karl.kessler

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    TechEd Las Vegas is about to start in five weeks from now meaning a perfect opportunity to take a deeper look at our offering for custom development (CD for short) topics. That way you might convince your manager to fund your travel (and time of course) to one of the TechEd locations.
    The content of the CD track in fact already gives enough justification to share some valuable time with the experts in the field onsite. Of course there is plenty more topics than just CD.

    This year we (that is Thomas Jung, Wolfgang Weiss and myself) have made some substantial changes to the CD track to make it more attractive for developers: just a few overview and roadmap sessions and then lots of handson content to experience everything live. We have completely revamped the subtracks to put the emphasis on the target platform for which you invest your development efforts. As a consequence we have divided up the track into overview topics, development for on premise (SAP Business Suite and SAP NetWeaver hubs), and development for on demand (SAP Business ByDesign, NetWeaver Java on demand).

    Let me walk you a little through the sub tracks.
    In the overview subtrack we focus on roadmap topics such as ABAP in Eclipse (CD166) and the evolution of the ABAP programming model (CD205) when it comes to new types of applications suited for in memory. Another area of importance is innovative user interfaces based on HTML5 (CD202). Apart from that we investigate test driven development methodologies (CD267) to enhance your code quality in a lean and agile fashion. Topics such as Duet (CD110) and Code Exchange (CD112) might be of interest to you. If you look for overall orientation  checkout CD100 which serves as a starting point for the whole track.

    Let's move on to the on premise world:
    All of the sessions focus on how SAP NetWeaver acts as foundation for the SAP Business Suite. Major investments have been done on the SAP NetWeaver side delivering innovative user interface technologies based on Web Dynpro ABAP, the Floor Plan Manager and the Side Panel which is a context sensitive area in the NetWeaver Business Client. Plenty of sessions focus on these important topics. Make sure you grab at least one of them (CD161, CD203, CD163, CD360, CD162). ABAP programming has been at the heart of the CD track over the years. This year we took a more problem oriented approach to cover topics such as secure programming (CD268), modern ABAP programming (CD266), enhancing SAP applications without modification (CD 204) or Thomas Jung's legendary "Update your ABAP skills: Layered Development and Powerful Frameworks" (CD269).
    SAP's connectivity options are introduced and discussed in CD108 providing you with concrete guidelines which connectivity tool or framework to use when. Starting from there you can dive deeper and explore OData style programming with  the SAP NetWeaver Gateway (CD263).
    Java programming is present in the subtrack "Developing for the SAP NetWeaver hubs". Here you find sessions on profiling your code with SAP Java VM and SAP Memory Analyzer (CD160). In addition we present an overview on user interface development with Java (CD201).

    Our last track focuses on development for on demand platforms:
    The colleagues from SAP Business ByDesign present the ByD studio, a powerful tool for customers and partner to develop Add-Ons for ByDesign (CD109, CD165 and CD167). How to develop NetWeaver's Java applications on demand is shown in CD270.

    This overview is by far not complete. It's kind of tough to cover 76 session hours in a little blog like this. Pls forgive me if I have not mentioned each CD session literally. I simply focused on the broader themes but more isolated topics are of great value as well of course.

    Make your own choice.

    Come to TechEd.

    -Karl

    Karl Kessler

    SAP Insider Column on ALM

    Posted by Karl Kessler Apr 13, 2010

    If you are new to ALM checkout this overview article on Application Lifecycle Management available on SDN at
    http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/9096e72f-f328-2d10-bea3-dcbb6252993f
    or at the SAP Insider web site at
    http://sapinsider.wispubs.com/article.cfm?id=5153
    The article serves as a kickoff to ALM deep dives in upcoming issues of SAP Insider. We will cross post them to the SDN site. Stay tuned.

    Now that we have built up the new Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) presence on SDN clearly visible as top level entity in the left hand navigation it is time to ramp down the old NetWeaver capabilities-based navigation.

