INTRODUCTION

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) from SAP provides processes, tools, best practices, and services to manage SAP and non-SAP solutions throughout the complete application lifecycle, open to seamlessly integrate third party service management solutions. Accelerating innovation while reducing risk and total cost of ownership requires a holistic approach of Application Lifecycle Management. You need a structured, comprehensive, and reliable collection of information about the state of your productive SAP applications as well as integrated non-SAP applications. This, in turn, provides the basis for informed and fact-based decisions and actions. In an SAP TechEd 2010 Live clip, Marc Thier, SVP of Application Lifecycle Management and SAP Mentor Tony de Thomasis discuss SAP Solution Manager and the ALM Community.

Best Practice Processes SAP Solution Manager and Tools Best Practices and Methodologies Services

BEST PRACTICE PROCESSES

ALM is executed through processes that span the complete application lifecycle. They ensure stable operation of the IT solution while enabling accelerated innovation. Optimizing these processes reduces costs and ensures the highest quality of IT operation. SAP provides 10 best practice processes for Application Lifecycle Management to support both projects and solutions throughout the entire lifecycle.

SAP SOLUTION MANAGER AND TOOLS

Application Lifecycle Management relies on efficient collaboration of multiple SAP and non-SAP tools. They provide the required functions for the different ALM processes. SAP SOLUTION MANAGER The SAP Solution Manager plays a decisive role within the ALM tools. Besides providing ALM functionality itself, SAP Solution Manager integrates the other tools to ensure a comprehensive approach. It enables the central access to all required functions and central availability of all required information (single source of truth). In addition, SAP Solution Manager facilitates the efficient collaboration between your company and the SAP support organization to optimize the value of your support engagement with SAP.

SAP Solution Manager Overview for Dummies This blog provides an overview of SAP Solution Manager in laymen's language and provides pointers to additioinal introductory content written by other community members. SAP AND THIRD-PARTY TOOLS Besides SAP Solution Manager, SAP offers other tools to complement the ALM offerings. And it is possible to integrate third-party ALM tools via available interfaces, as well.

SAP Quality Center by HP SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood SAP Productivity Pak by RWD SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily SAP Test Data Migration Server SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization - See related SAP TechEd '08 session, Demystifying SAP TAO SAP IT Service Management SAP Resource and Portfolio Management SAP Landscape Transformation

BEST PRACTICES AND METHODOLOGIES

Application Lifecycle Management provides standards, best-practice methodologies, and organizational recommendations which cover the most typical customer situations - implementation, operation, or upgrade. You can leverage these experiences to optimize the implementation and operation of ALM within your organization. SAP Standards for Solution Operations describe the different processes of End-to-End solution operations. They address the tasks and needs of business process experts - the stakeholders responsible for designing and executing business processes - and IT departments - responsible for making the functionality of SAP applications available to business users. SAP Roadmaps provide methodical frameworks for SAP projects. They give a structure to results and activities and provide the tools, services, and other methodical procedures that are recommended or required to help achieve the project objective. Special accelerators in the Roadmap structure help with certain project tasks, by providing templates, examples, standards, product information, or best practices, for example. Establishing a Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) empowers an organization to manage its missioncritical operations effectively and efficiently. The Customer COE manages quality and collaboration between all parties involved in ALM activities.

SERVICES
To support you in implementing ALM in your organization, SAP provides various services. SAP customers can get further information regarding these offerings on the ALM Services page (SMP login required). Expert Guided Implementation (SMP login required) is a new optimized, short-term setup service to configure basic settings of SAP Solution Manager without long-term, in-house consulting. This service balances the combination of training, practical experience and expertise on demand and allows customers to create baseline functionality for implementation of end-to-end solution operations, ready-to-use. In mostly 5 days. Examples of activities are: Doing an update, building a customizing, or executing a service. With the Consulting Services for SAP Solution Manager, SAP Consulting is covering your needs for SAP Solution Manager expertise. The various Services will help to plan the deployment of SAP Solution Manager, install the system, configure the mandatory and desired functions, and train users and administrators on how to handle SAP Solution Manager.

