In the few minutes before going off to a session on what I think is SAP's systems management stuff, I thought I'd do another quick update of what's I've been finding here at SAP Tech 2006. Both topics require more write-up, esp. the more general and disruptive shift that something like using Rails with SAP is causing.
SAP Identity Management
Of late, I've decided to start paying much more attention to the world of Identity Management. As with most of my coverage, the reason follows an 80/20 rule: 80% because I'm personally interested in it, and 20% because of professional reasons. Getting navel gazing, I'd say that split in the reasons for doing What I Do is why I have the word "BLOGGER" on my badge at this event instead of "ANALYST."
As a side note, I read Windley's Digital Identity on the way up here, which was a fantastically quick and (I believe) effective way of learning the concept-scape of IdM. The IMA part kind of bogs down into a identity slanted version of how you get stuff done in The Enterprise and wrap a life-cycle governance model around it. In that I like enterprise software, it was great. But, the IdM meat of the book is really the firs half: just being "definitional" about what IdM is. Like I said, the concept-scape ;>
So, I was eager to see what SAP's Identity Management is like. And, to be frank, because someone asked me to check it out for them (see, those offers to find things out for you, dear readers, aren't just hollow).
Here're my notes from the session this morning:
I'll be posting more. For the person who asked me to check up on SAP IdM, the most relevant tidbit is: SAP likes Siemens IdM...who would have guessed that? ;>
Rails and SAP
I actually went to two SDN Clubhouse talks on Rails and using Rails in as a UI layer on-top of SAP. Believe it or not, someone has actually written a Ruby connector to SAP's "RFC" network protocol/connector. Thus, the Ruby world can access the SAP world.
The next logical thing to to start building AJAX and quick to develop Rails apps on-top of SAP then. As I'll outline in a longer post on the topic, seeing the two talks on Ruby, Rails, and SAP and then talking with the obviously sharp and passionate Dan McWeeney, of Colgate-Palmolive, helped finally crystalize a one of the painfully vague questions I've been trying to ask SAP: if we can just put lipstick on a pig, why do we need to buy a prettier pig?
The mindmap is embarrassingly brief on this topic, so I'll just omit it. However, if you can't wait for me to type up my post on the topic, here's an interesting way to start climbing into the web of SAP+Ruby, the forum on SDN devoted to Ruby.
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