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    If you’ve been following our recent series on Design Thinking, you’ll know it’s a powerful approach to problem solving that spurs innovation and growth by combining what is desirable from a human perspective with what makes the most sense technologically and economically.

    In Mobility Minute #10, we discussed how design thinking could be used to create an unbeatable mobile strategy. In Mobility Minute #11 we introduced you to our own proven seven-step Design Thinking process and explored the first two steps: Scoping and 360° Research. Mobility Minute #12 highlighted steps three and four: Synthesis and Ideation.

    Today we’re going to bring it all together by looking at steps five, six, and seven. In Prototyping you create a portfolio of possible mobile solutions based on all the work you’ve done in steps one through four. In Validation, you work with users to test solutions and refine them based on user feedback as well as technical and business considerations. Finally, in Implementation you create a practical roadmap for fully rolling out the solution and delivering it to your users.

    Let’s look at these steps in more detail:

    Step 5: Prototyping

    In step four (Ideation), you will have created a mobile use case map and identified which ideas were the strongest. The next step is Prototyping, when you bring those ideas to life to explore them on a more tangible level.

    A simple prototype could be a paper-based visualization of a mobile device screen flow. These can be designed by users together with IT. An easy way to start such an exercise is to simply sketch a drawing of the home screen of the mobile app you are envisioning and then decide on the functional steps that take the user into a screen flow.

    Don’t limit yourself to just one – we recommend that you create several mock-ups for the top solutions. When users react to more than one solution you often get unanticipated epiphanies that result in a new option no one has previously considered. Present these prototypes to users, as well as your technology business team in order to get feedback and ideas for refinement.

    Step 6: Validation

    As you test your prototyped ideas with users and business teams, you should also validate that the solution meets the functional requirements and is aligned to Design Thinking’s central tenets. Here are the questions you’ll want to answer:

    • Is it desirable? Users must want to use the solution; otherwise, there will never be any demand for it, and adoption will be a challenge, no matter how useful or functional it is. 
    • Is it viable? The solution must be sustainable for the business. It needs to deliver on the key value drivers identified in the scoping phase, and provide a solid business case with measurable success for your key performance indicators (KPIs).
    • Is it feasible? The solution is something you must be able to design, develop, and produce via an efficient and cost-effective process, and IT must be able to deliver it and support it throughout its lifecycle.

     

    When it comes to prototyping and validation, think quick and dirty. You don’t want to invest a lot of time in each prototype – just get the basics down and then start getting feedback right away. This shortens the cycles of validation and allows you to identify the best solution in minimum time. “Fail early, fail often” is a popular Design Thinking mantra.

    As you get further into the prototyping and validation cycle, your prototypes will become increasingly sophisticated, including mock-up apps and actual working concept apps. With each iteration, you will get more feedback from users and other key players (e.g., IT, marketing, etc.), which will give you a clearer picture of how to refine the solution in order to satisfy all needs.

     

    The value of using prototypes to evaluate and validate use cases can never be underestimated. Prototypes remove the ambiguity that can exist when solutions are defined merely as a list of functions or requirements. Prototypes also work on a “show” rather than “tell” basis, enabling solutions to be validated in context. This is particularly important for mobile applications where location and other contextual elements will define whether a prototype that worked in the lab can work in the field as well. For example, you can answer questions such as, “Does the user walk around while using the app? If so, does hands-free work mean a ‘voice’, rather than ‘text’ interface works best?”  These are questions no amount of theorizing or conjecture can answer.

     

    Step 7:  Implementation

     

    Design Thinking is a methodology geared towards designing solutions rather than implementing them. That said, you can use the methodology of Design Thinking up to the stage of creating a roadmap for a mobile portfolio of solutions and services that will help make the delivery stage a success.

     

    In addition to identifying the “what”, or in this case which solutions should be developed, a holistic mobile road map should also answer the following:

     

    • Why (Value Management): Identifying, describing, tracking and optimizing the benefits of the mobile solution
    • How (Technical and Organizational Realization): Defining, deploying and managing the lifecycle of IT systems, as well as implementing and operating the governance mechanisms (e.g. risk and security, organization, skills and transformation) that help keep the balance between encouraging mobile use and maintaining control over it.
    • When (Program and Project Management): Managing the timely delivery of the mobile journey

    By taking a human-centric approach to these tasks and balancing the needs and requirements of all parties involved, you can ensure that your solution will achieve the goals you set out for it.

     

    Design Thinking is very effective for tackling “wicked problems.” Problems that are difficult to solve because they lack complete data, involve multiple interested parties with different needs and expectations, and/or are interconnected with other problems in a way that makes it difficult to make accurate “cause-effect” predictions. Which is why Design Thinking is such an excellent process for creating successful mobile solutions.

     

    In such a rapidly changing technological world – where users are often unable to articulate what they want before they get it – Design Thinking allows you to leapfrog over the expected and create the solutions that not only change the rules of the game, they change the game itself.

     

    Interested in learning more? Stay tuned for our whitepaper on Design Thinking and Mobile Strategy launched during SAPPHIRE 2013!

    Tonja Erismann

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Connect with me on linkedin

    Jomy Pidiath

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/jomypidiath

     

     

     

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    This post is a follow-up of SQL Anywhere - Your Flight-Mode Database Server

     

    While SQL Anywhere does have its traditional and very active community – including many technology focused developers and users – it seems to have relatively low attention in the cosmos of SAP. This makes sense to some degree, simply due to the fact that SAP’s main focus is on Big Data scenarios and enterprise level IT and the target of SQL Anywhere as an RDBMS is small to mid-size or departmental infrastructure.

     

    Another reason for the lack of popularity of SQL Anywhere is that many people use it without even being aware of. SQL Anywhere is frequently used as an embedded platform by both SAP and 3rd party applications which gives it a wide user base but a lack of attention, especially since in these environments it does not frequently generate issues unveiling to the platform. I remember a case where the repository of an application server was maintained in a SQL Anywhere database. This was recognized after years when the database transaction log hit the file size limit (of the Unix file system, not of SQL Anywhere). In a wider sense, this includes all developers, administrators and users of SAP Sybase IQ, which uses SQL Anywhere as its catalog (metadata) store and shares the client / server communication as well as – with few extensions or restrictions – the SQL dialect and parser.

     

    SQL Anywhere has found its way to various internal SAP infrastructure systems. What I consider more relevant to this public audience: Within the SAP (formerly Sybase) product portfolio, you’ll find SQL Anywhere embedded in (and I’m not claiming this enumeration to be complete)

    • IQ – as the metadata / catalog store
    • BusinessObjects Enterprise – as the Central Management Server (CMS) database
    • SAP Data Services on demand
    • Replication Server – as the embedded system database ERSSD
    • SUP / SMP – as the central “cache database”
    • PowerBuilder and PowerDesigner – as the repository store
    • SAP Control Center (formerly Sybase Control Center; a monitoring and administration component for various server systems)
    • Afaria

    Then, there are folks – like me – who deliberately or even enthusiastically use it. Due to its ease of handling and versatility, its light impact on the operating environment, its interoperability, its powerful SQL dialect and a bunch of other reasons. The intention of this series of posts is to grow this community by welcoming people interested in the technology or simply embracing the opportunity to have complete control over a full feature RDBMS running in their everyday work environment. If I’m right in assuming that there are some individuals out in the SAP ecosystem with a similar mindset, I’m confident that the SQL Anywhere suite of products will gain popularity fast.

