There were several questions regarding the subscription program during Ran Cliff's session at the community day - mostly around availability in the UK - but also the most basic question: Is it useful or not.
I must admit that I was a nonbeliever when I first heard about the subscription program simply because I could not find any good use for it in my line of work.
The geek in me certainly liked the idea of having a delivery from SAP with tons of DVD's that you can install in your own environment and play around but my checkbook said otherwise - it's quite costly if you don't really have a reason for it.
What has changed now for me to become a supporter of this program?
Well, I am still in the same line of work but I have discovered several areas where subscription program could have saved me some sleepless nights.
I am currently working on an HR portal implementation that is part of a global SAP HR implementation project. Each system in this environment is secured and has role specific access to certain areas e.g OS level access, application access (SAP VA)
I was charged to build a portal prototype and asked for a separate system to ensure that I am not impacting the development team using the available systems. Unfortunately there was no system available and making a system available took 3 to 4 weeks. In addition I would not get access to SAP VA as this is only available to the basis team.
This was a bit of a pain point as we were eager to start with the prototype but it was simply not possible - I also needed to contact basis team frequently to help me with SAP VA settings, which was a tedious process.
I believe that I could have used the subscription program to setup the prototype and thus getting it done quicker and with less headache on my part.
Is this worth the price tag or should I just get some advil for my headache?
Well, if this would be a one time thing then just get the advil, wait till you have a system and be nice to the basis team.
It got me thinking though if this was the first time I encountered it and found the following scenarios where I could have used the subscription program:
- The SAP environment in my company is not on the latest release and with the help of the subscription program I am able to test our add-on products on the latest release.
- I am using an external tool to keep track of DDIC/Workbench objects from previous projects but is really not a good way of doing it (especially with ABAP OO components) and with this I could keep all those components in my environment.
- I had a customer project where I wanted to showcase integration of BI in the portal but was not able to do it because the access was restricted (and we don't have BI in my company) - now I can run my own BI.
- I have another client at the moment that is planning to do an upgrade to the latest release but waiting for budget approval, they can't get a system setup without the budget and I am planning to use the subscription environment to show them how their custom developed components can be upgraded.
Right now those are the scenarios that I came across - would be interesting to hear how other subscription members are using it!
I have only ordered it at the moment but not installed it yet because I am in the UK but the box has already been delivered to my US address. Can't wait to get it after the Sapphire/Asug conference.
I do hope that my laptop is able to run the systems that I need but I bought a new DELL XPS fully juiced and if it does not work on that machine that I will have a problem.
I understand that the trial versions can give me a lot of the stuff that I can get from the subscription program (except BI) but I really want to use it as a repository of past client projects and can't do that with the trial versions.
I had an interesting discussion with Mike Pokraka at the community day as he really would like to get the ECC components (preferrebly with IDES) added to the program. I agree with him but it is not really an issue for me at the moment. I also would like to have the full SAP ECC HR system running on my laptop and being able to install/run ESS/MSS BP's but I hope that I can use SAP ES Workplace ERP system for that - has anyone tried that already?
I have proposed a session on dual factor authentication with custom JAAS login modules for the upcoming TechEd/Asug event and if selected then I will show it on my subscription environment.
