37 minutes flat: That's an SDN response for you

In conversation with Kavitha Alexis of CIOL, Keith touched upon SDN and its activities and plans, SAP TechEd and SDN Demo, a new feature introduced at SAP TechEd India for the first time.






On the launch of SDN and SAP TechEd




SDN Started two years ago in 2003 at the SAP TechEd New Orleans. SAP TechEd was launched 1996. We would celebrate the tenth year of the event in 2006. Both the platforms have the same goal - to develop an ecosystem around SAP NetWeaver and SAP technologies. They are two aspects of the same programme. SDN is the virtual programme where the community will communicate with one another and TechEd is the face-to-face programme where they actually meet and communicate technical knowledge.





In the beginning, TechEd conferences often ended up as one-way communication, with SAP experts sharing their thoughts with the people. That was a time when we wanted to spread the technical knowledge as widely as possible to build the ecosystem. When we started, we did not have too much technical expertise but, by the time SDN was launched, the NetWeaver generation was already present. Netweaver in its original conception was ready for J2EE platform, which was more flexible.

Currently there are 2,50,000 members on SDN. The most vibrant part of SDN is the community at action in the forums. It has taken off in exactly the way we wanted it to. Now, instead of SAP trying to take the knowledge to the people, the community itself harbours a lot of knowledge about the different applications and products. The community is a knowledge repository and today, if any one has a technical doubt, he can post it on SDN and gets an answer in just 37 minutes! This is fantastic and SAP could never ever respond this quickly.

The next aspect is that NetWeaver, which was originally a technology stack, has now developed into a platform where new applications could be developed atop it. It is a very open platform. SDN is a channel for enabling the community in developing new applications on this platform.

On SDN in India

A year and half ago, I came to tap into the existing knowledge pool of the country for the SDN community. I spoke to companies like Wipro, Infosys, and Satyam, etc. to contribute in SDN. SDN is a platform that gives each member a sense of recognition among his peers and in his company. Thus it started and, today, India is the second top contributor in the SDN space. We have around 15,000 members from India in SDN. There is a large blogging community too on SDN from India.

On TechEd in India

Two years back, I came to India. Talks were held with SAP Labs. We started TechEd in India before it was started in the US considering the huge technical talent pool India had. The first TechEd was held in 2004 in India and we had 1,500 delegates. The response this year was much bigger and we attracted 2,500 people to the ongoing event. The enthusiasm among the Indian techies to take in all the knowledge and know how that is shared in each of the sessions is very high. Last year we introduced a certification programme and there was a huge demand among young participants to take up the programme.

This year we have introduced the SDN Demo Jam in TechEd for the first time. Here participants are given six minutes to make a presentation on an innovative application they have come up with on the NetWeaver platform. This also has a lot of takers. And we are planning it in a much bigger way next year.

On future plans for SDN and TechEd

We conduct TechEd in four countries now — India, US, Japan and Europe. As of now we have not firmed up any plans to add another country, but when we do it, we would definitely look at China. A key focus would be to increase the audience attendance in the programme.

For SDN, we want to expand the community beyond the purely technical community. We would look at the business process experts to join the community and make use of the modeling tools we provide for developing different applications, for which you don't need to be a Java developer.