Experience HANA – the wish list
During his keynote at SAPTECHED in Las Vegas, Vishal Sikka asked everyone to try https://www.experiencesaphana.com/ to experience HANA. So I did that, and I did not like it at all.
When I mentioned that on twitter – Vitaliy joined in. And from SAP’s side, Aiaz Kazi – an all around great guy – responded asking us what we would have liked to see. I am going to list my thoughts here in the hope that collectively we can provide some useful feedback to SAP.
1. Integrate with SCN
Why would you not put this on SCN where you already have an audience in the millions? Plus SCN has information on everything else HANA needs – ECC, Data services, BI 4.0 and so on. Why should users scan multiple sources for this information?
Also – on SCN, people already know how to use forums, blogs, Wiki etc. https://www.experiencesaphana.com/ does not have most of this. Except where we can ask questions to SAP – it is not as interactive as SCN.
Mark Yolton and Aiaz separately mentioned that eventually they will merge. But why eventually? Why not right upfront? It might be unintentional, but from outside – it looks like SAP does not value the significance of SCN to carry messaging on a stratgic thing like HANA
2. Registration – is duplication of data and effort a good thing now?
If not integrate – atleast can’t we use the same login as SDN or Service Market place? Why do I have to enter everything again ?
3. What is “Try” ?
Since Vishal asked people to go to this site at Teched, I assumed this was intended for technical audience. So I had high hopes of trying hana for myself when I clicked on “Try” on homepage. And all I see is a bunch of marketing type videos. I felt seriously let down. There is nothing in “Try” that makes sense when one hears “Try”.
4. What are “Subspaces” ?
Under “Try”, is a frame called subspaces. It is empty. I have no idea what it is. Have never heard that term before either.I suggest it should be eliminated, or a better name and content should be figured out.
5. Implementation library under “Implementation”
I expected to see “how to” guides etc here. Instead, it takes me to a forum to ask questions. There are links to SDN on right side of the page, but not where the eye goes naturally. There is a section called “featured posts” right under this, whose content is what I would have expected under Implementation library.
6. How do non-SAP employees contribute to the knowledge base?
Unlike SDN which has blogs, Wikis etc where ecosystem can add content – here I don’t see an option beyond forum questions. In this day and age, does any one care for mostly one way information flow?
Summary
Personally, I don’t think this site https://www.experiencesaphana.com/ will do SAP any favors in increasing awareness of HANA. It looks like a rush job at first sight – and for something as innovative as HANA – this site is a poor first experience to the ecosystem. You don’t get a second chance to create a first impression, so I would urge SAP to get thei design thinking experts to do something before Madrid events, if not Bangalore.
You are right of course. It may well be a SEO excercise to put lots of content outside SCN but OPENID anyone ? This should be a no-brainer! and SAP have the experience in house.
Nigel
But then where is the fun? real geeks like to re-invent 🙂
Seriously though, I think that integration with SCN would be a critical path with something as strategic as HANA. You would want your experts and customers using the same information portal as every other SAP product that they might have.
Or not...and all HANA questions are sent into subspace. Live Long And Prosper!
I am a huge star trek fan. We used to get replays in India every Sunday morning, and I had almost every single one recorded. I was always fascinated by asking a computer in English, and computer responding in the robot voice. I had that same feeling of excitement when I watched Watson play Jeopardy 🙂
My expectation from hearing about the ExperienceHANA web site was to "try" HANA in the cloud, similar to BI on Demand site...but it doesn't appear to be that if the try HANA takes you to videos and such.
Just my take.
Good start on your wish list - I expected a broader set of asks but I’ll try to address your issues below. Overall, look at this as an iterative approach – not waiting till it is perfect...and we tweak as we go..
#1 Integration with SCN: No brainer and planned from the get go (which is why we built on the same Jive platform as the one SCN is migrating to). Why not launch it from the outset? SCN is in the midst of their migration and the choice was either wait for the migration to be completed or launch with the new features and private content areas now while customers are demanding this.
#2 Registration duplication: Also planned for the SCN merge. Agreed it creates some short term pain. Do note that browsing the public content does not require any new logins to be created.
#3 Try: There will be some exciting new content coming in the near future here. We had the option of saying “coming soon” or provide some content here getting feedback and making sure that everyone was aware of this section. We chose the latter but I agree the sooner we get real ‘try’ content there the happier everyone will be. If the current “placeholder” content makes this look like a marketing site, then internally we need to revisit as that is opposite of the intent of the site
#4 Subspaces: I agree – another design decision. There are many other internal HANA groups who want a presence on this site so while they were preparing for launching their own content we left the subspace link as-is. Have to agree that “subspaces” is not the most intuitive term – would love to get ideas on alternative terminology.
#5 Implementation Library: Need some clarity on this one – the Implementation Library is on the top left and under that is the Featured Posts (both in leftmost column). We could swap the Implementation Library with “Meet the SAP HANA Experts” I think that is what you are saying. Also, I hope you recognize the richness of content here. In fact, it would be great to get a list of the topics you don’t see covered yet.
#6 Non-SAP employees: This goes back to SCN integration. Given that the focus was on scaling our internal knowhow to get customers live the basic discussion capability was considered “good enough”– until we merged with SCN where we expect the broader community will provide additional content.
As I mentioned earlier, we expect to keep tweaking the site so the overall experience can be improved and then carry over the improvements when we merge with SCN. Thank you for taking the time! One comment I would like to make in support of the team that delivered this working in a supper aggressive timeline – maybe the outcome is not perfect, and there are rough edges and then some – but the team’s passion to make things happen and the dedication to keep making it better will come through hopefully.
Aiaz
1. how to document that shows hello world applications in HANA
- how to get data out of ECC, Files, ODBC, JDBC etc
- best practices for modelling
- tips and tricks for DML optimization
- BOBJ and Excel options
2. Extreme usecases
- examples from all the POCs from SAPPHIRE
3. Benchmarks on performance
4. Roadmap on upcoming SPs and revisions
I am sure Vitaliy R, Ethan J and John Appleby will add more
Cheers
Vijay
https://www.experiencesaphana.com/community/implement/content?filterID=content~category[database-basics]
This (and the links on the left) should address some of your wish list items already. But lets keep this list coming. You can continue to provide it here or on the experience site as a discussion. The team will maintain a running list and prioritize - we've already got more content in the hopper on the way.
Thanks for the information.
I could navigate to some more extent with this blog on the HANA site.
But I am having one doubt: Is there a way in which I can compare the runtime hana takes and compare it with the current runtime on database operations? I was expecting I would get to run something under Implement section. How do I execute it?
Please excuse me if you think I have too less a knowledge on this and hence the question.
Regards,
Kumud