Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

To see full coverage of Dell at SAPPHIRE, please visit the Dell at SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2011 in Orlando, Florida Wrap Up post.

Day 2 of SAP SAPPHIRE NOW kicked off with a little bit of Hollywood glamor, as the Max Weinberg 7 (which happens to be Conan O'brien's band) opened up with a rocking set.  Later, they served as the backup band to SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe during their talk show format keynote delivered to a packed house in the theater and a webcast audience of over 100,000.

The themes of the keynote were how "mobile is the new desktop", and how the speed of in-memory computing will enable "Business in the Moment," which involves processing large amounts of customer data real-time, then tailoring business strategy and customizing the user experience for that specific customer on the fly, based on the customer's preferences and behaviors. 

According to SAP, mobile is an enabler of this experience, as smartphones and tablets would be the interface in which companies interact with and gather data about customers.  McDermott went on to say that with the emergence of new technology such as in-memory computing, businesses will be better able to provide the right product at the right time, in the right place, at the right price for customers.  

The analogy that the CEOs kept referring to for real-time, in the moment computing was a a school of fish that swims together in unison, continuously moving in perfect harmony to respond appropriately to their environment.  McDermott said that in changing times, businesses need to be agile like the fish to more easily adapt to the ever changing business landscape.

Cloud applications will play a huge role in allowing companies to stay agile and rapidly adapt to the business needs of the future. However, using cloud applications in an Enterprise environment can add complexity and introduce interoperability issues with existing applications.  

On Day 2 of SAPPHIRE, Dell Boomi announced that they are the first Integration Cloud to be certified with SAP, a move which will "help more customers – including those using SAP solutions – tap into the efficiency and innovation of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications" by securely integrating cloud applications into customers' IT environments without the need to open up the firewall. 

To learn more about this Boomi and SAP announcement, I went to the Dell booth at SAPPHIRE to interview Dell Boomi CTO Rick Nucci, who gave a great overview of what Dell Boomi is and how they can help customers.

Also on Day 2, Andy Lark, Vice President of Marketing at Dell participated in a panel session with Vince Kellen of the University of Kentucky  to talk about the Dell / Kentucky partnership and the unique demands of the changing nature of IT.  (Update 5/23/2011 - session video replay is now live at SAP and Dell Q&A - Success in the Cloud)

Vince Kellen stated that the University of Kentucky was facing an aging IT infrastructure, increasing budget pressures, and rising demands on their network, as students who had grown up with the Internet were putting strains on the system. Kellen said that many students have rising expectations for the level of service the University should provide in terms of the ability to stream video, allow for large file transfers, and allow for the use of personal devices on the network.

Kellen was referred to Dell and SAP after asking for help from the nearby Kentucky branch of Toyota, a company known for it's efficiency and lean production model.  Together, Dell Cloud Services and the University of Kentucky developed a strategy to utilize the cloud to manage the peaks and valleys of student activity.  

With the Dell cloud, no longer did Kentucky have to build out datacenter capacity to account for maximum load and then some, the university could "right size" their environment utilizing off premise resources for spikes in usage. Kellen went on to say that going forward, the university will use the cloud where it makes sense not only for cost benefits, but for the agility that it affords them.  He also predicted that in 10 years, 90% of his compute tasks will be handled in the cloud.

Kellen has repeatedly said throughout the conference that his job as CIO is no longer to just worry about "keeping the lights on." With the cloud, his resources are freed to pursue other projects. Kentucky is also excited about the power that new technologies such as using in-memory computing will afford.  The ultimate goal of the university is to use the real time business analytics mentioned at SAP SAPPHIRE NOW to develop a system that identifies students who are having trouble learning based on their behavioral patterns.

Kellen wants to develop a custom learning experience for students that need extra help learning, similar to how Amazon.com and Google are offer customized user experiences to their customers.

Andy Lark and the rest of the panel was equally excited about in-memory processing, and it was stated that we are at the cusp of making real time analytics happen.  Business Analytics data currently takes 1-2 weeks to processes, and by then the data is of no use.  We are now entering the era of real time analytics and they will change the game.

The panelists outlined a vision of the future where massive compute resources with SAP running on Dell connected to mobile devices would allow for customers to have a robust, customized user experience that would push relevant information to their smartphones while they are in a retail environment.

Lark went on to say that while cloud failures have made headlines recently, but those failures, one of the  #1 rules of Enterprise class IT is to not have a single point of failure and that companies should not soley rely on the cloud for all of their needs.  He said that with cloud computing, corporations have virtually unlimited capacity. The biggest IT restraint now?  Lark says it's what you are willing to pay and the size of your credit card.

In one more Dell led session, Gregg Griebel talked Treehouse Foods, a private label food company that is quickly growing through acquisition. With so many new companies coming on board in a short amount of time, they worked closely with Dell to implement an SAP strategy that allows for quick integration of the companies they purchased.

(Update 5/23/2011 - Session replay is located at TreeHouse Poised for Acquisition Growth with SAP Software Rollout)

More information about this partnership and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution built by Dell and SAP can be found in the official press release.

In closing, I interviewed two more Dell experts in the Dell Booth today who covered subjects relevant to the hot topics of the day.  First up is Mike Lampa, who is the director of Portfolio Development for Analytics.  In the video, he describes the predictive Business Analytics solutions that Dell can provide.

The second video relates to in-memory processing. As of SAPPHIRE NOW 2011, Dell has two certified ways to offer SAP in-memory computing solutions to customers. The first option is running HANA on a certified Dell PowerEdge R910 unit, the details of which are outlined in a press release on May 18th, 2011.  

The second option is to run a Business Warehouse Appliance system with the optional Business Warehouse Accelerator (BWA) in an SAP certified M610 blade system as described by John Ellis in the following video.  More information on BWA and Dell can be found on the SAP BWA page on DellTechCenter.