    That does not mean that all the content goes away. We reviewed the existing top level navigation pages and carefully integrated them into the new navigation. To make life easier for you here is a summary of the old pages and where you can find them in the new hierarchy:

    NetWeaver Capabilities-> Lifecycle Management-> Landscape Design               
    This page is identical to Application Lifecycle Management->Technical Enablement->Landscape Design meaning the page moved in its entirety to the new navigation. 

    NetWeaver Capabilities-> Lifecycle Management-> Application Management               
    To be honest this category was always a mix of rather different topics. Some was centered around SLD and Solution Manager while you could find topics such as eCATT. Please refer to the Technical Enablement section where the ALM processes are listed and choose the one you are interested in.  

    NetWeaver Capabilities-> Lifecycle Management-> Operations               
    The old "Operations page" contained a lot of useful aliases. We safeguarded them under “Related Areas" on the overview ALM process page for Technical Operations

    Reporting (Performance Reporting in BW)               
    Administration (Administration)               
    Monitoring (Monitoring)               
    Output Management (Output Management)               
    Performance Analysis and Measurements (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/performance-analysis)               
    Work Centers in SAP Solution Manager (Work Centers in SAP Solution Manager) 

    NetWeaver Capabilities->Lifecycle Management->Software Logistics
    As with "Operations" we kept the aliases for Software Logistics and added them to the "Related Areas" on the ALM process page for "Initial Setup" such as 
    Technical Implementation (Technical Implementation )
    Installation (Installation )
    Technical Configuration (Technical Configuration)               
    System Copy (System Copy and Migration)                 

    The alias Software Maintenance (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/softwarelogistics?rid=/webcontent/uuid/50e250fe-072e-2a10-ee82-9158a86f0490 )
    was moved to “Related Areas on Maintenance Management”.

    I hope you are not completely confused now. Just think ALM and you will find the resources in a straight forward fashion.

    If we forget something important please don't hesitate to comment. The physical content is still available fortuantely.



    Announcement of the Application Lifecycle Management Newsletter

    It is our pleasure to announce the launch of a new newsletter specifically designed to address Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) topics. Application Lifecycle Management basically covers all processes to implement and run your SAP solutions in an ITIL compliant way. ALM delivers value since you can follow a common methodology and framework with tools that are well suited starting from requirements, design, build and test to deployment, operation and optimization. The new ALM newsletter will provide you with up to date information on all ALM aspects – both from a business and from a technical perspective. The newsletter will feature topics that describe the business and IT value in detail that ALM offers enriched with customer examples. In addition the newsletter will point directly to recently updated technical content on SDN such as blogs, articles, wikis, demos and a lot more making it easy for you to stay in the ALM loop.

    Here is how you can sign up today already:

    1.          Visit the SDN Homepage: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn.

    2.          In the right-hand side, under “Register Now,” click Update your profile.

    3.          Click the “Communications” tab.

    4.          Check the box: “Application Lifecycle Management Quarterly Newsletter”

    5.          Click “Save Changes”

    If you aren’t an SDN member yet please choose the “Register Now” box to create an SDN user free of charge. The ALM newsletter is a perfect complement to our existing ALM presence available at http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/alm  We plan to use the news letter to keep you informed about important events such as SAPPHIRE and TechEd focusing on ALM and get you involved in community activities and projects like SDN forums and wikis designated to ALM. Be sure that the ALM newsletter is your fastest way to gather the latest and greatest on ALM. So please don’t hesitate and register now.

    Stefan Discher, Cay Rademann, Karl Kessler

    Application Lifecycle Management is now well established on SDN as the primary content source and basis for discussion around managing the life-cycle of your SAP solutions. We recently added a left hand navigation for ALM to emphasize the importance of the topic and to simplify and accelerate the access to all SDN resources. With the new navigation in mind it became clear that we had to revisit all the pages dealing with the technical enablement stuff.