     

    Finally, I’m confident that SQL Anywhere has a place in enterprise IT landscapes. For large enterprises, this may not be at the top of the hierarchy, but unless they are completely monolithic, it may be the platform of choice for hierarchical or fractal sub- entities. And SQL Anywhere has a long history of integrating into heterogeneous environments, not only because we are the good guys and like to make (the database aspects of) your life easier and better, but simply out of daily needs. From my consulting experience I know many customer environments where SQL Anywhere was and continues to be used for specific solutions (like occasionally connected mobile deployments) even in companies that were not strategically using any (at the time) Sybase software at all.

     

                                                                                                                                                       


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    My name is Volker Stöffler and I am now, after working for more than 15 years in Sybase Professional Services, a member of SAP’s DTS Global Center of Excellence. I first got in touch with IT when the IBM Personal Computer was still brand-new, and it impressed me enough to study Information Science (also frequently referred to as Computer Science) at the University of Stuttgart. My professional orientation shifted from development to consulting over time, and my primary ambition is to not only support my clients in making technology work, but also to help them understand why it works the way it does.


    When I started working with relational databases some 25 years ago, it didn’t take long for a certain RDBMS implementation to catch my eye. At that time it was known by the name Watcom SQL and over time it evolved into SQL Anywhere. I’m quite fond of this implementation and hope to inspire you with my enthusiasm.

     

    When looking at the reason why, the short answer is: SQL Anywhere is cute. If ever there was a cute RDBMS, SQL Anywhere is it. If I have piqued your interest already and you’d like to find out for yourself, you can stop reading right now and see what I mean by downloading your free copy of the Developer Edition for the platform of your preference. The online documentation which you can download or read online includes a tutorial on how to get started.

     

    If you want details on our dalliance, read on. This post is intended to explain why I am a fan of SQL Anywhere, combined with the expectation that you may share some of my reasons and follow me in choosing it as the platform of choice for your ad-hoc databases or as the platform for your database applications.

     

    My top 8 reasons why I prefer SQL Anywhere and think it deserves your attention:

    • It is very straightforward to use, with few surprise factors except for an occasional “wow – that was simple” in the beginning.
    • It is available for and portable between most environments used in today’s IT landscapes.
    • It has a powerful and feature rich SQL dialect and is closely oriented on the ANSI SQL standard.
    • It gives you complete control over a full-featured RDBMS running on a minimum of infrastructure.
    • It scales up to a degree where SQL Anywhere may as well be just the amount of RDBMS you need.
    • It comes with a front-end that may replace the standard user interface of your current favorite RDBMS.
    • It provides interfaces to be called from popular scripting languages like Perl, Python or Ruby.
    • It integrates perfectly with the rest of your IT infrastructure through standard interfaces and won’t get mad if it catches you checking out another platform.

     

    About the headline: Why “Flight Mode”? Most of us IT professionals and users are connected to IT infrastructure almost continuously. One of the exceptions is when we are boarding a plane and (literally and metaphorically) are above and beyond all clouds. Many of the devices you are allowed to take aboard and use there in flight mode are eligible platforms for SQL Anywhere, ranging in size and processing power from Notebooks or Ultrabooks via Tablet computers down to Smartphones. We can extend this situation to those where your central infrastructure is temporarily out of reach or the direct connection is too slow, expansive, unreliable or insecure to fit your needs, or where you simply want to utilize resources exceeding those granted to everybody on a system shared by a bigger community.

     

    Still curious? Great – then this post has just served its purpose – to make you want to check back for future posts about SQL Anywhere where I will delve into:

    • Where it is popular and where it isn’t
    • The Role of SQL Anywhere within SAP’s Real-Time Data Platform
    • How to operate  SQL Anywhere
    • Programming SQL Anywhere
    • Handling SQL Anywhere
    • Other aspects of SQL Anywhere you are curious about

     

                                                                                                                                                       


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    In the past decades successful companies from all industries have spent billions defining their processes and implementing software to run their business in an optimized and cost-effective manner. They used big amount of resources over the years to heavily customize their enterprise software environment and apply all their industry knowledge into it.
    In return, they not only got a good return on investment but, more importantly, a tremendous competitive advantage. Their knowledge, processes and IT solutions became a barrier to entry to other companies willing to compete in their field, who did not necessarily have the financial means to reach the level of competency that took years for the incumbent to acquire.
    This situation is about to change. Business processes are losing their differentiator factor and are on the verge of becoming commoditized. This new reality has emerged from a combination of three main forces:
    • Industry cloud applications: due to major advancements in cloud technologies, most of the strategic applications that are running on premise today are available on the cloud. The recent HANA Enterprise Cloud announcement from SAP is a pretty significant example of the revolution that is happening.

     

    Think about it: we are talking here about core strategic applications that you can get up and running with all your data in a few weeks.

     

    The adoption of cloud by small and large companies is a trend that is not going to stop and the number of available applications is exponentially growing. In a short future, if not already today, all the industries will have their own strategic applications running on the cloud that incorporate all the processes, best-practices and knowledge that individual companies need to have. And with cloud the entry point becomes really cheap.

     

    • Challenging economic times: in all industries today, companies have no choice but to become growth engines. In uncertain times more than ever, investments should be focused on innovation and on developing the next generation of products. All other costs are being reduced and organizations have to do more with less.

     

    The value of having highly customized applications is therefore decreasing in favor of more standard applications that are more agile, more transportable, and meet the requirements to run the business.

     

    • Pace of the business: To survive, businesses need to adapt quickly to new realities, new trends and new consumer behaviors. What is a best-practice today can become obsolete in two years-time. Companies do not have the luxury anymore to go through lengthy implementation cycles that consume resources and are not in synch with the business models of today.
    The emergence of rapid deployment solutions has allowed companies to adopt new technologies in a matter of a few weeks by embedding standard processes into the packages. High level of software customization is reduced in favor of speed and accelerated time to value.
    We entered a world where industry standards replace customized processes. To win companies should rely on other competitive advantages like their capacity to innovate, bring to market outstanding products, the quality of the people they employ and their unique ability to predict consumer trends.
    I would love to hear from you. Have you found your new competitive advantages?

    To continue on in the series "How to pick the right user interface", today we are going to look at SAPUI5 and in particular, how to use it to build Applications that run on your Internet Browser.　 If you missed the first part you can view it here:  "Part 1: "How to select the Right User Interface".

     

     

    Before we get to the technical aspects let’s look at why SAPUI5 is awesome.  UI5 is a collection of libraries that you can use to write vibrant, modern and beautiful web pages.　 It uses the latest and greatest technologies including HTML5 and CSS3. 　There is a lot of buzz around this in the SAP development community and there are plenty of resources out there to learn it(keep reading to get the links).

