Is a relational database management system just a glorified storage facility?

That was what SAP CTO Vishal Sikka implied when he sat down at SAP TechEd 2009 with two editors from SearchSAP.com to discuss a range of trends. He said, “You don’t need a relational database management system for analytics applications,” pointing to BusinessObjects Explorer and its use of the NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator as an example.

Sikka is the first CTO in the history of SAP (prior to that, Hasso Plattner held that role unofficially) and at TechEd he made a good impression on SAP Mentor Jon Reed, who said of Sikka in his post-TechEd blog What I liked (and didn’t like about SAP TechEd2009):

“I welcome his honesty regarding SAP’s product rollouts. Sikka did not try to blur the lines to give an appearance that ByD is in general release. When asked, he accurately described ByD as in “limited release” in several countries.”

Reed went on to write in his blog that the most compelling things SAP has to offer are either easier to do, or only possible to do, on ERP 6.0/NetWeaver 7.x. The use of the NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator for in-memory database capabilities is one example. Reed writes that a 4.x ERP customer can run a separate BW 7.0 server to access BWA, but they must upgrade their BW instance to 7.0 to make that possible.

However, Reed concluded that, based on what he heard during private SAP Mentor sessions, SAP is shifting internally from an overemphasis on upgrading to SAP ERP 6.0 to paying more attention to the existing 4.6C/4.7 installed base. Good news for those R/3 users.

As for me, what didn’t I like about TechEd? Pretty much the same thing everyone else beefed about: the fact that every presentation included a slide with that odious “disclaimer legalese” about forward-looking statements. Remember the Bobby Fuller Four classic, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won”? Evidently the same thing goes for corporate lawyers. We fought ‘em, and they won.

SearchSAP.com site expert Axel Angeli isn’t one to pull his punches when it comes to SAP and he makes no exception in discussing SAP’s recent earnings in this guest blog.

SAP has seen better times. The company’s quarterly revenues have declined and SAP is tightening its belt accordingly. What’s really to blame for the tension in Walldorf?

Deputy CEO Leo Apotheker blames the financial crisis. This is an attempt to avoid mentioning the turmoil ignited by the raising of annual SAP service fees from 17% to 22%. Customers haven’t shown the least bit of understanding for this decision. As a consequence, many customers have put their SAP purchases on hold. For example, the German SAP User Group (DSAG) decided in a common action to withhold any SAP purchases until next year.

The new enterprise support is a marketing disaster. The way it was communicated left the impression that SAP makes decisions behind the backs of its customers. Since Apotheker is the SAP marketing guru, he has turned into a burden for all of SAP. There is no one he can blame for this unfortunate move, and I have no idea how Apotheker will be able to escape from this trap. I myself am a techie and therefore feel indifferent towards Leo Apotheker; he is simply not my kin. But the analysts, also, do not seem to like him very much, which makes it difficult for him to explain his position. If this mishap would have been linked to Henning Kagermann, he might have escaped with a simple “Sorry, we meant it differently!” But the contract of the congenial, bright-minded professor is ending soon and he seems to be partially retired, like many of the old SAP crew. 

The explanation given by SAP for the steep increase in support fees is the same old story: Due to the increasing complexity of the full NetWeaver stack, the costs invested by SAP into support rose heavily and now need to be recouped. Customers see it differently. The higher costs stem only from the new dimension of components that SAP introduced in the past decade, against customer wishes.

High support costs and a high frequency of support requests are signs of low quality or a depreciation of support-friendly design. And the same products that have been under fire for years have caused the problems. These are the products that require the Java stack, with the biggest culprits being Enterprise Portal (EP) and Process Integration (PI). PI is awkward to use, costly to install and operate, difficult to examine for causes of malfunctions and no longer based on state-of-the-art Enterprise Service Bus technology. There is no time to pimp up PI into a full featured, modern Event-Driven-Architecture process engine.

In part two of this blog, Axel Angeli discusses ways for SAP to get back on track.

SOA is, strictly speaking, middleware — a platform that allows software systems to connect to each other, use bits of each other’s functionality/interfaces and draw from a common library of reusable logic. As such, SOA can lie at the heart of both an application infrastructure paradigm such as NetWeaver and specific developer tools. For example, consider the way in which SOA is now enabling SAP developers to work in Microsoft environments and vice versa. SOA was also behind one of the hits of TechEd, a spell check program for SAP.

But SOA is also very close to both the tools and techniques of business process management (BPM). It’s impossible to succinctly explain how these domains overlap, but one of our recent podcasts examined the interface between SOA and BPM in more detail. If you develop a stronger understanding of why SOA and BPM overlap, you’ll be well equipped to approach SAP’s new Business Process Expert (BPX) certification. Both SOA and BPM are fundamental components of the BPX curriculum and, if you want to call yourself a BPXer, you’ll have to master basic concepts that apply to both.

