I have been contacted by a RISE with SAP customer recently regarding “SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition.” Have you heard about it before? I assume most of you have not. Even famous search engines do not find much if you search for this term. So, let me do some clarification in this blog post. 

SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition is not a successor of SAP Solution Manager 7.2. It is a renaming of “SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA Cloud”. You might have read my blog post. The purpose of this SAP Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) offer is to give cloud-only customers of SAP access and usage rights to an SAP Solution Manager 7.2 system in the private cloud. 

Why do cloud-only customers need SAP Solution Manager at all? They have free access to the alternative Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution SAP Cloud ALM. However, there is no feature parity between the two solutions. See my blog series “ALM for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – SAP Cloud ALM or SAP Solution Manager?”, and the recent update for details.  

Some customers need ALM functions that are not provided by SAP Cloud ALM. They want to have access to SAP Solution Manager. To get this, customers can subscribe for SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition (formerly known as SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA Cloud). 

You might ask: “Why do you rename this offering? Is it just marketing?” No, there is a good reason: Simplification. There have been several types of SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA Cloud with minimal differences only: 

• SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA Cloud extended edition 
• SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition 
• SAP Solution Manager for SAP ERP, private cloud edition 

We have decided now to join these three types in one common offering. And instead of fighting for which name to survive, we have selected the new name: SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition. Customers and SAP sales colleagues do not have trouble anymore in selecting the right solution. 

Solution Documentation Version vs. Full Version

SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition is available in two versions, same as its predecessor: Project Documentation Version and Full Version. Main difference is that the project documentation version is deployed as a single-system landscape only, while the full version comes as a dual system landscape with a test and a production system.  

The impact of a single-system landscape is that configuration changes are always done directly on the productive system. You cannot test the impact of a change beforehand. This can be a substantial risk, especially for client-independent settings, like workflows. Therefore, SAP does not recommend using the single-system landscape for processes that rely on such settings heavily. This applies especially for the functional areas Project Management, Change Control Management, and IT Service Management. If you want to use the Project Documentation Version anyway for these areas, please be aware of the limitations. 

SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition: functional implementation scope

Operations support is another differentiator of the two versions. Only the Full Version allows the deployment of agents required for Application Operations and Business Process Operations with SAP Solution Manager. But this difference is not relevant anymore. Meanwhile, SAP Cloud ALM for Operations capabilities are comparable to SAP Solution Manager, especially for systems in the public or private cloud, where the cloud provider (SAP) is doing the system administration. And there is no need to deploy and maintain agents for SAP Cloud ALM. This saves significant cost. 

Transition Strategy

In this context, let me refer to the general transition strategy from SAP Solution Manager to SAP Cloud ALM. SAP recommends for customers using SAP Solution Manager today to adopt SAP Cloud ALM for service and operations now. There is less effort for updates and agent administration. SAP Cloud ALM offers higher ease of use and consumption. And you get better access to the Service and Support network of SAP. 

Customers using SAP Solution Manager for implementation projects today should adopt SAP Cloud ALM for implementation at their own pace. You can continue using SAP Solution Manager to complete your move to SAP S/4HANA, or if SAP Cloud ALM for implementation is not sufficient for you (yet). SAP Cloud ALM and SAP Solution Manager can be used in parallel, even if there is no integration. This applies to SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition as well.  

Parallel use of SAP Cloud ALM and SAP Solution Manager

And just a final remark on cost (see my blog post: ALM for SAP S/4HANA Cloud – What are the cost?): SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition is not configured at the beginning. You must care for the basic configuration and process customizing yourself or pay for it besides the subscription fee.  

Conclusion 

SAP Solution Manager, private cloud edition is the successor of the SAP ECS offering SAP Solution Manager for SAP S/4HANA. Via this, customers without SAP on-premise maintenance agreement can use SAP Solution Manager. This is relevant for customers requiring ALM functionality that is not provided by SAP Cloud ALM but by SAP Solution Manager only. 

It is possible to use SAP Solution Manager for implementation and SAP Cloud ALM for operations and services in parallel. 

Next Steps 

If you have any comments on the content of this blog post, please add them below. I am happy to learn about your point of view. 

Do not forget that there is a possibility to use SAP Solution Manager even if you do not have on-premise solutions from SAP. 

If you want to learn more about Application Lifecycle Management, please follow the tags SAP Cloud ALM or SAP Solution Manager for related information in SAP Community.