     

     

    First, let’s look at the use case scenario to determine whether SAPUI5 is the right solution for your project:

    •     What type of user is going to be using this? Is it a person well versed and experienced in  SAP or is it someone who demands a casual look and feel?


    UI5 is definitely geared towards the casual user, it is meant for someone who wants to open their browser and have a user friendly, intuitive experience without a lot of configuration or training needed.

     

    A real-world example: SAP is currently working on the new UI5 SRM add-on(currently in ramp-up).  My customer is going to implement this when it is released to give users an option.  The UI5 version has a Shopping Cart version that is similar in look and feel of Amazon.  This will be geared towards the users who are not familiar with the typical SRM Shopping cart experience.

     

    •    What device will be used to access the application?  Desktop, Internet Browser or Mobile? Many of our technologies are geared towards one or two of these options.

     

    UI5 works on web browsers AND mobile—stay tuned to the next blog post which will cover UI5 for mobile devices.

     

    •    Does the solution meet all design requirements such as custom branding or themes?

     

    Customer branding and theming possibilities in UI5 are endless.  The solution is fully customizable and unlike Web Dynpro the developer can easily change the look and feel of the pages.

     

    •    How will the solution be maintained? Do my developers have the experience to support it, or will I need to get resources from the outside?


    If you have developers that know web development(HTML, CSS, Javascript) you should be good to go.  Before I learned UI5 I had played around with JQuery and other libraries.  I found it pretty straight-forward to build UI5 applications—the API documentation helps too

     

    •   Security and Authorization considerations, how will the user login?  Is this enough to meet my needs or are there additional products needed to support my requirements?


    With UI5 this is largely dependent upon how you develop the application.  I’ve done this in two ways: 1) Build UI5 applications that are linked to the customer’s Portal environment—in this case we are in the Portal framework and standard security rules apply.  2) Encapsulate my UI5 application in a BSP, this utilizes standard SICF security settings


    There is TONS of documentation out there on UI5 development and I’m not trying to redesign the wheel.  Below are some useful links that I have found in my learning journey. 

     

    Download SAPUI5 and start developing—this site also has lots of learning materials:  Download SAPUI5 Toolkit

    Useful overview with screenshots that show the capabilities: UI5 in Action

    Awesome blog on building a CRUD app using JSON/Rest: Start Developing

     

    The next post in the series will discuss UI5 for Mobility—stay tuned.

     

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    I had the pleasure to attend the first SAP InnoXperience Day in Asia. InnoXperience is a format where SAP Services invites customers for a day to learn about SAP's innovation capabilities around big data, cloud, social and mobile, hear how other customers leveraged this new set of technology and finally get creative in teams by developing own innovation use case leveraging design thinking methodologies.

     

    Close to 40 attendees from 20 different companies joint us for the InnoXperience day in Singapore on May 9th. In the beginning SAP Services shared insights on the latest technology trends and how SAP responds to this with innovative solutions around cloud, mobility and SAP HANA. I had the pleasure to showcase 3 stories where customers transformed their business with mobile solutions:

     

    • Sysco Foods(US): They transformed the way the interact with their customers with the new Sysco Counts app for easy inventory and order
      management boosting customer loyalty
    • Kiewit (US): They significantly increased the productivity  of their field employees with a new goods receipt app – full story will be made
      public at SAPPHIRE this week
    • A leading North American retailer which just launched an innovative mobile app for their customer loyalty program allowing them to push personalized offers onto their customers smartphone

     

    Highlight of the day was the highly interactive Design Thinking session in the afternoon where the participants worked in 4  teams to identify and prototype a solution for an innovation challenge they wanted to get solved. Not surprisingly all teams selected Mobile & Consumer as area to focus on. Some energized hours later all teams had been able to present their prototyped solution:image001.png

    A big thanks to Steven Mann for bringing InnoXperince to Singapore and thanks as well to the speakers, DT coaches and support from everyone who
    make this event possible!

     

    Want to better understand how to leverage Design Thinking in your business ? Read the Mobility Minute #11:  7 Steps to Leverage Design Thinking for your Mobile Strategy (Part I)

     

    Want to learn more about InnoXperience ? Contact Steven Mann

     

    And don't forget: have fun !

    team-work.jpgNormally, when being asked as sales enablement professional, if you drive your Sales Enablement holistically, you would by nature answer this question with: Yes. This would comprise the following elements:

    • Jointly define your Sales Enablement strategy with your sales team based on their strategy
    • Define activities in order to support sales to reach their goals
    • Start with enabling sales managers in order to make sure core elements are cascaded down within the sales organization
    • Define metrics in order to measure the success of you Sales Enablement activities

     

    You might now argue that you have been already aware of all elements above and might simply add 10+ additional ones. That’s actually a pretty straight forward exercise and I am sure you will be successful.

     

    In one of my previous blogs I discussed the need for cross functional alignment within Sales Enablement. Here I emphasized on alignment between solution management, marketing, and operations. This observation is still true, as all the mentioned functions above provide important insights and content to your enablement activities.

     

    However, from my previous observations you might think about extending your target group. I recently led an enablement program for a new services portfolio area. My focus here, was to build an enablement program that should encourage our sales forces to immediately sell and provide at the end tangible sales pipeline results for the remainder of the year. Very soon, I noticed that I need to expand this program to our delivery/consulting unit as well. In a nutshell that meant we needed to expand our target group for approximately 10k colleagues. So why has this been so important?

     

    On the one hand side we wanted our sales team to sell this new services offering. On the other hand, we wanted to make sure we could deliver on our promise. So our thinking was to include delivery/consulting colleagues in the enablement activity as well as they at the end implement our services. Another reason for this approach was, that we wanted to make sure that sales and delivery are aligned closely in order to share any project Best Practices, road blocks at the customers and define joint engagement models at the customer side.

    Design Thinking is a powerful problem-solving approach that spurs innovation and growth by combining what is desirable from a human perspective with what makes the most sense technologically and economically.

    In Mobile Minute #10, we discussed how design thinking could help you create an unbeatable Mobile strategy. In Mobility Minute #11 we introduced you to our own proven seven-step design thinking process and explored the first two steps—Scoping and 360° Research.

    Today we’re going to look at steps three and four: Synthesis and Ideation. We’ll show how these steps help you identify your target mobile user’s unarticulated needs and generate ideas for solutions that are aligned with your organization’s goals and systems.  

     

     

    Step 3 – Synthesis: Reframing the needs and pain points

     

    If you were to ask your target users which mobile solutions they wanted the most, their answers probably wouldn’t include an idea for a truly cutting-edge app.  The funny thing about people is that they don’t always know what they need before they see it or use it.

