Solution Manager Update – What are you doing for the next 5 years?

The answer is performing multiple upgrades. SAP is going to be releasing two value releases a year which will include both new functionality and fixes. Although the switching functionality in SAP Business Suite 7 (ECC6) enables you to activate only the new features and functionality you want to deploy there is still a technical upgrade required. SAP has committed to this approach on ECC6 for the next 5 years to 2020. That means that there will be a possible 10 upgrades in the next 5 years. Even with a reduction in project duration (SAP claims a reduction in project duration from 21 to 8 weeks – 62%) due to the Enhancement Pack approach, this equates to 80 weeks of upgrade effort. So even with a conservative approach of one upgrade a year this is close to a year’s (40 weeks) worth of upgrade activity from multiple resources. By taking a five year view of costs we can see that even a 10% reduction in effort will result in hundreds of thousands in savings (or effort redirected to higher value activity). The savings are even greater when you begin factoring in multiple SAP systems.

So what is the call to action? As each upgrade is pretty much the same process it makes sense to design and implement a repeatable process. A best practice is to set-up a Maintenance Program of Work that can be approved once and provides the framework for supporting the repeatable activities. Along with this Program you can begin to map out a Roadmap of improvements to your Application Life-cycle Processes that will delivery even greater benefits and savings (watch out for my next post).  So with many customers gearing up for Enhancement Pack 7 in the next 6 months it is a great time to begin planning for what you will be doing for the next 5 years!

News

SAP NetWeaver 7.40 is the Last Release Supporting Non-Unicode. See Unicode Meet the Expert sessions below (replay of sessions available)

Replays of Solution Manager sessions from SAP TechEd && d-code – Las Vegas October 20-24:

• Agile Lifecycle Management and Two Value Releases per Year
• Security Notes, System Recommendations and Business Process Change Analyzer
• Business Process Improvement as Part of Value Chain Optimization
• Overview and Road Map of SAP NetWeaver 7.4
• Functional Test Automation with SAP Solution Manager 7.1
• Change Control Management Maximize the Value for Hybrid Scenarios
• Road Map to Unleash Value in Operations

EGI’s – North America Schedule for November 2014:

• Online schedule for Expert Guided Implementation sessions

• Application Lifecycle Management: Jump Start 24 ^th to 28^th Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Basic Configuration of SAP Solution Manager 7.1 – 10^th to 14 ^th Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Configuration Validation  – 18 ^th to 20^th Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Custom Code Quality and Clones – 24 ^th to 26^th Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Custom Development Management Cockpit – 17 ^th to 20^th Oct
• Tool & Process Setup: Data Volume Management: Methodology and Infrastructure – 17^th to 21 ^st Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Incident, Problem Management (ITSM) – 17 ^th to 21^st Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Job Scheduling Management – Fully Booked
• Tool & Process Setup: SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Roadmap – 14 ^th Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Technical Upgrade of SAP Solution Manager to 7.1 – 17^th to 21 ^st Nov
• Tool & Process Setup: Test Management I: SAP Test Workbench – Fully Booked
• Tools & Process Setup: Business Intelligence Monitoring & Troubleshooting – Fully Booked

Guided Self Service Execution (Also run as an EGI on below dates):

• Data Consistency Management (DCM) – 10 ^th to 14^th Nov
• Data Volume Management (DVM) – 24 ^th to 28^th Nov
• Performance Optimization (PERF) – Fully Booked
• SAP HANA (2 of 6) – Database Administration and Operations – 17 ^th to 21^st Nov
• SAP HANA (3 of 6) – Advanced Database Monitoring – 10 ^th to 14^th Nov
• SAP HANA (6 of 6) – Profitability Analysis – 17 ^th to 21^st Nov
• SAP Mobile (5 of 5): System Operations – 17 ^th to 20^th Nov
• SAP Solution Manager 7.1 configuration SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 – 10 ^th to 14^th Nov
• Security Optimization Service (SOS) – 24 ^th to 28^th Nov

Meet the Expert:

• Holistic IT Management for Hybrid Solutions – 20 ^th Nov
• Remote Supportability for Hybris – 6 ^th, 7^th , 11^th, 12 ^th, 19^th , 20^th Nov
• Best Practices for a SuccessFactors Admin User – 4 ^th Nov
• City of Toronto – Solution Manager 7.1 use in IT Operations – 7 ^th Nov
• How SAP Products empower Users with special needs – 18 ^th Nov
• SuccessFactors Employee Central: LOB Value – 10 ^th Nov
• SuccessFactors LMS: LOB Value – 5 ^th Nov
• SuccessFactors Meta Data Framework (MDF) Overview – 12 ^th Nov
• SuccessFactors Recruiting: LOB Value – 13 ^th Nov
• Unicode Migration: SAP Tools & Methodologies – 4 ^th Nov
• Unicode Migration: Strategy – 3 ^rd Nov

• Tool & Process Setup: Basic Configuration of SAP Solution Manager 7.1 – 1^st to 5 ^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: Change Control Management II: Quality Gate Management – 2^nd to 5 ^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: Change Control Management III: Change Request Mgmt – 1^st to 5 ^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: Custom Development Management Cockpit – 1 ^st to 5^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Roadmap – 10 ^th, 11^th , 12^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: System Consolidation & Rollout of Country Versions – 10^th to 12 ^th Dec
• Tool & Process Setup: System Monitoring & Reporting – 1 ^st to 4^th Dec
• Tools & Process Setup: Business Intelligence Monitoring & Troubleshooting – 1^st to 3 ^rd Dec

Guided Self Service Execution (Also run as an EGI on below dates):

• Performance Optimization (PERF) – 1 ^st to 5^th Dec
• SAP HANA (1 of 6) – Monitoring and Troubleshooting – 8 ^th to 10^th Dec
• SAP HANA (4 of 6) – Make your Custom Code Ready – 8 ^th to 10^th Dec
• SAP HANA (5 of 6) – Data Modelling – 1 ^st to 5^th Dec
• SAP Mobile (3 of 5): Enterprise Mobility Management – 1 ^st to 3^rd Dec

Meet the Expert:

• Remote Supportability for Hybris – 3 ^rd, 4^th , 9^th, 10 ^th, 16^th , 18^th Dec