    In my last blog (see ALM - What's in it for me?) I already outlined the necessity to think about Application Lifecycle Management not only from a perspective which the ITIL standard suggests but to focus on the actual processes that represent the major activities that are performed in a typical ALM scenario or phase. These ALM processes correspond to things you have done during day to day operations but a clear framework helps to identify the tools, standards, best practices and resources. As a consequence the ALM processes now form the basis for navigation. Each process when selected on the left hand navigation launches a topic page describing the process in detail (SDN does not like long menu names meaning we had to shorten some of the process names). For example if you select the process “Solution Implementation” you find all information you need to configure your solution both on the technical and business process level before you actually go-live and operate the solution. The associated phases from the ITIL model are “Requirements, Design and Build”. 

    The fact that the phases are not used for navigation any longer does not mean they went out of scope. The phases are still there. But you will not likely implement a phase. You will more likely implement a process that is bound to a particular phase, or even more realistically that spans multiple phases like in the case of “Solution Implementation”. Other processes such as “Technical Operations” or “Upgrade and Update Management” are bound to the “Operations” and “Optimizations” phase, but in either case process steps have to be carried out to collect requirements and plan the subsequent steps  accordingly which is obviously the case when doing an upgrade. 

    We added a lot of content for the process pages. Some of the previous content being still valid was recycled, but you will find additional overviews, a couple of new demos and information on related documentation, best practices and process standards. The topmost navigation entry “Landscape Design and Infrastructure” points to resources on solution landscape recommendations, helpful resources on virtualization and adaptive topics and platform topics (databases and operating systems). 

    I promise that we will keep this structure stable as far as possible. In addition we will migrate the relevant content from the old NetWeaver life-cycle management pages step by step. This will allow us to ramp down the old navigation soon. We kept it for this time to smoothen the transition, though. 

    Now please explore the new structure, we definitely appreciate your feedback on the new ALM on SDN appearance.

    At this year's TechEd in Phoenix we used the term "Application Life-Cycle Management" (ALM for short) for the first time to structure the track content around Solution Manager, ITIL compliant ALM processes, SAP NetWeaver's Lifecycle and infrastructure capabilities etc. The sessions were well received. At all TechEd locations ALM sessions scored above average. Given the fact that ALM was the largest track in terms of session hours (Business Intelligence was of the same size to be precise here) a quite remarkable result. But it's not my intent to play the role of an ALM marketing guy here. I think it simply shows the importance of the ALM topics to run and manage SAP solutions successfully without ignoring the political implications that have been discussed in the press around Enterprise Support.

    Coming back from TechEd we immediately felt the need to work on a proper ALM presence on SDN. You can watch it live here: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/alm

    So far, rich content on ALM was present on SAP's service marketplace (Alias /alm) but without a valid s-userid there is no way to get in there. LM capabilities are present on SDN under the NetWeaver umbrella but as you can imagine the focus is oriented towards SAP NetWeaver as a foundation and integration platform. In the consequence the LM pages are centered around features such as CTS+, local monitoring capabilities, SAP CPS (central process scheduling) meaning the built in capabilities that are integral part of the NetWeaver stack. But what is missing is the comprehensive offering that both explains the central management platform of the solution landscape (SAP Solution Manager for short) and the managed instances that make up the solution landscape (e.g. SAP ERP or CRM instances, SAP NetWeaver instances, SAP Business Objects instances).

    For our initial ALM on SDN offering we followed somehow the TechEd structuring to a certain extent but left room to add topics from the business and value add perspective ("Portfolio Overview", "Getting Started", "Business Justification") as well as the more technical beef under "Technical Enablement". We will likely adapt the structure according to the needs and we really want to make this an interactice endeavour with you. If you drill down to "Technical Enablement" you will see ALM topics have been arranged following the ITIL lifecycle (i.e. the famous Requirements -> Design -> Build -> Test -> Deploy -> Operate -> Optimize circle). The ITIL life-cycle serves as a compass that shows you which are the predominant phases relevant for your ALM processes.

    Many of these processes span multiple phases and therefore you cannot simply model them in a purely hierarchical fashion. Our appraoch was to start with a bunch of pages that describe the phases in detail and point to further resources such as the most prominent processes belonging to the phases. I expect a lively discussion in the community about the ALM processes from multiple different angles. Over time we might face the need to raise them to the top level (which is already the case in Service Marketplace) and maybe also use them as the corner stones for our event messaging and structuring (e.g. TechEd, Tech Tour etc).

