How to optimize your SAP BusinessObjects solution

© 2010 SAP AG SAP Business Objects End-to-End Supportability

Version: 1.0Page 1 of 21

Version: 1.0August 2010

SAP BusinessObjectsEnd-to-End Supportability

Whitepaper

Active Global SupportSAP AG

SAP Business Objects End-to-End Supportability

© 2010 SAP AG SAP Business Objects End-to-End SupportabilityVersion: 1.0

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Table of Content

1 Executive Overview ........................................................................ 32 SAP delivers mission-critical operations support .......................... 42.1 Tight collaboration with SAP support back office.................................... 42.2 Proactive Quality Checks ........................................................................ 42.3 Continuous improvement........................................................................ 52.4 Remote Support for SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise (BOE) .................. 52.4.1 Remote Diagnostics for SBOP ........................................................................ 52.4.2 Netviewer for SBOP ........................................................................................ 72.4.3 Remote debugging for SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise systems................... 83 SAP Application Life-cycle Management Standards....................... 93.1 Application Life-cycle Management - Design Phase .............................. 103.1.1 Solution Documentation ................................................................................ 103.2 Application Life-cycle Management - Build & Test Phase ...................... 103.2.1 Test Management ......................................................................................... 103.3 Application Life-cycle Management - Deploy Phase .............................. 113.3.1 Software Solution Change Management ....................................................... 113.3.2 SAP Change Request Management.............................................................. 113.3.3 Incident Management .................................................................................... 113.4 Application Life-cycle Management - Operate Phase ............................. 123.4.1 Root Cause Analysis (RCA) .......................................................................... 123.4.2 SAP Technical Operations ............................................................................ 133.4.2.1 System Administration................................................................................... 133.4.2.2 System Monitoring and End User Performance Monitoring ........................... 133.5 Application Life-cycle Management - Optimize Phase ........................... 133.5.1 Upgrade ........................................................................................................ 143.6 Implementing ALM Standards for SBOP................................................ 143.7 Supportability of SAP BusinessObjects in Indirect Channel .................. 144 SAP Service Marketplace ............................................................. 164.1 Software Downloads and License Keys ................................................ 164.2 Incident and Problem Resolution for SBOP ........................................... 174.3 Remote Support Component ................................................................. 175 Education and Certification for ALM IT Operations ...................... 185.1 SAP Solution Operations Curriculum .................................................... 185.2 SAP Enterprise Support Academy ........................................................ 196 More Information – find out more ................................................. 20



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1 Executive OverviewCompanies’ IT organizations are service providers for their lines of business. They haveto make sure that IT solutions provide undisrupted support for the business processes.The increasing numbers of technologies and components involved in today’s IT solu-tions makes this task more difficult. Companies even expect from their IT organizationto realize business requirements faster and to stay competitive in the market.

To meet these requirements, companies have to standardize the processes within theirIT organizations. Based on experiences gained at many customers, SAP has publishedApplication Life-Cycle Management (ALM) standards for End-to-End (E2E) SolutionOperations. The standards describe best practices for key processes in solution opera-tions. Implementing these standards enable companies to optimize the SAP solutionoperations to ensure the availability of mission-critical business processes built onSAP’s best practices for managing scalability, performance, consistency and highavailability in their entire landscape.

Integrating the SAP BusinessObjects Portfolio (SBOP) across technology stacks andtogether with SAP applications (e.g. SAP Business Warehouse) is a key objective forSAP. Hence the SBOP will be fully integrated into SAP‘s proven support methodology,infrastructure and service delivery.

Early in the application life cycle SAP Solution Manager provides a tight integration witha central, reliable and up-to-date system landscape information and documentation forconnected SAP and third-party systems. SAP customers may take advantage of thissystem information for their day-to-day operations as well as in exceptional situations.

SAP’s quality checks help to ensure undisrupted solution operations and to avoid inci-dents. These quality checks focus on risk analysis and mitigation before a project goeslive, others ensure continuous improvement during production operation.

