So tomorrow starts three or four days of SAP TechEd.
It’s a conference that’s being held in Boston and has a very
technical slant. There are several big conferences related to SAP,
including ASUG and Sapphire.
The point of ASUG is to allow different customers of SAP to get
together and share solutions to common problems and to influence future
development of SAP. Sapphire is really more of a marketing event so its
for executives and decision makers.

Tech Ed is the one that I’ve
been dying to get to for years. Because its technical the conference
sessions are really workshops about how to make something happen in
SAP. Yes, there’s a vendor section as well where you can fill up on
all manner of swag and I’ve tried going there before but it doesn’t
interest me much. This year I’ve decided that I’ll donate all my
swag to my kids. So even if something looks silly and like I couldn’t
possibly find space for something so stupid, I’ll probably still get
one.

The first session I want to go to is called “Single-Sign-On in Heterogeneous Landscapes via SAP NetWeaverâ€. Cool, eh?

Shut up. It is too.

Next on my list is “Identity Management – Streamlining the User Provisioning Process Between HR, LDAP, and CUAâ€!!! I’m also interested in “The Basics of Web Dynpro for ABAPâ€.

There will be a ton of regular lectures from ASUG and SAP Developers’ Network, as well. I don’t do a lot of
development, but I do some. And more importantly I need to be aware of
how things are done so I can fix our system when someone else screws it
up.

I’m all about fixing problems.

One thing I’m hoping to come
away with is a plan on implementing SAP’s new job scheduling
software, designed and developed by Redwood Software. It looks like it
could be an enterprise-wide scheduling tool that would be able to
launch programs on remote systems (UNIX, linux, Windows or mainframes)
after certain times or events have happened. Right now we use AutoSys,
which is a pretty great tool, but it’s also priced accordingly. I
could save my company a lot of money if I can come up with a way to
rely only on the new scheduling software which is distributed to anyone
with a Netweaver license rather than the super expensive Computer Associates’ AutoSys.

I also want to
link/synchronize all of our user records in all of our systems so they
all have the same information with different security. This will cut
down on the amount of redundant work my group has to perform.

I’m sure more opportunities
will come up. I’m pretty excited about this whole event. It will also
be my first opportunity to commute in to Boston and I need to figure out the best way to get to the new Boston Convention Center.

Right now it looks like I’ll take the orange line from Oak Grove in to Downtown Crossing where I’ll switch to the red line.
With that I’ll go one stop (or so) to South Station. This is the
station where all of the trains from south-of-Boston (incl. Amtrak)
arrive. It’s also the place where the silver line buses depart. The partially completed silver line is a very efficient bus that runs through underground tunnels out to the convention center, world trade center and air port.

What bugs me about this route is that it is a lot of transfers and it sounds like a headache. The MBTA has a nice trip planner
that also suggests I should go to Downtown Crossing then leave the
station and walk the 0.16 miles to the convention center. Only, I’m
sure it is closer to 1 mile than 0.16. Maybe their program screwed up
the decimal point. And if I’m going to the trouble of taking public
transportation to get to the conference I might as well actually take
it to the conference!

On Thursday evening there’s a party
that looks like fun. I want to take Liz to it. Our babysitter said she
could be at our house by 7pm. That puts us an hour late, but I think it
will be enough fun that it will be worth it.

On Friday night we’re having
the team I work with over for Mexican food. Well, no, although Liz is a
great cook Mexican isn’t really her forte. But we have a Mexican
woman on the team who has been criticizing our local Mexican cuisine
for years. (100% in jest – not mean-spirited or anything) I can’t
argue with her because frankly our local Mexican fare isn’t so good.
Nonetheless she’s up here and wanted to be able to show up what real Mexican
food is like but she has no kitchen in her hotel room. So Liz
volunteered to (or let me talk her in to) provide her kitchen for the
event.

So we’ll have a little get-together after work on Friday. It promises to be a VERY busy week, I think.

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