Friday, July 22, 2011

Focus on Architecture First Before Moving to the Cloud

“The point of enterprise architecture is to look beyond the silos and create a blueprint for the business’ big-picture strategy.” Read more.

Friday, July 15, 2011

These guys are cool in the cloud

I just published a blog from the web site talking about a speaking op they gave at Cloud Expo NYC. Other Meshians might find it interesting, particularly if you have customer-facing roles. The blog links to the Cloud Expo presentation which was video taped.

Blog: http://www.servicemesh.com/posts/searching-for-the-big-win/
External link to the video: http://downloads.sys-con.com/download/wc_cc11e_servicemesh

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

SAP Upgrade Assessment' service for a flat charge

We can offer 'SAP Upgrade Assessment' service for a flat charge of $9000 US We can also tier the pricing, based on number of custom objects that you the customer would have (<5000 custom objects; 5k to 10k; 10 to 20k; > 20k custom objects etc.) The job can be performed remotely.
Here are our details...

Execution Model:
- you the customer should bring up a sandbox ECC 6.0 system loaded with the old objects
- We will deploy the assessment tool (Impact Analyzer) in this system remotely
- Run the Impact Analyzer tool
- Following are the deliverable's:
O Inventory list of custom objects
O Details of Source objects affected by Upgrade
- by Type (Reports, Function Modules, etc.)
- by Level of impact (High impact, Medium impact, Low impact)
- by category (Syntax Errors, Unicode Errors, Obsolete statements, Obsolete Function Modules used, BDC issues, Warning & Informational Extended checks)
O Effort estimation for Code Adjustment (to help on overall Project Plan)

We would like to connect with you and your team to discuss about our SAP Upgrade offerings. and how we can effect proper change in your upgrade.

Thank you
Christopher Carter VSP, CCSP
CEO/CTO
HiLn
12745 Townsend Rd,
Brookfield, WI 53005
Phone: 262.439.8391
Cell: 414.614.1394
Fax: 262.439.8729
PF: 414.892.5773
CMC@hiln-solutions.com
www.hiln-solutions.com
twitter.com/ccarter1969
http://virtualizationofsap.blogspot.com/
http://strait-talk.blogspot.com/

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Moving SAP From The Data Center To The Cloud Gets Automated



By Andrew R Hickey, ChannelWeb

2:55 PM EST Fri. Feb. 26, 2010
SAP (NYSE:SAP) is complex, there's no question about that. And moving SAP and other applications from development and evaluation into production environments and between physical, virtual and cloud environments is no easy feat, not to mention it's time consuming and costly. Cloud vendor AppZero is looking to ease SAP deployments and give VARs the ability to boost the speed of SAP installations while also reducing the costs. The vendor also aims to cut time and costs when dealing with SAP can give VARs an edge.
AppZero has just released AppZero for SAP, a solution that can chop the time it takes to deploy and install SAP applications and suites down from days to about 10 minutes across physical and virtual servers and to cloud environments like Amazon EC2.
Essentially, AppZero for SAP gives VARs, integrators and software vendors the ability to install SAP apps -- from SAP All-in-One to full ECC -- into an AppZero Virtual Application Appliance (VAA). VAAs decouple an application from the operating system and encapsulate it with all of its dependencies. Once a VAA is created, it becomes a gold image or single point of management that can be moved from system to system, stored anywhere and deployed among servers either physical or virtual and on-premise or in the cloud, said Greg O'Connor, AppZero CEO.
"You can pick up applications and move them from the data center to the cloud as one file," O'Connor said, adding that AppZero "encapsulates applications, in this case SAP" and that the process takes roughly 10 minutes.
The ability to automate application release management and to quickly move applications, like SAP, through the various stages like development, quality assurance, testing and production, adds a new level of mobility. Applications can be quickly moved from the data center to the cloud and vice versa, O'Connor said.
"They can run an application wherever they need to," he said, adding that moving applications from the data center to the cloud is difficult and usually requires a full reinstall.
And for solution providers, swiftly moving SAP and other applications is a solid differentiator. Christopher Carter, CTO of HiLn, a Brookfield, Wis.-based solution provider, said as more of his clients look to upgrade SAP or move SAP to non-production environments like a staging area or sandbox, they're looking for easier ways to move between the data center and the cloud.
"Compared to the competition in the market, if you can take a standard SAP environment and encapsulate it we can go out to clients and say, 'in 10 minutes you can have a server running in one of our clouds.'"
Carter said SAP applications and deployment stacks are complex and must be tested under real world load conditions to assess how it will perform in production. AppZero enables a process that ensures systems are tested for the cloud.
HiLn's Silver Lining Cloud Solution lets users start, stop, reuse, throw away and start new SAP clouds in minutes. A full SAP ECC 6.0 ERP suite can be provisioned, cloned and moved to a pay-as-you-go cloud environment.
Carter said reducing SAP updates and moves from up to 30 days to 10 minutes without the setup of hardware can ultimately save customers tens of thousands of dollars and saves them from having to stop production systems.
"That's tens to hundreds of thousands in savings during an upgrade or installation, it's amazing," he said.
So far, HiLn has engaged several organizations about AppZero for SAP and has built a specific SAP-centric cloud as part of its two-month-old Silver Lining Cloud Solution.
While it's still in beta, AppZero for SAP is expected to be available for general availability in four to six weeks. Meanwhile, Andover, Mass.-based AppZero is working with just over a dozen partners.
"This focuses on a very niche component of the SAP landscape," Carter said. "Firms are looking to take non-production-based environments to the cloud."
O'Connor agreed.
"It can take months to create a copy of SAP for training or a sandbox for prep; any non-production use case," he said. "Now they can be set up quickly on premise or in the cloud."

