BPM and SAP Solution Manager 7.1 – destined for one another?

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

SAP Solution Manager 7.1 is about to be released in few months. In his blog on What’s new in SAP Solution Manager 7.1, Rakesh Ranjan provides a overview of the major pain points in the previous version and promotes how SAP Solution Manager (SSM) 7.1 addresses those. For instance, SSM 7.1 offers enhanced Business Blueprinting: easy blueprinting solutions with one BPMN compliant tool. My, my, my, one tool only? Is BPM to land in SAP Solution Manager, in SAP’s view? Are BPM and SSM now destined for one another, happily ever after? Continue reading →

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SAP HANA: 7 must-knows for IT Managers and Architects

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

One thing SAP is putting in the spotlight big time is SAP HANA. Officially named SAP In-Memory Appliance 1.0, it has one of the fastest growing sales pipelines for new products in SAP’s history, SAP claims. Well, a technology that is claimed to analyze massive amounts of data up to 3600x faster than traditional databases deserves attention for sure. SAP’s history also learns however to be cautious with new product launches – think Workplace, now NW Portal, or ccBPM, now NW CE BPM, or Business Connector, now NW PI… What must IT Managers and Enterprise Architects know before adopting HANA into their Architecture Roadmaps? Continue reading →

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To BPMN, or not to BPMN – is that a question really?

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

In the mid nineties I worked with a lot of senior SAP business consultant folks and all they could ever talk of it seemed, were Process Models. Brilliant models stored in the infamous ARIS toolset, created using Event-driven Process Chains (EPC’s). There even were EPC-based SAP reference models available from the ARIS vendor that were so large, they could probably wall-paper London’s Big Ben – and I mean the whole tower, not only the bell. To my observation, the interest for proper processes modeling however kind of faded away around the turn of the century.

In recent years though, a significant upturn of interest in process modeling can be noted – ARIS seems hotter these days than ever before. Thousands of hours are spent again on doing EPCs, linking these to classical SAP transactions and even, replicating these into (or from) the SAP Solution Manager tool…

And along came the SAP Business Process Library (BPL), standardizing on the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN2.0) modeling language. Now the question arises: to BPMN, or not to BPMN? What does this mean for the SAP community, and for SAP customers? Continue reading →

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What does it take to govern SOA-based SAP?

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Mendel Koerts
Some time ago, the Computable Magazine inquired for my views on governing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Well, I thought, on an individual basis each one of these two terms already have a high ranking on the Confusion Index.  Let alone the join of those two… So what does it take to govern SOA-based SAP?
 
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How SAP savvy do business-executives need to be?

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

Last week I was in a discussion around how much time business exec’s waste on IT, mainly SAP integration issues. Time they’d rather spend on doing what they’re paid for: growing a business. IT for them was too time-consuming, and too slow. What a opportunity for Services Thinking, or SOA/BPM! But it also made me think back of a blog by Forrester VP Alexander Peters outlining how big bills started arriving after ‘external technical architects had driven many of the “innovative concepts” from inside projects while learning the company’s core processes and experimenting with new development procedures. While senior executives supervised investments in projects, no one was responsible for understanding the impact of individual project decisions on operating costs.’ How IT savvy do business exec’s need to be’, he is wondering? Not that much, I believe, if… Continue reading →

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Single Sign-On – explained in plain English

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

Ever struggled to grasp the concept of Single Sign-On (SSO) or, ever had to explain SSO in plain English without using Tech Talk? A core competence I believe of Enterprise & IT Architects is to be able to make complexity comprehensible for all stakeholders. Let me share with you what I did when delivering an architectural Position Paper on the matter a while back – leave a comment if you think differently after having read the remainder of this blog… OK, let’s go, here’s my throw at SSO! Continue reading →

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How Talking Dutch can help improve your IS/IT Architecture

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Mendel Koerts
Don’t get me wrong – I am not saying everyone should learn to speak Dutch! I rather am alluding to culture’s consequences. It was an interview with management guru Manfred Kets de Vries about Leadership that made me realize again how Leadership style has a significant impact on the quality of IS/IT Architectures. How? Continue reading →
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Faster IS/IT Architecture success at less cost with a COmmon Reference Architecture

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

Speeding up your Architecture Development process at lower cost while improving the quality of your IS/IT Architectures – a main theme on the agenda in many Enterprise Architecture departments. Here’s a suggestion: Are you using a template format for IS/IT Architectures? And do the Enterprise Architects as well as the IS/IT (Solution) Architects use it? If not, you are missing out on a great opportunity! Continue reading →

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IT Architects and SAP – 7 ways to make this a perfect match

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Mendel Koerts

IT Architects are no longer a unique phenomenon in the SAP world. Or should I rather reverse that: SAP is no longer the odd one out in the world of IT Architects. Do we need IT Architects in the SAP world at all? Well, I believe the IT Architect role is really complementary to what seems to be in the DNA of many SAP professionals: a quite silo-ish focus on modulair functionality. Here’s 7 ways how to make this perfect match. Continue reading →

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If I can’t picture it… 22 elements of a Solution Architecture Overview

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Mendel Koerts

‘If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it’ – a quote from Albert Einstein. He would have made a great IS/IT Architect! One of the first things I do when I arrive at a new engagement is ask for overview pictures. Pictures that lead me from the high-level concept to more detailed views on the various architectural aspect area’s (or architectural domains, in TOGAF speak). Tragically I find that often, this is the first thing I need to add to the deliverables list. It only happened to me again very recently. I refer to such a document as a Solution Architecture Overview or Project (Start) Architecture. I shared some of my  Solution Architecture Overview examples from previous engagements with some SAP Project Managers and SAP Lead Consultants the other day – and they were wildly enthousiastic! Here’s what I believe are the 22 elements… Continue reading →

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