Organizations seeking to modernize and standardize by adopting Continuous Delivery methods and capabilities – or in other words become more agile in their response to market demands – may find themselves perplexed by the variety of solutions claiming to provide such capabilities. The choice seems even harder for organizations that are already in possession of SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) of which SAP ChaRM is a component.
However, if you use charm for Continuous Delivery you are doing it wrong and may need to reconsider. This blog post explains why and provides a comparison between ChaRM and modern ALM solutions such as Panaya Release Dynamix (RDx).
Watch Panaya’s TechTalk: Release Dynamix – Analyzing and mitigating SAP risk, Presented by Matt Angerer, Panaya’s Solutions Architect.
ChaRM Is All About Ensuring Change Happens, but What About What Happens Next?
SAP Change Request Management (ChaRM) is designed specifically for the SAP Change Management Operations (the equivalent of DevOps) role, in charge of approving the implementation of code change requests or upgrades, testing the changes and the documentation behind approvals. ChaRM is mostly concerned with ‘Transports’ – the containers of code carried across from the development environment into QA and then production.
ChaRM Doesn’t Show You (And Other Stakeholders) the Full Picture for 100% Release Certainty
ChaRM is not an end-to-end ALM Solution. It does not offer the standard Release Management, Requirements Management, nor real Requirements Traceability or Test and Defect Management. Most of all, ChaRM is not a solution designed for the business user or business manager.
All ALM capabilities such as Project Management, Quality Gate Control (build or deploy gates), Solution Documentation (Business Processes Blueprints), Testing, Incidents Management and SAP Domain Risk Analysis (Business Process Change Analyzer – BPCA) are in fact additional tools that must be set up, customized and maintained – compatible with ChaRM only via integration with other SolMan components.
A Major Business Process Change Is Around the Corner, Where Is ChaRM Lacking?
Any ALM process starts with a Business Requirement. ChaRM is, in fact, insufficient for enabling such business requirements and must be integrated with a CRM Requirements Management tool, set up to the right version (latest one, 7.2).
Moreover, as a Business Application Owner, you will not have real visibility as to whether such request is fulfilled. Nor will you have visibility into the fulfillment progress.
Next, an IT Solution Architect will get the request and open a Change Request to follow up.
Development will then be managed in a different tool, testing in another. Releases cadence will be visible in ChaRM. However, real-time progress and visibility into all business requirements scheduled for a specific release will not be a streamlined process.
Why Compromise on a Legacy ALM Tool? True Agility Requires Modern Enterprise Agile Delivery
Panaya Release Dynamix (RDx) is an Enterprise Agile Delivery platform to manage changes from initial business request through to production. RDx delivers software releases with speed, scope and quality, through a single collaborative platform with lean application delivery.
RDx cloud-based application lifecycle management offers project and portfolio management, requirements and release management, testing and defect management on a singular, collaborative platform for all stakeholders. With built-in collaboration and visibility into the entire application lifecycle, the complexity and bottlenecks inherent to change are removed, allowing enterprises to become agile. To experience risk-free change, contact us to request a live demo.
Still Unconvinced? Consider These Differences:
- With ChaRM, SAP testing is an after-thought. Panaya RDx testing is fully integrated for effective collaboration and risk visibility
- With ChaRM, BPCA is difficult and expensive because it requires integration with other components. Panaya RDx Impact Analysis works immediately off-the-shelf, based on all current transports, without any prior set up or maintenance
- ChaRM offers point-features in siloed solutions. Panaya RDx offers an integrated, collaborative framework that understands the inter-dependencies across business, development and testing stakeholders
- Panaya RDx offers vendor-agnostic development and testing
- ChaRM predictive risk assessment focuses on transport activities. Panaya RDx as opposed to ChaRM, offers insights on test scoping, readiness, completeness, status and ongoing risk assessment, so Business Application Owners have a real sense of release certainty