SAP offers several training courses and empowering workshops to facilitate knowledge transfer to your support organization. The training and certification of Run SAP provides companies, partners, and SAP consultants with the methodology to implement ALM.

BUSINESS VALUE
APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
In the current economic environment, CIOs and IT managers are challenged more than ever to cut IT costs and enable business process excellence and timely innovation adoption - at the same time.

The Strategic View Business Performance in Volatile Times Customer Success

THE STRATEGIC VIEW

With Application Lifecycle Management, customers implement high-quality solutions faster and operate them at lower cost

Accelerated Innovation through value discovery and realization; innovation without upgrade; and near-zero downtime. Operation at lower cost through standardized, unified and automated operations; managed complexity; and manage SLAs. Superior Quality of SAP solutions, customer enhancements and partner deployments in terms of functionality, performance, availability and security.

Watch the video replay of the SAP TechEd LIVE 2009 interview between Ulrich Scholl, Global Enterprise Solution Marketing Vice President, and Marc Thier, head of ALM Solution Management.

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IN VOLATILE TIMES

Several organizations have reduced total cost of ownership between 15% to 60%, while maintaining and even improving business agility, innovation, and business continuity - as a result of a holistic ALM based on SAP solutions, services, and support. Leading enterprises demonstrate how they have successfully taken different measures in responding to individual business drivers. These measures include system landscape consolidation and harmonization; standardization of IT service management; use of SAP enhancement packages; and adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA). Read more: How Companies Sustain Business Performance in Volatile Times: Raise IT Productivity with Application Lifecycle Management

CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Several customers have achieved very individual results and benefits. Here are some examples. Surgutneftegas - Application Lifecycle Management Customer Success Story Find out how Surgutneftegas, one of the top three integrated oil companies in Russia, increased operational efficiency by 30% and improved system stability by leveraging SAP MaxAttention services to support Application Lifecycle Management best practices. Surgutneftegas establsihed ALM processes like change and incident management based on ITIL(IT Infrastructure Library) with SAP Solution Manager to manage SAP and non-SAP related IT landscape. City of Nuremberg - Application Lifecycle Management pays Dividends See how this German municipal government reduced the number of failed changes by 70% and cut operations costs by 20% by using SAP Solution Manager to manage the application lifecycle. Deutsche Postbank Find out how Germany's largest retail bank Deutsche Postbank improved the quality of monitoring and how application lifecycle management provided by SAP Solution Manager helped staff solve problems and made the monitoring of transactional processes a lot more comfortable. The centralized accountability offered through automation also enables better opportunities for capacity management and planning. Australia Post Testimonial Video See how Australia Post takes advantage of SAP's approach to Application Lifecycle Management and how they use the SAP Solution Manager as their central point of command and control for their implementation projects. P&G Testimonial Video Learn how P&G accelerated speed, reduced cost, and improved quality by using SAP Solution Manager from a build and run perspective. Koehler Paper Group Leverages SAP's Approach to Application Lifecycle Management With a turnover of 540 million and sales of 429,000 tons of paper, Papierfabrik August Koehler AG is one of the few independent German companies in the paper industry. As a market leader in thermal papers, it runs production 24x7, posing stiff challenges for its IT staff. Find out why it chose SAP Enterprise Support services and leverage SAP Solution Manager as the single, central, integrated application lifecycle management solution. Coca-Cola FEMSA Manages Application Lifecycle for Business Continuity and Innovation See how Coca-Cola FEMSA efficiently manages the application lifecycle by leveraging SAP Solution Manager, SAP Solution Extensions and SAP MaxAttention support. How Solution Manager RCA Change Reporting Saved the Day In this blog, SAP Mentor Tony de Thomasis of Australia Post describes how Solution Manager RCA Change Reporting saved the day. Tony goes on to write a series of blogs about ALM functionality: Part 0 (Prequel)

