How to Prepare for a Successful SAP Cloud ALM Migration

The end of standard maintenance for SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) is set for 2027, and SAP is strongly encouraging its customers to transition to SAP Cloud ALM to manage the full lifecycle of their SAP applications across cloud and hybrid environments. 

As the simplified and optimized successor to SolMan, SAP Cloud ALM is included in standard support and enables organizations to monitor, manage, and optimize application performance more efficiently within their SAP landscape.

Why Move to SAP Cloud ALM?

SAP Cloud ALM is a key part of SAP’s roadmap, supporting its global transition toward cloud-based solutions. Migrating to Cloud ALM helps organizations:

• Reduce costs by eliminating the need for infrastructure to run SolMan. 
• Improve availability, access and scalability, as for all cloud solutions. 
• Benefit from continuous improvements, including security updates and new features, delivered without system downtime. 

With 2027 fast approaching, now is the time to start planning your transition from Solution Manager to Cloud ALM, avoiding the risks of a rushed migration.
Extended support for SolMan will remain available until 2030, but with added costs and no new updates or security enhancements after 2027.

Best Practices for a Successful Migration

A smooth migration to SAP Cloud ALM requires a clear assessment and structured planning. Here’s how to approach it:

• Run an SAP Readiness Check:
  Leverage the SAP Readiness Check tool to audit your current Solution Manager landscape. This report will highlight which SolMan components are in use and whether equivalents exist in SAP Cloud ALM. For example, some features like CUA (Central User Administration) are not supported in Cloud ALM and will need to be migrated to another system. 
• Review and redefine your processes:
  Do not underestimate the complexity of this migration. We recommend approaching it as a “Greenfield” implementation. This is an opportunity to rethink your processes, align with cloud best practices and improve your application governance. Plan ahead your user and role management to streamline your transition.
• Migrate in phases:
  Solution Manager and Cloud ALM can coexist, allowing gradual migration by component. This reduces risk and makes it easier to adapt to differences between the two solutions.
• Test thoroughly:
  Testing is essential to validate data integrity and ensure a seamless go-live experience.

To ensure a successful SAP Cloud ALM migration, we recommend partnering with an SAP expert like oXya. With deep expertise in both SAP Solution Manager and SAP Cloud ALM, and hands-on experience from similar projects, oXya will help guide you through your transition

Empower Your Teams

The success of this transformation also depends on the involvement of your teams. Here are two best practices to engage them: 

• Involve all the owners of the different Solution Manager functionalities early on, so they can assess their needs and make recommendations on whether to implement the equivalents available in Cloud ALM; 
• Train both end users and IT teams on Cloud ALM.

Looking Ahead

With SAP Cloud ALM, SAP provides a modern, agile and integrated solution, better suited to today’s cloud and hybrid environments, even though it is still evolving. However, this transition goes beyond a simple tool migration, it requires: 

• Redesigning processes 
• Upskilling teams 
• Reorganizing both IT and business practices 

By preparing now and following best practices, organizations can ensure a smooth transition and gain long-term value in performance, agility, and cost optimization.

Start preparing for 2027 with oXya as your SAP Cloud ALM migration partner. Contact us here.