To handle incidents and resolve issues SAP provides a variety of tools for incidentmanagement and root cause analysis. This is also true for controlling changes deployedin a solution landscape using SAP’s enhanced change and transport capabilities(ECTS). SAP plans a seamless integration along the application life cycle for the entireportfolio whether SBOP is integrated with SAP or non-SAP technologies. Besides oth-ers, change control, root cause analysis and monitoring are key capabilities for technic-al operations in heterogeneous landscapes.

This paper describes the approach of SAP Active Global Support to support customerIT organizations addressing the challenges for mission-critical operations leveragingthese best practices for SBOP.



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2 SAP delivers mission-critical operations supportTo optimize the value of services delivered by an IT organization, SAP focuses on thecore business processes because disrupting these business processes usually has thehighest business impact. Therefore it is crucial to set up special precautions for themission-critical processes to prevent disruptions, deliver highest quality, and accelerateproblem resolution. These are important factors for successfully supporting mission-critical operations and a close collaboration between SAP and our customers.

2.1 Tight collaboration with SAP support back office

Since multiple organizations are involved in solution operations processes, collabora-tion has to be optimized between all parties involved. This becomes even more impor-tant if these parties belong to different organizational units spread out over severallocations and time zones.

Business processes typically involve multiple systems within the customer IT landscapewith dependencies and interfaces that are crucial for mission-critical operations. It isimportant to take a holistic view on the entire solution landscape to ensure the undi-srupted business process flow. The key to successful landscape planning and opera-tion is an accurate and complete description of the solution landscape itself with allbusiness processes and interfaces. This information is valuable for various customerdepartments as well as for SAP’s experts to utilize this information base to get a com-prehensive understanding of the customer’s SAP solution. Experts are given access tothe information and systems they need, while communication between customers,partners, and SAP is improved. With SAP Solution Manager, SAP provides a centralcollaboration platform, which offers tools, integrated content, and a gateway to SAP toenable customers to operate SAP-centric solutions efficiently. Starting with SolutionManager 7.0 (SP 23), SAP Solution Manager has also matured into a platform for ap-plication management for SAP BusinessObjects products.

2.2 Proactive Quality Checks

The SAP support infrastructure provides the technical foundation for delivering supportservices. Proactive quality checks support SAP customers controlling the quality oftheir projects. During remote sessions SAP detects and mitigates risks for the goliveby proactively reducing the occurrence of technical problems related to application op-eration, operational efficiency, and system throughput. Quality checks take place be-fore an application goes live.

Due to increasing complexity in solution landscapes, proactive quality checks focus onthe entire customer’s SAP solution. SAP provides its SAP GoingLive Check for Solu-



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tions1 to prepare and ensure the customer’s SAP solution goes live with best perfor-mance to meet end user requirements. In service sessions SAP experts log on to thecustomer’s SAP Solution Manager to examine important business processes in theSAP solution and check whether required key performance indicators e.g. responsetimes can be achieved. During a SAP GoingLive Check both productive and non-productive systems might be analyzed together.

Upon completion of a SAP GoingLive Check, customers receive one report combiningall recommendations for all systems checked. By implementing these recommenda-tions customers benefit from SAP´s experience gained in thousands of customer instal-lations to minimize customer’s efforts and avoid technical risks.

2.3 Continuous improvement

After a project has gone live, SAP continues to support customer’s productive solu-tions. A wide range of continuous quality checks ensure a constantly high performanceof solution operations.

SAP EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) automatically monitors essential administrative areas ofSAP components and keeps customers up-to-date on their performance and stabilitywith its comprehensive EWA report. EWA might run in your SAP Solution Manager orcan be processed at SAP for BusinessObjects customers without Solution Manager.From one central point EWA can be activated and view the EWA reports. Whether ornot customers using SBOP integrated with other SAP products, the SBOP systemscan be analyzed via diagnostic capabilities either using SAP Solution Manager or SAPremote support component.

