Software Orchestration

Many years ago, the then head of DSAG, Alfons Wahlers, spoke of the need to orchestrate SAP's own and third-party software (DSAG Annual Congress 2005 in Bremen).

To date, many of these issues appear to remain unresolved. In the infrastructure sector, some IT providers, including SAP, are striving for a uniform view and consolidated management.

However, there are hardly any experts in business management and corporate organizational structures and processes who can control and harmonize the numerous solo concerts.

Theobald Software is one of the few providers and leaders in orchestration in the SAP environment. What is the challenge of integrating SAP applications with other software?

"The challenges can essentially be divided into two areas: Technology and business"

explains company founder Patrick Theobald at the beginning of the E-3 interview.

"When it comes to technology, SAP is still technically complicated to integrate. Even the use of open standards such as web services, since around 2005, as well as OData with Gateway - ten years later, around 2015 - has not changed this, because they have only been grafted onto existing systems.

The use of open standards is a fig leaf that does not manage to encapsulate historically grown complexity. Rather the opposite."

Many existing SAP customers have a long, successful SAP history, but this also brings with it many legacy issues. SAP itself is constantly striving for consolidation.

The complexity of integration on the business side results from the history and is inherent to SAP. However, there does not yet seem to be a clear, transparent concept for orchestration, and Patrick Theobald agrees:

"A really simple integration may not even be strategically desirable."

Not a solo concert

On the homepage of Theobald Software you can read that SAP cannot remain a solo concerto. And this raises the question: who is the conductor, what is the leading system?

"Ideally, of course, the conductor is the architect who builds the orchestration. You have to enable him to be able to conduct anything at all"

is how Stefan Reuss describes the situation for many IT users.

The business case determines which system ultimately takes the lead. Reuss gives an example in the E-3 interview:

"For example, a process could start in SAP and then be transferred to a subsystem, e.g. a quotation that is enriched with data outside SAP before it is sent to the customer.

The opposite direction is just as easy. The creation of new master data is prepared first, e.g. several departments have to add attributes."

A very important point for completeness and data governance: the data is only transferred to SAP in its entirety once it is ready to be created and is then managed there from that point onwards.

"Master data creation in particular requires a lot of agility and coordination"

emphasizes Stefan Reuss and adds:

"This works better and more flexibly with a SharePoint workflow, for example, than directly in SAP. But in the end, of course, it has to end up in SAP."

The new best-of-breed

Smooth data exchange and perfect app communication could give rise to the desire for best-of-breed. Is this a goal of Theobald Software? Patrick Theobald:

"Best of breed always sounds a bit like you don't want to choose one technique. But in principle it is, yes. We give the decision about the components back to the decision-makers and no longer allow external constraints, such as technical restrictions, to gain the upper hand."

Orchestration is therefore a new freedom for the community.

"Successful digital companies use insights from data to deliver personalized value-added services to improve the customer experience, unlock new business opportunities and reduce overall operating costs"

said Laura DuBois, Group Vice President, Enterprise Storage, Servers and Infrastructure Software at IDC in the middle of last year.

"Hybrid and multi-cloud solutions are becoming the new standard for companies that want to exploit the potential of data. But isolated approaches limit effectiveness and slow down the digital transformation.

The solutions must offer functions for structured and unstructured data on-premise and in the cloud. They must cover data protection and security, compliance, integration, orchestration and data location optimization."

At Theobald Software, the idea of orchestration goes beyond the infrastructure challenges of cloud and mobile computing. From SAP's point of view, it can be argued that NetWeaver PI already exists for orchestration. Why use the services of Theobald Software?

"PI works according to the classic SAP principle"

Peter Wohlfarth knows from his professional experience and explains:

"To provide a solution that can theoretically do everything with a very high level of consulting effort. But theory is far removed from practical problems. Our USP has always been pragmatism and agility. PI is the opposite of both."

And, of course, SAP is also trying to sell SolMan as an orchestration tool. According to SAP, SolMan is the only integrated, end-to-end orchestration platform in the industry that covers the entire lifecycle of an application, thereby improving the quality of operational processes and reducing costs.

However, the long-suffering SAP community is familiar with the solutions from Walldorf. A classic for the desired orchestration against all solo concerts was Duet.

To ensure that Microsoft Office and SAP ERP/ECC 6.0 do not remain a solo concert, the Microsoft/SAP Duet initiative was launched many years ago - and has since been discontinued. Why?

