dirk.ammermann

    6 Posts

    Management and monitoring of business processes and rules is a core theme for SAP’s technology platform, both SAP built-in and model-driven processes. For this year’s SAP TechEd, we have created a comprehensive agenda of 16 hours of hands-on sessions and more than 11 hours of lectures (being offered at least twice in Las Vegas) to cover business process and rules management. You can find the full schedule on the SAP TechEd websites for Las Vegas,Madrid, and Bangalore.

     

    Depending on your background as SAP Business Suite developer, SAP NetWeaver BPM developer, business process expert, or enterprise architect, your personal agenda will look different. Here’s a short selection by role, however, I also encourage you to look beyond and explore some of the other sessions.

     

    1. General overview and introductory sessions

    • Process Modeling from Blueprint to Collaboration to Process Execution (PMC105)
    • Overview of SAP NetWeaver BPM and BRM (lecture, PMC101)
    • Business Rules Management with SAP (BRFplus and SAP NetWeaver BRM, introductory lecture, PMC103)
    • iPad, Adobe, Android, ...: UI Technologies to Integrate in SAP NetWeaver BPM (very visual lecture, PMC210)

    2. For SAP Business Suite developers: Business Rules with BRFplus and Process Visibility in Suite Core Processes

    • Business Rules with BRFplus – Agile and Transparent Business Processes (hands-on, PMC163)
    • Big Picture Process Orchestration from an Application Point of View (overview lecture, PMC212)
    • Process Visibility, Monitoring and Analytics for Suite Core Processes (advanced ABAP hands-on, PMC264)
    • IDEXX Runs Marketing Points Program on BRF Rules Engine (ASUG lecture, PMC228 – Las Vegas only)

    3. For SAP NetWeaver BPM beginners and experts

    • SAP NetWeaver BPM: Model and Run a simple Business Process (beginners hands-on, PMC162)
    • Accelerating Business Rules with SAP NetWeaver BPM (hands-on, PMC265)
    • An Expert Guide to BPM Operations, Performance, Administration, Configuration, and Troubleshooting (a must-include session if you want to use SAP NetWeaver BPM, PMC211)
    • Advanced BPM Development using APIs (real coding hands-on session for experts, PMC261)
    • Process Analytics with SAP NetWeaver BPM (hands-on using SAP BW and SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard Design, formerly Xcelsius, PMC263)
    • Applied SAP NetWeaver BPM and BRM in Agile and High Volume Scenarios (ASUG lecture, PMC229 – Las Vegas only)
    • Learn about our integrated stack with SAP NetWeaver PI at SAP TechEd Top 5 Things to Learn at SAP TechEd 2011 about SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (PI)

    4. For business process expert and enterprise architects

    • From Business Design to Lean Development (PMC107)
    • A Comprehensive Introduction to Process modeling and Business Process Blueprinting (PMC104)
    • Leverage Solution Manager for Blueprinting Solution Extensions with BPM (corresponding hands-on, PMC167)
    • SOA Governance with SAP NetWeaver PI and BPM (hands-on to build your own governance around the ESR, PMC267)
    • Effectively Applying TOGAF Architecture Development Methodology to Your Organization (ASUG lecture, PMC226 – Las Vegas only)

    Moreover, we’ll be around for pod and networking sessions (also listed in your TechEd agenda builder).

    In May 2011, SAP NetWeaver PI 7.3 was made generally available after a successful ramp-up earlier this year. SAP TechEd 2011 is a good time to learn about ramp-up experience, new and enhanced features, and our plans going forward – to shape your plans and gain firsthand experience. We have compiled a comprehensive program covering SAP’s integration technology with 12 hours of hands-on sessions and more than 10 hours of lectures (all being offered at least twice in Las Vegas). You can find the full agenda and schedule on the SAP TechEd websites for Las Vegas, Madrid, and Bangalore.

