There’s change in the air for SDN, but in the meantime I saw a tweet the other day from DJ Adams….

There’s not much chance of it getting fixed now, as the new SDN, as a new SDN based on Jive 5, will be going live
before the end of the year. However, the community comes to the rescue, with Sascha Wenninger posting a bookmarklet that is meant to take https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/26224 (with a title of SAP Community Network Blogs) and replaces it with https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/cs/blank/view/wlg/26224, with the correct title. Unfortunately, his one doesn’t always work. For example, it assumes that the url starts with https, which requires you to logon to SDN before you can run it. So I modified, and present for your edification the Unwrap SDN Blog bookmarklet.

Drag the Unwrap SDN Blog bookmarklet to your tool bar, go to Sascha’s blog post, and hit the bookmarklet.

hth

SAP has certified the Amazon Web Services cloud as a suitable platform for running production instances of some products. The Amazon cloud is probably the most well known of the Infrastructure as a Service cloud vendors. Before making any sizing decisons or or decisons regarding using AWS for SAP systems, please check the latest version of the Operating SAP Solutions on AWS White Paper (PDF).  This details the special considerations for SAP Systems on AWS, including some Operating System restrictions.

However, there are some other caveats and gotchas that you need to be aware of before putting any system (SAP or otherwise – even your Development, Testing or QA instances, let alone Production instances) in any cloud environment. It is sometimes tempting, even at a very high-level, to think of cloud based infrastructure as a form of what used to be called remote computing, where the datacenter is located some distance from the users, administrators and developers, just much cheaper to use and much quicker to provision. For most parts of an SAP implementation, this does hold true; users connect via NWBC, a browser or the
SAP GUI to a DNS name, and manipulate the information they find – they add to it, update it, share it, regardless of where it’s stored and the computer(s) used to perform the work.

However, this does avoid a key concept of Cloud computing which the idea of commodity virtualisation of everything. So, bearing this in mind, let’s explore some important lessons about Cloud Computing.

Lesson 0: Only the paranoid survive

Andrew Grove was chairman of Intel when he published a business book called ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’. It sounds like an awfully cold way to deal with business colleagues, but when it comes to down to me and the computers, it has been a useful one.

Lesson 1: SLAs Are Meaningless

You can’t compare any kind of hosting services based on their advertised SLAs. Instead, base your comparisons on their response to you and your company’s issues. Regardless of what they say, ‘stuff’ will happen. Yes, Amazon has a service level agreement for EC2 of 99.95% uptime, averaged over the last year. You would imagine that this was set (by Amazon) based on historical information. However, as they say in the financial pages “historical behaviour is not an indicator of future performance”. And when ‘stuff’ happens, where are you in the queue, for personal attention, recompense, or even just a communication of some sort ?

By the way, due mainly to the recent outage, EC2′s uptime over the last year is around 99.5%.

Lesson 2: YOUR Architecture CAN save You from Cloud Failures, but …

Disaster Recovery processes have two major SLAs; the Recovery Time Objective, which is a duration of time (an SLA, really) within which a business process must be restored after a disaster (or disruption), and the Recovery Point Objective which describes the acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. By the way, the O stands for Objective, not Agreement or Mandate (see Lesson 1).

This means that if an instance becomes unavailable to the business, they want a working system within the RPO time, with data loss of less than the RTO. This requires the same thinking and planning that goes into Disaster Recovery planning for an in house system. In turn, this means managing and planning for Disaster Recovery and Data Security, and allowing for the typical requirements of a Disaster Recovery Plan, except with a Cloud twist to them…

• You still need to choose the right infrastructure,
  i.e. Does your vendor have seperate physical locations ?
• You need to manage your view of the infrastructure,
  i.e. How easy is it to transfer backups from one physical location to another ?
• You still need to test the transfer of backup data,
• You still need to test the restore / restart of your system in the alternate location,
• Your vendor may provide alternate physical locations,
  but do you have / need an alternate provider ?
• and so on.

Lesson 3: There is a BIG difference between virtual machines and the hardware.

Things get a little more difficult at the micro level. Fault-tolerant environments are a centerpiece of the cloud hype, but generally, most developers don’t see, and therefore don’t think, about the difference between virtual and physical hardware. The issue with virtual machines (in-house virtualisation or clouds) is that the view from the operating system ends at the hypervisor. You can not see what happens at the metal. Now, for computer systems to work as we have grown to expect, certain things are sacrosanct. This is because without them, there is no guarantee that what we write will be there when we go to read it (this applies just as much to memory as it does to disk).