If you’re not sure whether you have a decent baseline of SOA knowledge, take our SOA quiz. It covers topics ranging from foundational concepts in Web services to SOA’s application in specific product components, such as the Enterprise Portal.

Finally, because SOA is right at the heart of both business processes and enterprise applications, it brings together what you might call the suits and the geeks. SOA is making these disparate communities speak each other’s languages, as you can discover on SAP’s BPX forum.

As always, don’t hesitate to let us know how we can continue to educate you on matters related to SOA.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

This year’s TechEd offered signs that the SAP-Microsoft partnership is going deeper. Specifically, SAP offered a preview of the SAP Enterprise Services Explorer for .NET (call it SESEN for short) that will jazz up the partnership by offering .NET as well as ABAP developers a way to create interoperating services.

To understand SESEN better, remember that one of NetWeaver’s goals is to be a single interface to, and environment for, all of a company’s SOA-based services. Since services can be created by a number of different tools, this requires NetWeaver to be able to interact with other UDDI-based registries, such as those provided by Microsoft. SESEN functions as an add-in within Microsoft Visual Studio that effectively lets .NET developers more easily invoke and utilize SAP enterprise services in a Microsoft environment.

What does this mean in practice? SAP’s TechEd demo offered a thought-provoking use case. Imagine a scenario in which employees can choose their own company cars from a list of approved models (hardly a common case, but it made for a flashy presentation). With SESEN, you could use a Microsoft tool, such as Windows Media Player, as a front end from which to see a view of the cars. Clicking on the car invokes Microsoft Visual Studio logic, which would then pull up the SAP HR system to allow the employee to make a request to have a specific car assigned. This request would effectively go into the SAP workflow by being routed to a manager for approval.

That’s an example of an SAP service (call it “choose and approve company vehicle”) being consumed by a .NET application, but SESEN would allow you to go the other way as well, by calling a Visual Studio-defined service into the SAP environment. For SAP end users, this means easier access to services created in Microsoft and vice versa, and it should take Duet further by offering meatier integration between SAP and Microsoft.

SESEN, currently available on a trial basis from the SAP Developer Network, will be generally available at the end of the year. You can download it here.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

SAP certification and training is one way to prepare yourself for an SAP job, but recently readers are asking us how to choose between the various options available. One way to begin is by taking two classes directly from SAP:

SAP NetWeaver is SAP’s technological foundation and the core of all SAP foundations. As such, it’s a good investment to take SAPNW and SAPTEC classes directly from SAP. SAPNW is a three-day course, offered in dozens of countries, that will introduce you not only to the NetWeaver interface and fundamentals, but also to SAP’s service-oriented architecture, exchange infrastructure (XI), portal infrastructure (PI), enterprise portal, application server, Run SAP and business intelligence (BI). Aspiring SAP consultants who take this course might find that their classmates are actual SAP end users, so there is an opportunity to network.

After taking SAPNW, sign up for SAPTEC, a three-day course that digs more deeply into the SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaverAS). Perhaps the most valuable part of this course is it overview of the SAP development process, an indispensable skill in the SAP world.

Together, these courses are comparable in cost to the money third-party SAP certification providers are charging for certificates in countries such as India, and add more value to an SAP job seeker’s resume.

Once you’ve caught up on NetWeaver, whether on the basis of SAP training or self-study, don’t forget to ask us your more targeted questions about developing an SAP NetWeaver career in particular or an SAP career in general.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

There are two flavors of Web Dynpro: Web Dynpro Java and Web Dynpro ABAP. Axel has a strong preference for one of these two based on what he sees in the market, and what he considers the strategic direction of SAP. While you should read Axel’s tip to learn more, we won’t be giving anything away by reminding you that Axel was happy to see Java supporter Shai Agassi leave SAP.

If your interest is piqued in Web Dynpro, there are further actions you should take. Begin by discovering what is Web Dynpro, according to SAP itself, and learn how and where you can get training in Web Dynpro if you are interested in taking the next step. If you want to know why Axel argues that Web Dynpro for ABAP is a superior career path, read the ABAP versus Java white paper and also get the Java perspective from consultant Lynton Grice.

Finally, bear in mind that SAP’s commitment to service-oriented architecture (SOA) is further transforming the career skills required to excel in NetWeaver. Stay ahead of the curve by learning more about SAP and SOA.

Demir Barlas, Site Editor

“[NetWeaver 7.1] brings the discussion around the integration and development platform full circle—back to business process orchestration, where it started when NetWeaver was announced in 2003,” Ferguson said. “There are three main pieces being added to the NetWeaver stack in version 7.1: Composition Environment, Enterprise Services Repository and NetWeaver Process Integration. By incorporating the three elements into NetWeaver, SAP [...] hopes to lay the foundation for business process management in the world of SOA.”

Practically all the attendees at TechEd we talked to were upbeat about the announcement.

