Introduction

SAP recently announced the launch of SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (for better readability I will use the term SAP Cloud ALM ) , a brand new cloud-based solution built on SAP cloud platform for managing all lifecycle aspects of cloud and hybrid solutions.

This blog post gives an overview of what SAP Cloud ALM is all about , how SAP SuccessFactors is leveraging the operations part of it for Integration monitoring for one of the Recruit to Retire scenarios .

So What is SAP Cloud ALM ?

SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (for better readability I will use the term SAP Cloud ALM) is the brand-new cloud-based solution built on SAP Cloud Platform for managing all lifecycle aspects of cloud and hybrid solutions.

It is an application that helps customers:

• Manage
• Monitor
• Run
• and Optimize their SAP Cloud solutions Proactively.

Further, SAP Cloud ALM can be extensively used for Implementation and Operations.

SAP Cloud ALM for Implementation provides the harmonized implementation for Intelligent Enterprise, which is basically about Design, Build, Test and Deploy aspects.

SAP Cloud ALM for Operations is used for Detect, Diagnose, Correct and Automate aspects.

The main use cases are Business Process Monitoring and Integration Monitoring
However, going forward other monitoring use cases  such as Performance and Health Monitoring will be provided.

Now , What is Integration Monitoring and what aspects of Integration Monitoring are covered by SAP CLoud ALM?

• One of the targets of SAP’s Intelligent Suite is to decompose the existing monolithic applications into flexible and independently deployable cloud services
• This introduces the increased need to exchange master and transactional data between the different involved cloud services.
• These types of data exchange processes can lead to exceptions or performance related issues.
• Target of Integration Monitoring is to bring transparency in the data exchange processes by providing end to end visibility in interface calls and message flows across all involved cloud services

Use cases covered by SAP Cloud ALM for operations :

• Monitoring: Get a detailed status overview per cloud service or application on incoming/outgoing messages for different interfaces
• Tracking: Search and track single messages based on specific business context attributes
• Alerting: Inform integration scenario owner about critical issues during data exchange. Get an overview on scenario related alerts

Prerequisite :

Bank master Replication and Company code replication should be configured and scheduled in the Business Scenario application in SAP Successfactors .

Integration Monitoring using SAP Cloud ALM:

Step 1 :The first step towards monitoring is to register your SAP SuccessFactors tenant to SAP Cloud ALM application.

Registration UI is available in SAP SuccessFactors tenant and has been put behind a permission “Integration Monitoring Registration”. The permission can be provided under Manage Permission roles ->Select the role ->Manage Integration Tools

Once the permission is provided, the user can access the Registration page using the path
Admin Center -> Integration Monitoring Registration

SuccessFactors tenant details are pre-filled and the user is expected to specify the credentials like Cloud ALM URL, OAuth Credentials, Client ID and Client credentials. This information is available once the SAP Cloud ALM provisioning is done on SAP Cloud Platform.

Upon successful registration, a service ID is generated which is used for communication later.

Step 2 : Confirm the successful registration of SAP Successfactors tenant .

Logon to SAP Cloud ALM application and Navigate to Landscape Management to see the registered SuccessFactors tenant:

Step 3 : Execute Bank Master/Legal Entity replication Integration:

• Navigate to Admin Center -> Business Scenarios Configure the Integration and Execute the same.
• Go to Integration Monitoring tab in SAP Cloud ALM Home page.

Step 4 : Selecting the Cloud Service to be monitored

Click on the scope selection icon to select the tenant to be monitored.
This gives customer the ability to have a health check on a SuccessFactors tenant.

Step 5 : Select the timeframe for Monitoring the service

Specify a time frame within which the tenant needs to be monitored

The tenant along with its status for that time frame can be seen in the topology view.

Check Configuration Switch 

The configuration is switched on for the selected tenant which indicates the monitoring messages can be pushed to SAP cloud ALM. This can be switched off anytime if user wishes to stop the monitoring log collection.

Step 6 : Drill Down to Single Message level:

Further drill down by clicking on the color legend to see the errors or the successful ones

Step 7 : Navigate to the second level drill down to see the logs:

This gives a complete view with all the necessary details like Source System (S/4 HANA cloud in this case), SAP passport information used for Correlation of messages between source and destination systems, the number of records per package configured in business scenario.

In case of errors during integration process:

Further drill down to the actual error. As you can see all the related messages are shown under the same transaction ID with different message IDs. This correlation is achieved through SAP passport

Example: The below screenshot shows replication of 112 records with package size as 50. In one of the packages there is a failure of 16 records

Clicking on Logs tab the actual error messages are shown:

Scenario View :

Another entry point to monitor the integration would be at the scenario level rather than tenant level.

Clicking on the scope selection shows both the services and scenarios. Scenarios need to be created by specifying the involved Cloud Services and the corresponding filters for each service.

Drilling down on the SAP SuccessFactors system would give logs in the selected timeframe.

It shall unify the user experience by providing a common look-and-feel and provide end-to-end visibility in interface calls and message flows across all involved cloud services.

Thus, it acts as a central monitoring cockpit for all processes and components of the Intelligent Suite.

Alerts:

Another important aspect of Integration Monitoring where you can create notifications to alert the persona responsible for the integration or tenant administration.

Alerts can be created at individual coud service level and will be inherited when scenarios are being added involving the cloud service .

Actions such assigning the error message to a processor, starting an error resolution workflow, adding comments can be done in the alert framework of SAP Cloud ALM.

Conclusion 

SAP CLoud ALM with its below key capabilities , makes life easier IT admins/ Integration admins in terms of Monitoring and health check of their landscapes and Integrations .

• Provides end-to-end monitoring of integrations, applications, and integral business process.
• Monitors the processes’ health and detects anomalies during execution, and enables both LOB and IT users to directly identify process disruptions and react to them
• Enables root cause analysis to improve processes and minimize future issues
• Closes gap between business and IT during the issue resolution process

Useful Links:

The SAP Cloud ALM page on the SAP support portal provides comprehensive information about the new product and its offerings.

Learning Journey: How to use SAP Cloud ALM to efficiently manage your cloud centric landscape.

Demo video on Integration Monitoring