Pimp my SAP

Solutive's modular software suite ensures the flexible and efficient operation of SAP solutions in companies. To this end, Enterprise Software Management (ESM) combines IT Service Management (ITSM) and Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) within the SAP world and helps companies such as the airline Swiss move forward in their digital transformation with SAP.

Time is running out for SAP users and the migration of existing systems to S/4 Hana can no longer be avoided. However, the reallocation of IT budgets during the coronavirus crisis has led to delays - which may come back to haunt them later (see also the E-3 Tips4Success column on e-3.de and page 18). Added to this are the numerous changes of course by SAP itself with regard to the switch to the new platform.

Many existing customers can hardly comprehend the amount of guidelines and other instructions that SAP has issued for the release change in recent years. Yet the answer to many questions is obvious - even geographically: Solutive is located a stone's throw from SAP headquarters near Walldorf and acts as a software tuner for all SAP solutions.

With the certified and award-winning ESM Suite 5, the company offers a tool for Enterprise Software Management (ESM). It combines IT Service Management (ITSM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) for SAP. Thanks to its intuitive operation, the ESM Suite surpasses the capabilities of SAP's Solution Manager.

Installation is possible in a short time and optimizes automation levels, process efficiency in general, compliance with auditing requirements and increases operational reliability in SAP NetWeaver landscapes.

Keeping SAP highly available

In the past few years, SAP projects running out of the bank have caused negative press, including names such as Lidl, Haribo and the trade and services company
company Otto. There are many reasons why projects fail - hastily imposed structures, inadequate preparation and much more.

Solutive has developed a best-practice model for this, with which SAP use is given the highest level of operational security and high availability. Enterprise software management protects investments and increases value creation in companies.

Transports in SAP

Transports are an essential element in SAP. Software and customizing data are transported between the individual SAP systems for import. The typical SAP landscape consists of three system levels - the development system and the customizing system.
system, the quality assurance system and the productive system with which the end users work.

However, the path from the requirement to the change to the rolled-out functionality is not transparent and stringently planned, and problems usually result in a complete system standstill - which will not change with the changeover to S/4.

Solutive's expertise in release, change and transport management in conjunction with the possible "fast lane" service allows companies to use Enterprise Software Management via ESM Suite 5, which is available as standard software, within just a few days.

As an enabler, Solutive accelerates the digitalization and utilization of SAP software. Transparency across business processes and comprehensive automated checks are essential core functions and ensure compliance with the individual SAP solutions.

Change management at the airline Swiss used its own process - which, however, applied to the entire IT department and was not specifically geared towards SAP. The result: a notorious "paper trail" that organized releases and approvals by email.

During the annual external audit, the documentation of these shadow processes required an enormous amount of manual effort - in some cases, they were difficult to recover and were filed in a non-transparent manner in the manual process. This meant that there were always "findings" in the change management audit.
management process.

The ESM Suite from Solutive was already in use at Swiss' sister company, Lufthansa LSG/Sky Chefs. The solution was also implemented at Swiss in order to be able to map the change management process fully digitally. The requirement also included ad-hoc auditability at any time. The goal: no more findings in the audit of the change management process.

The result: During the audit, 20 changes were randomly checked before the ESM Suite and allocated to the individual employees in the SAP CCC. These were processed in meetings lasting up to three hours. By using the ESM Suite, a complete audit can now be carried out in less than 60 minutes - instead of ten hours. This time saving frees up the IT department to focus on other digitalization tasks.

Mergers and acquisitions

Companies must be able to react to changes at lightning speed. Technological developments, structural changes in the company, takeovers and acquisitions are all part of everyday business life.

Changes in legislation can also mean that individual SAP company codes or entire SAP systems have to be taken out of productive operation. Partial migrations or complete data transfers are facilitated and secured by the ESM Suite, and new functions can be imported.

Artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in all areas of IT - and developments are also underway in the SAP environment to accelerate the digital transformation with intelligent learning functions based on system intelligence. For Solutive, the main opportunity is to further increase the level of automation through AI - work processes are simplified and a business model is given a solid data basis.

AI enables faster decisions based on a better database, increases the adaptability of companies to market changes through real-time information and predictions that go beyond human capabilities. AI therefore also creates more than efficiency for SAP solutions and is a key to increased competitiveness.

Dynamics with DevOps

Companies that use SAP would do well to implement DevOps tools and strategies. This is the advice of industry analyst IDC. DevOps enables companies to accelerate their digital transformation and drive innovation.

The effect is not only noticeable in agile results, but also builds a new developer environment and breaks with organizational silos. With DevOps, the system landscape can be supplemented in such a way that agile software
development and cross-divisional cooperation.

DevOps combines the worlds of "development" and "operations". This can also counter the shortage of qualified SAP developers - because young and capable graduates are not used to the classic waterfall model with minor and major releases. DevOps, on the other hand, is fully integrated into the ITSM processes.

Instead of just being a cog in a wheel, all team members are focused on and involved in the joint success. Close contact brings together the areas of development, quality assurance, operations and management and forms a new task force that optimizes operations and the product while shaping a new developer culture.

Process templates are used within SAP's business solutions across international company locations - but occasionally represent a breach of compliance. The cause: local branches or departments adapt individual templates without the knowledge of the head office.

The result does not meet corporate requirements and, in extreme cases, does not even comply with legal regulations. This problem primarily affects companies with several business units and cross-border locations, but also occurs in the case of company acquisitions and the resulting system links between several SAP installations.

With a software solution within its own ESM Suite, Solutive AG integrates Corporate Content Tracking (CCT). This means that changes - with deliberate exceptions to local requirements, such as the VAT rate - can only be made if the relevant departments in the head office are aware of them and approve the process.

SAP Solution Manager

IT experts are currently warning of a critical security vulnerability in SAP's Solution Manager (SolMan), which can be used by attackers as a gateway into all critical SAP applications such as SAP ERP, CRM and HR. SolMan is rarely patched to the most secure level during operation: a gap that doesn't have to be there - but the necessary restart always forces a downtime, which is why companies often refrain from updating.

With the ESM Suite 5, Solutive replaces the Solution Manager and restructures IT service management and application lifecycle management for SAP systems. The purely local use, without uncontrolled access from outside, means that the security gap is closed immediately. The central tool serves as a single source of truth for the processing and storage of all change-relevant information in the complete system operation of SAP landscapes. The ESM Suite not only makes SAP faster, but also more secure.

The software tuners from the immediate vicinity of Walldorf create immediate ad-hoc compliance and revision security with ITIL-based change, release and transport management. Automated security and stability checks increase the stability of the systems and ensure the necessary security when handling business-critical data.

Simplified handling of SAP transports through process control reduces complexity and enables focused and fast processing of daily tasks in software maintenance and development. This also applies to SAP in the cloud, an increasingly popular form of SAP applications that can also be linked to non-SAP products in the cloud.

In the future, the SAP Cloud will stand for more agility and accelerated developments, especially as it can also be used to perform customer-friendly and advanced tasks for the first time. Existing applications can be expanded on the platform and connected to the ERP system - including intuitive interfaces for mobile use.

This is how SAP tuning is driving digitalization: For the first time, IT managers in companies once again have time to focus on the future - and don't have to keep up with the present.