Making dollars and sense out of SAP end user experience

Measuring end user experience can provide value to more then just your application performance monitoring (APM) solution.  At the SAP ASUG Sapphire in Orlando, FL I was able to show several C-level and Director level business associates the value of end user experience.  In order to do this I had to find a way to present the information in a format the common business person would understand.  I found that the way we capture end user experience in SAP was often confusing to the business, this was due to the fact that all the data collected about end user performance is in terms of the SAP t-code.  This was often not understood by business leadership.  In order to translate this data into something the business leadership understands I had to consult the SAP Landscape.  Inside of the SAP Landscape, if it is fully implemented, there is a mapping of Business Operation/ Transaction to t-code.  With this mapping I was able to consolidate the collected performance information and present it in a way that all levels of business understood. This makes it simple for the business to see the impact of poorly performing transactions within the application on the business.  It also gives the business an easy way to justify spending and resource allocation to certain parts of IT as well as track the improvement and degrade of application performance within the application at a business process level.  With this type of information the business leaders can make sound decisions with accurate data.

Eric Repec
Subject Matter Expert ITSM

Working in the Cloud

After the "All About the Cloud" show this week in San Francisco, CA, I definitely have a great respect for the future and possibilities of Cloud Computing.  I have seen several different technologies launch in my time but this defiantly has the ability to go somewhere.  I talked with several people who are making it happen, they are mostly excited about what is the next available service and how they can put it to good use.  There are, however, a couple of dark spots in the Cloud.  The two that seem to come up over and over again are security and performance assurance.  I am currently in a unique position to see a couple of solutions in both of these areas.  The security solution while complex with several different fronts can definitely be addressed. 

Two of the hot topics around security are membership and control of data.  The security problem, in my own opinion, can be solved with an open single sign-on system.  Maybe something based on SAML.  I have been looking at what Covisint has been working on in this area.  They have already been successful in creating a multi-tenant colobration platform for manufacturing and health care.  If they can be successful in securing these challanging industries they should have the technology and knowledge to repeat this for just about any other platform. 

On the performance front, this is where I have the most knowledge.  Back with InetSolution, I created a Cloud application, before it was even a known way of creating an application.  This application, which is still running today, provided a way to show check images within any banking site.  We utilized a B2B relationship with a corporate credit union to provide a web service (before there was such a thing) to query the check image system and return a list of available images.  The same service could then be used to retrieve the image and go as far as even applying graphic filters to the image, on-demand.  The whole thing could either be integrated at the bank's web server, via a proxy, or at the browser.  All of this came about from customer need, and that simple reason is why I am so excited that Cloud Computing has finally come to exist. 

After deploying this imaging service, we quickly came to the realization that supporting such a system is near impossible with the current technologies available.  I had to go back to the drawing board and build in a host of monitoring technologies to tell us when there was a problem and why.  Each touch point in the delivery chain was a possible point of failure, and without measurements from each tier you will find yourself looking in the wrong place for the problem.   Due to this challenge our Mean Time To Resolve MTTR was greatly inflated, along with the Cost Of Business.  We found, quickly, that if we don't get MTTR under control the cost of support would eat us alive.  Also,with the small consumption based margin we were making on the system we didn't have much runway to fix the problem.  Back then, I would have saved many hours of development time, if I had the technology which available today.  Having access to a service ping type technology which actually exercises / tests the web service at each tier as well as a easy to deploy end user experience testing facility is a must with any SaaS application.  Back then we had full control of our platform as well, these days with PaaS you have to share the hardware your service is running on so you must also have a measurement of the platform performance as well to identify if the problem is related to the platform provider or another provider down the line. 

In closing, I want to reiterate that Cloud Computing is here to stay.  I have seen, first hand, the challenges presented to the industry, and I know that they can be overcome with existing technologies, which are available today.  My personal, opinion is that if you are not working on a Cloud Computing solution for the future you need to start, as this will become a critical component in lowering the cost of IT and making your offering competitive around the world.

All about the Cloud

Next week I will be presenting at our booth at the "All about the cloud" trade show in San Francisco, CA.  I look forward to speaking with anyone who is interested in seeing what our products can do for your Cloud Dependant applications. 

Proof of concept appliance

Our field support team is now a proud owner of several proof of concept appliances.  This project, which I headed up, will streamline and lower the total cost of execution for our sales engagements.  This was an exciting engagement which had to be facilitated across several divisions of the company.  This week we are seeing the final product and I am overseeing the acceptance testing loop from the field support team.  I look forward to reporting on the sales wins and the cost savings associated to this project.