     

    Synthesis is the process of gaining deeper insight into the users’ needs and pain points that can typically reframe the original problem. Creating a user journey map, experience map, or day-in-the-life scenario are some of the approaches that can be used during this step. Pay close attention to the differences between an average user and an outlier, outliers often hold the keys to unlocking user behavior and design patterns that can be leveraged to improve overall design for a desirable outcome.

     

    For example, one commonly available journey map online, the Starbucks Experience Map describes a customer’s touch points with Starbucks coffee, from anticipation, entering, engaging, and exiting, to reflection. These touch points can be sorted into positive and negative experiences. One example of a negative experience for the touch point, “entering,” would be always having difficulty finding a parking space close to your favorite Starbucks location. This mapping of a negative experience easily highlights an important and often unarticulated customer need. It allows for important insights to help build positive experiences for a Starbucks customer.

     

    User journeys, experience maps or day-in-the-life scenarios can be created for any user/activity. For example, you could construct a user journey that your sales reps could use to profile their experience in relation to a customer visit. Or create a day-in-the-life scenario for your best marketing prospects in order to better understand their experiences and motivations.

     

    We started out at step 1 by scoping mobile intentions for the organization, target users and criteria to go mobile. For some organizations at the Synthesis step, the mobile use case insights and sometimes even the value criteria that are discovered reframe the original mobile problem approached during the scoping. Synthesis is the step at which you identify an addressable problem space for your mobile strategy and get your first real chance to tackle the wicked problem!

     

    DTpic.jpg

     

    Step 4 – Ideation: Identifying and refining Ideas

     

    Once you have a deeper understanding of the needs of your target mobile users, your next step is to identify ways to address these needs, keeping in mind your organization’s overall vision and goals. What kind of impact does each need have on your key value drivers? Which ones, if solved, will have the greatest positive impact on your bottom line?

     

    Let’s revisit Mobility Minute #11 where we used “sales excellence” as an example of a value driver. Imagine a scenario in which your sales reps don’t have an adequate way of documenting their leads –they’re writing random notes on paper or memorizing them and then later transferring them into a CRM system, often with considerable delay or insufficient information. The impact on sales excellence is significant as this problem prevents sales reps from doing their best possible job. Your goal in this example is to identify ways in which you can use the features on a typical mobile device (e.g., a camera, GPS, or voice recording tool), to address the needs of the sales reps. Maybe you create a simple “lead generator” app that makes it easier for your sales reps to document all necessary information on the spot. If you want to get fancy, you could include preset data such as location-based customer details triggered by GPS or an easy image-to-text scanner to capture business card information. The better equipped your sales reps are, the more effective they’ll be at converting leads into customers. Note that some of the benefits attached to each idea might be intangible or indirectly linked to your value drivers. In the above example, happy sales reps may lead to a better brand image, and thus to growth. These intangible benefits can have a very real impact on your business.

     

    Moving beyond this example, by this point of step 4, you have identified a wealth of ideas for relevant mobile use cases. A great way to refine and structure ideas is to draw a use case map that links your ideas to the relevant components including:

     

    • User groups: identify other user groups who would benefit from your wealth of ideas
    • Processes: understand what impact your idea has on the existing process, and whether it may be used to improve it 
    • Systems: identify the systems where the data reside that are necessary to implement the idea
    • Devices: inventory your devices so you know which ones your target user groups have, and what must-have features are needed to put the idea into action (e.g., a camera)

     

    A well-conceived use case map is an invaluable tool as it can help you refine the ideas that will have the greatest impact on your value drivers, and are also in alignment with your systems and processes.

     

    In Mobile Minute #13, we’ll look at steps five and six of our seven-step design thinking process: Prototyping and Validation. Watch for it during the week of May 16! 

     

    Interested in learning more? Stay tuned for our upcoming whitepaper on Design Thinking and Mobile Strategy that we’ll be publishing in time for SAPPHIRE 2013!

     

    Jomy Pidiath

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/jomypidiath

     

    Tonja Erismann

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Connect with me on linkedin

     

    Follow the entire series of the Enterprise Mobility Minute and join the conversation on Twitter

    Learn more about SAP Mobility Services or let us provide you with custom recommendations.

    As a consultant at SAP I get the opportunity to work with several customers in different locations around the world.  While these customers are in different industries using various SAP modules and technologies there is one universal question that I am asked on a consistent basis.

     

    How do I know which SAP User Interface Technology to use?
    At SAP we have approximately 22 different User Interfaces to choose from.  Yes, you read that correctly—22!  Recently, SAP has had to make changes to adapt to changing user demands.  Let’s face it, the world that we live in today is much different than it was even five years ago.  The world has gone mobile, we want to be able to use business applications on our Internet Browsers, Tablet devices and Smartphones.  In answer to these demands, SAP has created new User Interface platforms(SAPUI5, Personas, etc.) and improved upon existing solutions in our portfolio(Web Dynpro for ABAP).  Customers are excited about these innovations and have been adopting them into their landscapes.  Despite the praise over our improved User Interface portfolio, there is still confusion over  how to select the right one.  This blog series will break down the various SAP Technologies and provide a use-case for each.  It is my hope to provide insight and share my expertise with some of SAP’s newer technology innovations.

     

     

    In the following video, I sat down with Ana Ammann, Sr. Director of SAP Global Services Marketing to discuss some of the considerations you will want to take into account when selecting the right User Interface

     

     

     

    YouTube Video

     

    To recap the message I deliver in the video, the good thing is that there are strategies that we can use to determine which UI to select by using a use-case scenario.  The first and most important question you must ask yourself is:  Will the technology solution that I choose make life easier for the users? That is imperative when making your choice, and the answer should be a resounding YES if the implementation is to be successful. 

     

    After answering that question, we look at the following criteria:

     

    • What type of user is going to be using this? Is it a person well versed and experienced in  SAP or is it someone who demands a casual look and feel?
    • What device will be used to access the application? Desktop, Internet Browser or Mobile?  Many of our technologies are geared towards one or two of these options.
    • Does the solution meet all design requirements such as custom branding or themes?
    • How will the solution be maintained? Do my developers have the experience to support it, or will I need to get resources from the outside?
    • Security and authorization considerations, how will the user login?  Is this enough to meet my needs or are there additional products needed to support my requirements?

     

    In the upcoming series I will tackle these questions and more with a focus on SAP’s newer technologies and innovations.

     

     

     

    Learn more about how to leverage leading-edge innovation with Technology Services at Technology Services at sap.com

    Stay in the conversation by following SAP Services on SCN.

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    According to IDC research two-thirds of mid-size firms will use cloud services in 2013, compared with just half in 2012…

     

    Cloud resources have clear upsides, but it can also pose significant challenges for SAP application providers - how to move systems around, how to easily provision and update them.  The Value Prototyping team has run tens of thousands of SAP instances on SAP internal and public clouds such as Amazon.  Using Cloud Logistics Services, they have the ability to combine best practices, tools and services that can be leveraged in the cloud to help accelerate time to innovation.  Special attention is paid to options for moving SAP systems between SAP, private and public cloud environments, and the necessary connectivity across clouds to enable complete landscapes, and security requirements.