Part 1 (Maintenance Certificates) Part 2 (Landscape Reporting) Part 3 (Earlywatch Alert Reports) Part 4 (Central System Administration) Part 5 (IT Performance Reporting) Part 6 (Check and Apply SAP HotNews) Part 7 (SAP Central Service Connections) Part 8 (Wily Introscope) Part 9 (Maintenance Optimizer) Part 10 (Top 10 Solution Manager Tips) E.ON UK: Implementation Shines with the Help of SAP Solution Manager (PDF 179 KB) E.ON UK can now provide centralized repository for all solution information and documentation, and simplified methods for guiding and checking the documentation processes of third-party users. Hindustan Unilever SAP Solution Manager Speeds up Software Change Management by 70% (PDF 164 KB) India-based Hindustan Unilever managed to achieve 70% speedier transports for non-ABAP software, almost complete elimination of disruptions and mistakes in ABAP and non-ABAP change transports, and total compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. Arla Foods: Optimizing Business Continuity by Monitoring Business Processes Danish-based Arla Foods amba optimized business continuity and performance by proactively monitoring business processes using a single dashboard. SAP Business Transformation Study: DuPont DuPont reduced annual operations costs by over US$ 11 million via central monitoring of systems and business processes

GETTING STARTED
APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
SAP provides a large portfolio for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). In most cases, it makes no sense to implement all possibilities in a big bang. So how to start? This depends on different influence factors such as the maturity of your IT processes, your IT projects and project pipeline, and your cost pressure and cost structure compared with peers. Select those parts of the ALM portfolio first that bring the highest value to your company.

Explore the Value Define Your Roadmap Implement SAP Solution Manager Optimize Your IT Processes Empower Your IT Organization

EXPLORE THE VALUE

A first step for defining your roadmap to Application Lifecycle Management is to identify the value potential that ALM offers for your company. In general, ALM processes bring various benefits to you:

Reduced Total Cost of Operations - Today's economy requires a greater focus on lowering costs within your organization. Business Continuity - Maintaining business continuity is the key to success. As landscapes become larger and more complex, there is a greater need for integration and mission-critical support. Business Process Improvement - The business environment today requires transparency of business process exceptions and KPIs. Improving business processes is critical to your organization's success. Protection of Investment and Accelerated Innovation - Protecting IT investment while introducing innovations is critical in today's economy. You have to be able to adapt to new requirements without business disruptions.

Consider the priority of these values as well as the current situation of your organization to find out the direction that would bring the highest value for you.

DEFINE YOUR ROADMAP

Once the operational requirements are clear, you must define what parts of the operations processes need to be implemented, enhanced or optimized to meet the requirements. You can use the SAP Standards for Solution Operations as benchmark to identify areas of improvement. You will analyze the essential tools and processes, the functions to be implemented using SAP Solution Manager, and the required skills to manage the solution. During the scope definition, you should also identify which SAP components, business processes and interfaces have been implemented and need to be considered for operations. By comparing the value potentials and the required efforts, you will be able to identify quick wins in the implementation of ALM. Finally, you will prioritize the required actions and derive a corresponding roadmap for your organization. You can take the Run SAP scope assessment as a reference.

