Blogs
|
Gartner, SOALogix, SAP Process Integration and all that fuzz
|
|
The Trigger:
A Gartner report that said "With NetWeaver PI's future unclear, don't use it for strategic projects"
Who is Concerned:
1. Customers who read the article
2. Colleagues and Friends in the SAP PI space (What is our future? Is this all true?)
On January 28, 2010 the SAP Mentors were invited to a session the objective of which was to clarify the roadmap of SAP PI.
The meeting was presided by Udo Paltzer, Solution Manager for NetWeaver Middleware. Joining him was Sanjay Chikarmane and Yvonne Waibel.The below is the summary of what was discussed;
1. SOALogix acquisition does not impact SAP PI. It has been acquired to strengthen the integration of project and portfolio management (PPM) solutions.
2. Committed to SAP PI and will remain invested for the development of PI
3. Emergence of Business Aware Middleware and SAP PI is a core ingredient
4. SAP PI 7.3 - The next release
Further details are part of the article by Jon Reed - Clarifying the Future of NetWeaver PI
Note: Posting this info on SDN since we have a very wide audience following the RSS feeds of the blogs here. Hope this information comes as a relief to many consultants who have been woring with XI/PI for long and also for those who have started their XI/PI journey :)
Shabarish Vijayakumar
is an Integration Lead Consultant with Wipro Technologies. He has over 8 yrs of Integration experience across multiple domains involving both A2A and B2B integration scenarios. He is a top contributor & a SAP Mentor in the XI/PI area on SDN. Shabarish has also co-authored the book 'The Essentials on SAP Process Integration - A SAP Mentor 2010 Series'. The views & opinions posted on SDN by him are solely his and are not in any way, of his employer.
| Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4. | ||
|
|
||
| Titles Only | Main Topics | Oldest First |
- such report...
2010-02-10 03:52:25 Shabarish Vijayakumar Business Card [Reply]
i am not sure how much effect these kind of articles can have on customer .. but in my case the customer indeed was worried. The advantage for a customer is that he can contact SAP and he will be able to get the required inputs. But incase of many PI consultants, they wudnt have access to such information.
I really appreciate what SAP has done by calling us into a meeting, giving us a chance to interact with the product team and provide updates and clarification on such incidents.- Gartner and SAP PI
2010-03-31 20:13:50 S. Gokhan Topcu Business Card [Reply]
Well, I believe Gartner has never considered SAP PI as a true ESB. I have been to several of their SOA conferences, and they never even used to mention PI among ESB products. When I asked the reason for this, their top SOA analyst replied as "Usability of PI heavily depends on general SAP knowledge so we do not recommend it as a standalone ESB product".
This is actually a valid statement considering how hard it would be for a customer to use PI where there are no other SAP systems nor the experience in their landscape, all the way from installation to monitoring the system, which is mainly because of the ABAP stack. But SAP intentionally has placed PI in this particular space, I don't think they ever intended to compete as a standalone ESB. They are slowly moving to a Java stack only architecture as it seems though, which could switch the position of PI in the market and compete as a more SAP-independent ESB, but only time would show the rest of us how the product will really be shaped out.
Although this latest report from Gartner was less rational and dependent on foresight rather than facts. I believe the stance they took against PI for years did make sense, considering the heavy dependency on SAP experience and being late to follow the latest standards on integration. All human ideas are subjective, and this is valid for companies as well. It is possible to connect this to a support from other vendors, or accept it as a pure opinion, but PI will have to prove itself by not only words but also with its direction to stop further reports coming from the market if it is to survive in the longer run. As the technology consultants, this is what we are all hoping for after hard earned experience and years we spent on the product.
- Gartner is the top IT analyst firm but...
2010-02-09 10:33:56 Gregory Misiorek Business Card [Reply]
i wouldn't worry about Gartner. they have the right to voice their opinion, but there is a lot of discussion how independent the "IT analysts" are. it's really hard to write anything negative about someone who is paying your (their) bills, so i'm not sure how much is SAP is giving them in business, but it may be less than IBM or Oracle do.- Gartner is the top IT analyst firm but...
2010-02-09 15:04:30 Vijay Vijayasankar Business Card [Reply]
It is funny how Gartner research gets used by vendors. Every time Gartner says something good about a vendor, the vendor uses it as gold standard. When Gartner says something bad - it is something like "oh some one must have paid them more".
Probably all the big vendors pay Gartner for something or the other - and although individual analysts might be objective, Gartner as a whole might not come across as non-partisan given the sheer number of big clients. MQ has a lot of big players in top right, probably because incumbents have an edge on viability.
Most analysts get some form of vendor compensation - Travel/meals expenses reimbursement for events being the most common. Most analysts do not hide this fact from readers, and usually this does not prevent them from giving an honest verdict either.
When Gartner said something awkward - and SAP mentors raised it as an issue,SAP did the right thing - they pulled their experts into a call with mentors and clearly stated SAP's position. And mentors in turn shared it with the community.
| Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4. |