Stay Ahead with SAP Cloud ALM: Your Roadmap to a Seamless Transition

Earlier this year, we shared insights on the initial steps to transition from SAP Solution Manager to SAP Cloud ALM, covering the platform’s benefits and the importance of starting this journey sooner, rather than later. As organisations continue preparing for the 2027 end of maintenance deadline, we’re diving deeper into the SAP Activate roadmap for SAP Cloud ALM. In this post, we expand on our previous discussions, detailing how the SAP Activate roadmap offers a structured, phased approach to streamline your transition.

As the countdown to the end of mainstream maintenance for SAP Solution Manager continues, businesses are planning their next steps to future-proof their Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions. SAP Cloud ALM emerges as SAP’s recommended platform, offering a cloud-based, highly automated solution, designed to streamline both implementation and operational management. At Rapid X, we’re here to help you navigate this transition smoothly, supported by SAP’s new Activate roadmap for SAP Cloud ALM.

As the new SAP Activate roadmap is now available in the SAP Roadmap Viewer, the transition to SAP Cloud ALM is becoming easier for organisations to manage and understand. This roadmap provides a structured project plan, breaking down the journey into specific phases, tasks, and deliverables that follow SAP’s best practices for cloud transformation. With accelerators linked to each task, the roadmap simplifies execution, making it easy for teams to focus on what’s most important at each stage.

The SAP Activate roadmap supports three key project types:

• Implementing SAP Cloud ALM for Operations, allowing organisations to streamline their monitoring and operations.
• Using SAP Cloud ALM for new SAP solution implementations.
• Transitioning existing Solution Manager functions to SAP Cloud ALM for a smoother cloud-based experience.
  
  

Starting the Transition: SAP Readiness Check and Beyond

The journey begins with the SAP Readiness Check, designed to assess your current usage and provide insights on how to transition effectively to SAP Cloud ALM. Released with the latest updates, the SAP Readiness Check helps organisations evaluate the benefits they’ll gain by transitioning and ensures that there are no surprises along the way.

For SAP Solution Manager customers with high data volume or complex landscapes, SAP also provides tools like SAP Focused Run, which further complements SAP Cloud ALM with enhanced monitoring capabilities. Whether you’re migrating data, implementing new functions, or optimising current systems, the SAP Activate roadmap provides step-by-step guidance to ease the transition.

The Role of Selective Data Transfer (SDT) in Migration

SAP’s Selective Data Transfer (SDT) tool will facilitate the data migration from SAP Solution Manager to SAP Cloud ALM, allowing users to define their scope flexibly and retain essential data in the new system. SAP Solution Manager customers on Service Pack 19 can access SDT directly from their launchpad, with plans for broader functionality as the transition progresses. For operations and monitoring, no data migration is required, enabling you to benefit from Cloud ALM’s capabilities right away.

The Selective Data Transfer (SDT) in SAP Solution Manager focuses on these main areas to facilitate a smooth transition to SAP Cloud ALM:

• Process Hierarchy: This step involves transferring foundational elements like folders, scenarios and organisational units.
• Process Steps and Executables: Specific actions and executable files are selected for transfer, supporting the operational flow in SAP Cloud ALM.
• Business Processes and Diagrams: Business workflows and associated diagrams are moved to ensure a visual and structural representation of processes in the new system.
• Documents and Test Steps: Key documents and associated test steps are selectively transferred, ensuring that essential documentation and validation steps are preserved.

The SDT functionality also provides a Scope Analysis that brings insights into all available solutions and branches, helping users select a source branch and understand which elements will be included or excluded based on compatibility with SAP Cloud ALM. 

Whilst the SDT options are a great way to start your transition to Cloud ALM, you should consider that existing transactional data relating to ChaRM, monitoring, or functionality without a direct alternative (e.g. ITSM) is not able to migrated.

Embracing Change Control Management with Deployment Management in SAP Cloud ALM

Change Request Management (ChaRM) as you may know it today isn't available in Cloud ALM. However, that is not to say that Change Management and Deployment isn't supported - Far from it! Change Control Management and Deployment has been completely rethought in the world of Cloud ALM, providing much needed simplicity and additional support for hybrid environments and change deployment orchestration. 

We have performed rigorous testing of the new functionality and developed different options to cover both SAP Implementation processes and Business as Usual (BAU) activities for our customers who use ChaRM today. The Deployment Management capabilities provide robust features to improve software logistics and stabilise your environments, making Cloud ALM an ideal choice for those looking to enhance their change control processes.

This functionality offers a framework that supports planning, executing, monitoring, and managing deployment tasks. This process integrates change enablement tools to coordinate transport requests across the landscape, ensuring a smooth deployment to production.

With the Release and Deployment Planning users can organise go-live activities through a structured deployment plan, ensuring that software and configuration changes are properly scheduled and managed across the landscape. Changes (Requirements) can be approved via the Requirement workflow and the respective level of testing can be covered via the Feature using the Test Management tool until the transports are approved to Production.

The SAP Activate Roadmap: A Clear Path to Success

SAP Cloud ALM is more than a technology shift; it’s an opportunity to transform how you manage and optimise your SAP landscape. The SAP Activate roadmap is designed to support you in every step, from initial Readiness Checks to Implementation and Operations. As you begin this transition, Rapid X is ready to support your journey, providing expertise and insights to make your move to SAP Cloud ALM as seamless and effective as possible.

Join Us on the Journey to SAP Cloud ALM

Transitioning to SAP Cloud ALM sooner rather than later ensures that your organisation can leverage SAP’s cloud-driven innovations with minimal disruption. Explore the SAP Activate roadmap for SAP Cloud ALM in the Roadmap Viewer and prepare for a future with optimised ALM capabilities. At Rapid X, we’re committed to guiding you every step of the way.

Ready to start? Contact us today for more insights and support on your SAP Cloud ALM journey!