e company. All rights reserved.
SAP Solution Manager
SAP® Solution Manager: The IT Solution
from SAP for IT Service Management and More
Table of Contents
2 SAP Solution Manager – A Fully Scalable IT Platform
3 Supporting 15 Certified ITIL Processes for Service Provision
SAP Solution Manager provides functions that are designed especially to support corporate IT, including all that’s needed for implementing, managing, and maintaining an application and IT infrastructure landscape. The software is available free of charge to customers who have a maintenance contract with SAP. The IT service management (ITSM) functions are bundled in what is referred to as the “ITSM scenario.”
IT functionality beyond typical ITSM functions can be found in SAP Solution Manager, which is what distinguishes the SAP software from other ITSM applications on the market. It can also
be used in such areas as project management, testing, monitoring, system analysis, and code transports. ITSM functions can be deeply inte- grated with these.
With SAP Solution Manager 7.1, the ITSM func- tions have been enhanced to support heteroge- neous and complex IT landscapes for both SAP and non-SAP software and even IT infrastructure.
These functions are continuously improved and developed to align with customer requirements and the framework set out by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
IT is often regarded as a separate business or is even outsourced to external IT service providers. But first, companies want to standardize their IT and integrate their software landscape to manage their processes centrally. Based on an open infrastructure, the SAP® Solution Manager application management solution supports it all: standardization, deep integration, and IT services for both SAP and non-SAP software.
Unlike the classic ITSM applications on the market, the ITSM functions of SAP Solution Manager
can additionally be used in areas such as testing, monitoring, system analysis, and code transports.
SAP Solution Manager – A Fully Scalable
IT Platform
Best practices have evolved in IT over the past years and been gathered in the library. Best practices advanced by ITIL set down the stan- dard for processes in many IT departments as well as for service providers. The ITIL 2011 edition uses 26 processes, bundled in five phases, to describe how an IT service provider (including an IT department) should provide its services.
Last year, SAP commissioned two independent certification bodies to ascertain how SAP Solu- tion Manager deploys best practices advanced by ITIL. For all phases and all 15 ITIL processes that could be verified at the time, SAP Solution Manager received the “SERVIEW certified tool”
quality seal as well as “PinkVerify.”
Supporting 15 Certified ITIL Processes for Service Provision
The ITSM functions of SAP Solution Manager are contin-
uously improved and developed to align with customer
requirements and the framework set out by ITIL.
The following processes were examined in individual audits independent of each other and verified as ITIL compliant:
• Service strategy
Financial management, service portfolio management
• Service design
Service catalog management, service-level management, capacity management, avail- ability management, IT service continuity management
• Service transition
Change management, release and deployment management, knowledge management, service asset and configuration management
• Service operation
Event management, incident management, problem management, request fulfillment This verification confirmed that the ITIL processes are supported as best practices in SAP Solution Manager. Furthermore, SAP Solution Manager was the first tool to be verified as supporting all 15 processes in accordance with PinkVerify for the ITIL 2011 edition. And, compared with other tools, SAP Solution Manager scored particularly well in terms of cross-IT processes.
Continual
service improvement
Continual service improvement Continual
service improvement
Service design
S
ITIL
ervic
e ope ration
Service transition Service strategy
Figure: ITIL Cycle for IT Service Management
THE BEST-PRACTICE SOLUTION FOR IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT
SAP customers know the opportunities SAP soft- ware gives them. Standard interfaces, workflow engines, integrated analysis tools, and countless standard customer relationship management (CRM) functions designed for service processes can be deployed individually in the ITSM
scenarios.
Our approach is to deliver a best-practice solu- tion that you can configure according to your individual process requirements and which also links up with countless enhancement interfaces.
This allows you to integrate your own process logic while remaining in charge of maintenance and support. The standard version of SAP Solu- tion Manager provides regular functional en- hancements, so that major configurations are often not necessary.
The strengths of SAP Solution Manager include:
• Standard integration and open infrastructure When a company’s IT is treated as a separate business unit or has been outsourced to an external IT service provider, it is often necessary to integrate it with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) business processes. These could include cost allocation or personnel planning processes. SAP Solution Manager provides a great advantage in this area. It supports standard integration between SAP solutions and an open infrastructure, allowing a company to embed its own process logic and individual interfaces in non-SAP products.
• Scalability and enhancement options SAP Solution Manager is a fully scalable plat- form that can be readily enhanced to meet increasing IT integration requirements. It can also be scaled at any time to meet additional customer requirements for integration, analy- ses, and specific innovations and has a capacity for enhancement that is virtually limitless.
This makes it a good basis for a long-term growth strategy.
SAP Solution Manager was the first
tool to be verified as supporting all
15 processes in accordance with
PinkVerify for the ITIL 2011 edition.
• ITSM processes – for infrastructure too Customers often need a configuration manage- ment solution that extends beyond their SAP applications to manage the IT of their entire IT landscape. SAP IT Infrastructure Management software can be integrated with SAP Solution Manager to enable the ITSM processes to be used on all network devices. IT assets are then automatically detected and can be managed and monitored by SAP IT Infrastructure Management.
• Complete documentation of business processes
SAP Solution Manager can bridge the gap between business processes and the IT infra- structure, because the entire business process landscape can be documented in SAP Solution Manager. This means dependencies between – and connections to – business processes, applications, and the infrastructure can be displayed and monitored on a single platform.
• No installation hassle, no additional hardware SAP Solution Manager – with all its functions and features – is available to all SAP customers who have a maintenance contract with SAP.
Customers can decide for themselves which processes to activate and use in their produc- tion software. Because almost all SAP custom- ers already use SAP Solution Manager, issues concerning additional hardware or installation effort seldom arise.
• Straightforward user interfaces
In ITSM development, we are guided by current market trends and are constantly incorporating innovations into SAP Solution Manager. For example, there are mobile apps on iOS and Android with which end users can record their IT incidents directly using a scan function. In addition, the Web browser interfaces that are provided as part of the standard delivery are role based and very easy to personalize. This means they can be adjusted in line with user requirements.
MORE INFORMATION
Contact your SAP representative, or visit us online at
http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/SAPITSM
The standard version of SAP Solution Manager provides regular
functional enhancements, so that major configurations are often
not necessary.
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