When businesses make the decision to implement a new technology solution or process, they want to make sure they start seeing the benefits of their investment as soon as possible. This is why application lifecycle management (ALM) is crucial. ALM is a term that describes the processes, tools, services, and organizational models used to manage software from concept to phase out. ALM enables IT and business managers to more effectively maintain business continuity, accelerate innovation, and reduce risk while keeping the total cost of operations (TCO) low and protecting the company’s IT investment. This all means that companies are better able to realize the benefits of new technology and process investments. SAP’s ALM approach focuses on helping IT develop best practices for managing each IT process, no matter how complicated the application landscape might be. The goal is to allow them to achieve key performance indicators (KPIs), reach a high return on the investment, and increase the quality of implemented solutions and processes.

1. Application Lifecycle Management
SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE
This article appeared in the Oct Nov Dec 2012 issue of
n n
SAPinsider (http://sapinsider.wispubs.com) and appears
here with permission from the publisher, WIS Publishing.
Don’t Sit on the Sidelines
When It Comes to Your
Applications’ Health
Take Advantage of ALM to Improve Solution Integration and Minimize Risk
by Wendy Maldonado, SAP
When businesses make the decision to implement ■■ A best-practice methodology, organizational
a new technology solution or process, they want model, and solution standards to support the
to make sure they start seeing the benefits of their software landscape
investment as soon as possible. This is why applica-
SAP’s ALM services cover 11 ALM processes to
tion lifecycle management (ALM) is crucial. ALM help you manage your SAP and non-SAP appli-
is a term that describes the processes, tools, ser- cations from implementation through the retire-
vices, and organizational models used to manage ment of the solutions.1 These processes are:
software from concept to phase out.
■■ Solution documentation: Identifies and doc-
ALM enables IT and business managers to
uments business processes for SAP solutions,
more effectively maintain business continuity,
including partner software components, cus-
accelerate innovation, and reduce risk while
tom code, and interfaces
keeping the total cost of operations (TCO) low Wendy Maldonado (wendy.
and protecting the company’s IT investment. ■■ Solution implementation: Identifies, adapts, maldonado@sap.com) is a
and implements new and enhanced business Marketing Director at SAP,
This all means that companies are better able responsible for managing
to realize the benefits of new technology and and technical software implementations global awareness of world-
■■ Template management: Allows customers class SAP solution extension
process investments.
products for application
with multisite SAP software installations to cre- lifecycle management (ALM).
Support Your Applications Throughout ate and manage their company-wide business
Their Life Cycles process library — from template definition to
SAP’s ALM approach focuses on helping IT template implementation and optimization
develop best practices for managing each IT ■■ Test management: Defines testing require-
process, no matter how complicated the appli- ments and scope for projects and changes; is
cation landscape might be. The goal is to allow used to develop automatic and manual test
them to achieve key performance indicators cases, manage the testers, and report on test
(KPIs), reach a high return on the investment, progress and results
and increase the quality of implemented solu- ■■ Change control management: Provides
tions and processes. SAP’s ALM offerings cover: workflow-based management of business- and
■■ Processes based on best practices uncovered by technology-driven changes, integrated with
SAP Active Global Support project management and synchronized deploy-
ment functions; leads to improved reliability of
■■ Tools from SAP and third-party vendors to
support the ALM processes
These processes run within the context of the five-phase
1
■■ Support and consulting services that provide Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) frame-
work (though customers can still benefit from following
expert knowledge and educational services to these ALM processes within the context of the ASAP
empower your workforce methodology or their own methodology).