    It’s hard to pick the best sessions as this depends on your role and experience with SAP NetWeaver PI (unless you decide to simply attend all). Still, here’s a list of the top 5 things to learn at SAP TechEd 2011 with respective sessions:

     

    1. Gain firsthand experience with the latest release (our hands-on sessions – you’ll get your own Java-only PI instance running in the TechEd cloud!)

    • SAP NetWeaver PI - Integration Flows Deep Dive (PMC164)
    • SAP Netweaver PI - AEX (Improvements & New Features) (PMC266)
    • Build system centric processes using the combined BPM/PI offering (PMC165)
    • Combining SAP NetWeaver BRM and SAP NetWeaver PI (PMC166)
    • The SAP NetWeaver PI Java API (PMC360)

     2. Learn about improvements for operating and maintaining SAP NetWeaver PI

    • Monitoring Enhancements for SAP NetWeaver PI (PMC108)
    • Near Zero Downtime Maintenance for SAP NetWeaver PI (ALM220)

    3. Prepare your upgrade to SAP NetWeaver PI 7.3

    • SAP NetWeaver PI 7.3: Overview and Feedback from Ramp-up (PMC203)
    • Moving productive landscapes to PI 7.3 single-stack (PMC300)

     4. Get up to date on our road to an integrated stack (and other enhancements)

    • SAP NetWeaver PI Roadmap (PMC202)
    • Deep Dive into what is New in SAP NetWeaver PI (PMC201)
    • BPMN for System Integration (PMC106)
    • Running system centric processes on SAP NetWeaver BPM and SAP NetWeaver PI (PMC204)
     

    5. Learn from SAP NetWeaver PI customers and partners (ASUG sessions in Las Vegas; Madrid still in planning phase)

    • SAP NetWeaver Process Integration 7.1 Performance, Scaling, and Security (TEC115)
     

    Moreover, we’ll be around for pod and networking sessions.

    Michelle Crapo already talked about in her blog TechEd 2010 - Why Go? why she loves TechEd and recommends attending while Chip Rodgers proudly announced Lifehouse Comes to TechEd Berlin and Las Vegas! to both events in Berlin and Las Vegas. With TechEd 2010 hands-on workshop sign-up opening soon, I would like to explain the structure and highlights of the educational content (lectures and hands-on sessions) in more detail.

    How did we prepare the program for this event? First, we asked SAP employees, ASUG members, and SAP Mentors for proposals - and we received more than 500 from SAP, nearly 400 from ASUG (for the Las Vegas event), and about 30 from mentors, plus additional proposals to cover the Sybase portfolio, partner sessions, customer sessions, etc. Then, we selected the best content with about 250 SAP sessions (including more than 100 hands-on), 100 ASUG sessions (selected by ASUG for Las Vegas), adding the other session types to complete the agenda.

    Now, what's the track structure and how did it change compared to last year? The content is organized into 6 different tracks (see here for Berlin and Las Vegas details):

    Application Life-Cycle Management: Based on high demand, we have extended the ALM track and will introduce the next version of SAP Solution Manager as well as many sessions on how to more efficiently run your SAP landscape. Virtualization, cloud, and sustainability complement the agenda.

    Custom Development: There will be lot's of hands-on sessions to experience the evolution of ABAP. We have combined programming and UI development into one track (see Thomas Jung's overview of Web Dynpro ABAP Content at TechEd 2010), adding development topics around SAP-Sybase mobile platform, SAP Business ByDesign, SAP NetWeaver Business Client - just to name a few.

    Business Intelligence and Performance Management: We have included all front-end BI and EPM (enterprise performance management) sessions into this track. Look also forward to experiencing the upcoming release of SAP BusinessObjects (including SAP BusinessObjects Advanced Analysis known as project "Pioneer") and understanding best practices of SAP BusinessObjects integration with SAP NetWeaver BW.