    Looking at roles we try hard to address the requirements of the different folks at the front. Admins and IT people should find helpful informations under Technical Enablement while business architects and project experts more likely explore the business part of the new ALM area on SDN. All sections are tightly connected with each other thanks to the adoption of the ITIL terminology making sure that we all speak the same language here.

    Now, it is up to you to challenge us, and provide feedback. ALM on SDN is intended as a rather dynamic undertaking. Take the opportunity to start the discussion with your peers on topics such as Innovation Management, Technical Operations, Deployment with the enhanced CTS+ and Quality Gate Mgmt to name a few real hot topics from what we monitored at TechEd worldwide.

    Hi folks,

    TechEd is coming up soon, and I wanted to give you some hints regarding our topics in the "Application Lifecycle Management" track, see http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/tracksview.htm?id=5 (Phoenix) and http://www.sapteched.com/emea/edu_sessions/tracksview.htm?id=5 (Vienna) respectively. Lifecycle Management topics are not new at TechEd, however this year we redesigned the layout of this track towards a more process oriented view closely aligned with ITIL methodology. The subtracks (Requirements, Design and Build, Test, Deploy, Operate and Optimize) correspond to the various ITIL phases and reflect the different processes that are executed during an SAP implementation. You will find overview and roadmap sessions in the "overview" subtrack. They help you to understand the big picture before you dive into the details. Here are a few introductory sessions that you should not miss:
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=173
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=262
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=80
    In the "Requirements, Design and Build" subtrack we deal a lot with "innovation management" which is our current buzz word to bring in new technology and solutions on top without disrupting your core business processes, basically the Enhancement Package story. An overview session is
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=73
    In the "Test" subtrack the focus is on test infrastructure and tools. An important driver for test demand is to basically understand and analyze the impact of change, like in
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=189
    In the "Deploy" subtrack we look at ways to address correction and transport issues and how you can better manage them by means of inserting quality gates to keep consistency, see
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=195 and
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=196
    The subtrack "Operate" contains all the tools to effectively monitor and operate your system covering topics like job mgmt, monitoring and alerting, virtualization and performance management. The full list is way too long which shows the importance of that phase. Finally the subtrack "Optimize" features topics such as upgrade and downtime reduction among others. Together with the Business Intelligence the Application Lifecycle Management is the biggest track at TechEd in 2009. Maybe not a surprise in economically tough times but definitely a clear statement towards reduction of TCO. There is also plenty of partner, SCN and ASUG sessions to be found in this track. If I did not mention a session explicitly this has nothing to do with its quality. The others are simply good candidates to illustrate the philosophy of the new track layout.

    Good news, SDN folks

    we are glad to announce that our book “Java Programming with SAP NetWeaver“ is now available ( English version) in a completely updated version. No more need to elaborate on your German language skills in order to get insight about Java and SAP NetWeaver. The updated version covers SAP NetWeaver Release 7.1 . You will find the state-of-the-art positioning of SAP NetWeaver as Foundation of the SAP Business Suite, as well as standalone platform for composition and integration. All major programming models such as Java EE 5, Java Persistence, Web Dynpro and the use of Enterprise Services are covered in detail. The book starts with an introduction to Developer Studio and discusses advanced topics such as team development, robustness and supportability. Special chapters are dedicated to composition technologies.

    Special thanks goes to the team of authors (Alfred Barzewski, Carsten Bönnen, Bertram Ganz, Wolf Hengevoss, Markus Küfer, Anne Lanfermann, Miroslav Petrov, Susanne Rothaug, Oliver Stiefbold, Volker Stiehl) and especially the team of translators (Paul Smith, Abigail Haley, Neil Matheson, Michèle Coghlan, Susan Want) who released you from the pain to decipher German grammar.