     

    In this brief video SAP’s Ron De Vries discusses the benefits of using Cloud Logistics to jumpstart your implementation projects.

     

    • SAP systems provisioned, hosted and transported by SAP
    • Hardware independence
    • A truly innovative service
    • Service-led offering – add in other SAP services & solutions based on your needs
    • Mitigate risk
    • Tangible results to take home

     

     

     

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWTi0YEI9NM

     

     

     

    At the ASUG Annual Conference in Orlando, you have the opportunity to learn about the new field of SAP Cloud Logistics, the best practices, tools and services to leverage cloud resources for SAP application innovation.  Add the session Hosting and Moving SAP Systems Across Cloud Infrastructures to your agenda today!

     

     

    Session Details

     

     

    Session ID:  0913

    Title: Hosting and Moving SAP Systems Across Cloud Infrastructures

    Location: S220E: S. Concourse, L2

    Day and Time: Thursday, May 16, 2013: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

    Content Area: Business Integration, Technology and Infrastructure (BITI)

    Speakers: Ron de Vries and Ralf Lindenlaub

     

     

    Stay in the conversation by following SAP Services on SCN.

    Follow along throughout the event on Twitter at @SAPServices

     

     

     

    Source: IDC – “Predictions 2013: Competing on the 3rd platform” – Doc # 238044– Nov 2012

    Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management can be time consuming and unwieldy. Most companies address GRC only when forced – when regulations change or the organization is caught doing the wrong thing. Considering the sheer volume of corporate information, regulations, policies, controls, and stakeholders involved in even the most basic GRC initiatives, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by everything from tactical problems to strategic intent.

    But there is hope – thoughtful planning can help you realize the benefits of GRC much more quickly. Whether you’re looking to benefit from new innovations or reacting to a regulatory mandate, GRC projects can be efficient, cost-effective implementations that deliver almost immediate value to the organization.

    Rapid Deployment Solutions for Quick ROI

    SAP rapid deployment solutions are designed to support timely implementations and ROI. Our multiple GRC applications can help you implement the latest technology – or play catch-up; either way, reliable budgeting and fixed timeframes ensure fast time to value.

    §  Technology innovation. Use a rapid deployment solution to get up and running with the latest GRC innovations – for example, fraud management. Working closely with application developers, expert SAP Analytics Services consultants can help you understand how each application meets particular needs. For example, SAP Global Trade Services Rapid Deployment Solution for China can serve as a first step toward implementing a full trading solution for China. It gives you cost-effective master data setup, process integration, best practices, and accelerated knowledge transfer.

    §  Traditional application migration. A rapid deployment solution can also help familiarize your team with a solution before a full rollout or migration, while getting immediate value from the latest release. For example, you might use the SAP Access Control Rapid Deployment Solution to quickly run basic reports or risk analyses, followed by more comprehensive or complicated analysis as needed.

    Where to Begin?

    Feeling a bit overwhelmed? SAP Analytics Services innovation labs and advisory services can help you identify high-priority projects, make the most of the latest technology, and chart a customized roadmap to sustained compliance improvement and lower risk.

    SAP Business Analytics Services Innovations Workshop. At the SAP Business Analytics Services Innovation Workshop, design thinking – a methodology for practical, creative issue resolution – is at the heart of our innovation. We brainstorm with customers to discover how they can make GRC innovation a reality using cost-effective prototyping of innovative new SAP technologies – including mobile apps, predictive analytics, intelligent data, integrated planning, and more.

    SAP Strategic Advisory Services for Analytics To stay compliant in today’s regulatory environment, organizations need a comprehensive GRC strategy that supports timely decisions, helps identify new ways to strengthen control and prevent fraud, and maximizes revenue. SAP Strategic Advisory Services for Analytics can help prioritize and manage governance and compliance enablement, keeping the business productive while radically reducing risk. Our modular approach supports quick wins while building a foundation for long-term GRC success, identifying areas of opportunity, and minimizing deployment risks and costs.

    Get Value Now

    Let’s look at examples of how SAP Services can speed time to value for GRC implementations.

    Fraud management. Need to keep tabs on expense reporting, purchasing contracts, or insurance claims? You know what data you need to monitor, but you may need help pulling it all together to detect, investigate, and analyze correlations that signal fraud. That’s where SAP Analytics Services can help. We use the SAP HANA platform to execute real-time fraud analysis – recognizing patterns, speeding execution, and helping you dive deeper into the results. Our experienced consultants then combine business-specific rules with advanced predictive methods to determine thresholds, identify patterns as they develop, and catch fraud before it escalates into a much larger – and more costly – problem.

    Mobile risk management. Internally, SAP introduced mobile risk reporting in 2012, aggregating risks and trends to create an up-to-date global view. The result: Executives have the information they need to discuss, collaborate on, and make risk-based decisions, no matter where they are.

    For example, a top SAP executive about to meet with the general manager of SAP Mexico might use her iPad to pull up the latest regional risk management report – entering the discussion with full knowledge of risks and opportunities specific to the region. Another executive calls his mobile risk application his “mission control center” – an essential tool that gives him real-time automated reporting on personnel, payments, recent purchases, and customer problems and interactions. Similarly, SAP Analytics Services can help you implement best practices for risk management, including real-time mobile access to a single point of truth for risk assessments, maximum transparency, and support for immediate risk evaluation and course correction.

    Learn More

    SAP Analytics Services can give you the tools and expert guidance you need to effectively manage governance, risk, and compliance. Join our Sapphire microforum discussion to learn about achieving timely ROI on GRC solutions. Or for more information on how Analytics Services from SAP can help unlock the value of governance and compliance while lowering risk and exposure, visit us online.

    Francesco Mari

    Speed that matters

    Posted by Francesco Mari Apr 22, 2013

    Dear readers,

    Speed is very much at the center of my professional life. Not just because the demands of my role as global responsible for the SAP HANA program inside SAP Custom Development require to think and act fast, and to react even faster to the evolving opportunities coming from the market, but even more importantly because speed is at the very heart of what SAP HANA is and can do.

    And speed is a fascinating, and yet somehow elusive concept. For this reason, I decided to start to write this blog to investigate and discuss with you what speed really means under different perspectives, focusing specifically on the transformational power of speed.

     

    Let’s get to business now. If you ask a physicist about speed, she would probably define it as something like the rate of motion, or the distance traveled divided by the time of travel. For us in the IT world, where movement is mostly represented by invisible bits of data being read, processed, transformed and eventually stored back somewhere (and in the good old days, probably printed on paper), speed is very much associated with the amount of time required by a computer to perform a given task. And we all know how important speed is for the successful adoption of a computer program. Ever heard the expression "performance problems"?

     

    We all lived our professional lives under the dazzling exponential power of Moore's Law (the number of transistors on integrated circuits – and, as a proxy, their computational power - doubles approximately every two years), and we all experienced the almost unbelievable ability of the IT industry to expand the reach of computers so that speed is simply never enough, no matter what. In facts, my laptop is probably 100 times faster than the one I used when I first joined SAP, 13 years ago, but it doesn't really feel like it is. Why is that? Simply because all the operating systems and applications we use daily are also becoming more powerful and complex with a very similar pace and the end result is that from a user perspective the perception of speed hasn’t changed much.