    Enterprise Information Management: This track has been newly created to better reflect the integrated information management stack of SAP NetWeaver BW & BWA, SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, and SAP NetWeaver MDM (and a few more) and to specifically address the technology challenges from managing information coming from a variety of sources. The content is fairly packed, ranging from architecture guidance and in-memory computing to product roadmaps and hands-on sessions.

    Business Process Management, Integration, and Collaboration: Why are we combining Portal from the old "User Productivity" with SAP NetWeaver PI from "SOA", adding SAP NetWeaver BPM and SAP Streamwork? Three reasons: 1. there is a continuum from structured process extension with BPM and PI to unstructured collaboration with SAP Streamwork and Enterprise Workspaces (SAP NetWeaver Portal); 2. SOA has become mainstream, let's focus on process and people; and 3. the upcoming major release of the SAP NetWeaver platform integrating Enterprise Portal, BPM and BRM, and Java-only service bus (standalone advanced adapter engine) on the same Java EE 5 stack - all ready for your experience on the TechEd hands-on laptops.

    Security, Compliance, Identity, and Access Management: This year, the track will not only cover security and identity management, but also GRC Access Control (thanks for your feedback last year). Other key topics are SAML 2.0 and SAP NetWeaver Identity Management.

    Last, but not least, the Sybase portfolio (Sybase Unwired Platform, Afaria, Sybase IQ, CEP, etc.) makes its entry into TechEd. Find out more for Berlin and Las Vegas.

    Overwhelmed? We offer a technology portfolio overview session and a 4-hour end-to-end "putting it all together" technology hands-on workshop.

    We look forward to seeing you in Berlin and Las Vegas.

    Dirk

    Be the First to Build Applications with SAP NetWeaver BPM and BRM!

    Thomas Volmering presented SAP's new Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Rules Management (BRM) solution in his blog on Introducing SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management (BPM) earlier this year.

    We're now launching a Beta program for the next release of the SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment which includes the new SAP NetWeaver BPM and BRM components. The program will start in the second half of August. As part of the program, you will

    • Receive a fully functional pre-release version to build and test business process applications with SAP NetWeaver BPM and BRM as well as the latest improvements for CAF, Web Dynpro Java, Visual Composer, NWDI, and ESR
    • Become part of an exclusive Beta collaboration room to exchange ideas, feedback, issues, and best practice experience with the other Beta program participants and SAP Netweaver product managers and developers
    • Get early access to how-to-guides, learning material, and other best practices
    • Be invited to webinars and other collaborative events

    The Beta program looks for your active participation:

    • You should have a real business scenario for which you would like to build an application
    • You should have a small team including a business analyst, a Web Dynpro UI developer, and a Java developer (for backend connectivity and business logic development) to run the project
    • Your contributions to the collaboration space, response to surveys, and feedback based on your experience are mandatory

    In addition, we ask you to sign a Test and Evaluation Agreement (TEA). You can only go productive after the RTC (release-to-customer) date.

    Sounds like the right challenge for you? Send us a short message.

    For those of you who look for the preview version to evaluate or simply explore SAP NetWeaver BPM, we will soon have a preview available on SDN. Hold on for a few more weeks.

    Composition enables you to rapidly develop and deploy innovative and flexible business applications that employ enterprise SOA principles. A composite application itself, however, is composed of business logic and services, UI, process flows, and events.

     

    Most composite applications projects will fall into one of the following "starting point" categories:

     

    Starting Point categories

     

    • "Edge Applications" provide innovative, often differentiating business logic to end users, spanning across organizational boundaries with collaborative workflows; SOA facilitates the reuse of existing functionality, model-driven development increases time-to-value; the leading development artifact is the service or business logic

      For example, a manufacturing company implements a customer-facing composite application that handles complaint management for customer shipments. To report a problem with a shipment (e.g. damage, quality, wrong shipment address), the customer fills in and submits an online or offline form. When processed, the form triggers a business process that collects all relevant information about the issue raised by the customer and then involves the sales representative, the corporate complaint agents, and functional experts in handling the claim.

