SAP Training, day 1

I'm attending a SAP Training Class on NetWeaver Identity Management 7.1 this week. So far I've been really impressed. SAP has done a great job updating the training materials and the trainer is knowledgeable and well prepared.

Been getting some nice tidbits on what's happening with the future of Identity Management at SAP. First of all, contrary to popular rumor CUA is not being directly "killed" by SAP anytime soon. CUA is being condemned to a slow death as SAP will no longer be updating the product. It would seem, based on some quick conversations I've had with some SAP customers. I also had an interesting chat with a SAP evangelist, who was quite excited about IDM replacing CUA. As we both noted:

· CUA only works for ABAP systems (Sorry Java, but there's no provisioning for you)

· CUA offers no Workflow and little audit tracking (Audit, we don't need no stinking audit!)

Based on this, why would anyone not be interested in upgrading? Well, it all has to do with change. These are some considerations when making a change your SAP infrastructure.

· Old methodologies need to be updated. If you have been running CUA via scripts, they will have to be evaluated for transformations into workflows and reconciliation processes.

· Help Desk and administrative users need to be trained to use the new technology. While the training will probably not be extensive, there's still a real cost in time and money to do this.

· It's not broken , why fix it?

At this point in time, I don't know that there is a compelling case to make immediate changes to an existing CUA implementation. However, if you are planning on making changes to your SAP infrastructure, this would be a good time to review your use cases and see if there is a good business reason for adopting NetWeaver Identity Management for your SAP infrastructure instead of CUA.

More tidbits as I encounter them...