"With several attempts, Duet is a prime example of how not to do it. Technically, they tried to solve all the world's problems at the same time, but only a little bit"

criticizes Peter Wohlfarth on behalf of many long-suffering Duet users. He knows the painful history:

"And in an environment that was characterized from the outset by political tensions between the players, who don't allow each other the black under their fingernails and don't trust each other either.

The customer benefit has been pulverized. A product like this can only come from a company that is agile and politically unassailable. Microsoft and SAP would be better off concentrating on their core areas."

In the end, many experts agreed that Duet was a request by former SAP Chief Technology Officer Shai Agassi to be able to sell SAP licenses to all Microsoft Office users, because Duet always had to be licensed for all users of an SAP instance and not just for MS Office users.

What significance does the integration of Microsoft Office with SAP ERP and S/4 have today? Stefan Reuss answers this question in an E-3 interview:

"The importance is very high because the average information worker spends a lot of time in front of Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. However, the information they need for their work is often stored in SAP and then has to be manually transferred from one world to the other.

The same goes for the other way around. However, both worlds are particularly difficult to integrate natively. Technically, integration is tricky and time-consuming if you go about it the wrong way."

But even from SAP to SAP it is not always easy, see Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors etc. Are these SAP solo concerts also a challenge for Theobald Software?

"Funnily enough, customers who essentially only operate in the SAP universe are also an interesting target group for us"

confirms Peter Wohlfarth. A typical use case can again be found in the area of analysis. For example, with customers who want to use Hana not only as an SAP substructure, but also as a normal data warehouse.

"This works more elegantly and quickly with our products than with SAP on-board tools"

Wohlfarth explains proudly.

S/4 & SCP orchestration

What does the challenge of orchestration look like in a future S/4 landscape with an SAP Cloud Platform? What challenges will existing SAP customers face here? What is Theobald Software's S/4 and SCP strategy?

"In our experience, customers are very hesitant when it comes to SCP. In our estimation, development in this direction will be very slow and quite slow"

Patrick Theobald explains the trend in the SAP community.

"We have traditionally positioned ourselves in this environment as an interface manufacturer with proven concepts to bring back agility and performance where it is being crushed by the strategy of the big players - especially SAP, of course.

Major upheavals in the basic platform have always proved to be a great opportunity for us in the past. Especially when the big ones are not yet feature-complete or unstable, customers are looking for a remedy.

In addition, such tectonic shifts also cause customers to question their own strategy and perspective in general. The acquisition of BusinessObjects, for example, was a great gift for our business, because at the beginning there were problems everywhere and people were looking around for alternatives.

The same applies to Duet. Duet's marketing machinery played into our hands because in the end we were able to deliver what Duet promised. We assume that it will be the same with SCP."

Many software providers in the SAP environment have already developed SAP interfaces.

"Basically, you have to point out that even other software manufacturers very often have Theobald technology under the hood in order to implement their own interfaces"

is how Stefan Reuss describes the current IT market, and he elaborates:

"These software manufacturers are both our customers and our competitors. Incidentally, this also applies to major manufacturers such as SAP and Microsoft themselves - both use our technology in their products.

However, our USP is a one hundred percent focus on the interface topic. It is not an accessory or an enabler for another product, it is our raison d'être.

This results in a completely different standard of quality, stability and, above all, we have completely different options in the service area - be it consulting or support. The subject matter is too demanding to do on the side."

Digital transformation

A key driver for orchestration and the avoidance of solo concerts is the omnipresent digital transformation. This requires both the technology at many IT interfaces and the business in adapting business processes.

The digital transformation requires communication between all data silos and apps. For which applications can Theobald Software build IT bridges here?

"Traditionally, we come from the Microsoft world. That has also been our main target group for years: SAP and everything from Microsoft. But with the know-how, it is of course obvious to go beyond the Microsoft world"

Patrick Theobald explains his path from solo concerts to orchestration and adds what comes next:

"As far as data integration is concerned, we also support all common BI providers such as Tableau, Oracle as a data warehouse, QlikView, Alteryx, etc."

The future looks very busy, because there are still solo concerts, Theobald explains in the E-3 interview:

"When it comes to process integration, the biggest hype right now is the connection between SAP and cloud-based services such as the Nintex Cloud or IFTTT - If this then that.

Once the bridge to the cloud has been built, things like a bot can also be integrated, which, for example, provides information on the status of a delivery directly to the customer.

If you take this spiral one turn further, you quickly end up with voice services for Siri and Alexa that reach directly into SAP."

Obviously, the digital transformation from solo concerts to orchestration is in full swing.