     

    • "Business Process Transformation" driven composite applications implement cross-system innovative business processes; SOA provides the common standards for process choreography and service orchestration; here, the process design mostly drives the implementation.

      For example, a high tech company with subsidiaries in many countries wants to implement a global process for employee performance management. However, their local HR systems (mostly from acquired companies) have not yet been consolidated into regional systems to benefit from the standard software. Building a composite "on top" of the local HR systems allows to abstract the new application from the backends while storing the HR data locally.  

     

    • Improved information access is a frequent requirement for increased "Business User Productivity"; composite applications and SOA enable you to make the dashboards "actionable" by integrating analytical and transactional elements into one application; most of these projects start off with UI designs and add workflows and business logic later.

      For example, a parts supplier uses a composite "360-degree customer dashboard" to handle sales inquiries.  When a customer calls, the composite immediately assembles all information about the customer's buying frequency, past purchases, likely needs, creditworthiness, and shipping preferences. This enables the supplier to decide and act - to quote prices and shipping terms - immediately, within the same application interface and while still on the phone with the customer.

     

    • Exception handling in "Integration and Automation" scenarios, often event-driven, complements the first three application archetypes; SOA-based composition tightly integrates with SOA-based integration; events trigger exception-handling workflows for this category.

      For example, a trading company runs an integrated procure-to-sell process - and tries very hard to do "straight-through" processing with automated procurement matched directly to a sales order.  The trading company builds a composite that manages the exceptions. If buy & sell opportunities can't quickly be matched or change happens during the shipment, that event triggers a process to collect all necessary data and involve a trader.  

     

    These are real world uses of composite applications.  And, in our experience, in most projects these are not isolated or separate. Rather, two or more of these elements are present in each composite - an event triggers a cross-application process that populates and presents a 360-degree dashboard, and so on.  And that's often the point - composite application development enables flexible, rapid responses to business opportunities and business points of pain.  The four examples I present above are starting points for your own innovative work.  

    Join me at CE101 - Enterprise SOA and the Road to Composition at SAP TechEd in Las Vegas or in Munich to hear more on this topic.  I think you'll agree - the possibilities are exciting.  See you there!

    Last week, Jan Rauscher started a blog series that set out to help you sift through your options for learning about the SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment at SAP TechEd 2007.   There truly are lots of great sessions to choose from, but which sessions will do you the most good?  Well, it depends on the job you need to do, of course.   Job relevance, in this as in so many things, is what will help us decide.

     

    In SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment at TechEd: Which Sessions Should I Attend?, he listed CE sessions of interest to software engineers and architects.  Next week, we'll post a blog on CE sessions for business process experts.

     

    In this blog, I hope to help people with jobs as IT managers and project leaders choose the CE sessions that will help them most in their work.   In these roles, you'll first need a solid introduction to composite application development at SAP.  You'll also benefit from some hands on with the tools, to help you better resource, scope, and plan your composite application development projects.  And finally, a broader understanding of the Enterprise SOA perspective is in order - you'll really start to understand the possibilities when we see what service enablement exposes to your application developers - flexibility, responsiveness, and business process agility!

     

    So, to our task!  Here are sessions that will give you a great introduction to composition at SAP:

     

    • CE100 - SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment 7.1 in Detail  - Composite applications empower companies to drive innovative business processes, leveraging existing IT investments. SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment provides a methodology and toolset to efficiently develop and manage composite applications, following enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) principle.  SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment comprises infrastructure components such as SAP Web Application Server, Web Dynpro-based user interfaces, infrastructure for voice-based applications, business process management for workflow support, and an infrastructure for service and business object definition. 

      Learn more about the functions and features of the infrastructure as well as the toolset that makes up the SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment and how to use the various development tools to build composite applications.

