This blog will guide you to the customer for using the Solution Manager 7.x (7.0, 7.0 EHP1, 7.1) product.
Here we go on Solution Manager Component to find out the benefit as a result of using the Pre-configured solution which has been categorized into 4 processes:
Processes I
Root Cause Analysis (RCA):
Whenever there is an issue in the solution landscape, E2E RCA helps you in identifying where the problem is. It helps you in identifying whether the problem is in at client-side or server-side, is it a performance issue or functionality issue? After when this issue is occurring? After what change? What has been changed - because of which this error is occurring?
- Faster setup & enablement of RCA solutions.
- Leads to increase the availability of the IT solution.
- Overall problem-resolution time and number of resources involved in the investigation are reduced.
- One safe and central access channel to the customer’s system landscape.
- Top-Down Analysis approach (investigation from common point).
- Reduces overall resolution time.
- Data collection by Diagnostics is reused for IT reporting.
Technical Monitoring:
Status Monitoring; End-User Experience Monitoring; Connection Monitoring; Product Specific Monitoring (like PI, BW); Unified Alert Inbox; Alert correlation and propagation; Central Template Maintenance; Open data provider and alert consumer.
Central System Admin and System Monitoring:
Central administration and configuration of technical components of a solution landscape; Central starting and stopping of instances (platform dependent); Central control of technical components, for example ABAP and Java instances; Global and Central information and administration cockpit; Increase in administrative efficiency, thereby reducing total cost of operation; Homogeneous management of heterogeneous solution landscapes by work center integration; Central monitoring of technical components of a solution landscape (to a large extent); Timely recognition of critical developments through graphical reproduction; KPI’s as criteria for quality and quantity in solution operations; Expert tools, making the status of the system landscape visible to the customer; Enablement of analyzing and improving business processes; One Standard place which can monitor entire landscape to single dashboard; Categorize and prioritize the alert monitoring or daily monitoring requirements; Can assign the tasks to individual or group of people and can result the daily monitoring checks; Create the issues through the tasks if there are problems.
Security Operations:
Well defined security standards, policy and guidelines; Complies with SOX; Verification of legal (external) or internal requirements; In-depth security assessments; Comprehensive risk analysis, impact and probability estimations, cost/benefit estimations.
Solution Documentation:
Solution documentation is a key enabler for business and IT alignment; Transparency can accelerate IT activities and improve their results; Knowledge base for any Key solution implementation.
Self-Delivered Go-live Checks / EWA Alerts:
System data is checked and evaluated at regular intervals; Evaluations also contain current SAP Notes and are posted in the form of a report; if problems occur, SAP support organization will already have current data on hand. This speeds up the processing of the problem and reduces costs; other pro-active services offered by SAP, such as EarlyWatch Service or Going Live Functional Upgrade Service, are designed to work together with EarlyWatch Alert and can therefore be processed more efficiently.
Processes II
ServiceDesk:
ServiceDesk can be organized into several support units; Internal Customers or Users can create problem messages directly from a transaction; The Level 1 support unit personnel can enter symptoms in an internal solution database and search for solutions. The person can also search for SAP notes in the SAP Service Marketplace. If the person cannot find a solution, he can forward the problem message to subsequent support units or to SAP Support and monitor the progress of the problem message.
SAP’s Change Request Management (ChaRM):
Improve efficiency and transparency of change management processes; Store documentation of implemented changes; Track and monitor changes; Improve audit process; Reduce risk of correction and project failures; Allow the Organization to control and manage changes in the SAP system effectively; Guarantee that any change to the SAP system follows the standard process flow and procedures with mandatory controls and documented steps; effectively adheres to requirements for SOX compliance.
Business Process Interface Monitoring (BPIM):
Increased end user satisfaction in application support; Decreased business process downtime; Decreased bypassing of defined business processes by the end-users; Improved performance, throughput & stability of business process; Improved resolution time for error situations; Assign monitoring objects to process steps and interfaces; Customize alerts per object; Direct navigation to analysis method in satellite systems; Documented error handling procedures and contact persons; Creation of support notifications, workflow trigger, alert confirmation.
ServiceDesk including Incident Management:
End users can easily create error messages and send them to a central support organization working in the SAP solution manager; Support employees use advanced tools to process the error messages and deliver fast problem resolution; Collaboration with SAP Active Global Support works smoothly.
Processes III
Data Volume Management (DVM):
Improved performance; Decreased storage cost; Eases system management activities (backup, recovery, system copy, etc.).
Transactional Inconsistency and Data:
Increased end-user support in application support.
Integrity:
Decreased business process downtime; Improved stability of business process.
Test Management:
Increased ability to react quickly to business changes with reliable software that is tested at all phases of the application life cycle; Reduced performance risk through ongoing testing that begins early in the implementation cycle; Increased efficiency of SAP applications with faster transaction processing and decreased downtime; Faster time to benefit and lower costs.
Processes IV
Centralized Print Management:
Definition and management of all printers in the SAP Landscape; Single point of Control for all printers in the SAP Landscape; Administration of all print jobs in the SAP NetWeaver Landscape; Tracking of detailed print job status print status feedback to administrators and end-users.
Job Scheduling Management:
Freeing up human resources that had to perform redundant work before and by reducing administration efforts using hardware resources more efficiently; Speeding-up crucial background job processing, especially for complex job chains and hence reducing critical batch time windows; Enabling more real-time business by event-driven scheduling; Central documentation ensure avoidance of redundant work of documentation; Increased transparency regarding what has been changed when and by whom.
Custom Development Management Cockpit:
Usage transparency of custom developments; big saving potential by clearing identified obsolete custom-specific objects; Accelerated upgrade.
CTS + One Transport Order:
Synchronization of transports for applications with both non-ABAP (java) and ABAP parts; Traceability of transports, flexible transport routes, scheduling; Automatic synchronization for mixed applications (for example, Web Dynpro Java application together with Portal iView), i.e., use a single tool to transport parts of one and the same application instead of using different tools for transporting parts of one and the same application.
In summary, some ideas needs to consider where it would provide additional capability or functionality are:
- Pre-configured: We go to a client site and install a pre-configured solution that the customer can easily modify for their specific situation, saving them time, effort and cost.
- End to End Process documentation that has to be developed so that the customer can easily use the functions with Solution Manager in a consistent manner and leveraging best practices.
- Implementing Best practices for better reporting processes steps for maintenance and monitoring, visibility, analysis. Lead to re-organizing their landscape.
Typical Important Benefits to Customer includes:
- Faster and cheaper to implement Solution Manager by reducing the time, effort and the cost.
- Optimal use of Solution Manager based on the clients SAP Landscape.
- Better monitoring, visibility, analysis, and more efficient process, e.g. ChaRM, ServiceDesk, etc.
- Better and more thorough testing.