     

    So brings me to an additional dimension of speed: beyond the speed that we measure, and experience, to the speed that makes a real difference... the speed that matters.

    We all know that SAP HANA is fast, right? Thousands of times faster than the mainstream technologies previously available, that SAP HANA, and in general in-memory computing, will rapidly make obsolete.

     

    I already wrote about how we can measure speed, we do it all the time while benchmarking SAP HANA against relational databases. I also wrote about the speed that one can directly experience, for example using SAP BW powered by SAP HANA, and comparing the user experience with the one we were used to before.

     

    But there is a third dimension of speed that I really want to tackle in this blog... the transformational power of speed. Getting a report in less than a second when previously a user had to wait twenty minutes is definitely great, and can save lots of coffee breaks and increase employee productivity. But imagine being able to provide in real time the critical answer to a customer immediately while he's on the phone inquiring about the availability and pricing of a complex, custom-made industrial machine. This can be the difference between winning and losing the business. This can of speed can eventually become a true competitive advantage, a transformational factor for the business.

    We have the technology today to make it happen. The critical next step is to leave behind our old notions of what can and can't be done. There are out there business needs and opportunities that are not even considered as such because we tend way too often to assess situations using the perspective of things as they used to be, instead of how they could become.

     

    I believe we are on the verge of a revolution. We know that things are going to change dramatically, but exactly how and when is for us to find out.

     

    It is kind of like in 1876, when Nikolaus August Otto invented the first internal-combustion engine. Not many people realized how much this novelty was about to dramatically change the entire dynamic of the world in which we live. Indeed, the invention of automobiles is the quintessential example of speed that matters.

     

    So, here’s a little shameless plug. SAP Custom Development, the organization I work for, offers application development services on the SAP HANA platform. We help companies to use this new exciting technology in highly innovative scenarios, getting rid of many of the compromises and limitations that have plagued and artificially constrained the positive impact that IT has been able to provide up to now.

     

    To better understand what we do, and where just some of the possibilities are hiding, perhaps a concrete example could help. If you work in a large organization, look at what your computers do at night, and over the weekends. Take a look at the huge number of batch jobs that still inhabit our data centers. Ask yourself what the business impact would be if you could manage these batch processes in real time. The “end of batch” is indeed one of the paradigms that SAP HANA is creating. Its incarnations are the new Business Suite powered by SAP HANA for all the standard processes, and the ability to build custom solutions based on SAP HANA to convert the existing custom batch programs, and eliminate the need of creating new ones in the future.

     

    I think it is enough to think about for my first installment! I hope you have a sense of where we want to go with discussing the value of custom applications developed on SAP HANA in this blog series. We will push the existing boundaries, and change the IT world - which basically means the world - with the power and the innovation of speed that matters.

     

    It is a unique, exciting journey. Do you want to join? Stay tuned!

     

     

    You can contact me at francesco.mari@sap.com, or post your comments here.

    Please follow @sapcustdev on Twitter and join our group on LinkedIn

    In Mobility Minute #10, we discussed how Design Thinking can spur the development of an innovative mobile strategy that can help achieve your business goals. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share seven proven steps to make a design-centered approach work.

    According to Tim Brown, author of the bestselling, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, “Human-centered design thinking – especially when it includes research based on direct observation – will capture unexpected insights and produce innovation that more precisely effects what consumers want.”

    At SAP, our design-based approach is the result of both research and the experience of our SAP Services team in solving customer and internal challenges – across the entire mobile strategy trajectory. This learning has been distilled into seven key steps:

    1.    Scoping

    2.    360° Research

    3.    Synthesis

    4.    Ideation

    5.    Prototyping

    6.    Validation

    7.    Implementation

     

    Today we’ll look at steps 1-2, which will help you lay the foundation for an unbeatable mobile strategy.

    Step 1: Scoping: What’s Your Mobile Intent?

    A design-centered approach starts with defining the borders of your playground. What is your mobile intent – both on the level of the organization and the mobile user? Which mobile scenarios will be most effective in satisfying that intent?

     

    In practical terms, this means creating a mobile vision that’s aligned with your organization’s business strategy and supports your long-term goals. Let’s say your strategic business focus for the coming years is growth, and your key performance drivers have been defined as “increased sales” and “customer satisfaction.” Your mobile vision should be to create a strategy that successfully supports those goals. They will also serve as the criteria you’ll need to consider when comparing the value of different mobile use cases.

     

    Aligning your mobile intent with long-term business goals may take some effort, but will ensure your mobile portfolio is of strategic relevance to your organization. When defining their mobile vision, one of our clients realized that the scope of their strategy went well beyond their initial goal of “improving the usability of the traditional workplace for employees.” They decided their intent was to “be mobivailable for our customers” – ensuring that customers could easily access context-relevant data both directly and through the company’s customer-facing channels. Clarifying the intent was key to moving forward.

     

    When creating your mobile vision, you’ll need to identify your target mobile user groups.

    To identify your target users, create a list of all key players who impact your performance drivers in some way—in our specific example introduced above these could be internal groups such as business development, marketing, customer services, sales execs, and service technicians, as well external groups such as distributors and, of course, your customers. Put your focus on the groups that

     

    • have mobile access, that is a device and the possibility to use it (e.g. not in a space where using a mobile device is hazardous or not possible)
    • require business-relevant information while on the go, outside business hours or while limited in time, space or physically restricted in using a wired device.

     

    Once you have clarified your mobile vision and the intent behind it – both at the organizational and user level – you will be in a better position to create your mobile strategy.

     

    Step 2 – 360o Research: Immerse Yourself in Mobile

    There’s no such thing as a green field approach in mobile! Before you create your strategy, you’ll want to immerse yourself in the world of mobile business apps. Become an expert on what’s already out there, the common challenges companies have faced, and the ways they’ve overcome them.

    This translates into two key activities:

     

    • Inside-out research: Evaluate your organization’s current mobile activities and past initiatives. (Do a search on your company in app stores to see what’s there—you may be surprised.) Identify and involve key stakeholders in your company who have a vested interest in your mobile strategy. Understand the key drivers and requirements, as well as ongoing initiatives where your new mobile strategy may have an impact—such as usability, next-gen workplace, and innovation. 
    • Outside-in research: Identify the best practice mobile solutions that are currently popular in your industry—both for core industry processes as well as cross-industry support processes. Why re-invent the wheel?
      Keep in mind the bigger picture. Recognize the peripheral impact of other technologies such as social media, cloud, Big Data analytics, the internet of things, augmented reality, etc.

     

    By the time you finish this second step, you should have a fundamental understanding of how to do things right in mobile. In the next installment of our Design Thinking series, we’ll focus on how to do the right things. Watch for part 2 of “7 Steps to Leveraging Design Thinking for your Mobile Strategy” in an upcoming Mobility Minute post on May 2nd.

