SAP Cloud ALM: The five Solution Manager functions SAP IT Teams will miss the most
SAP Teams are beginning to realise that in addition to an S/4 HANA transition strategy, they also need a plan to migrate off Solution Manager – even for those planning to transition and remain on-premises. Such a transition might be problematic for those with heavily customised Solution Manager instances, such as those in regulated industries or with complex SAP landscapes.
Typically, and without providing a transition plan or feature roadmap, SAP says that these customers will use SAP Cloud ALM by 2028 (see: Guidance for typical customer situations (sap.com). Unfortunately, some essential Solution Manager Components won’t be part of SAP Cloud ALM or be substantially different.
Five things SAP IT Teams will miss most.
It’s nowhere near exhaustive, but here are 5 functionality areas many SAP IT Teams will miss.
1. System Monitoring
The first is system monitoring.
System monitoring in SAP Solution Manager is based on the Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI). The MAI infrastructure is not available in SAP Cloud ALM.
Mass maintenance in combination with pre-configured SAP content is planned to be included. Still, it is not yet available in SAP Cloud ALM.
2. Job Monitoring and Business Intelligence Monitoring
The next is job monitoring.
SAP Solution Manager covers the monitoring of Business Objects / Business Intelligence jobs and provides specific performance statistics for SAP Business Warehouse
This monitoring isn’t available in SAP Cloud ALM and isn’t planned to be.
3. IT Service Management
Third is IT Service Management.
IT Service Management is unavailable in SAP Cloud ALM and isn’t planned to be.
4. Change Control Management
Then, there is change and request management, including quality gate. This could be huge for some teams, especially those who have invested millions over the past 10 – 15 years.
Solution Manager Change and Request Manager is not available in SAP Cloud ALM. DSAP expects customers to utilise the SAP Cloud ALM Deployment Management instead.
Quality Gate is not available in SAP Cloud ALM and isn’t planned to be.
5. Custom Code Management
The final one is custom code management.
Solution Manager’s Custom Code Management features are unavailable in SAP Cloud ALM.
It will eventually be replaced by the planned Custom Code Cluster functionality.
Some alternatives
Since way before Solution Manager was a twinkle in SAP Active Global Support’s eye, third-party software has been available to help SAP IT teams manage their SAP infrastructures.
Several add-on solution categories replace what SAP IT teams might miss in SAP Cloud ALM.
SAP Monitoring solutions
Several third-party SAP monitoring solutions are available; however, an excellent place to start is with the cloud solution offered by IT-Conductor Inc.
SAP ITSM Solutions.
SAP teams didn’t use Solution Manager ITSM very much, and most organisations already have something in use, e.g. ServiceNow , Ivanti (Cherwell), and BMC Software
SAP change control management solutions
SAP change and request management solutions have been available for decades, are well advanced, and arguably a much better alternative to Solution Manager ChaRM. You can start by looking into the solutions Basis Technologies, Revelation Software Concepts, and REALTECH, Inc.
SAP code management solutions
For those unwilling to wait until similar functionality is available in SAP Cloud ALM, custom code management solutions are available from Onapsis, Panaya, and others.
Next steps
Given the workload of SAP operations teams, especially basis teams, I suggest you get onto this early.
You can select the functional area your team will miss the most and begin identifying and evaluating solutions now.
Perhaps change and request management might be a good place to start.
About us
Leg Up Software Up Software is an expert in SAP IT operational and infrastructure software automation solutions, including those that support enterprises’ transformation journeys.
www.legupsoftware.com
We know the SAP operations and infrastructure automation solutions landscape and have already done the legwork identifying the best available solutions.
We have excellent relationships with many software vendors, including the ones mentioned here, and can negotiate an evaluation process that best suits your circumstances and budget.
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