An insight into Mastering SAP technology
This week, Tony started off by sharing an insight into a Mastering SAP technology event he recently participated in. It was enlightening for the class to discover that these events consist of not only formal presentations and practical / technical demonstrations, but also encourage the creation of a collaborative environment to be shared amongst participants, demonstrated by a partial non – conference format including informal networking amongst participants.
Guest presenters: Alisdair Templeton and Matt Harding – Web based and mobile technology development
Our guest presenters for the evening were colleagues of Tony’s, Solution Architect and recent SAP demo jam winner Alisdair Templeton and fellow developer and also recent demo jam winner Matt Harding.
Alisdair and Matt presented a brief, yet informative insight into the evolution of web based and mobile technologies within SAP. In particular they emphasized the obsolescence of procedural programming and the importance of object orientation and Web Dynpro.
From this guest session we learnt that Web Dynpro is a huge step for SAP’s ABAP programming language in the development of web based user interfaces as it now allows SAP developers to deliver applications via a web http connection. Advantages highlighted included the emphasis on design rather than complex coding and the ability to deliver to multi channels.
Alisdair’s impressive delivery of knowledge to a degree highlighted the differences of backgrounds within the group. This included those of a technical background who were quietly nodding in understanding and the functional / business users who were trying (with varied levels of success) to catch up, their heads swimming with questions! However despite the groups varied backgrounds and levels of experience, Alisdair’s delivery got everyone’s keen attention. We were all left wishing the session was a little longer and were already looking forward to further in depth sessions with Alisdair and Matt.
Administration - Introduction
A practical class! As a group we were excited to become hands on. At this point most had now managed to complete the set up. The installation of NetWeaver ABAP 7.02 run via a separate VMware operating system on an external hard drive was very convenient, enabling ease of access, portability and assurance of isolation from the mission critical host system. The MiniSAP system would provide us with an ongoing opportunity to learn both SAP development skills, system and database administration skills.
Tony ensured the class was progressing as a group and nobody was left behind, he checked that all present had completed their set up and were in a position to start their Virtual machine and instance before the end of the session. We were then guided through the startup procedures and explored the MaxDB Database Manager and SQL studio.
The class was wrapped up with a summary of a few system administration transactions and with Tony’s encouragement to begin exploring these from course material that was earlier provided.
