Trends in SAP ALM

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2019 will be another busy year for the SAP Application Lifecycle community. As the pace of S/4HANA adoption ramps up, there will be more focus on IT transformation. With SAP Solution Manager being a key component in planning and executing digital transformation I have prepared a list of 6 trends that could impact your ALM strategy.

One bit of important information for planning is that everyone who is using Solution Manager should upgrade to a minimum of  Solman 7.2 SP08 by the end of 2019. This will ensure there are no issues when SAP upgrades its Support Backbone in Jan 2020 and will make implementing new functionality much smoother (fewer notes to apply!!!).

Remember SAP ALM training is free for Enterprise support customers: Learning from the Experts. These are free with SAP Enterprise Support.

1. The rise of Agile and Scaled Agile in SAP

SAP Focus Build, which provides an integrated tool chain to support Agile + DevOps, will see a big uptake in 2019. Agile is not just the purview of Tech Unicorns anymore but is now spreading through all industries looking to achieve digital transformation. Another big driver for Focus Build is the SAP Announcement that from 2020 Focus Build will be included in the usage rights of Solution Manager, this will lower the barrier to entry!

2. The silent IT revolution – RPA

In order to support Digital Transformation, IT will need to provide Robotics Process Automation (RPA) in its core IT value chains. As with the application of RPA across business functions, IT will also look for RPA opportunities to help reduce costs and increase the velocity of change. Key areas will be testing (not just functionality but data, performance, and security), Landscape Management (LaMa), Business Process Operations, and IT Operations.

3. Testing times

Following on from the previous prediction, Automated testing within SAP landscapes will gain traction in 2019. With HP selling its ALM tools (HPQC) to Microfocus, many customers will take the opportunity to re-evaluate their testing strategy and update for automation. The new SAP Test Management Suite combined with Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA) will become a key tool in this strategy.

4. Back to Basics – Business Process Documentation

IT can no longer track change on a spreadsheet and manage business processes in Word Documents! The demands for better traceability, compliance, and control, along with the increased volume of change, will drive the need to track and trace requirements from idea to deployment. Integration of the requirements, business process and change management processes become critical in an increasingly complex environment. This will result in the increase of companies documenting their business processes within Solution Manager in order to manage the change from idea (Requirements Management) to production via Change Management (ChaRM) to track the who, what, and when of change (Traceability/Audit).

5. SAP Cloud ALM – Will become a thing in 2019

As SAP Public Cloud adoption increases so will Cloud ALM. Cloud ALM will also move beyond the deployment phase to the operate phase. Will remain in the Small to Medium Enterprise space for 2019.

6. The end of Solman 7.1

From Jan 2020 on-premise Solution Manager will only be able to communicate with the SAP Backbone via HTTPS. This means any version of Solman under 7.2 SP07 will not be able to transfer data to the SAP Support Backbone.

 

SAP Solution Manager Value Report

In the spirit of getting you to the next step in your ALM journey, the following is a link to the Free Solution Manager Value Report from SAP: At A Glance Build your SAP Solution Manager Business Case.

www.sap.com/solman-value