desktop app and a .Net web service (which will serve as the translator for SAP and .Net using the SAP .Net Connector). To put it mildly, the consulting team was not amused. Even one of the project managers from their side was spouting off to the rest of the team how this will never work and so on ... But the bottom line is that I finally feel comfortable with a solution. I KNOW this will work, but its going to take a lot of elbow grease to get it done. So that is where it stands today. I do appreciate all the posts that have helped me get to this solution. I'll keep you guys informed as the project moves along. -James