2.4 Remote Support for SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise (BOE)

In order for experts to work efficiently, a support infrastructure must meet certain re-quirements of being standardized, centrally located, complete, accessible from a re-mote location, and secure - customers have to retain control over confidential data. Acentral platform enables them to quickly access the required tools and speak the samelanguage while delivering services, handling issues and managing the solution land-scapes.

2.4.1 Remote Diagnostics for SBOP

SAP Solution Manager is the preferred platform for application management for SBOP.After connecting for example a BOE system or landscape to Solution Manager, it isquite easy to manage remote access and use the Solution Manager tools (e.g. E2EWorkload Analysis) to assess and analyze BOE systems.

1 Continues Quality Check (CQC) for Implementations




Figure 1: Remote Diagnostics with Solution Manager for SBOP

SAP Solution Manager is located in the customer data centers. It collects continuouslyrelevant data via agents from the managed SBOP systems. Remote access to SolutionManager is available for SAP support via Web User Interface (see Figure 1). Thereforesecure remote system diagnostics is feasible at any time using the Solution Managertool set.

Figure 2: Remote Diagnostics without Solution for BOE

Besides SAP Solution Manager, SAP offers the “SAP remote support component” toconnect, monitor and analysis “stand-alone” SAP BusinessObjects solutions (i.e. notintegrated to SAP NetWeaver based applications). In this case the support component




allows customers also to manage, monitor and evaluate their SAP BOE systems to-gether with SAP support. This tool is designed for BusinessObjects customers that runonly a small BusinessObjects solution landscape without any other SAP product.

Agents on the managed BOE systems are collecting data, which is available for SAPsupport remotely via Web User Interface (see Figure 2) connecting to Wily Intros-cope’s Enterprise Manager, were the monitoring data is stored. Therefore remote sys-tem diagnostics is also feasible at any time.

Utilizing also Netviewer access enables SAP to perform an in-depth analysis (e.g. log-file analysis) on the SBOP system remotely. Web based and Netviewer access to anycustomer SAP system can be controlled by customers using SAProuter to grant re-mote access to SAP’s support engineers.

2.4.2 Netviewer for SBOP

SAP uses the Netviewer tool for application sharing with SAP customers (see Figure 3)to assess customer’s SBOP systems remotely.

Figure 3: Netviewer tool

Netviewer is tightly integrated into SAP's Remote Support Infrastructure and provides:

• Encrypted data exchange• session recording• voice and video channel• Read-only mode (application sharing is disabled)• Connection control: Connection can be closed by customer at any time

In order to meet certain security requirements it offers a read-only mode, where cus-tomers allow desktop viewing only (application sharing is disabled). SAP recommendsusing an SAProuter connection to manage and incorporate high security policies for the




technical connectivity between customers and SAP. Figure 3 shows remote connectionand access to a customer’s SBOP system via Netviewer (see also SAP note 1311904and 1321824).

2.4.3 Debugging SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise systems

Currently technical debugging is not feasible in customer’s BOE systems for an in-depth code analysis so solve complex issues. To help BusinessObjects customers tounderstand the application’s internal working, SAP plans to release a debugging infra-structure to establish a debugging connection (to the customer’s system) via SAProu-ter.

Figure 4: Debugging a BusinessObjects Enterprise systems

With remote debugging SAP is able to establish a remote connection to a BOE systemvia SAProuter (see Figure 4). After SAP is connected to the customer’s system, SAPcan start a debugging session to identify bugs in the source code of a BOE system bycontrolling the step-by-step execution of programs remotely. Running the debugger atSAP avoids additional debug configuration (e.g. source code, symbols etc.) in the cus-tomer’s system. SAP plans to ship remote debugging for Windows platforms first.