     Here is a link to SAP Press: Link to SAP Press: http://www.sap-press.de/katalog/buecher/titel/gp/titelID-1657 or at
    http://www.sap-press.com/product.cfm?account=&product=H2980

    You can order the book at http://www.sap.com/shop or order via Amazon or buy in a book store. It is also present at the SAP Insider booth at TechEd Berlin (see you there).

    Best regards
    Karl Kessler

    >image 

    Hi SDN folks

    we are glad to announce that our book “Java Programmierung mit SAP NetWeaver“ is available (German version) in a completely updated version. The English translation is currently under way and expected to be published mid of 2008 (will be announced separately, please stay tuned). The updated version covers SAP NetWeaver Release 7.1 . You will find the state-of-the-art positioning of SAP NetWeaver as Foundation of the SAP Business Suite, as well as standalone platform for composition and integration. All major programming models such as Java EE 5, Java Persistence, Web Dynpro and the use of Enterprise Services are covered in detail. The book starts with an introduction to Developer Studio and discusses advanced topics such as team development, robustness and supportability. Special chapters are dedicated to composition technologies.

    Special thanks goes to the team of authors (Alfred Barzewski, Carsten Bönnen, Bertram Ganz, Wolf Hengevoss, Markus Küfer, Anne Lanfermann, Miroslav Petrov, Susanne Rothaug, Oliver Stiefbold, Volker Stiehl). Without their enthusiasm during numerous weekends the book would have not been possible.

    Here is a link to SAP Press: Link to SAP Press: http://www.sap-press.de/katalog/buecher/titel/gp/titelID-1480

    You can order the book at http://ww.sap.com/shop or order via Amazon or buy in a book store.

    Best regards
    Karl Kessler

    I came in late yesterday for Teched LV coming from Walldorf and woke up early today in Mandalay Bay. LV is crazy like last year but definitely fun as always. Seeing that most of my peers have started heavily blogging and advertising their sessions I thought it might be a good idea to stop the never ending procedure to find sleep and blog a little bit for my session SOA201 (and the related CD210 which is a bit more technical low level meaning I need some support from the development folks in order to survive ;-).

    Before I start special greetings to Mark Finnern an company. I have not blogged for a while but the editor is much easier now (at least for a product mgmt person).

    SOA201 (for schedule and details, see http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=96) tries to give you an idea what SAP has planned in terms of its stable core strategy. As I am not an application person I will focus on the technical sides of the house. The stable core strategy was invented to deliver innovation to customers in a rather smooth way. The most painful way is to run an ERP upgrade in order to use some of SAP's new business processes. This is where the enhancement packages (EhP) of SAP ERP 6.0 come into play. The EhPs allow you to selectively activate business functions step by step according to your business needs rather than doing a big bang kind of approach. Experience from our rampup projects (EhP 2 is currently in rampup) that our customers like this approach. We have a pretty good response meaning both the story and the underlying technolgy are well received.

    So, you might think: What the hack is in it for me from a development perspective?

    The answer is straight forward: EhPs contain new business processes and Enterprise services. You can use the new business processes to build something on top as an ABAP programmer (CD210 puts some light behind the scenes regarding the underlying switch and enhancement framework, see http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/session.htm?id=97) or as a Java guy use the Enterprise Services with NetWeaver Composition Environment, see
    http://www.sapteched.com/usa/edu_sessions/tracksview.htm?id=7

    One last thing: we have an update planned for our SAP Press book (Java Programming with the NetWeaver application server which comes into the shelves end of this year ready for Christmas sale, see
    http://www.sap-press.de/katalog/buecher/titel/gp/titelID-1480
    The update will cover SAP NetWeaver 7.1 Java EE 5, Web Dynpro, Web Services including the composition stuff (Visual Composer, CAF, composite processes)

    OK, folks, the sun has risen and the performance of WLAN in the hotel room is pretty weak (I assume Chip Rodgers and team have transferred literally all WLAN capacity to the Teched convention center ;-) and I reached the end of my story anyway.

