SAP Solution Manager: Implementation, Upgrades, and Beyond

by Doreen Baseler, SAP AG

SAP Solution Manager is clearly not for just one phase of your SAP solution life cycle - it covers implementation of new solutions and support for operation well beyond these phases. What’s more, SAP Solution Manager is included in the SAP standard maintenance agreement, so all SAP customers can receive the complete SAP Solution Manager package, including upgrade content and the roadmap methodology. Those customers who already use SAP Solution Manager in their implementations will see considerable benefits during upgrades - the data stored in implementation projects can serve as the starting point for their upgrade project, and SAP Solution Manager’s monitoring functionality can provide operative solution data, including systems and business processes, for upgrades. Just as SAP Solution Manager content helps save time and money during implementation, the same holds true for upgrades. Predefined SAP upgrade and scenario content can lower your efforts and your TCO, and a clear upgrade methodology will help reduce your time to benefit.

What’s more, SAP Solution Manager provides building blocks that prepare you for future application anagement challenges. For example:

■ Upgrade projects can serve as the initial basis for new implementation projects. All information can be copied completely or selectively into new implementation projects, so customers do not have to start from scratch.
■ The Customizing Scout - part of SAP Solution Manager’s Customizing Synchronization suite - can be used to cross-check whether all upgrade customizing was transported correctly into the quality assurance and production environment.
■ Upgraded business processes and solution landscapes can be productively monitored using Business Process Monitoring.
■ Since your business is constantly changing - sometimes even before an implementation or upgrade project is finished - you also need a powerful and sophisticated tool to handle all these alterations: SAP Solution Manager 3.2 addresses these challenges with the built-in Change Request Management (built-in ChaRM) functionality.

For further information on upgrade content and features from SAP Solution Manager and the Upgrade Roadmap, please visit http://service.sap.com/ solutionmanager for general information on SAP Solution Manager upgrade functionality, and http://service.sap.com/ roadmaps for accessing and downloading the HTML version of the Upgrade Roadmap.