Posts by Lonpfrb 30 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Apr 2022
So m$ wants to convince customers that their cloud is scalable and demand flexible yet they are too cheap to provision a preproduction instance for final change deployment and validation before going to production.
Leadership is do as I do, not just do as I say..
If you don't live best practice, don't expect to be taken seriously in enterprise IT...
The answer is Nordic tech from Ericsson and Nokia, the number 2 and 3 in network equipment manufacturing in the world.
So whilst european, still “foreign”.
No. Shared values:
- Intellectual property
- Fair trade
- Democracy
- Rule of law
- Human rights
Unlike chinese companies that are controlled by the PRC.
The cost of buying chinese is not just money but putting our values at risk. Supporting the PRC to dominate the world through the 'Belt and Road' initiative makes no sense and makes for global suffering.
Only an ignorant fool would buy chinese. It's the only vote you have with PRC...
Strategically illiterate decision making looks only at the apparent short term cost advantage of lower unit cost and never at sovereign capabilities nor dependence on transactional entities who do not share our values.
Thus insightful government is forced to play the security card to stop the morons who only chase the quick buck with no concern for the national interest.
Alternatively a government populated by non STEM graduates doesn't care but wonders why productivity is low and the balance of payments is shot.
Still could be worse: TUPE to HCLT..
Configuration of a flexible application for the use cases of business value for customers does not change much from new use cases enabled by machine learning. For example, partner products have been learning about vendor invoices and populating SAP for decades, requiring a stable API to do so.
Many customers don't want to invest in process and functionality Configuration specialists, preferring a project and responsible vendor to take that on. Scope, cost and time being what purchasing people are comfortable to manage.
So AI can enable functions and features that don't get done by the standard application but are not required to make standard work.
Because much of AI is new, the proof points are needed yet competitive advantage suggests should not be given away as though they are worthless..
Will that mean less temporary help is needed?
I doubt that.
The evidence is that migration on a well supported and structured path between two products from one vendor is completely different to reimplementation on another product from another vendor.
A few major vendors have invested in tools to migrate from their main competitors in an effort to close the gap. However still not a trivial exercise.
Never underestimate the importance and difficulty of integration in enterprise solutions, typically 40% of effort when done well, otherwise more.
In summary 'easily migrate', not likely.
Such enterprises have decided that their business is not enterprise software applications life cycle management so that a specialist will be more effective to do it. That out sourcing has consequences so that cost of ownership is a business concern.
What SAP says is that your business has cost benefit levers and can choose where to put them. For decades customers were allowed to fall behind the fully supported software however the pace of change demanded by customers and the costs they accept no longer allow a tail of hundreds of supported language, jurisdiction and product permutations.
This is an application life cycle management challenge that any significant vendor must manage on behalf of all customers but its inevitable that some can't be educated and enabled to take timely action. That's just human behaviour...
The SAP Movement opportunity has been available for a long time, with ever improving tools to enable customer success.
The move from on premise to cloud infrastructure has been the low hanging fruit to move from capital expenditure on premises to operational expenditure in the cloud. However this just provides financial benefit as ECC remains. The infra move to cloud can deliver an opportunity to start with HANA, so ditch database licence costs and do some limited code improvement. But the bigger benefits are in S/4.
To get a transformation to S/4HANA requires migration of your distinctive enhancements or a fit to standard approach to deal with long term cost of ownership challenges.
The UX improvement opportunity can be started on ECC Fiori but that transformation is not complete so still requires Enterprise Portal to bring it all together.
S/4 provides Fiori UX (UI5) as the foundation and the ability to keep the core clean while side by side extension on Business Technology Platform (BTP) integrates with a single design language.
S/4HANA private cloud edition (PCE) provides both infra and application cloud platform benefits with the ability to integrate SAP and 3rd party services in a scalable hybrid architecture. Key for reluctant DSAG users is the ability to use familiar ABAP extensions (RAP) or modernise to supported languages or bring your own language (CAP).. Test automation and CI/CD help to keep cost of ownership under control within the Cloud ALM framework.
Extended support may buy a little time to smooth the human resource limitations but well supported applications are a real business requirement and the innovation by SAP the competitive advantage icing on the cake. If you snooze, you loose..
With the widespread introduction of 20 mph zones in metropolitan areas, there is a good case for raising the arbitrary 15 mph e-bike limit to 20 mph so that impatient car drivers don't attempt unsafe overtakes in the 20 mph zone. Everyone moving at the same speed is likely to be safer, so support the Active Travel objectives.
