607 how bnsf railway was able to implement an alm strategy

7/22/2019 607 How BNSF Railway Was Able to Implement an ALM Strategy

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]Orange County Convention CenterOrlando, Florida | May 15-18, 2011

How BNSF Railway implemented an ALMStrategy with Solution Manager

Tim Hodge Jorge Cambero

Governance Team- BNSF Railway


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Real Experience. Real Advantage.

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BNSF Railway at a Glance

A subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK), BNSFRailway operates one of the largest railroad networks in North

America, with over 32,000 route miles in 28 states and twoCanadian provinces.BNSF is one of the top transporters of consumer goods, grain,industrial goods, and low-sulfur coal that help feed, clothe,supply, and power America.BNSF has developed one of the most technologically advancedand efficient railroads in the industry.

We are working continuously to improve the value of thesafety, service, energy, and environmental benefits we provideto our customers and the communities we serve.


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BNSF Railway SAP Landscape

Live on SAP since July, 2009Our SAP functionality includes

FinancialsFI, CO

Supply ChainBiller DirectSupplier PortalE-Sourcing (CLM 7.0)

Human Capital Management

HR (PA, OM, Benefits)PayrollE-Recruiting (ERC 7.0)E-Learning


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BNSF Railway SAP Landscape

Dashboards, Reporting and AnalyticsBI, BOBJ

Data Management and IntegrationPI, Informatica

System Management ToolsGRC Access and Process ControlsSAP Solution Manager 7.0SAP Test Accelerator & Optimization (TAO)SAP Test Data Migration Service (TDMS)Redwood Central Process SchedulingHP Quality Center and Load Runner


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Technical and Functional Stats

BNSF runs a single production instance for all systems4-tier system for every landscape (SBX, Dev, QA, PROD)

Dual Development landscapes for all environmentsN-1 Version Strategy4 Netweaver Portal instances with TREX and single sign-on

Run on MS Windows 2003 OSSQL Server 2003 DBMS287 Servers70 Database instances

84 Clients


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Managing Change

BNSF utilizes a Release Strategy to Run SAPDaily Changes Emergencies and Unplanned

Weekly Changes Master Data, Security, Reports and Low Risk Maintenance Support (5 per year) Break Fix, MS and SAPsecurity patchesQuarterly Small Enhancements, HR SPs, Kernel, OS/DBUpgrades, Technical and functional upgrades, New capabilitiesYear-End Support Packs, Year-End processing

In 2010 ...

Over 25,000 support tickets closed292 OSS Notes applied5,000+ Tests executed4,000+ Transports to Production


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Why an ALM Strategy?

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) provides processes,tools, services, and an organizational model to manage SAP and

non-SAP solutions throughout the complete applicationlifecycleThe number of tools and changes going through our SAPlandscape is not only overwhelming but complexProvides the structure to support BNSF processes forproduction maintenance and release of new functionalityA must when complex integration exists with other IT tools

that may not be supported by SAP or the SAP team


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BNSF Tools Overview


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BNSF Application Lifecycle Management


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Leveraging Solution Manager in our ALM Strategy

Solution DocumentationCentral documentation repository withcheck-in/check-out for productive assets

SOLDOCA to periodically validate theaccuracy of the solutionProject documentation moves to solutionafter implementationSingle source of truth


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Solution ImplementationImplementation Projects Blueprint andDevelopment

Project documentation, transactions andconfigurationMS Project for Project ManagementSharepoint for Governance and project-related documentation


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Test ManagementUse of HP Quality Center

Testing Defects

Integrate to SolMan to build test casesIntegrate to TAO to aid in automation

SAP Test Data Migration Server for datareplicationLoad Runner for volume scripting


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Change Control ManagementBNSF currently uses HP QC to managechange

Will go to Charm 7.1 after ramp-upcompletesGoal is to reduce effort and risk aroundchange control processes and fasterdeployment


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Change Control ManagementFaster, safer deployment of release changesto production

Traceability of changesEliminates risk of human error

Application Incident Management

Integration of SAP Service Desk withRemedy for incident management

TrainingRWD Uperform for training


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Technical OperationsSAP Support (Max Attention Customer)

SAP Router Configuration

SAP Remote Logon / Service connectivityTQM: OSS message supportSAP Service Delivery (IFM, BPPO, RPO,VTO, TIC, BDO)

Recommendations logged & tracked inSolMan

Monitoring and AlertsEarly Watch Alerts

CCMS AlertsCA Wily Intrascope / SolmanDiagnostics


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Business Process OperationsBusiness Process Monitoring

eRC pilot, others in the future

Production Job MonitoringFinancial Period End CloseAssetsC2C

Business Process Analytics


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Maintenance ManagementFortify for source code complianceService Level Reporting

IT Performance ReportingCentral Performance HistoryPerformance Metrics

Usage MetricseRC - How many applicants? Job postings?


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Upgrade ManagementDowntime manager (future)Through BDO service, attained

optimizations for:TransportsApplication of support packsUpgrades

SAP recommendations stored in Solmanfor future use


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BNSF Application Lifecycle Management


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What lies ahead

Future expansion of the use of Solution Manager at BNSFincludes:

7.1 Ramp-upChaRM 7.x implementationBusiness Process Change AnalyzerCTS+, CCTS implementation

Central IMG ConfigurationDowntime ManagerData Volume ManagerData Consistency Manager

KNOARoot Cause AnalysisHot News


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Return on Investment

Benefits in the following areasReduced application maintenance cycle due to Solution

documentationEnhanced efficiency of support by having single source of truthLeverage business process structure to generate testingrequirements in QCIncreased system reliability by proactively acting on systemreportsBasis for business process optimization as a result of using BPMProtection of investment by better predicting changes going toproduction


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Lessons Learned

After the initial implementation, Solution Directory was notimplemented and this perpetuated the use of implementation

projects to support production not a good practiceLack of process enforcement resulted in out-of-datedocumentation in Solman. This resulted in thousand of hoursworth of clean-up

Consulting expertise is hard to come by.Whitepaper benefits of Solman are easy to understand, muchmore difficult to implement


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Lessons Learned (contd)

ALM Strategy becomes a must when managing multiple toolsand integration of SAP to other IT applications

Solution Manager at the center of SAP operations provides thestructure to document and manage functional changes andtechnical performanceLike many SAP applications before it, Solution Manager is nowmaturing in robustness and broadening in usefulnessSimilar to an ERP implementation, the holistic use of SolutionManager outweighs best of breed in specific areas (eg. CHaRM

vs. other Change control software).


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607 how bnsf railway was able to implement an alm strategy

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