3 SAP Application Life-cycle Management Standards

The main goal of solution operations is to run and incrementally improve the IT solutionalong the entire life-cycle and ensure stable operation of the solution landscape. Thisincludes the management of availability, performance, process and data transparency,data consistency, IT process compliance, and other tasks. In most cases, businessprocesses are supported by multiple integrated business applications: SAP applica-tions, systems and applications from other vendors and custom developments. There-fore, it is important that SAP Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) covers allcomponents required for running the business processes from end-to-end (E2E) pers-pective.

Standardized procedures are a key prerequisite to optimize E2E solution operations.Using standards leverages the SAP experiences to avoid errors, mitigate risks, andincrease the availability and performance of the SAP-centric solution. In addition, stan-dardization of processes enables automation and hence reduces the cost of opera-tions. SAP offers a model to manage (heterogeneous) SAP solutions - the ALM life-cycle methodology. ALM is based on ITIL2, which is the generally accepted andadopted model for managing IT infrastructure (see Figure 5 – inner circle).

Figure 5: SAP Application Life-cycle Management in phases

SAP supports best practices in 10 core ALM process areas (see Figure 4 – outer cir-cle), providing guidance on how to manage SAP and non-SAP applications in the mostefficient and structured way. This paper highlights those ALM phases and standardswhich are most appropriate for SAP customers implementing and using SBOP prod-ucts.

2 IT Infrastructure Library



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3.1 Application Life-cycle Management - Design PhaseUsing a central repository during SAP implementation projects to document businessprocesses and technical information of SAP and non-SAP Solutions ensures transpa-rency, efficient maintenance and collaboration. This pre-supposes the following: WithALM SAP delivers

• industry-specific process models and blueprint content• templates for deployment and infrastructure sizing

3.1.1 Solution Documentation

Maintain and document solution landscapes to meet the business demands, planningand reporting of the respective initiatives and projects become a fundamental instru-ment for successful solution implementation. This information which is for exampleconsolidated in the SAP Enterprise Support Report, is a key instrument maintaining acomprehensive view on the state of the solution landscape. Moreover, experts fromSAP can utilize this information base to resolve issues and delivering services to ad-dress technical challenges.

3.2 Application Life-cycle Management - Build & Test PhaseSAP’s goal is to enable customers to quickly configure and test SAP solutions. Thispresupposes the following: With ALM SAP delivers

• procedures for business and technical configuration• all delta configuration procedures to harmonize their existing solution while

adopting new SAP software.• interfaces and mapping procedures for process and master data integration• extensibility capabilities (SOA services and user exits) that allow customers

and partners to co-innovate• test management infrastructure and content for unit, integration, user ac-

ceptance and volume tests

3.2.1 Test Management

The majority of SAP customers encompass complex interactions between SAP, part-ners, third-party applications and interfaces, as well as custom code (customer devel-opments). Therefore, a SAP solution must be tested thoroughly before going live in-cluding function tests, integration tests (SAP and non-SAP applications), businessprocesses tests scenarios (end-2-end), performance and user acceptance tests. SAPprovides a verity of methodology, tools and best practice to support SAP customerseffectively during their test activities.



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3.3 Application Life-cycle Management - Deploy PhaseAll software providers need to be standardized in one, cross-technology qualityprocess to deploy changes without impact on customer business. This process spansall layers from risk management, quality governance all the way to moving bits andbytes from the development to the production environment. SAP delivers one standar-dized procedure and the tool set for all deployment-related activities.

3.3.1 Software Solution Change Management

During the deployment and the analysis of changes, customers have to ensure thatchanges are deployed without disruption of the ongoing business. This is the focus ofthe change control management standard where change deployment takes a holisticview of an application change in a solution to ensure that all components involved in anapplication change are tested and released together. SAP provides a central transportmechanism and change control system (ECTS) to ensure consistent transports acrosstechnologies (ABAP and non-ABAP). Change diagnostics helps customers to identify,control, maintain and verify configuration versions and parameters values of solutionlandscape components.

