Hacking SAP HANA Websockets

Disclaimer: This is not a production or documented feature – its also more of a hijack than a hack  🙂 

I have been hoping for the inclusion of Websocket support on the HANA DB platform for a while now, and I was a little disappointed it was not packaged in the SPS08 release. My goal when building apps (or products) is to make use of the core platform its running on as much as possible, I firmly believe that when convincing an IT department, or company, to implement a product or app, the first question is: “How much infrastructure does this need?”. This can often be a deal breaker and why I am such a big proponent of the HANA’s DB + XS App Server integration – it consolidates the requirements into a single investment. Having a Websocket technology built directly in XS can be an additional selling point which developers are starting to expect these days. read more

Open Source Project: Metric² for SAP HANA – v2.0

After releasing metric² at TechEd Las Vegas last year it has had well over a hundred downloads, and has a couple loyal followers always offering advice and feedback (which I am truly thankful for). Last week we released version 2.0 of the free and open source app and subsequently put it onto GitHub under the MIT license which you can find here.

The biggest changes of the new version of metric² include:

  • A new UI (Twitter bootstrap based)
  • The ability for users to create their own account
  • A few new metrics
  • No longer uses SAPUI5 (a blog post in itself!)
  • The biggest change was the front-end/UI and the code has been refactored and split up into multiple library files (XSJSLib) and is simplified for easier reading.

The primary goal of the app is, and always has been to try and visualize your big data. Along with providing a self service tool to monitor and provide insights on the data you have in, and around your HANA system, while using it to the fullest.

Short Survey

I am in the process of trying to understand where to take the app in terms of use and direction and if you are interested in helping guide the discussion, if you have downloaded, used or seen the app I would greatly appreciate if you took 1 minute to complete a short 5 question, multiple choice survey here. read more

SAP Netweaver Gateway – A product powering innovation at SAP

While SAP Netweaver Gateway is a product not often discussed at keynotes, events and in the media, it is a integral part of the innovative products being launched at SAP and is core component of SAP Fiori. If you are interested in taking advantage of some of the new free Fiori applications to drive value with your ERP investment, understanding SAP Netweaver Gateway is not optional, but rather a requirement.

In a summary, Netweaver Gateway is a ABAP developed add-on powering applications like SAP Fiori, SAP Mobility Platform (SMP), and even Duet Enterprise. This small, but very important component gives your company the ability to turn your monolithic, big and heavy backend systems into lightweight, simple, consumable web services. read more

2014 Big Data Hackathon – Charlotte

A local tech company – Tresata recently sponsored a 24 hour hackathon in Charlotte around big data in the retail space. It was a ton of fun. I think I was the only person who brought along their own monitor, but I was quite prepared 🙂

My experience with statistical analysis, python and Jupyter was quite limited, so I decided to focus my attention on building a mobile focused use case with some big data integration and I ended up winning the innovation award. A pretty cool pair of Google Glasses 🙂