PAM Integration Projects – PAM Integration Projects –

Challenges and Lessons learnedChallenges and Lessons learned

eyal.kedem@freundsoft.com

On LinkedIn

IT Architect, Manager

freundsoft GmbH, Switzerland

● This presentation covers a review of 2 service catalog implemention projects involving PAM

integrations in a mixed vendor landscape

● We will focus on the first one today

● The second and more recent one will be addressed in a CA world 2013 session in Las Vegas,

● CC023SN Leveraging Process Automation as a Team Augementor

● The purposes of this presentation –

● Reflect, share, learn and Improve for the future

● Warning: Not theoretical solutions but our pure field experience

● Your comments are welcome, just raise hands and be able to chat

Introduction

Agenda

● General Infos

● Who we are: freundsoft GmbH

● Our case customers: AMAG and "COMPANYX"

● PAM integration projects brief overview

● PAM Process in details from the Service Catalog Project at AMAG

● How does it work

● Challenges and how they were handled

● Lessons learned

● Q + A + Closing

General InfosGeneral Infos

● CA Partner for CA Service Management suite and CA Clarity PPM

● Located in Switzerland, was established 2007

● About 30 Customers in Switzerland

● Activities:

● Provide implementations and Trainings for CA tools

● .NET / Java / perl / Webservices Development

● Integrations of known products

● Team:

● Previously worked for CA, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

● Masters in computer Science and administration

Who we are – freundsoft GmbH

● Business: Importing, marketing and reselling cars

● About 25% market share in Switzerland

● Brands: Audi, VW, SEAT, Skoda, Porsche

● Activities:

● Car Import

● Garages throughout Switzerland

● Largest car parts warehouse in Switzerland

● Sized 10000 users

Customer - AMAG AG

● International, headquarters in Switzerland

● Manufacturing electronics industry

● One of the world leaders in its area

● Sized 2500 users

CUSTOMER – "COMPANYX"

What about you ?

● What is your main responsibility ?

● PAM Processes Developer / Designer,

● Business Analyst / Project Manager /

● C Management

● Vision

● Enable a company catalog to AMAG’s customers and subsidiaries with emphasis on automation

● Targets:

● Enable the windows 7 rollout to about 4000 PCs and Laptops

● Cover all sorts of software: payable, free of charge, bundled, seperate

● Enable rollout of IP telefony subscription

● Enable IT shop orders and particules

● Enable Printer services

● Enable monthly financial subscriptions

● Enable the handling of related support activities

project Overview - AMAG

● Involved Applications and Solutions:

● CA ITCM, IP telefonie, some excels

● CA Catalog 12.6

● CA Service Desk 12.5

● PAM 3.1 SP1

● CA WF – for historical reasons

● CABI 3.2 SP5

● SAP

project Overview – AMAG /2

● Catalog buildup – PAM is the enabler

● Ordering – manual and automated

● Approval – CA WF is the enabler / history reasons

● Fulfillment – CA WF and PAM are enablers

● Accounting – PAM is the enabler

AMAG – Covered Processes

AMAG – A glimpse – User Views

AMAG – A glimpse – Behind the Scenes

ITCM to Catalog

Catalog to ITCM

● Vision

● Enable a company catalog to "COMPANYX" and Subsidiaries with emphasis on automation,

approval and unified employee role structure

● Targets:

● Catalog is focused on next areas:

● HR Services: New users, Leavers, Role changes within the organisation

● IT Shop

● Home Usage and ASP portal Services

● Emphasis on automation

● Streamline approval processes globally

● Streamline Role structure globally

project Overview - "COMPANYX"

● Involved Applications and Solutions:

● Microsoft Active Directory

● CA Catalog 12.7 CUM1

● CA Service Desk 12.6

● PAM 3.1 SP1 – used for all integrations

● CABI 3.2 SP5

● CA ITCM

project Overview – "COMPANYX" /2

● PAM is the enabler of all processes:

● Catalog auto population from AD: Service Option Groups, Service options, Services, etc.

● Ordering and Approval

● Fulfillment

● Reporting

● Accounting - future

"COMPANYX"– Covered Processes

"COMPANYX" – A glimpse – User View

"COMPANYX"– Behind the Scenes

Catalog Population - ActiveDirectory to Catalog

"COMPANYX"– Behind the Scenes /2

Approval Processes run by PAM

"COMPANYX"– Behind the Scenes /3

Fulfillment Processes run by PAM

What about you ?