     

    Interested in more details? Stay tuned for an upcoming whitepaper on the topic of Design Thinking and Mobile Strategy that we’ll be publishing in time for SAPPHIRE 2013!

     

    Tonja Erismann

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Connect with me on LinkedIn

     

    Jomy Pidiath

    Global Mobile Strategy Services | SAP

    Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/jomypidiath

     

     

     

    Follow the entire series of the Enterprise Mobility Minute and join the conversation on Twitter

    Learn more about SAP Mobility Services

         SAP’s RTDP (Real Time Data Platform) includes a portfolio of products that will make you company have extreme data management capabilities and SAP Sybase Replication Server as one of the products shipped in RTDP is being evolved constantly to accommodate new functionalities and improve performance. In today’s post I’d like to go through one of these new functionalities in SAP Sybase Replication Server version 15.7 called Multipath Replication (MPR from now on).

     

         Using MPR you can replicate data through different streams preserving both data consistency and transaction consistency within each of those streams called paths. It is important to note that objects with dependent transactions should not be bound to multiple paths, this is because commit order is not preserved across different paths. MPR has been implemented for two main targets:

     

    • Improve replication throughput and performance.
    • Reduce contention and latency.

     

     

    Prerequisites for MPR

     

    • ASE 15.7 ESD 1 required.
    • SAP Sybase Replication Server 15.7 required.
    • SAP Sybase Replication Server ASO license required (Advanced Services Option).
    • Oracle is supported for MPR as primary DB in SAP Sybase Replication Server 15.7.1.

     

     

    MPR Description

     

          In the following picture we can see a scenario with normal replication from a primary DB to a replicate DB describing a situation that can lead to high latency in Replicate DB:

     

      • t1 and t2 are totally independent tables
      • Client #1 runs a massive insert into table t1
      • Client #2 runs small insert into t2

    normal_rep.jpg

         As the following picture shows, in a situation like the one described above we can solve the latency issue using MPR:

     

    mpr_rep.jpg

     

         In latest Rep Agent versions you have the availability to have several rep agent senders per database, and thus create several replication streams, splitting replication for objects across them binding those objects to concrete paths.

     

     

    Example:

     

         Following scenario describes a SAP Sybase Replication Server system similar to the one in the picture above with next characteristics:

     

      • Normal connections:       

                   -  Primary DB called s157.db1

                   -  Replicate DB called s157.db2

     

      • Alternate connections (2nd path):

                   -  Primary DB alternate connection s157.db1_path_2

                   -  Replicate DB alternate connection s157.db2_path_2

     

         In this system “admin who” would show the following information: info1.jpginfo2.jpg

     

    Settings of MPR:

     

         Following script show the commands needed to replicate t1 (db1 -> db2) through default path:

     

    1/ create replication definition t1

        with primary at s157.db1

        (              id int,

                        c char(10),

                        d datetime

        )

        primary key (id)

        go

                   

    2/ create subscription sub_t1 for t1

        with replicate at s157.db2

        without materialization

        go

     

         To set MPR to replicate t2 from db1 to db2 through 2dn path:

     

    1/ Configure Rep  Agent for 2 senders at primary DB:

     

         sp_config_rep_agent db1, 'multithread rep agent', 'true'

         go

         sp_config_rep_agent db1, 'max number replication paths', '2'

         go

     

    2/ Create alternate connections:

     

         create alternate connection to s157.db1

         named s157.db1_path_2

         with primary only

         go

         

         create alternate connection to s157.db2

         named s157.db2_path_2

         go

     

    3/ Bind table t2 to 2n path:

     

         sp_replication_path db1, 'bind', 'table', t2, db1_path_2

         go

     

    4/ Create replication definition and subscription

     

         create replication definition rd_t2_path_2

         with primary at s157.db1

         with all tables named t2

         (              id int,

                        c char(10),

                        d datetime

         )

         primary key (id)

         go

                   

         create subscription sub_t2 for rd_t2_path_2

         with primary at s157.db1_path_2

         with replicate at s157.db2_path_2

         without materialization

         go

     

     

     

    Notes

     

    • MPR can be used for heterogeneous Replication Systems with Oracle (oracle versions supported are 10g and 11g).
    • MPR is also supported with IQ 15.1 and later as replicate DB.
    • MPR can be used in warm-standby and MSA.
    • In Replication Server systems domains with several Replication Servers you can create both logical of physical paths.
    • Future features planned for MPR:
      • Several log readers per database.
      • Dedicate path by specific user login.
      • Rows from same transaction distributed across different paths using a column hash value (to allow replication of huge bcps in parallel at replicate DB).

     

     

     

     

    More details in SAP Sybase documentation:

     

           

    Other/Related Posts:

    The ASE Server is a featured part of the Real-Time Database Platform (RTDP) offered by SAP.  This blog supports the RTDP and focuses you on getting the best functionality from your ASE software.

     

    One of the least understood and perhaps least utilized ASE server options that come with the base install of the ASE Server is the Job Scheduler.  In my mind I believe this feature of the SAP ASE Server is a great advantage to DBAs.  I highly recommend it be installed and operational in 100% of the ASE Server installations I am involved with.

     

    What is Job Scheduler?


    Job Scheduler is a method that allows database administrators to run unattended jobs according to a set time and date schedule.  Being unattended allows the database admin to be free for other functions as well allowing us, as developers, an opportunity to think outside the box and plan for a "proactive" not "reactive" monitoring and response.

     

    What are the benefits of Job Scheduler?

     

    • proactive design can be applied
    • no extra licence required, comes with the base installation of the ASE 15.X Server.
    • certain update statistics job templates have been supplied by the developers
    • easily customizable and transportable across multiple server instances
    • hands-off operation

     

    Technical Sidebar: in-depth architecture of Job Scheduler

    Reference: Adaptive Server Enterprise 15.0 Job Scheduler's user Guide.

    Job Scheduler consists of the following components:

    • An internal ASE task called the JS Task: The JS Task determines when scheduled jobs should run and creates a historical record of jobs that are run. It starts the JS Agent process and feeds it the necessary information to retrieve job information and run the job on the specified ASE.

    • An external process called the JS Agent: When the JS Agent retrieves the job information from Job Scheduler’s own database, called sybmgmtdb, it logs into the target ASE and issues the job commands. When the job completes, JS Agent logs any result or output to the

    log tables in the sybmgmtdb database.

    • The sybmgmtdb database and stored procedures: All of the information about jobs, schedules, scheduled jobs, and data needed by the JS Task for internal processing is stored in the sybmgmtdb database, where data is usually accessed through stored procedures. The stored procedures make the data available to the GUI, the JS Agent, and the command-line interface. Only the JS Task accesses data directly from the sybmgmtdb database.

    • The graphical user interface (GUI) using the ASE plug-in in Sybase Central: Using the data it receives, the GUI helps you create and schedule jobs, view job status and job history, and control jobs. It also provides an administration feature that turns the ASE internal task on and off and, therefore, allows Job Scheduler to process and execute scheduled jobs.