Thursday, February 11, 2010

SAP Training Cloud Pricing

SAP Training Cloud Pricing

HiLn has created the “Silver Lining” cloud solution specifically to meet your needs!

The Silver Lining from HiLn is a pre-configured training cloud with a SAP client pre-installed.  This cost effective solution is readily accessible for your SAP training environment needs, and eliminates the added hassles of SW, HW and ongoing maintenance issues for yourself and your internal IT resources.

Here are the Silver Lining packages available –
3 months                     $150
6 months                     $250
12 months                   $365

The packages include login access for one person for the timeframe listed, and are accessible 24x7x365 from anywhere in the world. For as little as $1.00 per day you can continue developing your skills in your own private SAP training cloud.

Contact us directly at  262.439.8391 or via email at
silverlining@hiln-solutions.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss how you can get your Silver Lining SAP cloud today!

questionmark

Friday, February 5, 2010

SAP Training System for $1.00 per day

Now an installation thats another issue you would need another piece of HW to run it on and do an install, maintain it as a part of your landscape do refreshes etc. Oh and then your BASIS team would need to maintain and run it.....Fun, fun for those guy's, or if your a solo consultant without a corp. prd. SAP environment. OR you can go to the Silver Lining!

The Silver Lining from HiLn is a pre-configured training cloud ready to run with a SAP client pre-installed. All you need to do is decide what you want and in 30 minutes you get your own SAP training solution to use as you see fit.
Best part is your internal team does not need to install the SW, maintain it, monitor it, refresh or worry about it because it is in our cloud.

you can train 24x7x365 from anywhere in the world. No muss no fuss for $1.00 a day you can be training....reach us directly at (262)439-8391 to discuss how you can get your Silver Lining SAP cloud today!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Oracle support for VMware in SAP environments

Happy New Year 2010 to all readers of our blog I am very excited to make a great announcement just as we start into business in 2010.

In the past months, I have spoken to many SAP customers that told me about ONE issue they face, when virtualizing SAP: Oracle would not support SAP production landscapes on VMware. While many customers continued virtualizing SAP on Oracle despite these restrictions, some did not and had to delay their project. We have worked with SAP and Oracle to improve the support situation and in Q4 09 the stack was already under evaluation.

Now, I am happy to announce that Oracle modified their policy to support SAP/VMware users as follows (see SAP Note 1173954 for details):

1. Since Jan 13, 2010, Oracle supports SAP production landscapes on Oracle DB single instance (no RAC) virtualized with VMware ESX 3.5 and higher
2. Minimum OS on MSFT is Windows Server 2008; SLES and RHEL are also supported
3. Minimum Oracle release is Oracle 10.2.0.4
4. Oracle will support VMware in the context of Oracle Metalink Note 249212.1