An example is the sync() or fsync() system call, that instructs the Operating System to write all the data currently in the filesystem buffers, out to disk. Now, in virtual machines, whether or not fsync() does what it should is a bit of a mystery. In fact, there has been suggestions that in particular circumstances and under high load Amazon’s Elastic Block Store, at least according to sources close to Reddit, will happily accept calls to fsync(), saying that the data has been written to disk, when it may not have been.

No amount of virtual architecture is going to save you from virtual hardware that lies.

Lesson 4: You don’t HAVE to put ANYTHING in the cloud.

The general rule is that if the machine / image dies, then you must be able to recover data, or restore the service. If you’re hosting a database server, then it will need to be restored or recovered. On the other hand, an application server is much simpler; just write some configuration files. Once you start looking at it like this, it may make sense for a more risk adverse site to put some server types into the cloud and leave others in the data centre. In short, Virtualisation and Cloud computing is not a universal panacea to hardware resource problems.

Of course, many people would say that “commodity” computing is a misnomer, because servers are not really something that should be commoditized, that a “pick one of four sizes” offering is insulting. To a certain extent this is true, but Cloud computing servers are so cheap that you can build around inefficiencies in some parts of the commodity offering by overcompensating in others.

For example, once people realise how cheap CPU and Memory are on IaaS services, they tend to go at least one ‘size’ higher than they would for an in-house server, and they still see massive savings. Regardless of what the purist thinks, it is becoming much more business-efficient to throw hardware at performance problems than it is to spend time investigating the root cause, which leads into …..

Lesson 5: You still need to tune and manage your systems.

In Cloud computing costs are tied directly to resource usage. The virtues of cloud computing are a double edged-sword; Because
provisioning systems is so easy, you may see developers running a dozen tests at once, instead of one after another, to speed up implementation cycles. This means any inefficiencies in the base systems used for such
testing will be magnified, which will directly impact costs.

Just as importantly, resource usage variations in your production systems will show up directly in the bill. However, the customer or business user paying the bill will want to know why these variations have occured. Are they due to different processing rules, different volumes,
program or system changes ? You want to see a consistent relationship
between the business workload and the resource usage (and therefore
cost). This makes budgeting and planning much easier for the Business,
and provides them with confidence in both the SAP support teams and the
platform.

Lesson 6: It is not enough to be secure….

…you need to be seen to be secure. Amazon already performs regular scans of the AWS entry points, and independent security firms perform regular external vulnerability threat assessments, but these are checks of the AWS infrastructure (such as their payment gateways, user security and so on). They don’t replace your own vulnerability scans and penetration tests. Because it may be mistaken as a network attack, Amazon ask to be advised of any penetration tests you wish to perform.  These must be limited to your own instances.

Being seen to be secure also means using all the features (including the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud) that are referenced in the AWS Security White Paper. This document, which is updated regularly, describes Amazon’s physical and operational security principles and practices.
It includes a description of the shared responsibility for security, a
summary of their control environment, a review of secure design
principles, and detailed information about the security and backup
considerations related to each part of AWS including the Virtual Private
Cloud, EC2, and the Simple Storage Service,

The new AWS Risk and Compliance White Paper
covers a number of important topics including (again) the shared
responsibility model, additional information about the control
environment and how to evaluate it, and detailed information about the AWS
certifications. Importantly, it also includes a section on key compliance
issues which addresses a number of topics that get asked about on a
regular basis.

Summary

There are differences between managing real servers, virtual servers and Cloud based servers. However, much of what is required for SAP landscapes and Implementations is the same which ever platform you use. In fact the BASIS team may be the only people who notice the difference. One of the biggest differences is the perception of control and ownership, because you can’t “hug your server” any more. What are the biggest differences you see, and how do you see them impacting you if or when your organisation starts implementing SAP systems in the Amazon Cloud ?

Some thoughts on the ‘On Premise, On Demand, On Device’ mantra which was very evident at at TechEd in Las Vegas this year. 

* There was less empahasi on the iPad and iPad nano (aka iPhone), compared to the impression I had received about SAPPHIRE (despite the presence in the timetable of the session CD125 iPhone and iPad in the Enterprise).  I do know that the number of Android devices on the the market has driven their prices well below those of the equivalent Apple devices, with the implication being that choosing one device type over another may make the difference in the financial viability of a large scale mobile rollout.

