Solution Manager & CloudALM (& Focused Run)

A while back, SAP announced the general availability of SAP Cloud ALM for August 31st, 2020, and with it, introduced a third major tool to the SAP ALM portfolio.
Now that the dust has settled, I’d like to address two common question I have received since: «So what exactly is the difference between Solution Manager and CloudALM?» and «Does this mean Solution Manager is dead?».

The SAP ALM Portfolio

To answer the first questions I want to take a look at the entire SAP ALM Portfolio and for good measure, throw Focused Run into the mix.

Focused what-now?

Focused Run. One of the three Focused Solutions that in itself is already the odd chicken in the pen, as it is a standalone tool, rather than an add-on to SolMan. While Focused Run is technically an ALM Tool, its customer targeting means, most of us mortals won’t ever be exposed to it in our SAP careers.
Focused Run is designed for large scale operations, or scenarios that have more complex requirements, such as multi-tenancy concepts, and was introduced as an alternative to Solution Manager environments, where a typical SolMan setup simply can’t cope with the underlying environment.

For this reason, it deserves an honorable mention here, but really doesn’t fit into the comparison of SolMan and CloudALM.

Solution Manager

The Solution Manager, in its latest version 7.2, SPS11, is most likely known to us all. It’s the oldest tool in the comparison – one could say the original ALM tool and king of the portfolio.

Solution Manager has evolved over time to meet the requirements of the entire Application Lifecycle. It does so with four key value propositions: Portfolio-to-Project, Requirement-to-Deploy, Request-to-Fulfill and Detect-to-Correct. It introduces 10 functional areas to your SAP landscape that act as the landscape nervous system, serving as the single source of truth and central platform for day-to-day management. Notable areas of functionality are Process Management, Test Suite, Project Management, Business Process Operations, Application Operations, Data Volume Management, Change Control Management, IT Service Management, Custom Code Management and Landscape Management.
Solution Manager is targeted to the “average” SAP ECC customer and can be deployed across all scenarios, including On-Prem, Hybrid and Cloud Solutions.

Focused Build is an add-on available through ST-OST that further enhances the Requirement-to-Deploy stream with agile project management, new UI5-Apps and other standalone enhancements. Focused Insights, also available through ST-OST, brings in-depth analytics and reporting to the entire landscape.

CloudALM

So, let’s take a look at CloudALM, the new kid on the block: CloudALM was announced by SAP at the Solution Manager Education Summit, SolEd, back in 2018, as an additional member of the ALM Portfolio.
Public Cloud deployments have changed the way IT organizations need to maintain and manage their infrastructure. With many applications consumed rather as a service than a full-stack deployment, the needs toward monitoring and management changes. As an example, services such as HANA are increasingly managed centrally by SAP, keeping them up-to-date and secure, allowing consumers to focus solely on their business needs and not have to worry about those tedious support tasks.

CloudALM is SAP’s answer to the evolving changes – it comes as a brand new development, meaning that while it benefits from the experiences made with SolMan, they do not share a common code base. It is available for immediate consumption in the public cloud, as an always up-to-date cloud service that does not require basis administration for itself.

As a young product, general availability was announced for August 31st, 2020, it is still under development with many exciting features and functionalities to be added over the next few years.
It focuses on two main modes of operation: Implementation, meaning implementing SAP solutions to your organization, and Operations, tasks evolving around keep your organizational needs up-and-running and continuously enhancing them.
CloudALM is targeted toward customers looking to implement pure public-cloud based deployments, although hybrid landscape support has been announced in the near future.

I’m confused.

Aren’t we all. Maybe the following table makes it somewhat clearer to understand:

Now that that is settled, it’s time to look at the second question.

So, is SolMan dead?

In short: In time, yes.**

Wait! Keep Calm and Read On!

Admittedly, the question is a hard one to answer and it’s not pure black-or-white. SAP has officially communicated that SolMan will stay an integer part of it ALM portfolio. The recent extension of support for Business Suite 7, as well as still active commitment to the customer connection program and development on SolMan, definitely give SolMan an additional lease on life.
However, realistically, the trend to cloud is here to stay. And it won’t pass-by SAP. As more customers move to new deployment strategies, the requirements of an ALM tool also change. This will cause significant resource requirements for maintaining and on-going development of such a tool, let alone two. It will remain to be seen if/how soon SolMan will loose its seat on the throne to its new in-house challenger, CloudALM.

On top, I find the wording of SAPs answer on this question intriguing. They don’t answer it with a clear ‘No’, rather with

“SAP Cloud ALM is not a legal successor of SAP Solution Manager.”

Interesting, right?

So, is SolMan dead? – I personally believe it is not a question of if, but rather of when.

As for Focused Run, the advanced capabilities of the tool remain unmatched and nothing points to it being replaced. Therefore it is, at this time, very safe to assume that nothing will change here in the foreseeable future.

* Limited or Announced but not yet released
** Personal opinion of the author