Re: Different approaches to expose RPG program outside of ibmi

Hi Mahesh,

as always in our field, the only valid answer is: It depends!

First - I would always "publish" RPG business logic as SQL (externally) stored procedures, (externally) user defined functions and (externally) user defined table functions. Because from my POV this makes what follows easier.

For the web service part - IWS is not a bad solution - it only has some quirks, that you have to keep in mind.

As Mihael already mentioned ILElastic is quite cool. IceBreak is also a good solution, that is completely IBM i native. And Jefferson Vaughn also has cool REST service solution native to IBM i called Core-i RST.

So there are pretty a lot of solutions out there - maybe even too many, and the choice might be hard.

Just my 2ct

Regards,
Daniel

Am 11.04.2025 um 09:57 schrieb Mahesh Angadi via RPG400-L <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

 Hi,
We areconsidering two different approaches to expose our RPG program as an API andwould like to gather insights from IBM i experts before deciding:

- Solution#1 -- Utilizing the IBM i HTTP Apache server to expose the RPG program as an API. We are aware that various products leverage this method to build APIs.

- Solution#2 -- Developing an API within the .NET environment and directly invoking the RPG program from .NET using cwbx.dll (provided by IBM i Access Client Solutions). We have already built a framework using cwbx.dll to support our needs.

We are uncertain about which solution to choose and would greatly appreciate expert opinions on both approaches from a long-term perspective, including any real-world challenges that you may be encountered during implementation and usage.


Thanks,

Mahesh Angadi

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