Live from the SDN Clubhouse
This is the first of my TechEd experiences weblogs. I am actually sitting in the very nice SDN Clubhouse writing this weblog. Although the XBox they have setup in the corner is calling to me, I decided that I should post this weblog before I play. The following are a few pictures of the SDN Clubhouse.
My Day so far
So far this has been the typical first day of a conference. Breakfast was actually quite good (for anyone that might have skipped it in favor of breakfast at their hotel). Before I start talking about the keynote session, I have to admit that this isn't usually my favorite part of any conference. I tend to like the hands-on and technical detail oriented content much more than the high level content offered.
I won't even try to comment on most of the content in the keynotes. Online publications will do a much better job of summing up the directions and concepts from this part. However I do want to talk about some of the live demos that were done. The first live demo was of the Java VM Container technology. This is the technology that SAP is building into their Java stack to create user session isolation. Basically they are bringing the ABAP work process model to the Java world. They actually even said that they were reusing components from the current ABAP Kernel. The live demo showed how a Java crash in one user session didn't effect other sessions running on the same server. The was a nice process overview screen that looked a lot like the one in ABAP that even allowed you to attached a debugger to a running process. I am amazed at how more and more of what I love about the ABAP environment keeps popping up in the SAP's Java world.
The next technology slide didn't have an associated live demo, but I found it quite interesting anyway. SAP is promising a higher performance BI engine in the 2005 release. They want a user experience close to what you get when you search for information on the Web using Google or Yahoo. To accomplish this they are going to be integrating a memory based execution engine in the core BI product. I wish there had been some live content to go along with this slide.
. Next up was a demo of the next version of MDM that uses functionality that SAP gained when they acquired A2i. I have always found the demos of MDM quite interesting. This is something that I think could help my company when we make new acquisitions. I am really hoping to get more one on one information later in the session on the MDM tool.
There was one slide on the Visual Composer, but no live demo. They promised that if we came back tonight to the SDN Jam session there would be live demos of this tool. I tried out the early pre-Alpha a while back and I am anxious to see how the product has progressed.
The final demo was a screen-cam of the new Rapid Installer tool. This tool is to supposed to make the installation of a complete NetWeaver stack as easy as installing a desktop application. For anyone who has tried to install the enterprise portal or WebAS, they know that SAP has lots of room for improvement in their installation tools. Hopefully this tool will fill some of those gaps. It still looks too early to tell however.
I need to be wrapping up this weblog. I have a session to attend called Best of ABAP - the Ultimate ABAP 6.40 Feature Show starting in just a little bit. I will leave you with a few pictures from the vendor area. Tune in tomorrow to see my views of this afternoon's sessions and tonight's SDN Jam Party!
This is the first of my TechEd experiences weblogs. I am actually sitting in the very nice SDN Clubhouse writing this weblog. Although the XBox they have setup in the corner is calling to me, I decided that I should post this weblog before I play. The following are a few pictures of the SDN Clubhouse.
My Day so far
So far this has been the typical first day of a conference. Breakfast was actually quite good (for anyone that might have skipped it in favor of breakfast at their hotel). Before I start talking about the keynote session, I have to admit that this isn't usually my favorite part of any conference. I tend to like the hands-on and technical detail oriented content much more than the high level content offered.
I won't even try to comment on most of the content in the keynotes. Online publications will do a much better job of summing up the directions and concepts from this part. However I do want to talk about some of the live demos that were done. The first live demo was of the Java VM Container technology. This is the technology that SAP is building into their Java stack to create user session isolation. Basically they are bringing the ABAP work process model to the Java world. They actually even said that they were reusing components from the current ABAP Kernel. The live demo showed how a Java crash in one user session didn't effect other sessions running on the same server. The was a nice process overview screen that looked a lot like the one in ABAP that even allowed you to attached a debugger to a running process. I am amazed at how more and more of what I love about the ABAP environment keeps popping up in the SAP's Java world.
The next technology slide didn't have an associated live demo, but I found it quite interesting anyway. SAP is promising a higher performance BI engine in the 2005 release. They want a user experience close to what you get when you search for information on the Web using Google or Yahoo. To accomplish this they are going to be integrating a memory based execution engine in the core BI product. I wish there had been some live content to go along with this slide.
. Next up was a demo of the next version of MDM that uses functionality that SAP gained when they acquired A2i. I have always found the demos of MDM quite interesting. This is something that I think could help my company when we make new acquisitions. I am really hoping to get more one on one information later in the session on the MDM tool.
There was one slide on the Visual Composer, but no live demo. They promised that if we came back tonight to the SDN Jam session there would be live demos of this tool. I tried out the early pre-Alpha a while back and I am anxious to see how the product has progressed.
The final demo was a screen-cam of the new Rapid Installer tool. This tool is to supposed to make the installation of a complete NetWeaver stack as easy as installing a desktop application. For anyone who has tried to install the enterprise portal or WebAS, they know that SAP has lots of room for improvement in their installation tools. Hopefully this tool will fill some of those gaps. It still looks too early to tell however.
I need to be wrapping up this weblog. I have a session to attend called Best of ABAP - the Ultimate ABAP 6.40 Feature Show starting in just a little bit. I will leave you with a few pictures from the vendor area. Tune in tomorrow to see my views of this afternoon's sessions and tonight's SDN Jam Party!