Customers benefit from change control management through increased quality andavailability of their IT solution and lower costs for error handling. Accurate informationabout configurations and their documentation is necessary to support both auditingrequirements and other solution operations processes.

3.3.2 SAP Change Request Management

The goal of the change request management standard is to implement and documentchanges to SAP applications with minimal risks using standardized methods and pro-cedures. The change request management standard provides transparency of thesoftware and customizing changes, collecting and processing change requests for allinvolved parties. Technically, these changes are transported through the entire solutionlandscape, supporting complete change tracking and auditability.

3.3.3 Incident Management

Incidents in operations of mission critical applications might cause severe business lossif a root cause is not identified and the corrective action taken. When a disruption oc-curs that prevents an end user from performing his/her tasks in the IT solution, endusers have to describe, categorize and prioritize the incident. The Service Desk inSAP Solution Manager is SAP’s tool to manage incidents efficiently across the cus-tomer business units, customer’s IT, SAP, and independent software vendors (ISVs)whose applications are integrated in the customer solution. The SAP service desk has



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an open bi-directional interface to send and receive incidents to and from other ticketsystems including SAP’s backbone.

3.4 Application Life-cycle Management - Operate Phase

The key interface between business and IT is the application management organiza-tion responsible (among others) for solution landscape operations, incident and changerequests handling, documentation standards, training and certification and managementlevel reporting. With SAP ALM SAP provides for customer’s application management:

• best practices for technical operations of SAP solution

• automation of exceptions handling before the business is affected. The discov-ery and resolution of exceptions is part of the process design delivered by SAP.In addition, SAP ALM delivers procedures to minimize volume growth

• automation of all testing activities which are triggered by all corrective softwarepackages delivered by SAP as part of the maintenance agreement

• automation of all repetitive and ineffective process steps which otherwisewould need to be performed by the customer’s end-users.

3.4.1 Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Support of mission critical applications depends heavily on the ability of the SAP eco-system to provide corrective action for any incident. All tools for performing root causeanalysis need to be remotely available to SAP and partners - like ISVs and value addedresellers (VAR) - to support a customer help desk to identify the root cause of an inci-dent. The root cause analysis standard defines how to perform RCA end-to-endacross separate components and technologies. All parties (customer, partner, ISVsand SAP) use the same set of standardized tools to assess, execute and review theresults during an investigation.

SAP Solution Manager provides access to one standard tool for each diagnostics task.All RCA procedures are shipped preconfigured for SAP solutions, and the underlyingdiagnostics infrastructure is open for fast integration of any ISV product. Agents runcontinuously on the business systems to collect exceptions, configuration snapshots,service availability and workload statistics including operating system and databasestatistics. The information is kept uniform across all stacks and is available from onecentral work center in SAP Solution Manager.



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3.4.2 SAP Technical Operations

The SAP technical operations organization groups all activities necessary to administerand monitor the IT system landscape in order to maintain and operate IT infrastructurefor the application landscape. The key role for SAP technical operations is the systemadministrator with a main focus on system administration and system monitoring.

3.4.2.1 System Administration

The system administration standard describes how SAP technology (for example,SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence, SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise) must be ad-ministered to run a customer solution efficiently. Administration tasks are mainly ex-ecuted locally, but can be accessed and triggered from a central administration system.This allows a unified access to all SAP technologies.

3.4.2.2 System Monitoring and End User Performance Monitoring

The system monitoring standard covers monitoring and reporting of the status of ITsolutions. Business units expect performance problems and errors are detected proac-tively and resolved before they affect business continuity. Business units also expect ITservice levels reports, capacity trends and solution quality on a regular basis. In orderto fulfill the demand of the business units within a limited IT budget, IT must industrializeand automate solution monitoring and reporting. Based on data in Solution ManagerDiagnostics, web reports are defined that focus on service levels and solution quality.For example SAP EWA Reports are generated automatically and broadcast to definedrecipients in the customer business or IT organization.

