I am pleased to introduce ASUG TechEd speaker Doni Kessel who is the IT Manager for Animal Health International. Her session is ITM 231 SAP NetWeaver BW to SAP HANA Migration – Prepare Now and Migrate Quickly
Q: Please tell us about yourself
A: I am the IT Manager at Animal Health International, Inc. I manage the Basis, Development, EDI, Process Integration and Security teams, as well as the SAP consultants. I’ve worked for the same company since I graduated college in 2001. It was called Vet Pharm at the time. They were a $60 million Animal Health Pharmaceuticals Distributor that ran SAP R/3 4.5B. I started there as an ABAP developer.
Vet Pharm was acquired by Lextron in 2006, which is now known as Animal Health International and we are now a $1.5 billion company. We did a fresh implementation of SAP ERP 6.0 for Animal Health International in 2010, along with SAP BW and SAP PI. Some of my recent projects including managing our SAP BW to HANA Migration (we went live June 2013; very exciting), SAP ERP Enhancement Pack 6 upgrade and Data Conversion projects for mergers and acquisitions.
Animal Health International likes to innovate using cutting edge technology, we are often the “first” to try things (we are in the middle of migrating to EMC VMAX storage). We take risks, work hard and dive in to many projects. We have had great success due to an amazing IT department, great consulting partners, and maybe little luck.
Q: What are some of your hobbies?
A: When I’m not working hard on exciting SAP projects, I like to spend time with my family; I’m married with 2 teenage boys. We love the various activities Colorado has to offer, but our favorite thing to do is spending time on the lake waterskiing, wakeboarding and fishing. I attached a couple pictures.
I grew up on a farm and my extended family is very involved in agriculture.
Q: Tell us about TechEd
A: I’m excited to speak at TechEd, not only to participate in an exciting SAP event and talk about our HANA project, but also to promote the Ag Industry. There are many exciting opportunities in animal health, livestock production, food production and distribution; I feel it’s a largely untapped market for technology. But since healthy food is so important to society, I want to promote the industry and bring it into the spotlight of the major technology companies.
Here is her session abstract:
In this session, Animal Health International will share their SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) migration to SAP HANA project plan. Learn how to prepare your SAP NetWeaver BW systems prior to starting the migration to SAP HANA. See their aggressive project plan which minimized downtime and hear about lessons learned and factors to consider in your migration project. We will discuss what it takes to support an SAP HANA system post-implementation.
Be sure to add Doni's session to your agenda and I thank Doni for sharing her pictures and story. Doni told me she loves to hear other customer stories - so check out ASUG sessions at TechEd to hear more customer stories.
Related Links:
ASUG TechEd Meet the Speaker Tamas Szirtes - Using a Mobile Portal to Monitor SAP HANA
Meet ASUG TechEd Speaker Emil - Kellogg's Data How to Deliver One Version of the Truth
Beer and Analytics by alexp
Workflow Approval Anywhere, Anytime - Meet the Speaker Graham Robinson - ASUG SAP TechEd session
- SAP Managed Tags:
2 Comments