Safety first.
WAAS may be adequate for general use (free) and Differential for survey grade 1cm accuracy at the cost of specific equipment ££. The RTK equipment sits between those as a 10cm accuracy at more modest cost. So very suitable for vehicle guidance e.g. Combine Harvesters or Tractors.
This innovation has potential for RTK level results with only software rather than RTK equipment. Effectively the other handsets are that equipment.
What would be given to enable that and is it clearly described in the privacy agreement?
RTK GNSS has no need for network and data sharing on the internet.
"no easy migration path from one SAP release to the next" is generally an untrue allegation. Rather huge effort has been put into the upgrade path for customers.
HR line of business will have mandated legal change upgrades so finance is required to align which means no case for delay to upgrades. Configuration will be fine, but custom code will depend on the continued use of sap enhancement concepts to be upgrade safe, as we built it, and not creating technical debt through poor practices.
However SAP has been very clear that ECC 6 is EOL 2027 and S/4 Hana is the strategic direction but not a succession product with an automated upgrade path. The BCC decision to Fit to Standard is perfect for S/4 green field implementation.
New infrastructure is required for S/4 but by now the infra would be worn out despite several hardware refresh actions e.g: 20 years / 5 years depreciation cycle.
Whichever ERP is chosen the implementation partners experience and understanding is key to enable making good (low TCO) decisions. The leadership and discipline to Fit to Standard is not easy, and that failure is how to over run by 4 times.
Knowing that the management know next to nothing about AI except that "it's the Future" gives FOMO leverage to push the gullible to a deal they don't understand.
Actually the standard enhancement concepts have enabled a standard data model with customer enhancements in additional structures or tables. It's easy to ignore the enhancements and train the machine learning on standard.
Further SAP has designed the Graph data model with simplification and interoperability in mind so an API-centric model is available too. Scalable too, with on-prem and PCE workloads remote over OSS.
This seems like a heap of avoidable stress and bad press that has technical mitigation available now. Just data access/privacy to fix..
Or could it be grasping at straws to please (potential) investors...
We're SaaS! Yeah!
"Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?" Is a click-bait headline, which has worked since you are here!
The great majority of business processes in finance, controlling, human resources, purchasing, asset management and customer service are the same as any business enterprise. The law is the same so all enterprises have to operate in compliance. Yes there are exceptions specific to a council but the great majority is in common so that a fit to standard processes approach will deliver the core solution and leave time & money to deal with the exceptions.
That was true when the SAP solution was built and is still true now so should have been leveraged for its replacement with another software package.
This looks like the package implementation partners didn't enable the council with the correct approach for success.
A sad waste of public funds and stress on council employees that could have been avoided..
The end of life for ECC 6 has been announced for several years so this is a bogus call by DSAG.
SAP has provided interim continuity with many of its Add-On products so that migration to the strategic product doesn't have to happen at the same time as S/4. For example keep HCM instead of going to Success Factors.
Employee Central Payroll is a cloud instance of HCM PY that could be a model for IS-H continuity if SAP chose to follow their own pattern.
When we built the predecessor SAP solution it was not simple but we did make it work and not 400% over budget while late, too.
Understandable that BCC would choose a non SAP solution if they were not aware of Fiori UI which is a revolution in UX, and didn't understand the S/4 Conversation opportunity to return to Standard processes wherever possible.
Fundamentally the competence of implementation partners is key as well as making informed decisions.
Without the discipline to Fit to Standard directed from the top the mistake of excessive customising would just be repeated with woeful risk and total cost of ownership results.
A sad waste of public funds and fully avoidable .
I value critical thinking so agree some scepticism is justified.
On Private Cloud Edition the reference architecture is three tier (development, test and production environments) where change is expected or two tier (test and production environments) where deploy not change is expected. Important to understand that change is software change not configuration that doesn't change the software just selects which option is wanted. Thus there is no loss of change control on PCE compared to OnPrem deployment.
The expectation with PCE is one Release of the SAP products per year which is different from the quarterly release cycle on Public Cloud Edition. Private Cloud Edition allows changes to the enhancement points available within the supported Enhancement Concepts, i.e. are upgrade safe. The full range of unsafe changes that were possible OnPrem are not supported, which is good as much costly junk can be avoided.
So SAP customers have the choice to Convert their local junk (Brown field) or accept that it's junk and go back to standard processes (Green field).
Finance people like to pretend that their OnPrem junk is an Asset so they can 'Capitalise' the implementation project and claim tax credits for Research and Development. Thus they can depreciate the asset over some years and so reduce taxable profits.