As today’s business processes are embedded in a global market with consumers allover the world, SAP End-User Experience Monitoring (EEM) is an efficient monitoringsuite to evaluate and report the availability and performance of productive systemsfrom a client (end-user) perspective (simulating local end-user activities). With the per-fect integration into the Solution Manager Diagnostics infrastructure, customers usingEEM might be able to discover, analyze and resolve issues early and speed up issueresolution significantly.

3.5 Application Life-cycle Management - Optimize PhaseSAP’s goal is to enable customers to quickly adopt SAP innovation and to continuouslyremain legally compliant. This presupposes that all maintenance activities have no im-pact on the business. SAP ALM delivers procedures to detect and delete waste in cus-tom code as well as retrofit of custom code to the SAP standard. In addition, custom-ers can validate if the business value of their SAP investment is achieved. SAP deliversindustry benchmarks, a measurement platform and content to measure the value reali-zation.



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3.5.1 Upgrade

SAP upgrade projects usually encounter major challenges; for example project man-agement, efficient testing, minimizing downtime, adaptation of applications and modifi-cations, and knowledge transfer to end-users. SAP provides guidelines on how to per-form upgrades for certain SAP applications or components. SAP’s upgrade standardguide customers and technology partners through the upgrade project to managethese challenges.

3.6 Implementing ALM Standards for SBOP

The sequence for implementing the SAP standards for solution operations usually de-pends on the specific customer situation and the major requirements of the IT team.However, the following recommendation reflects the SAP experience.

1. If customer’s IT team need SAP expert help to solve important problems, theremote connectivity standard should be at the top of the standards’ adoptionlist. This standard should be implemented at the start of a project, using eitherSAP Solution Manager for integrated SAP landscapes (SBOP integrated withother SAP products) or SAP remote support component for SBOP stand alonesystems. Remote connection is a key prerequisite to realize the values of anSAP support contract in particular for Enterprise support customers (e.g. to en-able SAP remote service delivery).

2. The root-cause analysis standard to identify the root cause of problems thatoccur in non-productive and productive environments should be implemented torealize the full benefits of collaborating with SAP. The root-cause analysis stan-dard is suppose to be implemented before golive, either using SAP SolutionManager for integrated SAP landscapes or SAP remote support component forSBOP stand-alone systems.

3. To deploy SAP software to a productive system SAP recommends implement-ing the change control management standard using SAP enhanced transportcapabilities and Solution Manager before the go-live. This standard establishesand improves software change management and software logistics.

3.7 Supportability of SAP BusinessObjects in Indirect ChannelIn principle SAP offers two different support delivery models to its channel partnersoffering the SBOP:

a) SAP Delivered Support - where the channel customer purchases the softwarefrom his reseller and enters a support engagement directly with SAP




b) Value Added Reseller (VAR) Delivered Support - where the channel customerpurchases software and maintenance equally from his certified reseller.

Both models have different impact on process execution and set-up of the appropriatesupport infrastructure. The parameters of SAP delivered support in SAP's channelbusiness are identical to the topics, which have been discussed in this white paper sofar. VAR Delivered Support centralizes the IT support infrastructure mostly at partnerside.

Figure 6: Support Infrastructure under VAR delivered support

Incident with Mission Critical Support

Under VAR delivered support, the channel partner is the primary support provider forthe end customer, solving 1st/2nd level support tickets. SAP Solution Manager enables24x7 support even outside VARs business hours.

Maintenance Management

One single point of access to SAP software (= initial software download, updates) viathe SAP Software Distribution Center in SAP Service Marketplace. This also includeslicense key requests and documentation access (installation guides).

Service Delivery

Channel Partners will be able to trigger continuous monitoring of their customer’s pro-ductive systems by using SAP EarlyWatch Alert in their SAP Solution Manager. Seealso chapter 2.3 “Continuous improvement”. Also proactive quality checks will bemade available (See chapter 2.2).