     

     -Or, Alternatively-

     

    • CE101 - Enterprise SOA and the Road to Composition  - Composite applications empower companies to drive business process innovation and agility, leveraging existing enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) assets. SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment provides a methodology and an Eclipse-based toolset to efficiently develop, manage, and deploy composite applications, following SAP's enterprise SOA principle. SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment combines infrastructure components such as SAP Java EE 5 Application Server, Web Dynpro-based user interfaces, SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer for UI modeling, guided procedures for collaborative process modeling, and an infrastructure for service and business object definition.

     

    -And-

     

    • CE151 - Developing Composite Applications with SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment 7.1 -  In this four-hour hands on session, learn how composite applications look and feel from a developer's point of view and create a complete composite process from scratch. Let us show you how SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment empowers you to create, compose, and orchestrate services as key building blocks of your new application.

     

    Sessions that put you a bit deeper into the business scenarios addressed by composites, the tools and techniques used in their development, and the resources involved, include:

     

    • CE103 - Implementing Composite Applications: Methodology and Skill Requirements - Discover a solid methodology for implementing composite applications based on the business process platform. Find out why project phases and steps of a composite application implementation are the same and different than other projects. You'll also learn the required skill profiles in each step.

     

    • CE207 - Real-World Examples and Experiences of Composite Applications -
      This lecture gives you real-world experience for composite applications. We will show you several industry composite applications, which leverage extensively the SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment. With these composites in our hands, we will explain the common design principles of composite applications and enterprise service-oriented architecture. Having this common understanding of what composites are, we will run through the complete life cycle of a composite - from the invention to the delivery.

      The development process and the usage of the SAP NetWeaver composition tools represent a focus topic of this lecture and is demonstrated as well as explained in detail. The lecture is basically geared towards architects, developers, business experts, and IT managers.

     

    • CE300 - Delivering Consistent Results with a Reference Architecture for the SAP Composition Environment  (an ASUG Session - Las Vegas only) - The SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment (CE) enables corporate users and developers to extend the value of the SAP infrastructure and investment. Reference architecture and guiding principles serve as the foundation for consistent and effective composite applications. These guidelines enable Enterprise Architecture to publish and enforce the governance process and standards for composite applications. This session will cover Cardinal Health's reference architecture and guiding principles for SAP NetWeaver CE applications leveraging the Composite Application Framework and SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe.

     

     

    And, for a broader perspective of what's available to your composite application developers, sessions that describe the Enterprise SOA environment and its possibilities:

     

    • SOA102 - Enterprise SOA with SAP NetWeaver  - This session is dedicated to enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) technology that is delivered by the SAP NetWeaver platform. An introduction of the overall Enterprise SOA approach with SAP NetWeaver will be given. In this context, the topics of Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Service Repository (ESR), SOA middleware, as well as composition, are covered. The focus is on the explanation of the combined usage of the following SAP NetWeaver components along SAP's overall methodology: SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure (SAP NetWeaver XI), enterprise services repository, SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment, and SAP NetWeaver Application Server. A short outlook into the future will be given at the end of the session.

    • SOA112 - Enterprise Services Use Cases  - This session first covers the experiences gained by various companies during the implementation projects of the enterprise services required to enable Customer Fact Sheet (CFS), Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP), and Technical Document Management Connectivity (TDMC), covering the architecture, the technical pre-requisites of the solutions, and the business and technical benefits that the enterprise services bring to these enterprises and their clients.

      The session then shows the openness of SAP by demonstrating that enterprise services can be consumed by other application servers and tools to enable an ATP Check scenario using SAP back-end functionality.

    • SOA106 - How to Discover, Use, and Evaluate Enterprise Services  The speaker will explain and show the first steps customers should take to get started with enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA): how to identify and explore enterprise services (ES) delivered by SAP. Customers and partners can easily learn what enterprise services are delivered and shipped by SAP via the ES Workplace and the ES Wiki. This session will explain the multiple ways in which enterprise services can be searched and explored today.

    See you at TechEd!

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