This might be taking the most time in larger organizations. SAP will allow 1 Cloud ALM per customer. But the customer might have multiple SAP systems managed by multiple SAP competence centers. In this case, you need to align who will call off the Cloud ALM system.
Identity provider choice
You can use Cloud ALM with integration to your own corporate identity provider or use the SAP IAS (Identity Authentication Service).
SAP Cloud ALM and SAP Focused Run have a lot of overlapping capabilities.
The goal is not to push a tool, but to monitor, safeguard and secure SAP system running by customers. The tool is a means and not the goal.
What we will discuss:
High level positioning of Cloud ALM, Focused Run and Solution manager
Current status in 2023 for the tools
Possible considerations
This positioning blog is for the year 2023. Next year when new functions and insights are available the positioning and considerations can change.
High level positioning of Cloud ALM, Focused Run and Solution manager
The below picture is the best one and is taken from the Focused Run overview presentation:
Positioning:
Solution manager: it works, but no new developments, supported until 31.12.2027
Focused Run: suitable for large customer and advanced needs
Cloud ALM: standardized setup
Cloud ALM vs Focused Run
Cloud ALM is a standardized SAP service. It has certain capabilities, but no extensions. Due to its standardized setup is can be made working very fast with a few clicks. The functions will work fast, but configuration options are limited to the use cases provided by SAP. Data volumes on Cloud ALM are not to be too high, since the UI’s are still designed for small and medium customers with lower amount of systems, alerts, etc.
Focused Run admins will be quick to adopt SAP Cloud ALM since there is a large similarity in concepts and UI.
Comparison table:
Dimension
Cloud ALM
Focused Run
Technical setup complexity
Low
Medium for ABAP, High for non-ABAP
Technical setup time
Low
Low to medium
Maintenance effort
Low
Medium
Upgrading to unlock new functions
No effort, SAP takes care
High effort to upgrade
Volume of data that can be handled
Low to medium
High to very high
Complexity of scenario’s that can be handled
Low
Low, medium, high
Extension possibilities
Very limited
Possible with API and custom code
Feature extensions
Fast, bi-weekly
Every half year major and minor features will be added
Current features
Limited, but growing fast
Extensive, don’t expect major extensions
Considerations
Currently running SAP solution manager
If you have functions running on SAP solution manager, first consideration is the move to SAP Cloud ALM. SAP solution manager hosts normally EWA, CHARM, documentation/implementation and/or monitoring functions. An SAP readiness check is available to check your move from SAP solution manager to Cloud ALM. Read this blog on the how.
Currently running SAP Focused Run
If you are currently running SAP Focused Run, you most likely will keep it the next few years. But still do keep track of the SAP Cloud ALM functions, and try them out.
SAP Cloud ALM might be a good solution to monitor less important systems with lower demand like sandboxes, development and test systems. These system typically don’t need intense monitoring, but mostly availability monitoring.
SAP Cloud ALM might be a good solution to monitor your SAP Cloud hosted and SAP BTP scenarios. Setup in Cloud ALM for these scenarios is far simpler than setting these up in SAP Focused Run.
SAP Focused Run will never be enabled for business process monitoring. That functionality is now available in SAP Solution manager and will only be available in the future in SAP Cloud ALM.
Monitoring solutions for running installations
If you have a running SAP installation and are looking for a good monitoring solution, then it is wise to check both SAP Cloud ALM and SAP Focused Run. Depending on your needs you can choose between both.
Check the road map of SAP Cloud ALM as well to see if missing gaps will be addressed in the upcoming year.
The business case for a monitoring solution is different per line of business. The main business case is roughly: “We will avoid or solve much faster Y major incidents per year. Each major incident costs is about xxx.xxx USD/EUR”.
New solutions
For new SAP solutions: first consider using SAP Cloud ALM. Only when expecting high volume and high monitoring requirements, set up SAP Focused Run.
Cloud ALM usage rights
Cloud ALM is in principle for free within the usage rights. The usage rights can be found on this link.
SAP Cloud ALM functions are growing fast and are definitely worth using. SAP Cloud ALM is a highly standardized function. This makes it for SAP possible to deliver new functions fast and easy to integrate and easy to use. The highly standardized functions comes with a setback that the solution cannot be extended to any particular need you might have.
It is out-of-the-box what you get, and nothing more.
<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Frank Umans. Repost done with permission. >>
SAP will stop supporting SAP solution manager by 31.12.2027. All its functions will be migrated to SAP Cloud ALM.
The SAP readiness check for Cloud ALM will check the usage of current functions in your SAP solution manager and will validate if replacements in Cloud ALM are already present.
Since Cloud ALM is constantly growing in functionality you better run this check yearly. It is up to each customer to decide to move to SAP Cloud ALM for part of the functions or to wait until all functions are available.
Apply the latest version of SAP note 3236443 – SAP Readiness Check for SAP Cloud ALM to your SAP solution manager system. Run program /SDF/RC_ALM_COLLECT_DATA in your solution manager production system.
It might be that your RFC for destination WEBADMIN is not setup correctly. That will cause a short dump.
If you are not using Trace Analysis function, you can remove code to this call in the local definition of class /SDF/CL_RC_ALM:
Running the check
Run program /SDF/RC_ALM_COLLECT_DATA in your solution manager production system. Select the option Schedule Analysis:
When the job is finished select Download Analysis Data and save the file.
Upload the result file on the Readiness page in SAP for me on this URL.
Result of the check
After the upload, wait up to 1 hour for SAP to process the results. For full explanation of the checks, read this SAP blog. Short description is below:
Top left you get an overview of the capabilities that were detected that are currently in use in Solution manager, or were used in the past:
Below is the most important overview. This shows if your used functions are available on Cloud ALM or will come in the near future, or only on the far Vision future:
SAP Cloud ALM positioning
Read more on SAP Cloud ALM positioning in this blog.
SAP Cloud ALM activation
Read more on SAP Cloud ALM activation in this blog.
Solution manager clean up
For parts of solution manager that you don’t use, you can perform the technical clean up.
SAP Cloud ALM is a solution offered by SAP for managing cloud products of SAP.
The tool is still in build up, but is looking promising. If you are interested in what Cloud ALM can do, you can read the documentation, but also try out in the online Cloud ALM demo system.
Questions that will be answered in this blog are:
How can I see online in a demo system what SAP Cloud ALM can do?
Where can I find more information on SAP Cloud ALM?
Does SAP Cloud ALM require a license or is it free for use?
If you look for a SAP solution manager demo system: read this blog.
General information about Cloud ALM can be found on this link.
All technical background and implementation information on Cloud ALM can be found at the SAP Cloud ALM expert portal:
SAP Cloud ALM license
According to this SAP blog, the use of SAP Cloud ALM is part of the general SAP license, just like SAP solution manager. It’s use is free of license cost, but off course, time you need to spend on implementation and activation is not.