IMPLEMENT SAP SOLUTION MANAGER

As central application management platform, SAP Solution Manager is key for the success of your ALM journey. If you don't have SAP Solution Manager yet, you should implement it as soon as possible to reap all the benefits. And even if you have an installation, it might be worth to update it to the latest support package version! What do you have to configure in SAP Solution Manager after the technical installation? Basically, you should start the SAP Solution Manager Basic Configuration Assistant. This is a guided procedure that takes you through the initial setup, the basis configuration, and the connection of managed systems. After this has been done, you can already start using many functions like maintenance of SAP software, collaboration with SAP, root cause analysis, implementation/change/upgrade projects, test management, administration, or service level reporting. Other functions need some additional configuration, like the definition of thresholds or definition of workflows. Also, documentation of business processes is required for some functions. E.g., you need to document your core business processes to analyze the impact of changes on them. Expert Guided Implementation (SMP login required) is a new optimized, short-term setup service to configure basic settings for SAP Solution Manager without long-term, in-house consulting. This service balances the combination of training, practical experience and expertise on demand and allows customers to create baseline functionality for implementation of end-to-end solution operations, ready-to-use. In mostly 5 days.

OPTIMIZE YOUR IT PROCESSES

Companies need an IT strategy that focuses on the management of complexity, risks and costs as well as skills and resources. Standardized procedures that leverage the experience of the organization and the software supplier are a key prerequisite for the optimization of application management. Based on the experience of experts from SAP and customers, SAP provides standards for solution operations. The standards contain best-practice procedures on how to run the individual processes, explanations on which tools should be used, and available training and services that support the adoption of the standard. SAP Roadmaps provide methodical frameworks for SAP projects. They give a structure to results and activities and provide the tools, services, and other methodical procedures that are recommended or required to help you achieve your objective. Special accelerators in the Roadmap structure help you with certain project tasks, by e.g. providing templates, examples, standards, product information, or best practices. As an example, the Run SAP Roadmap provides you information and guidance of how to implement your solution operations according to the standards for solution operations. Gather knowledge of how to scope the operations to be implemented, prepare a detailed project plan, the set up, and running of your SAP Solution efficiently. The Run SAP Roadmap focuses on application management, business process operations and SAP NetWeaver administration. The SAP Landscape Transformation Software assists customers in independently adapting their organizational structures to changed business requirements - including mergers and acquisitions (M&As), divestitures, and restructuring projects - and enables customers to fulfill technical and business requirements while maintaining full data consistency. With consulting services for SAP Solution Manager, SAP Consulting is covering today's customer/projects/consultants needs for SAP Solution Manager expertise. The various Services will help to plan the deployment of SAP Solution Manager, install the system, configure the mandatory and desired functions, and train users and administrators on how to handle SAP Solution Manager.

EMPOWER YOUR IT ORGANIZATION

Processes can only be changed successfully if the organization is enabled to operate the new process. To support you in empowering your IT organization, SAP provides corresponding knowledge transfer. The easiest way for customers of SAP to get further information regarding ALM is the ALM area in SAP Service Marketplace: http://service.sap.com/alm (SMP login required). Here you will find centrally many information, presentations, demos, videos, and whitepapers regarding the different aspects of ALM: ALM Processes, SAP Solution Manager & Tools; Customer Center of Expertise, Methodologies, and Services.

SAP offers several training courses or empowering workshops to facilitate knowledge transfer to your support organization. The training and certification of Run SAP provides companies, partners, and SAP consultants with the methodology to implement ALM. The organizational model of the Customer Center of Expertise (Customer COE) drives integrated quality management, enabling transparency across business and IT units to critical challenges in SAP solution operations: ensuring business continuity, reducing costs and accelerating innovation. Establishing a Customer COE to manage quality and collaboration between all parties involved empowers an organization to manage its mission-critical operations effectively and efficiently.

TECHNICAL ENABLEMENT
APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
SAP Solution Manager and SAP NetWeaver deliver software and services to help IT organizations efficiently operate mission-critical business applications and leverage investments in existing SAP solutions. SAP Solution Manager offers a management platform and methodology that support all Application Lifecycle Management specific tasks in a comprehensive fashion - starting from blueprint and system landscape design to testing, deployment, successful operations, and change. That way IT organizations can manage SAP solutions efficiently, improve the availability of applications, and optimize daily operations to reduce the total cost of ownership across their IT landscape. Before diving into the ALM core processes below, get the complete overview of ALM technical enablement.