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2. ■■ Landscape transformation: Manages busi-
ness and IT-driven changes in SAP landscapes
Support Your ALM Processes with Solution Extensions
■■ Upgrade management: Provides comprehen-
To complement the ALM capabilities of SAP Solution Manager, SAP offers sive project support for release transitions;
targeted solution extensions — third-party offerings that are branded, sold,
helps customers understand and manage any
and supported by SAP. Not only are these tools built into the SAP roadmap,
technical risks and challenges of an upgrade
they are also designed to easily integrate with SAP Solution Manager, which
sets them apart from other point solutions that require a company to manu- SAP Solution Manager supports these pro-
ally set up integration with SAP Solution Manager.
cesses by acting as the single source of the truth
for solutions and their life cycles. Companies can
use SAP Solution Manager to document imple-
Solution documentation
mented business processes and solution land-
Upgrade management Solution implementation scapes. Third-party solution extensions can be
• SAP Application Visualization by iRise
Landscape transformation • SAP Archiving by OpenText used in conjunction with SAP Solution Manager,
• SAP Landscape Transformation • SAP Central Process Scheduling
by Redwood providing enhanced features and functionality to
Design • SAP Document Access by OpenText
Maintenance management
• Duet Enterprise
improve quality and reduce risk associated with
• SAP Enterprise Modeling managing complex system landscapes (see side-
Business process operations applications by Software AG
• SAP Central Process Scheduling by SAP Solution • SAP IT Process Automation by Cisco bar). After go-live, these tools can all be used to
Redwood Manager and • SAP NetWeaver Gateway
monitor and track business performance and as a
Imple
• SAP Process Performance
SAP software
rate
Management by Software AG
Template management
basis to develop software changes to meet evolv-
pe
me
O nt
Technical operations Test management ing business demands.
• SAP Archiving by OpenText
• SAP LoadRunner by HP
• SAP Central Process Scheduling
• SAP Quality Center by HP In addition, SAP Solution Manager acts as a
by Redwood
• SAP Test Acceleration and Optimization
• SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily
• SAP Test Data Migration Server (TDMS) hub to integrate SAP tools and solution exten-
• SAP IT Infrastructure Management
• SAP IT Process Automation by Cisco sions that help enable these key ALM processes
• SAP NetWeaver Gateway Application incident management
• SAP NetWeaver Landscape • Duet Enterprise (see Figure 1). This means that SAP Solution
Virtualization Management • SAP IT Process Automation by Cisco
• SAP NetWeaver Gateway Manager can act as a central repository of infor-
mation from across the solution landscape,
Change control management
which allows companies to work from consistent
FIGURE 1 p SAP Solution Manager the solution and minimized risk; contributes to information sources, improves transparency and
acts as a central hub from which technical and functional robustness visibility, enables collaboration between busi-
ALM processes and the tools that
ness and IT, and helps eliminate process gaps
support them can be managed ■■ Application incident management: Enables
and disruptions.
centralized incident and issue message pro-
cessing on multiple organizational levels; can
The Benefits of Integrated ALM
be connected to a non-SAP software help desk
By implementing ALM processes and establish-
application; includes follow-up activities such
ing SAP Solution Manager as the integrated plat-
as root-cause analysis and change management
form to launch ALM activities, companies can
■■ Technical operations: Monitors system and more easily share information across business
end-user experience and the routine tasks of processes and facilitate collaboration between IT
system administration, such as sending alerts and the business. Following an integrated ALM
and analyzing and maintaining SAP solutions approach allows companies to deliver innova-
tion and manage change more quickly to meet
■■ Business process operations: Sets up, sup-
business requirements, reduce TCO, deliver
ports, and executes operational processes,
superior-quality applications that maintain busi-
including business process monitoring and
ness continuity and reduce risk, meet or exceed
management, data consistency management,
service-level agreements with the business, man-
and data volume management
age and report on KPIs, and optimize business
■■ Maintenance management: Covers lifecycle processes over the life cycle of your applications.
management of corrective software from discov- To learn more about SAP’s ALM offerings, visit
ery to test-scope optimization and optional auto- www.sap.com/lines-of-business/IT/solution-
matic deployment to productive environments extensions-for-IT/index.epx. n
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