REST services with Gateway and PI, what do we need to know?

An interesting topic has surfaces recently among SAP mentors and SDN users relating to SAP NetWeaver Gateway and SAP NetWeaver PI.  At the center of the discussion is the REST service that can be developed to expose SAP backend applications.  This is the primary role of Gateway.  Then, it was announced that through a 3rd party, a REST adapter is now available for PI, which can accomplish some of the same.

What does this mean?  Should a company consider one or both?  How does a company determine which is the most suitable?  How does a company evaluate the products?

In order to answer those questions, we should at least understand what each product does, and the differences and purposes of each product.

An article has been written to provide some of that information to help a company in making the business decision during the evaluation process.  This article provides the following information:

• Overview of each product.
• The intended use of each product.
• The differences between the products.
• Responses to some of the FAQs.

Note:  This article does not dive into the technical details of the products.  The technical details can be obtained from different sources on SCN, wiki and SAP-related web sites and documentations.

I hope this will generate some discussions on the topic.  For those who plan to have either Gateway or PI, or already have one, please contribute some feedbacks on your intended use with regard to REST services.  This information will be very valuable to the general audience.

For those who have both products, it will also be very helpful in understanding your business scenarios.

The article, Gateway or Process Integration – which is the Right Tool for the Job?, can be accessed at:  http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/10ce5cd7-7c55-2f10-aea0-b775b478258c