Landscape Design and Infrastructure Initial Setup Solution Documentation Solution Implementation Template Management Test Management Change Management Application Incident Management Technical Operations Business Process Operations Maintenance Management Landscape Transformation Upgrade and Update Management Cockpit for Delta Information regarding SAP Solution Manager

LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Landscape design and infrastructure capabilities offer you methods, tools, and best practices for planning and modeling your landscape. This starts with the design of the solution landscape layout, and continues with adopting SAP NetWeaver distribution models, evaluating virtualization concepts, and continues with identifying technical infrastructure prerequisites, while considering all internationalization aspects. Landscape Design and Infrastructure

INITIAL SETUP
Get details on installation and configuration of SAP Solution Manager. Initial Setup

SOLUTION DOCUMENTATION
Solution Documentation centrally documents and relates the business processes and technical information from SAP and non-SAP solutions to ensure transparency, efficient maintenance, and collaboration. Solution Documentation

SOLUTION IMPLEMENTATION
Solution Implementation involves the identification, adaptation, and implementation of new and enhanced future-proof business and technical scenarios. It is designed to decouple technical installation from business innovation, and uses SAP Solution Manager to implement innovation within the system landscape. Solution Implementation

TEMPLATE MANAGEMENT
Template Management allows customers with multi-site SAP installations to efficiently manage their business processes across geographical distances, such as part of a global rollout approach: from initial template definition to template implementation, and template optimization. This can help you to harmonize and synchronize your business processes while minimizing implementation efforts through centralizing template design, build and test. Template Management

TEST MANAGEMENT
Test Management defines the integration testing requirements and test scope based on a change impact analysis. It is used to develop automatic and manual test cases, manage the testers, and report on the test progress and test results. Test Management

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Workflow-based management of business- and technology-driven solution improvement changes with integrated project management, quality management, and synchronized deployment capabilities to best manage the risks associated with the implementation of the solution, therefore ensuring technical and functional robustness. Change Management

APPLICATION INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

Application Incident Management enables centralized and common incident and issue message processing on multiple organization levels, and offers a communication channel with all relevant stakeholders of an incident. The process includes business user, SAP experts at the customer site, SAP Service and Support and Partner Support employees. It is integrated in all ALM processes of SAP Solution Manager and in any SAP Business suite solution. It can be connected to a non-SAP help desk application. Includes follow-up activities such as knowledge research, root cause analysis, or change management. Application Incident Management

TECHNICAL OPERATIONS
Technical Operations in Application Lifecycle Management represents all capabilities for monitoring, alerting, analysis, and administration of SAP solutions, and allows customers to reduce TCO by predefined content and centralized tools for all aspects of SAP Solution Manager operations. It provides end-to-end reporting functionality either out-of-the-box, or individually created by customers. Technical Operations Jump to: Administration | Job Management | Monitoring | Operations | Output Management | Performance, Sizing, and Benchmarks | Reporting | System Landscape Directory | Virtualization and Adaptive Computing | Work Centers in SAP Solution Manager

BUSINESS PROCESS OPERATIONS

Business Process Operations comprises the most important application-related operations topics necessary to ensure the smooth and reliable flow of the core business processes to meet a company's business requirements. Business Process Operations

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
Maintenance Management covers software correction packages: from discovery and retrieval to test scope optimization, including optional automatic deployment into the production environment. Maintenance Management

LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION
SAP Landscape Transformation (SAP LT) enables customers and partners to realize the harmonization, migration, and consolidation of existing SAP data. SAP Landscape Transformation software uses SAP Solution Manager as a platform to tackle transformation requirements and manage all projects through an automated and integrated approach to adapt organizational structures to changing business requirements - including mergers and acquisitions (M&As), divesting business units, and optimizing existing business processes. Landscape Transformation

UPGRADE AND UPDATE MANAGEMENT

Upgrade and Update Management represent the identification, adaptation, and implementation of new and enhanced business and technical scenarios, and uses SAP Solution Manager to holistically and effectively manage the upgrade and update project end-to-end. It allows SAP customers to better understand and manage the major technical risks and challenges within an upgrade or update project, and to make the upgrade project a "non-event" for the business.

