Do YOU already LOVE SAP Cloud ALM?

[Dimitri]

Since August 2020, SAP Cloud ALM is generally available. So it's high time to take a closer look at it. This blog is not about all features in detail, but it is about the general picture. About how to use SAP Cloud ALM and what to expect from it.

When I hear people talking about SAP Cloud ALM, I often hear the comparison with SAP Solution Manager, but now being its cloud variant. Well no, that is not the case. When talking about ALM, SAP offers 3 different technologies:

• SAP Solution Manager is the well-established ALM platform of SAP. It is an on-premise solution to support on-premise applications as well as hybrid landscapes


• SAP Focused Run is a powerful solution for Service Providers who want to host all their customers in a central, scalable, safe, and automated environment. It also addresses customers with advanced needs regarding system management, user monitoring, integration monitoring, and configuration and security analytics.


• SAP Cloud ALM is for customers that use only (or at least predominantly) cloud solutions from SAP, and do not want to deploy their own ALM platform on-premise for managing these applications.
  Besides that’s, when talking about SAP Cloud ALM, think more in terms like “out-of-the-box”, “Cloud-Centric”, “plug-and-play”, etc.

Who should use it?

Everybody should use it! Both technical and functional people.
SAP Cloud ALM offers such a broad range of tasks and activities to be performed in a project scope, everybody can get familiar with it.

From the very start of a project, until the very end and the operations afterwards. Everything can be done in SAP Cloud ALM. In a pure cloud environment, consider doing the project management in SAP Cloud ALM too.

How to get it?

SAP Cloud ALM is available for customers with SAP Enterprise Support or SAP Enterprise Support, Cloud Editions. You just need to request access to SAP Cloud ALM. Go to SAP for Me to start the provisioning. That’s it!
HINT - keep in mind that, especially for those customers with no (or not much) cloud experience, SAP provides an Identity Authentication service (IAS) tenant together with SAP Cloud ALM.
Typically, there is a productive and non-productive IAS tenant available. But there is only 1 Cloud ALM tenant. Make sure to connect and configure them properly.

What about the configuration?

First of all, consider your use case(s) and get a clear view on which system(s) to connect.
Once that is clear, visit the SAP Cloud ALM Expert Portal (available for both the implementation and operations part). Here, you can find which systems can be connected and which features, and scenarios are available out-of-the-box.
Also available, and very useful before you start the configuration, are the prerequisites, a setup video, and a detailed overview of actions to be performed.
HINT – go to the SAP Cloud ALM homepage and check out new features (quarterly) and register for upcoming webinars. That way, you always stay informed of new things and features, added by SAP.

What to expect from it?

SAP Cloud ALM offers a clear view on things. There is no need to click a lot to get to the information you need. The look and feel is very intuitive and you do not need to be an expert to find your way around in the system.
You can easily create your own landing page (My Home) to get to things you need, e.g. on a daily basis, very quickly. This is very useful when you are involved in different phases of a project. And, as in my case, also in the operations part.

Conclusion

When technology is bad, you need to be critical. But when technology makes your professional life easier, you must dare to say so.
I can say that I am full of praise for SAP Cloud ALM: it does what it should, and it is easy to configure and to use. In case there is something we think is not OK or not sufficient enough, we can immediately reach out to the product management to discuss. As TheValueChain is an early adopter of SAP Cloud ALM, together with SAP, we can make this technology even more powerful and user friendly!

Stay tuned for more SAP Cloud ALM insights! Soon, brand new features like Synthetic User Monitoring and External API Management will be demystified.