A Look Back at SAP TechEd 2007 Keynotes

SAP TechEd 2007 was my first TechEd.  I felt privileged to attend so I took detailed notes to share when I returned to the office.  In my previous job, I worked in a classified facility with no access to the Internet (and hence, no access to SCN).  Given that ASUG has call for speakers for TechEd Las Vegas, I thought I would share my notes now.

SAP TechEd Keynote

Zira Yusef, SAP

11^th year of TechEd, with over 6,000 attendees

Rise of online presence; SDN has over 90,000; most posts are responded to within 20 minutes; starting a new mentor program

Theme of conference is Enterprise SOA; web services, transparency

SAP was the first to set up Business Process Platform

SDN subscriptions are available for $2300

Sharp Electronics won E-SOA contest

Peter Zenke SAP Board Member

10% of the programs at TechEd are sponsored by ASUG

Enterprise SOA is IT “embedded in business”, business at the speed of change

BPP (business process platform) based

E-soa “by Design” is for the lower market

“Business Network Transformation” – open collaboration, end to end, a people-driven process

InfoCentric

“Network of Brains” – collaboration

Composition means to solve

Network of resources; 4 dimensions of innovation:

1. Composition – people collaborate, loosely coupled
2. ESR – enterprise services repository
3. Integration
4. Foundations

Standard Bank example:

• Common customer experience
• 360 degree view of customer
• lots of legacy systems
• customer-focused processes
• adoption of E-SOA

Ready to run services

Mass adoption is underway

BPX – IT & business come together

Deploy different industry-specific best practices on one business process platform

Merge business processes of different industries

Switch Framework and Enhancement Packages

Using the Maintenance Optimizer (Solution Manager), enhancement packages are installed on demand; activate what needed

ESR on demand “ ready to run”

• Service definition and processes
• Available on SDN
• Uses an integrated approach
• Business Process Platform “retailer”
• Industry Map for business areas

ARIS for NetWeaver

• Use to model business processes
• Integrate in next edition and make part of Netweaver definition
• Modeling methodology will be open for customers

All business object and services, orchestrated end-to-end, model content, and model to execution of services

Demonstration of a catalog of integrated scenarios; procure-to-pay

• Shows WSDL – web service definition language
• ESR

“Roadmap for Continuous Innovation”

• New processes are available by enhancement packages
• NetWeaver 7.1 is available by enhancement package
• Composite Environment
• Process Integration
• Innovation driven by needs

If you need help: ASUG, SDN, BPX

Contribute!

Vishal Sikka, CTO, SAP AG

E-SOA, providing highly agile and intelligent front-ends

Events & services

Enable Business Network Transformation:

CORE:

1. Business Process Platform, including technical and business applications
2. SOA governance
3. End to End Support and Lifecycle Management

Core is E-SOA, powered by NetWeaver

ESR, to Composition, to partners (Adobe Flex)

Business Information Accelerator – Blades on an Intel chip; they developed working with Intel engineers; performance is 86% faster

Programming Model

• Program constructs
• Used Office programming model for Duet

Expose platform so a number of developers can innovate

Composition delivers flexibility

Introducing SAP NetWeaver Composite Environment 7.1

Composite Environment (CE) is model-driven

• Composite views
• Composite services
• Composite processes
• Uses Java EE 5

• Available today on SDN

Demo of a repair request using Adobe Interactive Forms

Submit repair request; start workflow in UWL, new user interface using a Web 2.0 portal; he quickly added a new field, checked integration of model, deployed view and refreshed

Composite design uses Eclipse with 4 processes:

1. User interface
2. Business logic
3. Enterprise services
4. Show relations

Visual Composer View

• Visual Composer is in Eclipse
• Make rapid changes in Eclipse Visual Composer

FUTURE:

Composite Business Processes

Graphical Modeler based on BPMN

• Eclipse based
• Support key process concepts
• Embedded in SAP NetWeaver CE

“Here’s a business process model of what I want” – closing the gap with the developers; in CE ability to take model and execute in code

Process: Project Change Management; with swim lane logic, that actually executes code

E-mail comes in, a project manager wants to make a change order; request is send to the budget manager; use service (XML message) to send the order to a supplier

Business Process Experts do not need to know code

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End of notes.  Looking back, in 2007, there was a big emphasis on business processes.  I am not sure we hear too much about that any more.  Also the SAP Mentor program is now strong, and back in 2007 it was new.  SCN is now huge!