    • Predefined templates from which the database administrator can create and schedule useful, time-saving jobs: Templates are an important tool in defining parameterized tasks for self-management of the database, such as database backups, reorganization rebuilds, modification of configuration parameters, and statistics updates and monitoring. They are implemented as batch T-SQL commands for which you provide parameter values. Database administrators can use templates to generate jobs schedule them to run at specific times.

     

    Best Practices for Migrating to SAP Sybase ASE - Job Scheduler basics.jpg

     

     

    What are Job Scheduler moving parts for creating a scheduled job?

     

     

    Essentially we have two moving parts: the Job and the Schedule.  Both the Job and the Schedule are created separately; one is the WHAT and the other is the WHEN.  We can create these two parts but nothing is going to happen until we bring the two together.  This is known as a SCHEDULED JOB.  I am afraid the name does really give it away.  A JOB can only be run if it is married to a SCHEDULE.  A SCHEDULED JOB is our third moving part; the part or job that gets executed according to the schedule.

     

    Job Scheduler captures the results and output of jobs and records that information in log tables which are contained in tables in the Job Scheduler database. This data can be viewed at a later date. In addition, Job Scheduler keeps a history of scheduled jobs; however, to keep a limit on the size of the history table, Job Scheduler monitors it and removes outdated, unnecessary history records.

     

    How do I create a job and a schedule?

     

    If you can type or code an SQL statement, you can create a job and/or a schedule.  It's that easy.  We can create jobs a number of ways:

    • From scratch using the command line or GUI (Sybase Central)
    • From a SQL batch file
    • From a template

     

    Using Sybase Central is definitely the way to go.  This GUI administration tool part of the Sybase Client that comes with the ASE Server software.  For our talk I will be using the command line only.  Not that I prefer using the command line, but in some cases such as rebuilding the Job Scheduler on another Server, the ability to run a script sometimes has its advantages.

     

    How do I create my first job?

     

    Lets take something really easy, something that everybody is going to recognize.  For my job I want to output the line: "I am alive!"

    I will use a stored procedure to do this and I will put this into the Job Scheduler database.  Here's the code:

     


    /********************************
    * create a procedure in the Job Schedule database (named sybmgmtdb) and call this procedure js_ping
    * this procedure when called will output the line "I am alive! from the Job Scheduler"
    ********************************/
    use sybmgmtdb
    go

    if exists(select 1 from sysobjects where name = 'js_Ping')
    drop proc js_Ping
    go
    create proc js_Ping
    as
    print "I am alive! from the Job Scheduler"
    return
    go
    /************************************
    ** let it be accessable or executable  for any user in the sybmgmtdb database
    ************************************/
    grant exec on js_Ping to public
    go
    /************************************
    ** create job and call it "ping"
    ************************************/
    exec sp_sjobcreate @name='jname=Ping', @option='jcmd=exec sybmgmtdb..js_Ping'
    go

    /********************************
    ** End of Job Name:  Ping
    ********************************/

     


    The last line is where the magic happens.  The sp_sjobcreate @name='jname=Ping', @option='jcmd=exec sybmgmtdb..js_Ping' line tells us to use the stored procedure sp_sjocreate (job create) call the newly created job 'Ping' and when the Job is run we want to actually execute the procedure we created earlier named js_Ping that is located in the sybmgmtdb database.  Think of this simple example as a template you can duplicate many times.  Only  the name and the called procedure will change. Now onto the second part, creating a new schedule.

     


    How do I create a schedule?

     


    Creating a job was easy, right? 

    Schedules are a bit more complicated but only because we have a choice of dates and times and any combination in between.  Lets make it simple so we can use this as a template for future schedules.

     

    /*********************************
    ** Create Schedules
    *********************************/
    use sybmgmtdb
    go
    /********************************
    * Schedule "Every ten minutes", every day
    ********************************/
    exec sp_sjobcreate @name='sname=Every ten minutes', @option='repeats=10minute,starttime=00:01, endtime=23:59'
    go

     

     

    The stored procedure sp_sjobcreate (job create) is now used to create a schedule named 'Every ten minutes' and we will start this at 1 minute past midnight and end it at 11:59 PM.  We are going to have a repeat of every 10 minutes and as we did not mention the days to run or any dates it is assumed that this will run all day, every day until eternity.

     


    How do I create a scheduled job?

     


    A scheduled job is the only way we can get our job to run.  We have our job named 'Ping' and our schedule named 'Every ten minutes'.  In our scheduled job example we want to run Ping every ten minutes.  The code to do this is:

     


    exec sp_sjobcreate @name='Ping:Every ten minutes', @option='server=<<ASE_SERVER_NAME>>, jname=Ping, sname=Every ten minutes'
    go

     


    Note that we are still using the procedure sp_sjobcreate and we have chosen the name 'Ping:Every ten minutes' so we can immediately recognize the scheduled job what it does and when it runs.  It's a good idea to adopt the same naming convention.


    Once we create this scheduled job - its already running.  That's all that is required for this simple example.  Besides being a learning tool, unfortunately this example by itself is not useful.  We want our jobs to do something; if its a check or monitor, then take action and do something.  We want Job Scheduler to be  hands off so lets have our program make decisions that we might normally do.  Lets make it a true Database Administrator Assistant.  This is the design behind the Black Box DBA program; a proactive monitoring and decision tool for the ASE Server.

     


    Sample scheduled Jobs

     

    Some of the tasks undertaken by our newly minted DBA Assistant are listed by their scheduled job names. Its a very varied list but the underlying design to all of these is to make our life easier with less effort and manpower.  These are actual jobs that have been and are now in Production Systems.

     


    High_average_CPU_tripwire:Every ten minutes - Monitors CPU percent busy every 10 minutes and if its over our threshold issue a performance report to detail what the server is doing at that moment in time.
    Update_Stats_Daily:M-F at 23:59  - does the update stats command Monday to Friday at 23:59 hours only on those tables that need this command
    Update_Stats_Weekly:Sat at 23:59- a more inclusive update stats command every Saturday at 23:59 hours because our maintenance window is larger.
    Dynamic_Engine_Allocation:Every ten minutes  - Monitors CPU % busy between a high water mark and a low water mark every 10 minutes.  If the levels are above or below it dynamically ads/subtracts a CPU Dynamic_Engine_Allocation.
    Dump_System_Databases:Every day at 18:00- Quite common, just a simple dump of the databases every day at 18:00
    Reorg_Compact_Stealth:M-F at 10:00- reorganizes tables that are disorganized but its in stealth mode meaning it only does this when the server is under a certain % of CPU busy.
    Reorg Compact:Sat  at 9:00- reorganizes the tables in all databases every Saturday at 9:00 AM.

     


    I hope you can see that the adage of 'if you can code it in SQL you can put it into Job Scheduler' rings true.  Over the next couple of blogs we are going to examine why the Update_Stats_Daily and Update_Stats_Weekly jobs are an integral part of your education in the SAP ASE Server.

     


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