Some Business Central systems must communicate with other software or even with hardware. Sometimes, that communication is Inside-Out (that is, initiated by Business Central) and sometimes, it is Outside-In (that is, initiated by the outside connection). It's not unusual for system-to-system communications to be a two-way street, a meeting of peers. To supply, receive, or exchange information with other systems (hardware or software), we will need at least a basic understanding of the interface tools that are part of Business Central.
Because of Business Central's unique data structures and the critical business logic embedded therein, it is very risky for an external system to access Business Central data directly via SQL Server without using AL-based routines as an intermediary.
Business Central has a number of methods of interfacing with the world outside its database. We will review those very briefly here. To learn more about these, we should begin by reviewing...