* Another issue was device standardisation (See presentation CD123 The Device Challenge – Selecting the Right Mobile Devices for Your Enterprise).  On the one hand, designing interfaces to be device agnostic means you end up with the lowest common denominator, but on the other hand, each device type does have unique capabilities.  One interesting approach with some potential is a product called Caffeine (you’ll need Code Exchange access), written and released into the public domain by an SAP employee.  It enables, the execution of ABAP on new platforms, such as Java (JVM), Android (Dalvik VM), the iOS (ObjectiveC).  The most obvious use case is where an ABAP programmer writes ABAP code (that runs on the device, not the server) and this code is used by device specific programs.  The idea here is that the ABAP people know the business structure and logic, and this is written once, while the device specific coding is handled by device specific programmers.

On the minimalist end of the scale, my team got a bit of praise at the Innovation weekend for having a simple HTML interface that used a server based PHP program with REST APIs to communicate with an application we developed in SAP’s River cloud.  This meant we could have demonstrated the product with much older technology than Androids or iPhones – an important consideration when dealing with volunteers and non-profit organisations.  A much more impressive example were the 2010 Las Vegas Demo Jam Winners Matt Harding and Al Templeton (BTW, I’ms not a barbarian, I’m a Tasmanian was made about these guys) who used an HTML5 interface for data entry requiring a modern browser, but still relatively device independent.

* As an aside, Rui Nogueira gave a presentation on Code Exchange.  Some people (myself included) had some issues with what we saw as onerous licensing requirements.  I was able to have what was effectively a one-on-one with Rui later on in the week, and have a seperate post percolating away on that, to be posted real soon.

* The current and soon to be released features of the Adaptive Computing tools (See ALM208 Adaptive Computing Virtualization and ALM214 Virtual Reality) now let you manage the entire stack, from the physical in-house AND cloud resources, right up to starting and stopping individual SAP instances.  There’s an argument that vendor specific tools may do a better job of managing these resources, but the whole point is that the resources at your disposable may not be vendor specific.  I certainly got the impression that the latest release (due out in GA early 2011) provide more than enough sophistication for a site where the majority of the workload is SAP based.  And the ACC tools come with the Netweaver license, no extra cost except for configuration.

 * BusinessByDesign will come with an SDK (see CD107 Developing SAP Business ByDesign Applications Using Partner Development Infrastructure), supposedly available to partners only, for creating and modifying functionality.  The version we got to use in the hands-on session was a bit clunky, but it was functional, and it was still a pre-release version.  From my perspective, the elephant in the room is that sizing becomes even more of a black art; Architechs can estimate what queries wil be made and how often, and the impact that this will have on system load (from hardware resources to virtual server to network load to preseentation device), but this can all be blown out of the water by a developer or end user ‘having a bright idea’  It’s a reminder that the physical infrastructure needs to be supported by a new (for SAP, anyway) type of agile process, to allow for qucik but accurate provision of the resources to back up demand surges, while making sure that they are in fact real demand and not caused by an error in the application

* To me the biggest takeaway from the conference was the one phrase, especially from the SAP mentors (I know a few and have worked with a couple of them, so I may have got to go and hear a few things I possibly shouldn’t have…),

“It’s not your Grand Dad’s / Grand Ma’s SAP any more”

Whether you’re part of a System Integrator or large partner, like I am, or an independent consultant, or somewhere in between, we all need to get up to speed on what tools and techniques are available to us and our customers.  While conferences like SAP TechEd provide invaluable networking opportunities, you don’t have to go…. for example, most of the SAP Teched 10 presenatations are available off the SCN e-learn page (search for the SAP TechEd 2010 link). 

But there’s more (no steak knives though) …

1) ondemand.com is an SAP site which allows you free access to perform BI analytics on small sets of data  (you can pay for more storage if you wish).

2) Sustainability is supported by SAP’s Carbon Impact on Demand,

3) the live Collaborative Decision Making site. 

4) Don’t forget the Development versions of the latest SAP software from Crystal Reports to ABAP that you can install on your laptop, at home or in the cloud.

 It also helps to keep up to date with the latest news; for example, did you know what was happeing to Web Dynpro Java ?- See The Future of SAP Java UIs – Breaking News and Customer Dialogue from SAP TechEd Las Vegas and Kiss of Death for Web Dynpro Java – The Follow-Up Questions.

I have an aggregated SAP News feed which includes most SCN articles and blog entries from the last 30 days, but also other industry sources (such as jonerp.com ).  Feel free to use it.

Life is changingg, SAP is changing, and while there is always too much information to absorb and lots of new things clamouring for our attention, there are easy ways to keep up to date with SAP the company, SAP the product(s) and SAP the industry.

