More stuff I learned at SAP TechEd 09

So another head filling day at SAP TechEd 09 in Pheonix.

The list of things I have learned today is shown below J

1. It is possible in WebDynpro 7.2, to make it not look like WebDynpro – So we can have the best of a framework that is robust and have support for more standards and plugins – iFrame, Silverlight and Flash
   
2. The nightmare of destinations breeding in CE goes away in CE 7.1.1 – Long live Service Groups
   
3. Peanut butter bagels is a great way to wake up in the morning – best plan an extra long run at the weekend
   
4. Composite Applications give great flexibility – but the downside is that if you don't think about what you are doing that flexibility will let you develop a mess – hmmm how does SAP prevent lots of failed Composite Projects ? Specialist Partners J
   
5. Most people you meet don't think that you can develop a composite application in a day – when you show them you can they get really excited.
   
6. NetWeaver mobile 7.1 has loads of features to help you manage thousands of mobile device – it also runs on ABAP NetWeaver AS 7.1 so that is another flavour of AS to have in the stable
   
7. Lots of people want to have one server at one version running everything (as they think it will be "simple"– people need to change the way they think now we have blades and clouds and stuff like that – which allow flexibility on deployment and management
   
8. Using the CAF Services builder you can created hundreds of service end points really really quickly – the services are breeding like rabbits
   

So now off to Process Slam and Hacker Night.....my head is starting to overflow.

Stuff I learned at SAP TechEd09 Today

I have just finished the first day of SAP TechEd 09 and I thought I would share what I learned today.

1. SAP TechEd is very big – over 450 session over 4 days
   
2. SAP NetWeaver BPM 7.2 does allow you to create fully fledged Composite Applications without writing a line of code – which was a great feeling
   
3. You need to understand what SAP have been doing with SOA over the past 5 years to make sense of the "new stuff" – so good job I do J
   
4. Early exponential growth looks just like linear growth – the trick is spotting the things that will go exponential !
   
5. SAP are filling the "missing link" of SOA by delivering a "Local Event Infrastructure" (LEI) – so goodbye SOA and hello Event Driven Architecture (EDA)
   
6. The infrastructure that supports these applications is really really clever – you need to understand what it is doing and how to tune it to make your systems fly
   
7. The SAP and Business Objects merge is going well and given another 12-18 months will deliver some really amazing stuff – so spend this time making sure your backend house is in order – so you don't end up putting lip stick on a pig
   
8. DemoJam delivered some really fun applications some of which might actually be useful – go Yowie !!
   

Oh and I help one guy configure service end points and he was really pleased - nice to get thanked J

Not bad for one day....hope tomorrow is a good.

Is your project team ready for web 2.0 ?

Now don't take this blog the wrong way, I am a big supporter of the things web 2.0 can bring to teams working together, but before you launch your team on a web 2.0 collaborative fest, make sure that you have enabled them with the right tools and training. Below are a couple of pointers that should help you to prepare your teams :-

Make sure that everyone in your teams can access the tools you want to use

Many web 2.0 tools assume quite a high level of browser and machine specification before you can even logon, if any members of your team do not have at least the minimum that is required this will lead to them not contributing to the project and you will lose one of the benefits of web 2.0 – democratisation of the means of publication.

So why might someone not have this capability ? It could be economic (they can't afford to upgrade), it could be they are on a locked platform (they have an machine build supplied by the IT department that they can't upgrade) or they could just be unlucky and have a rouge machine which does not want to play web 2.0 (I am sure they exist!!). Whatever it is you need to make sure that everyone in the team can access the software.

Make sure that everyone in your teams can use the tools you want them to use

Many web 2.0 tools assume quite a high level of "web savvy-ness" before you can utilise all of the "cool" and "useful" features. If you assume that just because you have a passion for these new collaborative ways of working that everyone in the team will have the same approach – you will be disappointed.

Some will need one to one coaching to help them to understand the benefits that the new technologies can bring to them and the team as a whole. Again without this you have not opened up the means of publication. You should also take into account the pride of the people who are being engaged in your teams, many will have worked in other ways for many years and will not admit that they do not understand this new way of working. Therefore I would recommend that you always budget an amount of time for face to face training, which might seem a bit backwards for a tool to enable distributed collaboration, but my experience is that this can pay dividends in the wholesale adoption of web 2.0 tools.

Composite Applications in a Day – Possible ?

Having spent the last 5+ years talking about Composite Application I wondered what I had committed to when I suggested to SAP that CompriseIT could show people how SAP CE could be used to create a Composite Application in 1 day.

Could we really get 6-12 people from different organisations together and create working Co-Apps and have them leave understanding how we had done it ? We figured it must be possible, we had been working with CE for over 2 years and knew its capabilities inside out.

At the start of the first session we were full of apprehension, would the technology hold together ? would our guests identify a problem that was suitable ?