Not surprising that DSUG corporate users don't accept this treatment of their history. They have to decide if they want to deploy standard at lower cost or if they are in the software business..
The SAP ECC solution was not customised by BCC rather delivered as close to standard by Axon Solutions Ltd. Most of the customisation was integration to other BCC applications, as usual. Service Birmingham was responsible for application management so presumably would still know a lot about how it works.
It didn't take five years to implement SAP ECC so clearly the approach is not well suited to Oracle software and the implementation partners. Similarly conversation from SAP ECC to S/4 HANA doesn't take five years so given the standard Migration tools this was likely a political decision to use another software vendor.
Clearly S/4 HANA private cloud edition ticks the cloud box on a range of hyper-scalers. So freedom from legacy hardware and data centres is readily available.
In my experience of implementing SAP ECC 6 at Birmingham City Council, yes. That was on time and budget despite the complexity and historic issues that had to be solved. As a buyer of goods and services the council has lots in common with most businesses. However differences too as the care system doesn't work without the well meaning amateurs who will never be business people. Not a criticism just the reality that much of it doesn't make business sense so isn't run as a business.
I'm not surprised that Oracle custom solutions are risky and expensive since the same can be true of SAP, especially if the implementation partners aren't experienced.
Given that is not a description of the EY people that I have met, there's probably more to this than either party will say.
Compared to RPI, the general measure of industrial greed, 3% sounds restrained.
Compared to many service vendors with RPI+ annual rises, i.e. SAP customers, again quite modest.
Nobody likes a price rise but anybody in business knows that increased costs can't be just absorbed without impact.
The root cause of this is in the Kremlin not in Waldorf.
SAP Business Suite end of standard support is 2027 not 2025. Whilst it's possible to go live in as little as 3 months most customers would be more comfortable with 24 months so 2025 is the decision deadline in practice.
Obviously the demand will be huge due to the deadline and the supply is limited so best value to act now to avoid cost or worse being out of support.
ECC 6.0 on Netweaver 7.5 is currently in standard support by SAP that ends 2027, when extended support is available through 2030. After that it's end of life. Dead.
So this article is two years out. That's more like the last dates to start a project given that 18 to 24 months would be typical.
Your milage may vary, and other support providers are available.
S/4 HANA Private Cloud Edition will allow Enhancement to standard if you really believe that the total cost of ownership is worth it..
The evidence is that more than 70% of custom code is not used so customers are deluded in believing that custom code is needed.
Clear leadership and governance are required as most customers are not in the software business...
"Who in their right mind is buying into this hyper expensive constant-financial-drain nonsense in the first place?"
I remember when relational database was the thing that RTI and Informix sold product excellence to the IT department, while Oracle sold to the Business and that success allowed their initially inferior product to get the investment to be equal or better than their competition.
So Oracle have a long history of selling to the business who will not take a technology or even financial perspective on the costs and benefits.
The SaaS subscription model is vendor specific and may well obscure the actual cost, both financial and technical..
"Sometimes it's actually essential to the business."
Sometimes, yet mostly it is not, more likely just a business preference based on what their previous application did. The data is that 60% or more of custom code is not used in a typical package implementation. It's a testament to poor leadership and lack of focus on the true business objectives.
So while some think cloud is about the financial advantage of moving from capital investment in infrastructure to operational expenses for services, there's also the possibility that the C-suite just wants the usual processing done at low cost of ownership and without the option to create a money pit for little benefit.
If you really do have something distinctive to do the clean core and side extension model will provide the best of both in enabling innovation without those extensions compromising the core..
You might call that SaaS + PaaS.
Moving from the mainframe technology of R/2 DynPro to R/3 kept the business application safe while the runtime looked after the different presentation layers (3270,GUI). So that made sense for SAP standard and customer bespoke application code.
The various attempts to become web enabled; WebDynpro, BSP, ICM, Mobile, showed that a better presentation layer was needed for a multi-channel user experience that was app simple and business process focused. Fiori is that presentation layer and started to give focus to the user experience from Business Suite (ECC 6) onwards.
Innovation with Fiori 3 design has enabled SAP to integrate the UX of all their historically diverse products into one, which returns to the appearance of a single application, whilst really being scaled across multiple cloud instances.
Underneath Fiori the OData services move to a service oriented architecture to better support working at scale in the cloud.
Of course Fiori is the standard presentation in S/4 working on premise and in the cloud. So both SAP Intelligent Suite and customer extensions are safe investments or operational expenses as you choose.
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