3 ways to make SAP agile

Guest Blog by Rick Porter from Revelation Software Concept, a SUSE Connect partner.

Many SAP IT teams are looking at their SAP ERP core systems and asking themselves, ‘How do we make these agile?’

It’s a reasonable question. Especially now.

Experts blame the lack of institutionalized agile and DevOps processes for holding up IT’s contribution to business transformation.

So, a good answer is timely.

SAP ERP agility

In speaking with many SAP IT teams, we have come to learn that not everyone sees agile the same way. The same goes for DevOps. Both agile and DevOps mean different things to different organizations.

What is common, is the intended outcome – high volumes of change with shorter delivery cycles and no reduction in quality

So how does one make SAP ERP agile?

Some basic building blocks to get agile SAP ERP

Building block #1 is automation.

Automate as much of the process as possible. This means thing like change control management, code review, impact assessment and testing. There are a range of high quality software tools available right now that can do any one of these.

Building block #2 is process consistency

You would be really surprised, or maybe not, to learn how many highly experienced SAP IT teams still suffer from inconsistent processes. Different teams, different processes. There needs to be a unified approach.

Building block #3 is orchestration

Fractured and siloed systems need to come together to form an end-to-end single source of truth process. A DevOps tool chain is not a chain at all unless linked.

A way forward

Rev-Trac, Revelation Software Concept’s (RSC) SAP change control automation platform, plays a major role in making SAP agile for IT teams. It automates the entire SAP change control process and orchestrates the end-to-end life cycle process. The software links together the entire SAP DevOps tool chain.

Want to learn more and plan on being at SAPPHIRENOW + ASUG 2018? Drop by the SUSE Booth (#859) at 12:15pm on June 5 and hear Chris Drake, Rev-Trac Product Manager speak about how Rev-Trac can make SAP agile.

Want to arrange a meeting with one of SAP change control experts? Submit the form here.