“The improvements are tremendous,” said Oliver Kaluscha, independent SAP consultant from Frankfurt, Germany. “I mostly work with Mobile technologies, so this is absolutely helpful to my business.”

Peter Thiele, senior consultant with IDS Scheer in Philadelphia, Penn., echoed the sentiment.

“This is going to put SAP technologically on par with other EAI leaders like WebMethods, Tibco and others,” Thiele said.

What’s next for NetWeaver? Surely, the SAP folks who created NetWeaver 7.1 aren’t spending their days playing Tetris, so what are they working on now? We asked Aiaz Kazi, VP of Solution Marketing at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif. what to expect from NetWeaver 7.2.

For new features, Kazi was tight-lipped. “Our internal NetWeaver road map stretches 12-18 months into future,” he said. “The public road map is typically less than a year.” Today, Web 2.0 technologies like wikis are all the rage, he said. Tomorrow is papier mache — who’s to tell what’s going to be hot?

What he could say, however, was that we can rest assured CE will drive the front end. It’s what happened with NetWeaver 7.1, and that’s what will happen in the future, he said. Furthermore, the focus will remain on maintaining and improving stability, Kazi said. He largely agrees with Ferguson’s full circle-comment, referring to the CE/ESR/PI as the “holy trinity” on which the future rests, although there’s always room for improvement.

Matt Danielsson
Editor

Hopping from industry to industry will be risky business. Up until this point, consultants with solid implementation skills could jump from industry to industry in search of the best project at the best rate. However, both SAP and its customers are emphasizing the importance of consultants who know a particular industry. I had one SAP product manager tell me that consultants without an industry focus would have a hard time in tomorrow’s SAP market.

SAP ERP 2005 ships with 25 different industry solutions — industry solutions no longer have separate and sometimes confusing release schedules. Consultants who know how to apply an industry’s “best practices” are going to be in demand, which also emphasizes the importance of overall business know-how as opposed to configuration skills.

So if customers are asking for more industry experience right now, why is it a future skill? Because as much as customers want this type of industry background, the SAP consulting market is hot enough that I’m not sure SAP hiring managers will always be able to hold out for industry-focused consultants. But in the future, consultants with a consistent industry focus are going to have a big edge and it may eventually become a non-negotiable requirement.

We’ll plan on running the second installment of Reed’s piece (“The present”) tomorrow and the final chapter (“The past”) on Friday.

Jon Franke
News Editor

This video may help the people out there who are not so familiar with Web 2.0 appreciate this “transition” just a little more.

Person-to-person contact, a major theme in Web 2.0 and in this video, could potentially benefit SAP enterprise software through personalization and most of all comfort. SAP has waited before picking up on these trends until now because blogs and wikis that have the Ajax style functionality have proven their worth by the test of time.

During Kagermann’s keynote he mentioned something about failures in the past in regards to their applications. He goes on to talk about how SAP is supposedly going to slowly and accurately develop material in the future so that everything produced is a success. Of course this kind of talk could be interpreted as “I’m sorry, we’ll do better next time”, but this new adoption of communication truly seems to be a step in the right direction.

In his blog, Michael Cote writes, “I’m beginning to think that ‘Web 2.0′ is set to be the ‘SOA’ for [at least] this year and [possibly for] upcoming years”. Cote also points out that SAP has waited a long time to release this technology and when they launch these applications their users will be asking about what “web 4.0″ has to offer. I agree with Cote, there are new trends that will make their presence known, but to be fair SAP is utilizing the core features of the Web 2.0 revolution that have already proven their worth.

Even though SAP’s applications that utilize these Web 2.0 functions have received mixed reviews, one thing is clear: SAP is serious about Web 2.0.

Read more about how SAP plans to utilize Web 2.0 for the SOA.

Eric Samuels
Assistant Editor

The Web 2.0 video, Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us was created by Dr. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.

Simply put, SAP’s Enterprise SOA bandwagon is on the move. But at the same time, SAP’s A1S on-demand ERP solution was one of the other big stories of Sapphire. Given the luke-warm reception of SAP CRM on-demand last year, it may seem a bit puzzling why SAP would double down on both sides of the fence. That’s why it was interesting to read Brad Shimmin’s take on the SOA vs. SaaS debate.

Conflict entertains, he said, but the sensible thing is to use SOA as a foundation for SaaS.

“Using an Enterprise Service Bus, SOA solutions can transform disparate data formats, mediate different protocols, and orchestrate transactions. Imagine if an enterprise that employs SOA internally were also to use a SaaS application, say Salesforce.com. That enterprise could use its ESB to connect Salesforce.com to its ERP or CRM systems. Salesforce.com, of course, has been shooting for this goal since 2005. But the real bang won’t come until SaaS customers themselves maintain a SOA infrastructure internally.”

In other words, these concepts are hardly mutually exclusive. That’s certainly food for thought in light of SAP’s stated goal of chasing both rabbits simultaneously.

Matt Danielsson
Editor