Enterprise Architecture always fascinated me. People always draw comparison between planned-unplanned cities and enterprise system landscapes. I have been an Integration architect for several years now and was always curious - who an Enterprise Architect is, how do Enterprise Architects design landscapes, how do they make decisions on when to introduce /phase-out technologies and systems from the landscape... In short what does it take to become an Enterprise Architect??
Image: Planned Cities [Image Courtesy: EA09 Networked Solution Architecture]
The abstract of ASUG pre conference seminar on EnterpriseArchitecture - SAP Roadmaps, Innovation & Value abstract promised to deliver a lot -http://www.sapteched.com/usa/activities/asug_preconf_seminars.htm
So, when I came across the session, I thought this can be the start of my journey. Though the target audiences for this session were Chief Enterprise Architects, Sr.Enterprise Architects, IT Directors, CIOs, CTOs, I planned to attend the session to know what do these big guns think?? So, I jump started my TechEd experience with ASUG pre-conference Seminar.
The day started with a brief introduction of ASUG and Enterprise Architecture-Special Interest Group(EA-SIG) by Paul Kurchina. The next session talked about SAP's future direction - On-Premise(Innovation w/o disruption using in-memory & HANA-High Performance Analytic Applications), On-Demand (SAP Business by design, Carbon Impact sustainability solution and SAP Streamwork)& On Devise (SAP & mobility using Sybase) Systems & Solutions - a sneak preview of what Vishal Sikka later mentioned in the key-note.
Image: SAP Product Strategy [Image Courtesy: EA03 Technology Overview]
The key learning from this session was the value of SAPRoadmaps. What resources are available from SAP to help Enterprise Architects plan their Organizations landscape? How can SAP Roadmaps help organizations meet its goals by highlighting the solutions available today, the planned innovations and future directions of the entire SAP portfolio of solutions? SAP Roadmaps are available by
Industry
Line of Business(LOB)
Technology
Image: SAP RoadMaps
Using the resources available at service marketplace (www.service.sap.com/roadmap), Architects can create roadmap for their organization.
Also several "Live SAP Road Map Sessions from SAP"are available every month for consumers to attend and gain insight into the Future direction of SAP in their line of Business. For complete listof sessions & schedule, check Service.sap.com/roadmap -> Discover-> Go...
Image: SAP RoadMaps at Service Market Place
The Next few sessions covered Technology roadmap
NW-BPM & SOA Middleware (PI)
Enterprise Information Management (BusinessIntelligence, Business Objects & Master Data Management)
User Productivity (Mobile, Portal, Duet, OtherSAP UI Technologies)
These 45min sessions gave a high level overview on Current, planned and future innovations in eachof the Technology areas. The sessions are similar to beginner level sessions coveredin TechEd. After lunch, as we were running shortof time, some of these heavy information sessions were shortened to 30minproviding little or no value to the audience.
The next session at around 1.30pm was on SAP's TechnologyStrategy by Kaj van de loo and was supposed to address the On-Premise,On-Demand, On Device in detail. He covered On-Demand systems in detail and showed a demo on how easy was it to consume an ABAP Webservice on a HTC-Andriod application(a glimpse of Project Gateway). The simplicity with which he introduced new technologies and topics was commendable. I believe Kaj van de loo was a judge or in expert panel of Innovation weekend so he had to leave early. I wish, he could provide more content in the form of pod cast or Webex or weblog.
Image: SAP Technology Strategy [Image Courtesy: EA Technology Strategy Overview]
SAP Imagineering team showcased lot of innovative stuff http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/Img/SAP+Imagineering+Home
Case study of SAP Netweaver Streamwork at Valero demonstrated how the productivity of Business users increased when they were empowered to build their own dashboards
Demo by the team on Enterprise Widgets demonstrated the Integration of shopping cart to iGoogle and the ease with which Business user could approve shopping carts without logging into SAP Systems at the same time not compromising on security.
Demo by the Team using Paper UI showed how Paper can be used to interface SAP System and how easily documents could be uploaded & retrieved from Document Management System (SAP-DMS).
Live Enterprise - demo by the Team showed how events generated from Oil RIG tanker were sent to SAP system and how people could act upon specific events of interest (Glimpse of Event Insight).
Sensor Network Solution - Closing the Gap between both the worlds - by SAP Imagineering Team showed how events in virtual world could be transformed into real world and vice versa
All these were real Geek stuff and I was amazed to see how SAP has transformed itself from a 2 tier system to a system of infinite possibilities.
As the clock ticked 5.00pm, we were ready to disperse, loaded with information on Current, Planned & Future innovations and what technology can do !! As I headed towards the Speaker Networking reception my headed loaded with tons of unstructured raw data waiting to be processed and stored as structured data only when I wished I had HANA in my brain that would have processed all of this data in real time and ready for immediate retrieval...
Did the session meet my expectation? Was the session worth the money and time..? Checkout my thoughts in my blog My thoughts on ASUG Pre conference Seminar – “Enterprise Architecture – SAP Roadmaps, innovation & ...
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