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4 SAP Service Marketplace

SAP Service Marketplace (SMP) - as part of the SAP Global Support Backbone - pro-vides quick-and-easy online access to the tools, information, and assistance you needto keep your SAP software running smoothly. It is fully integrated with SAP’s know-ledge databases and communities along with SAP’s remote support capabilities. SAPService Marketplace is available via “http://service.sap.com”(see Figure 7).

Figure 7: SAP Service Market Place

Customers need a standard Web browser, a SAP user ID, and a password. Conve-nient single sign-on means once you’ve logged on to SAP Service Marketplace, there’sno need to reenter your details.

4.1 Software Downloads and License Keys

Figure 8: SMP to request SBOP licence keys

Via SMP customers are able to download SBOP software(http://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads) as well as permanent license keys can be re-

http://service.sap.com/

http://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads



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quested through SMP for SBOP (http://service.sap.com/licensekey - see Figure 8).Temporary license keys are also available for all SAP BusinessObjects solutions, whileyou are waiting for your permanent license keys. All information regarding license keyrequests can be found in SAP Note 94998.

4.2 Incident and Problem Resolution for SBOPIf you experience a problem or error with installed standard SAP software, you cansearch the SAP Notes database for the known issues or fixes. Alternatively, you cancreate or submit an SAP customer message (see Figure 9).

Figure 9: Report an error in SMP

Before creating an SAP customer message, you can find help quickly through theknowledge resources (see “More Information – find out more”). For SAP solutionsthere are several ways to create an SAP customer message, each with different levelsof efficiency. For SAP BusinessObjects solutions, messages have to be created inSAP Support Portal, or you can call one of the SAP BusinessObjects service centers(for the phone numbers, please refer to SAP Note 560499).

Customers using SAP Solution Manager may open a message in Solution ManagerService desk as part of the overall incident management offered by SAP.

4.3 Remote Support ComponentFor customer using remote support component together with their BOE solution SAPwill process EWA reports at SAP and provide the EWA Report via SAP SMP. Custom-er needs to logon with the S-User number to SMP and uses the BOE installation num-ber to access the appropriate report. Each customer has a dedicated area in the Ser-vice Market Place to watch the customer EWA reports. (go tohttp://www.service.sap.com/servicechannel to select the latest EWA report for yoursystem).

http://service.sap.com/licensekey

http://www.service.sap.com/servicechannel



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5 Education and Certification for ALM IT Operations

5.1 SAP Solution Operations Curriculum

The SAP Solution Operations Curriculum helps customers to educate the specializedteams and stakeholders to efficiently execute the tasks assigned to the differentgroups. It provides a training concept for teams involved in the SAP Solution manage-ment and reflect the fundamental skills to follow and execute the SAP standards. E-learning courses provide an overview of E2E solution operation.

E2E Technical Core Competence Courses:

SAP offers the following classroom courses on the E2E Technical Core Compe-tences:

E2E100 - E2E Root Cause Analysis covers the tools and approaches for analyzingthe root cause of incidents and isolates the component causing the incident in a hete-rogeneous IT landscape (Certification available).

E2E200 - E2E Change Control Management covers the tools and approaches forcontrolling the changes. It describes how to diagnose and track changes in a heteroge-neous IT landscape (Certification available).

E2E300 - E2E Business Process Integration and Automation covers the concept ofE2E integration and automation and details to the different areas including relevanttools and methodologies (Certification available).

For SAP Technical Operations SAP offers a portfolio of courses structured accordingto the roles that are used in the areas of SAP administration and technology. E.g. com-ponent-specific roles that belong to a particular SAP software component: among oth-ers SAP EP Administration, SAP BW Administration, SAP SCM Administration.

E2E Technical Expert Competence Courses or Workshops:

For the E2E technical expert competences, SAP offers the SAP Empowering Work-shop portfolio. The SAP Empowering Workshop portfolio delivers state-of the-art ex-pert knowledge transfer to empower your experts.