    All,

    we managed to get a book out on Java Programming for SAP Web AS 6.40. The book is published by SAP Press (ISBN 1-59229-020-5):

    Java Programming with the SAP Web AS

    What to expect?
    For a very fair price you get more than 570 pages covering development topics such as J2EE, Web Dynpro, Web Services, Java Persistence (JDBC, SQLJ, CMP, JDO), Web AS architecture and supportability, Java Development Infrastructure (JDI) (both developer and admin perspective). Several well known authors both from J2EE engine development and product management have contributed their insights to the book.

    We also built a DVD with Web AS 6.40 and Developer Studio trial running a local JDI and a lot of samples. The book is written in English. American English btw. I say this because it took us quite a while to convert from British to American English...

    Karl
    Thanks for your feedback, guys. You were a great audience. We definitely will improve some aspects next time in WDF. Here is a list of our action items:
    - Provide outside link thru webcast
    - Better balance some agenda items (partner versus SAP)
    - Launch early vote on overall program (both SDN and SAP)
    - Invite more WDF architects
    PS
    And Mark, I promise: if SDN understands my return key and does not force to type HTML tags for linefeeds, I will post more often...
    All,
    we managed to get a book out on Java Programming for SAP Web AS 6.40. The book is published by SAP Press (ISBN 3-89842-317-4):
    Java Programmierung mit dem SAP Web AS
    What to expect? For a very fair price you get more than 570 pages covering development topics such as J2EE, Web Dynpro, Web Services, Java Persistence (JDBC, SQLJ, CMP, JDO), Web AS architecture and supportability, Java Development Infrastructure (JDI) (both developer and admin perspective). Several well known authors both from J2EE engine development and product management have contributed their insights to the book.
    We also built a DVD with Web AS 6.40 and Developer Studio trial running a local JDI and a lot of samples. The book is in German, English version will follow in two months.
    Karl
    Let me share with you some of the experiences I have collected over the last ten years about the developer community around SAP.

    When R/3 came out in mid 1992 it was shipped with an integrated development environment (ABAP) for client/server applications. SAP pioneered the famous 3-tier application server platform which proved to be highly performant, platform independent, fully based on relational database technology.

    In the early days of R/3 many customers used SAP's ABAP Workbench to develop missing functionality. Then Release 3.0 came out which had so much functionality that customers were primarily busy with customizing issues.

    In 1995 SAP embraced the Internet with the very first version of ITS. That opened up a total new space for developers allowing to build radically new scenarios running in a web browser connected to existing R/3 installations. Consequently, the first technichal developer's conference (nowadays simply called Teched) was organized in Orlando in 1996.

    We had about 700 attendees then, talking mainly about how to build Internet application components. BAPIs were born to encapsulate business logic written in ABAP and to make them callable from a web session running on ITS. While Orlando was organized similar to a classical SAP customer event such as Sapphire it soon became clear that the technical community around SAP preferred a more handson experience.

    People wanted to get educated, they wanted to test-drive new technologies rather than listening to marketing presentations. Since Hasso and Bill were celebrating SAP and Microsoft at that time, us techies were told to run OLE with SAP in all directions.

    Later, in the late 90's ABAP had its comeback since ABAP had learned to talk to a web browser directly through business server pages. Web programming in ABAP had never been that easy. Just enter the Workbench and link your ABAP code into an HTML page, activate it, and launch the page in the brower.

    Developers have quickly adopted this new way. Somehow, the advent of BSPs has coincided with SAP's engagement into the J2EE market. SAP showed up at the Java/One conference which was a pretty new experience for us all.

    Over the years SAP's technology has been perceived as robust and scalable, but proprietary and therefore it never really reached beyond the SAP eco system. When Hasso did his key note at Java/One that was a major step towards the external developer community.

    Today we offer a developer edition that you can download from the SDN homepage that contains cool development tools based on Eclipse. Having been to all Techeds I think SDN will be our ongoing online developer's conference with articles, samples, discussion forums around SAP's technology, and I invite you all to participate no matter whether you code in ABAP or Java or even both.

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