We launched to the day, identified our process (Customer Creation and Credit Check) and whilst I launch in to the theory of Co-Apps and SOA, our development team (of 2 people) started to build Web Services, wrap Enterprise Services, Build the User Interfaces and model and deploy the business process.

Shortly after lunch we had the first screens ready and demo'd to the attendees, modifications were made and the UI elements wired up to the process and it was time for playback number 2. With the process confirmed we could add the roles to each of the steps and throw in a Process dashboard and we were ready for the final playback...phew we had done it, a working composite in less than a day...

Since this session we have moved on to create more and more complex applications in our "Composite in a Day" sessions. These have covered :-

• Customers Booking Marketing Events
  
• Suppliers Requesting Non Conformance from Specification
  
• Requests for Import Licences
  
• Enquiry to Quote Process
  

Each of these Composites has interacted with at least one backend system , created custom Web Services, had at least 5+ user interfaces and 5+ process steps.

In addition the models created in these sessions could be used to evolve the application into a production ready application....so no mock-ups.

So what to be take from this experience ?

1. Model Driven Development Does Work
   
2. Business People really really like the flexibility that these tools bring
   
3. Some IT people don't like the flexibility they bring
   
4. These tools challenge traditional methods for development...you have to use Agile methods to really benefit from them
   
5. To master the tools inside SAP CE needs a multi-skilled team and time
   

Anyway, we are all very pleased with the output and our next challenge is to create a Co-App in 30mins...

 

 

Complexity vs Lack of Experience / Expertise – will it kill SOA ?

I have come across many people who talk about IT systems becoming too complex with too many moving parts. I believe that this is usually an excuse for lack of Experience / Expertise.

Think about the first time you drove a car...did it seem simple or complex ? Obviously it was complex, but once you gained experience it became easier and now you can do it without really thinking about it (assuming you have a driving licence!).

It is the same with IT, each time you have to install a new component it is going to seem complex and for sure you don’t want to install components just for the sake of it (This is why you need an architecture)...but don’t expect it to be easy the first time you do it.

This “complexity” debate reaches fever pitch with respect to SOA in many organisations as the number of systems/concepts/standards that need to be adopted becomes very high. For many the learning curve involved is just too steep to cope with at the same time as “doing the day job”. I believe this is a real inhibitor to the mass adoption of SOA - and may even kill many DIY SOA projects...

And You Thought Galaxy was Chocolate Bar...but it is a new BPM Tool from SAP

Just had a session at TechEd with the SAP guy who is heading up the development of the GALAXY Process tool that was announced yesterday at TechEd and it was a very interesting and frank session.

Thanks to Marilyn Pratt for sorting it out at the BPX club house.

Things I thought I heard (although I might be wrong) :-

1) Galaxy has a long term roadmap to become a process abstraction layer for SAP – you change the process model and the deployed system changes…cool
2) Initially the focus is "Edge" type Composition for processes outside the core SAP processes, the core maybe exposed later
3) BPMN as a model language – so that both business and IT can understand
4) Tool uses Eclipse so that developers and BPX, work together on the same model – no throwing the model over the wall
5) CAF Guided Procedures will be replaced – but can be used today – Galaxy is still some way off (12 – 18 months)
6) ccBPM will be replaced eventually once the process engine has been proved, but investment in BPEL models will be protected
7) The tool is about modelling and operation of processes. There is still a space for Enterprise modelling tools which model conceptual processes / optimise processes and include other perspectives.
8) Usage of the new rules engine (Yasu) will be key to reducing complexity
9) Many lessons have been learned from tools like CAF and ccBPM, easy usage is key

I think we can expect big things……

One size governance kills SOA Innovation

I have found that it is a great desire of people within IT to try to find a one size fits all approach to innovation management. Unfortunately, as you have to play to the highest common denominator this can mean that innovation gets lots in a mountain of governance paperwork.

Luckily, with the advent of standards enabled enterprise SOA it is possible to keep control AND encourage fast innovation. This is possible by keeping tight control of the service producers (backends) so you know that the atomic business logic is sound and having governance over the various tools used to combine the services into Composite Applications so you know that the final application will fit into your infrastructure.

Once you have this in place you can start to allow projects to use the tools with the appropriate level of governance for the project, not in terms of the budget but in terms of the new service producers and new tools that it uses. If it creates no backend services and uses known tools it should require less governance than a project that delivers a large number of new services and uses a new composition environment.

Let me use yet another house analogy : Think of this in the same way you govern changes to your house. A quick paint job requires little planning and/or control, a major kitchen refit does not require external control but needs carefully planning and budget control, the extension you put on the front needs formal planning consent and if you knock the house down to build 3 smaller houses you might have to go to a planning committee to check all the infrastructure can cope.

Taking these concepts to enterprise SOA means we can relax the controls of some of the projects that are redecorating the existing landscape with composites that open up the system or automate collaboration. We can do this because the atomic backend services ensure that we still update the critical business objects correctly.

So in an enterprise SOA world one size does not fit all.