I recently came across an interesting article on SAP’s SME Solutions – A Guide to the Product Portfolio. It breaks down the four SAP products for SME products by size, functionality, industry coverage, deployment options and cost of ownership.

The most important point the post makes is that there exists a range of SMEs, and that a one-size software solution does not fit all. This leads to some further points worth noting.

The smaller the SME, the less likely they are to adopt complex technology. While there is movement to Linux and open source ERPs (because of the TCO perceptions), when they do get into technology, they tend to select Microsoft platforms (e.g. .Net, SQL Server).

Because of TCO concerns, the smaller SMEs were the first to adopt software as a service (SaaS), and that model continues to gain traction within the SME market. The implication is that any SME strategy must include a SaaS strategy.

Given that its a blog post, the article does a good job of detailing the four SAP products that resulted from the new SME Strategy, albeit at a high-level view. While it won’t answer all your questions, it will give you a good starting point, especially about costs and appropriate products, for your conversation with SAP or your implementation partner,

Every two months ERPtips Express publish a set of three of their articles as a sample of whats available under their subscription model.

This months edition includes three detailed articles.

BI: Getting Optimum Performance from Your SAP BI/BW Environment, by Arthur Pesa.

This article acquaints you with the different dependencies found in the BI/BW environment that can impact your system’s performance, and how to properly assess them.

Data Archiving: Archiving SAP Sales Documents, Part I: Analysis, by Breck Whitten.

There are many loopholes that can leave old data unarchived, without your realizing it. This article covers some of them, which may lead you to revisit your Sales Document archiving strategy.

ABAP: Flexible Programming Continued: Using Field Symbols and References, by Rehan Zaidi.

This article delves into how to combine field symbols and data references using a dynamic programming technique. This is quite usefull knowledge for debugging as its quite widely used in the standard SAP programs.

These articles are available free of charge, but get replaced by new free content every two months, again fee of charge, at http://www.ERPtips.com/Express.asp.

…sometimes the presenter on stage is the only one who doesn’t know what the audience is thinking – because everybody else is viewing the Twitter stream.

The PowerPoint Twitter Tools, built using SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius, are now available.
To access these tools, download the PowerPoint templates from the SAP web 2.0 powerpoint twitter page, with usage instructions here.

These tools are prototypes and can respond slowly. However, they are easily embedded in your PowerPoint slide deck, and provide a real-time Twitter ticker feed, a Twitter feedback slide, a set of Twitter voting templates, and a Crowd Noise meter. They’re based on the SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius dashboarding technology, but come restriction free.

ERPtips (formerly known as SAPtips)is offering free access to a subset of their articles as they are published.

Sign up to their bimonthly Free ERPtips Express Newsletters and get freshly-published articles and white papers, handy tips, best practices and notifications of upcoming events delivered to your inbox, six times a year with no subscription fee.

The following articles available through 1 May;

• MM: Zero Superfluous Inventories with the Strategic Analytic Toolkit
• Financials: Collections Management FSCMCOL
• Human Resources: Understanding Retroactivity in SAP HR and Payroll
• Basis: SAP Role Creation: Guidelines for Planning and Implementation

http://www.ERPtips.com/Express.asp. A new set of four SAP articles will be posted on Tuesday, May 5th

(hat tip to @JonERP)

Just a quick post to highlight Jon Reed’s SAP technical and career related site

One useful page is the “hot skills” section which contains a list of hot SAP technical skills (although he does agree that “hot” is a bit of a stretch in the current economy). Jon admits to not being a huge fan of lists, but they can drive discussion. His lists (such as his SAP Technical Skills list), especially, I find to be thoughtfully selected, and his comments on why this or that item makes the list add value to that.

An earlier post of mine on certification linked to some podcasts and posts on SearchSAP.com I’ve since found out that most of this was organised and collated by Jon, as he has worked as their resident SAP career expert. Since I found this content so usefull, I’d like to point you to his own SAP training and certification podcast page. It covers (amongst other things) online training and the range of SAP training options. An example of his content, in this case on SAP certification:

One good exercise is to review current SAP jobs on sites like SearchSAP.com and see what kinds of skills are required. See how often certification is listed as required or preferred, and what other skills are needed. This will not only give you a better idea of what skills are truly hot, it will also help you to see how important certification really is (or isn’t). I think you’ll be surprised at how few SAP jobs actually require certification in order to apply.

Simple, sensible, straightforward advice, but…. its the only place I’ve seen it said.