● Using PAM version:

● PAM 3,

● PAM 4,

Pam Process in details from the Pam Process in details from the

Service Catalog Project at AMAG Service Catalog Project at AMAG

How does it work - Catalog Buildup in Details

CAITCM to Catalog

The Order process

How does it work - Catalog Buildup in Details /2

The Auto Fulfillment Process

How does it work - Catalog Buildup in Details /3

How does it work – behinds the scenes in Details

Read infos from ITCM MDB

Read infos from the Catalog MDB

How does it work – behinds the scenes in Details /2

Main Create / Update loop

Steps: -Email infos preps

How does it work - behinds the scenes in Details /3

How does it work - behinds the scenes in Details /4

Steps: -Closings

How does it work - behinds the scenes in Details /5

Exception Handler

What about you ?

● Using in conjunction with which tools:

● Service Desk,

● Service Catalog,

● Other

● Stand alone

● PAM connectors not matching the tools versions we have used. Solution: design own operators

● Limitations in PAM for amount of data to retrieve from a DB – 512 rows. Solution: design queries in

a loop / limit resultset already on the source DB using SELECT … WHERE NOT IN…

● Limitations in PAM for execution time of operators – 60 / 120 secs. Solution: improve code /

seperate into multiple operators

● Empty result set if an SQL select operator is inside a loop and brings 0 results in the first loop.

Solution: «Dummy Loops» where needed. Issue fixed with PAM 4.

● Exceptions handling approach. Solution: Critical processes -> send email, Allow Admin to decide

what to do. Others just log a file entry. Possibility to restart a process from failing point is highly

appreciable

● Non recoverable exception handling or processes that were handled manually. Solution: A design

issue to ignore errors on some circumstances or a quick abort

Challenges and how THEY WERE HANDLED

● History loads of example subscriptions or mass releases of software packages for invoicing purposes.

Solution: Design a process for mass upload of requests. Making usage of the catalog webservices

interface.

● Special formatting needed by target systems example SAP FIN- Solution: post processing the

extracted invoices by catalog

● Impact of the number of instances on performance. Solution: Apply a strict archive and deletion

policies

● Read / Write infos from / to source / target systems. Solution: our experience shows best results in

terms of performance and simplicity if read of mass data is done directly on a DB, creations of

objects using the standard webservices methods and updates depends on sensitivity of updated

attribute or object: if a simple text – most probably directly into the DB, if an important attribute –

most probably via webmethods / command line interface etc.

Challenges and how they were handled /2

● Heavy instances that are heavy to open and work with. Solution: Use Datasets wisely – do not store

all data on valuemaps, let the DB be the first choice for storage of high qualtities, second choice the

file system and only third ValueMaps, arrays on the instance itself for storage / manipulation

purposes

Challenges and how they were handled /3

● Qualtity estimations are critical to the solution. A process works with 100 input lines may crash

constantly with 10000. Need to prepare for that already at design phase

● Source Data Quality. This point will have a major impact on the quality and exception handling you

will have to implement in your processes so better ensure quality at source systems as much as

possible

● Change management of Pam processes and handling versions of your processes – the existing

mechanism is not bad but does not allow a comparison between 2 versions. We have created a

special page and value map to handle this only. All sources are controlled as well externally on a file

system, possibility to use CVS or similar

● Work by templates and best practices Pam processes which include: exception, log, email and

backup as standard operators – saves a lot of time

● Visualize requirements and outcomes – in the past we have used words to describe problems, bugs,

requirements only. Today we use less words and more screenshots. One screen worths 100 words,

sometimes even more

Lessons learned

● Moving processes and functionality to PROD might have bad impact on existing data if something

goes wrong,, therefore besides the standard backup and rollback actions that are normally planned

we have developed an approach which includes a DRY MODE. In short we design our processes in a

way they simulate creations and updates without actually changing anything in the database. Once

dry mode statistics were good, we rerun in NORMAL mode

Lessons learned /2

What about you ?

● Using PAM for how long:

● less than a year,

● between 1 and 3,

● more than 3

Q&AQ&A

What about you ?

● Who plans to visit the CA World ?

● yes,

● no,

● don't know yet

http://www.freundsoft.com/contact.html

For more questions please do not hesitate.…………

For more questions please do not hesitate.…………

… «You have to be faster, stronger and wiser than your problems in

order to bit themGive me any 2 of the above»……………