Event Information
DKOM Montreal and my AWS Sessions
SAP has been having several DKOM events around the world over the last month. When selected to be a presenter at several events I felt honored but also a little bit unsure. I was unsure because I needed to select one site due to scheduling conflicts. I ended up choosing Montreal for a few reasons.
- The selection committee was very diligent and dedicated. They scheduled an interview with me and reviewed my topics for complete understanding, and this isn’t their full time role so I was very appreciative of their time.
- When I learned I could only attend one of my three accepted speaking locations I chose the first one to confirm with me, Montreal.
- It’s winter in Canada, who wouldn’t want to go? (turned out to be warmer than Philadelphia on event day!!!)
view from the plane landing in Montreal
Now of the over 500 developers onsite, most of them were not AWS developers. I presented two AWS (Amazon Web Services) plus SAP Cloud Platform topics. One was on how to connect Alexa skills to an SAP backend system. The other was on using AWS services through our SAP Cloud Platform via a Managed Service Broker.
What made this event special in ways I couldn’t expect was a few things. The people were amazing. They welcomed me in and made sure I had what I needed for my presentations and made sure I was comfortable. Several people thanked me for being there, but I was the one who felt I needed to thank them more for hosting me. Such a great group. I wanted to call out a few people specifically. First, my colleague on Developer Relations Kim Mecca for helping me find my way around town. Miguel Perez and Alain Gauthier for working with me ahead of time to ensure my presentations would be on point and for all things logistics. And finally to the COO of SAP Labs Canada, Cindy Fagen. Cindy was forwarded one of my silly videos in the airport and recognized me after my session in the hallway. She was so happy I made the trip and welcomed me to SAP Labs Montreal as a local. Thank you Kim, Miquel, Alain and Cindy!
me and Kim Mecca
me and my blue beard at the convention center
games in the hallway near the demo pods
So the two presentations I gave were pretty technical, but a developer audience has no problem absorbing my content if given enough time, but to really get deep and understand the plumbing involved, each topic would take several hours. I had some presentation issues with the screen but that’s life in the speaking world. What was amazing was the audience stayed with me. They asked questions and dove deep even though they had never thought about what would be involved in mapping a data call from SCP to a PostgeSQL hosted on AWS and they couldn’t see it on the screen! A lot of great questions about why use two consoles and what the security setup would look like. Here is a great blog post by SAP Community member Murali Shanmugham from last year when we launched using SCP as a console to access your AWS services.
a high level info graphic from Murali’s blog post
The SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit showing the Service Marketplace access to AWS services
My hope is to produce a few blog post over the next few months showing how this is done with updates to the SCP console, but also have you in the community let me know if you want to have a CodeJam where we walk through this over a half day session. We can spend time in the SAP Cloud Platform and also get some help from our AWS in team setting up the systems on their side that are required so you can play with these scenarios yourself.
If having a session like this is of interest you please contact Ian Thain to coordinate an SAP CodeJam focused on SCP + AWS or email sapcodejam@sap.com
I can’t wait to get back to the great city of Montreal Quebec, Canada. My neighbors to the north have a great city, a great team and make me feel part of something bigger. Thank you SAP Labs Canada!
sunrise on DKOM day in Montreal