3 ms·

Tesla builds its own backend to replace SAP

8 points by memracom 13y ago

davidiach 13y ago
They just saved a lot of money.
chollida1 13y ago
This is all I see... > Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software to run the company. CIO Jay Vijayan and his team built it in just four months. Is this really the entire post?
- chollida1 13y ago
  Wow a down vote for asking an honest question. Someone's a bit cranky today. For anyone else who only got a gist like me just take the url and put it into google and follow the link. This seems to skip what ever sort of paywall the article is behind.
WestCoastJustin 13y ago
Entire post @ http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.wsj.com%2Fcio%2F2013%2F11%2F01%2Fhow-elon-musk-approaches-it-at-tesla%2F&ei=Ng94UujGIoTKrQGxjoGgCQ&usg=AFQjCNEcbHif9vCToTtcx94GmEQzfJj_og&bvm=bv.55819444,d.aWM&cad=rja http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=... p.s. when I visited this link it only showed me a short preview, but if you come in via a google, it shows the entire thing.
fourmii 13y ago
Wow, what an article! Here it is, don't bother clicking: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software to run the company. CIO Jay Vijayan and his team built it in just four months.
programminggeek 13y ago
ERP systems tend towards the terrible because you end up either throwing your existing systems on the ground, or you are going to need to rewrite the vendor system to match the systems you already have in place. Anymore, I think it would be a lot smarter/cheaper to have a bunch of REST/RPC api's exposed in front of your data systems and just wire a bunch of UI on top of those instead of having to rewrite a system like SAP to do what you need it to do. Also, how is it that large enterprises like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. can scale to millions/billions of users using a similar API-driven approach and a company of tens of thousands couldn't do the same thing for their ERP system that probably has < 100,000 users on it?
- chollida1 13y ago
  > Also, how is it that large enterprises like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. can scale to millions/billions of users using a similar API-driven approach and a company of tens of thousands couldn't do the same thing for their ERP system that probably has < 100,000 users on it? Business rules. Google clientel basically all use the same api to ask the same question. SAP users have, I'm guessing, 2 -3 orders of magnitude more differences and rules that a google user does. This is a 100 billion dollar business where almost every company on the face of the earth can be a client so it attracts some very smart people. The huge differences from company to company make it really tough to have one product scale out for everyone. SAP, Oracle, SalesForce, Microsoft and many others have tried and the fact that no one has done it yet speaks to how difficult it is to do.
memracom 13y ago
Some news sites only show the full article if you come to an article from an approved partner. In this case if you google for this text: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software and then click on the link, then you will see the full article. Sorry for the problems.
eyepulp 13y ago
Anyone know if there's any more substantive info about what their tech stack looks like? I wouldn't expect all the details, but something more than "we did it, and it's not SAP, and it's totally web-scale" would be pretty interesting to read.

8 points by memracom 13y ago

They just saved a lot of money.

This is all I see... > Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software to run the company. CIO Jay Vijayan and his team built it in just four months. Is this really the entire post?

chollida1 13y ago
Wow a down vote for asking an honest question. Someone's a bit cranky today. For anyone else who only got a gist like me just take the url and put it into google and follow the link. This seems to skip what ever sort of paywall the article is behind.

WestCoastJustin 13y ago

Entire post @ http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.wsj.com%2Fcio%2F2013%2F11%2F01%2Fhow-elon-musk-approaches-it-at-tesla%2F&ei=Ng94UujGIoTKrQGxjoGgCQ&usg=AFQjCNEcbHif9vCToTtcx94GmEQzfJj_og&bvm=bv.55819444,d.aWM&cad=rja http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=... p.s. when I visited this link it only showed me a short preview, but if you come in via a google, it shows the entire thing.

fourmii 13y ago

Wow, what an article! Here it is, don't bother clicking: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software to run the company. CIO Jay Vijayan and his team built it in just four months.

programminggeek 13y ago

ERP systems tend towards the terrible because you end up either throwing your existing systems on the ground, or you are going to need to rewrite the vendor system to match the systems you already have in place. Anymore, I think it would be a lot smarter/cheaper to have a bunch of REST/RPC api's exposed in front of your data systems and just wire a bunch of UI on top of those instead of having to rewrite a system like SAP to do what you need it to do. Also, how is it that large enterprises like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. can scale to millions/billions of users using a similar API-driven approach and a company of tens of thousands couldn't do the same thing for their ERP system that probably has < 100,000 users on it?

chollida1 13y ago
> Also, how is it that large enterprises like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. can scale to millions/billions of users using a similar API-driven approach and a company of tens of thousands couldn't do the same thing for their ERP system that probably has < 100,000 users on it? Business rules. Google clientel basically all use the same api to ask the same question. SAP users have, I'm guessing, 2 -3 orders of magnitude more differences and rules that a google user does. This is a 100 billion dollar business where almost every company on the face of the earth can be a client so it attracts some very smart people. The huge differences from company to company make it really tough to have one product scale out for everyone. SAP, Oracle, SalesForce, Microsoft and many others have tried and the fact that no one has done it yet speaks to how difficult it is to do.

memracom 13y ago

Some news sites only show the full article if you come to an article from an approved partner. In this case if you google for this text: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided that the company would build its own business software and then click on the link, then you will see the full article. Sorry for the problems.

eyepulp 13y ago

Anyone know if there's any more substantive info about what their tech stack looks like? I wouldn't expect all the details, but something more than "we did it, and it's not SAP, and it's totally web-scale" would be pretty interesting to read.