NSA to crunch big data in AWS C2S

By Anthony Cecchini Newsletter Archives November 20, 2015

NSA to crunch big data in AWS C2S

TAKE NOTE (Insights into SAP solutions and Emerging Technology)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Security Agency is moving some of its IT operations to Amazon’s cloud.

The National Security Agency (NSA) was represented by Alex Voultepsis, chief of the engineering and planning process for the NSA’s Intelligence Community Service Operations Group, at a session during the AWS Public Sector Symposium here this week. Voultepsis said during a panel discussion the agency plans to migrate infrastructure relating to its Intelink portfolio, which provides the national security enterprise with information sharing, collaboration, and discovery services, to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Voultepsis’s unit within the NSA will use Commercial Cloud Services (C2S), the Amazon cloud region established by the Central Intelligence Agency for classified data, which is open to all 17 federal intelligence agencies, according to Amazon officials interviewed after the panel session.

The capabilities are there to meet our specialized needs for confidentiality, integrity and availability [of data],” Voultepsis said. “We can shift our focus from commodity things to mission-focused customer-facing things.”

The NSA as a whole also operates a private cloud called GovCloud, but or Voultepsis’s unit, C2S offers efficiencies.

“The infrastructure as a service which Amazon provides has shown us significant IT efficiencies,” Voultepsis said, estimating that the savings on infrastructure costs alone will be between 50-55%.

While it was unclear how much of the NSA’s data center had moved already, Voultepsis said the ultimate goal is to be ‘all-in’ and close private data centers.

Read more here at the TechTarget Blog.

UNDER DEVELOPMENT(Information for ABAP Developers)

Using The SALV OO Class for Quick and easy Table displays

Prior to SAP Netweaver, we had so many different starting points to create the ALV. The starting point was entirely dependent on structure of the ALV (Tabular, Tree, Hierarchical), Type of ALV (List or Grid) etc… If we wanted to use the Control framework, than we need to start the ALV by using the class CL_GUI_ALV_GRID as I described in my previous blog A Guide to the New ALV Grid Control. Moreover, we needed to make different calls for TOP-OF-PAGE, END-OF-PAGE etc… What’s the answer?

SALV – The Common Model

To avoid this SAP has developed common model – which is entirely based on object oriented design and coding. This new ALV object oriented model has many advantages:

Simplified design: This Model uses a highly integrated object oriented design which provides the simplicity to programmers to develop the ALV.

Unified Object models: This model has only one main class which will get and set the parameters of entire layout.

Main Classes:

These are the main classes for the different structures of ALV:

All Classes use a static method FACTORY which will get back the instance of the ALV. This is an ABAP Object Oriented Programming Design Pattern. Specifically, it is the Factory-Method Pattern. Why use this? At a very high-level, it hides all the complexity of the instantiating an object from the consumer.

Q&A(Post your questions to Facebook or Twitter and get the answers you need)

Q. Every time I create a custom table where I work and then try and use SM30 to view or maintain the data I get an error message. “Maintenance Dialog not Defined”. I use SM30 to look at and edit other tables. Can you explain what is happening?

A. Maintenance Dialogs are system generated programs that allow you to add, change and delete records in your table using Transaction SM30.

To create a maintenance dialog, open your table for changes using Transaction SE11. Next, select Utilities Table Maintenance Generator. You should see the screen below.

Some options like authorization group selection can be used to limit who has authority to use the generated program. Check your company’s standards to determine what you should select for the Authorization Group or choose &NC& to avoid having an authorization group.

The Function group textbox should contain a name that relates to your table and I usually begin it with ZFG, such as ZFG_TonysTable. The “Z” Denotes its custom, and “FG” is for Function group.

Select the Find Scr. Number(s) button located at the top of the screen to fill the Overview screen and Single screen options. After clicking that button, you will see the popup, select the Propose screen number(s) radio button so that the system can choose the screen numbers to use. Finally, click the Create button to generate the maintenance dialog. This will create the function group and dynamically create or generate the needed function modules within the group for SM30.

Now go to transaction SM30 and all you need to do is enter your table in the Table/View textbox and click the Maintain button and you will be brought to a screen where you can create, change and delete records in the table.