E2E Management Competence Courses:

These courses provide technical management knowledge explaining SAP standards forsolution operations including the roadmap on how to implement the SAP standardswhich incorporate people, processes and platform. SAP offers the following courseson the E2E Management Competences

Technical Implementation Management shows SAP’s standards for successful tech-nical implementation projects.



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Technical Quality Management shows SAP’s standards for successfully managingand operating a solution especially in mission critical solutions.

Technical Upgrade Management shows SAP’s standards for successfully manageSAP upgrade projects.

5.2 SAP Enterprise Support Academy3

The SAP Enterprise Support Academy is a newly-launched resource in SMP, that pro-vides customers with a powerful combination of training, practical experience, and ex-pertise on demand. Offering both guided self-services and expert-guided services, theEnterprise Support Academy ensures customers have access to the entire skill set thatis necessary to realize the full value from their SAP solutions. The Enterprise SupportAcademy is available as within the Enterprise Support area in the SMP(http://service.sap.com/esacademy)

Figure 10: SAP Enterprise Support Academy

3 Available for SAP enterprise support customers

http://service.sap.com/esacademy



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6 More Information – find out more

SAP BusinessObjects customer servicecenters

http://service.sap.com/supportcenters

SAP BusinessObjects support overview http://service.sap.com/bosap-supportSAP Support Portal http://service.sap.com/supportChannel Partner Support http://service.sap.com/var-partnerInstallation and upgrade guides http://service.sap.com/instguidesSAP support packages and patches http://service.sap.com/patches

http://service.sap.com/sp-stackshttp://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads

Request license keys http://service.sap.com/licensekeyRemote connection to SAP/SAProuter http://service.sap.com/access-support

http://service.sap.com/saprouterSAP Enterprise Support services http://service.sap.com/enterprisesupportSAP Enterprise Support Academy http://service.sap.com/esacademySAP upgrade info center http://service.sap.com/upgradeSAP Notes database http://service.sap.com/notesReport a product error via customer mes-sages

http://service.sap.com/message

SAP EarlyWatch Alert http://service.sap.com/ewaRemote Support Component http://service.sap.com/rscNetviewer tool http://service.sap.com/netviewerSAP Application Life-cycle Managementand IT operations standards

http://service.sap.com/alm

End-to-End Root Cause Analysis http://service.sap.com/diagnosticsEnd-to-End Change Control Management http://service.sap.com/changecontrolEnd-User Experience Monitoring with Solu-tion Manager

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/EEM/Home

DocumentsQuick Guide-Support Services for Customers of SAP Enterprise Support -http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000732869&_OBJECT=011000358700001143702009E&SAP Curriculum: IT Operations (Application Lifecycle Management) -http://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/curriculum.epx?context=%5b%5bRUN_SAP%5d%5d%7c

Other Useful LinksSAP Developer Network community www.sdn.sap.comSAP Expert forums www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/forumsSAP help portal http://help.sap.com

http://service.sap.com/supportcenters

http://service.sap.com/bosap-support

http://service.sap.com/support

http://service.sap.com/var-partner

http://service.sap.com/instguides

http://service.sap.com/patches

http://service.sap.com/sp-stacks

http://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads

http://service.sap.com/licensekey

http://service.sap.com/access-support

http://service.sap.com/saprouter

http://service.sap.com/enterprisesupport

http://service.sap.com/esacademy

http://service.sap.com/upgrade

http://service.sap.com/notes

http://service.sap.com/message

http://service.sap.com/ewa

http://service.sap.com/rsc

http://service.sap.com/netviewer

http://service.sap.com/alm

http://service.sap.com/diagnostics

http://service.sap.com/changecontrol

http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000732869&_OBJECT=011

http://www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/curriculum.epx?context=%5b%5bRUN_SAP

http://www.sdn.sap.com/

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How to optimize your SAP BusinessObjects solution