Upgrade and Update Management

COCKPIT FOR DELTA INFORMATION REGARDING SAP SOLUTION MANAGER

This cockpit acts as central entry point to get an overview of all available corrections as well as new and enhanced functionality in every SAP Solution Manager release. The information is ordered chronologically according to release time of SPS.

SAP ENTERPRISE SERVICES (ES) WORKPLACE

WHAT IS THE ES WORKPLACE

The ES Workplace is the central place to view consolidated information about Enterprise Services delivered by SAP. It provides various entry points for different roles, from Architects to Process Experts.The ES Workplace is the starting point for SOA adoption, from discovery of services to evaluation of services and development of exemplary proof-of-concept composite applications on a freely accessible hosted SAP Business Suite system landscape for business and technology justification. Find Business Objects, Process Components, and their services that are necessary for a business process. Find all Integration Scenarios and other objects like deployment units that are necessary for semantic and technical integration of business process. Start with a business view showing processes for an organisation within a particular industry or across industry. Check out ready to run sample applications for enterprise service consumption together with technical documentation, coding, implementation, models and demo data. We have initiated an upgrade and optimization project for the SAP ES Workplace Landscape. The backend demo systems of SAP ES Workplace are evolving towards the latest technologies. For the ERP and CRM systems (HU2, HU4) new hardware will replace the existing one. As part of the optimization process the SCM and SRM systems will not be replaced by new once at the end of their regular maintenance after December 31, 2011. Other new and exciting technologies will be added to the landscape soon. Have a look into the newly available SAP Netweaver GATEWAY 2.0 system. Examples on how to call Gateway Services are available here. Please contact us at esworkplcae@sap.com to discuss it more. Apply for a user account to get access to the whole system landscape for free: ES Workplace Registration Form.

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK - JOIN THE TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION SURVEY!

Over the years, SAP has been working on several integration options/technologies to make it easier for our customers to connect with their SAP landscapes. With this survey we would like your feedback to help us assess what or where we should focus to make the most impact for our customers.

SAP DISCOVERY SYSTEM

EXPLORING SOFTWARE POSSIBILITIES ON THE NEXT RELEASE OF THE DISCOVERY SYSTEM VERSION 5.0NEW!
The SAP Discovery system bundles hardware, software, and content to enable you to evaluate and demonstrate the benefits of the newest SAP applications and technologies. It offers a preconfigured and preinstalled SAP software landscape to support innovation and exploration, serving as an ideal tool for evaluating SAP applications within the context of your own enterprise and the challenges you face. Just some of the applications you can evaluate include the SAP ERP application, the unified SAP NetWeaver technology platform, the SAP NetWeaver Business Process Management component, the SAP NetWeaver TM Composition Environment (SAP NetWeaver CE) offering, SAP BusinessObjects tools, mobile applications from TM SAP, and the SAP Customer Relationship Management application. Built-in components for the SAP HANA platform* simplify the integration to a customer's SAP HANA appliance software, which is sold separately. Also new with the latest release of the SAP Discovery system is the addition of built-in and integrated add-on solutions as virtual machines. These add-ons expand the functionality and capability of the core SAP Discovery system. Currently offered as an add-on to release 5 of the SAP Discovery system is the SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management application. Offered as a separate virtual machine, this application is made available after the SAP Discovery system has been purchased and license keys activated. The Discovery System v5 will be released and available for ordering from our hardware partners in Q4 of 2011. * SAP HANA is not included with the SAP Discovery system, release 5, and must be purchased separately. Click here for a preview of the Discovery system V5. Take a sneak peak at the demos and exercises included in V5. The new Solution Brief coming soon.