Connecting SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to SAP Cloud ALM for operations

The SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management, in short SAP Cloud ALM (internal abbreviation: CALM), is designed to monitor your cloud-centric landscapes, including cloud solutions and selected on-premises solutions.

Before any technical steps are taken, administrators must determine which of three setup paths applies to their landscape. The decision follows two sequential questions as shown on the following slide:

The following sections show the configuration steps for each configuration scenario. We will begin with the automated setup and end with the classic setup.

The following slide walks through the internal mechanics of the fully automated setup. The process is triggered from the SAP BTP Cockpit and consists of three steps that execute automatically in sequence:

To start the automatically setup logon to the SAP Cloud ALM. Choose the Space Admintration and choose the tile Landscape Management (not in the slide). Then

1. Choose Services and Systems
2. Enter the search term SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
3. At the end of the tenant you want to configure choose >.
4. In edit mode choose the slider Central Monitoring.

After you confirm consent in the dialog that opens and start the activation process, the following steps will be done automatically:

Automatic Step a - Formation is established in BTP

A formation is created in the BTP Cockpit linking SAP Cloud ALM and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. A formation is a BTP mechanism that groups systems and enables automated service exchange between them.

Automatic Step b - Landscape Management is called back

The formation triggers a callback to Landscape Management in SAP Cloud ALM. Two items are retrieved in this step: the relevant monitoring use cases for the connected system, and the API key required for secure communication. Both are then forwarded to Communication Systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Automatic Step c - Communication Arrangements are created

Based on the information received, Communication Systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition automatically creates all required communication arrangements. These define which APIs are exposed, which credentials are used, and which monitoring scenarios are activated.

Once the automated setup completes successfully, the supported monitoring use cases become active immediately.

SAP Cloud ALM can start receiving data from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition with no further action required on either side:

Adjust the monitoring setup within the monitoring apps in SAP Cloud ALM as needed. Please consult SAP Help Portal – SAP Cloud ALM - Application Help for details.

If the tenant information is automatically imported to the SAP Cloud ALM Landscape Management, but the tenant doesn't appear automatically in the System Landscape application in the SAP BTP global account, the automatic central monitoring setup cannot not be used directly.

In such cases, the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant needs to get entered to the SAP BTP Global Account for the SAP Cloud ALM manually before the central monitoring setup can be used.

The next slide outlines the key steps which are required to do so. While much of the setup can be automated, some initial steps must be performed manually. Let’s walk through each step:

1. Manually Add SAP S/4HANA Cloud to the System Landscape

In the SAP BTP Cockpit (under your SAP Cloud ALM Global Account), navigate to the system landscape and manually add your S/4HANA Cloud system. Why: This step ensures SAP Cloud ALM is aware of your system and can manage it.

2. Generate a Registration Token for the System

Still in the SAP BTP Cockpit, generate a registration token for your S/4HANA Cloud system. The token is required to securely link your S/4HANA Cloud system with SAP Cloud ALM.

3. Register SAP S/4HANA Cloud Using the Token

In your S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system, use the generated token to register the system. This is typically done via the Maintain Extensions app. Registration enables data exchange and monitoring between the systems.

4. Verify that the system is registered in the System Landscape

In the SAP BTP Cockpit (under your SAP Cloud ALM Global Account), navigate to the system landscape and check that your S/4HANA Cloud system appears as registered. Verification prevents issues later in the monitoring setup.

5. Activate Central Monitoring Setup

In Landscape Management, activate the central monitoring setup for the registered system. (As as described in the previous training content).This step allows SAP Cloud ALM to collect and display monitoring data, providing you with insights into your system’s health and performance.

The next slide shows where and how to verify that an SAP S/4HANA Cloud system has been successfully registered in the SAP BTP System Landscape (Step 4):

By following these five steps, you ensure your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system is integrated with SAP Cloud ALM, enabling efficient landscape management and proactive monitoring.

Use the classic setup only if the automated options are unavailable.

To connect an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant to an SAP Cloud ALM tenant, performing the Classic Setup complete the following steps:

1. Obtain the SAP Cloud ALM service credentials (service key)

To create a communication channel to push the system's real-time data from the public edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant to an SAP Cloud ALM tenant, a communication user is formed with a pair of Client ID and Client Secret.

The Client ID and the Client Secret is contained in a system-generated Service Key.

* On or after October 16, 2023 the service key have already been generated automatically as part of the provisioning of your SAP Cloud ALM tenant.

Note

if the service credentials are not available in the Landscape Management App please check this link.

2. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: Communication Systems

Communication systems are created in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to enable communication among different systems. For example, the connection to an SAP Cloud ALM tenant.

Note

More details are present in this lesson.

3. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: Communication Arrangements

Communication Arrangements help customers to configure the electronic data exchange between the system, like SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and a communication partner. For example, an SAP Cloud ALM tenant.

Note

More details are present in this lesson.

4. Check if Service Type SAP S/4HANA Cloud Service Status is Active

After the successful activation, the data collection starts, and the tenant for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition appears with Status Active in the Landscape Management application in SAP Cloud ALM.

The SAP Cloud ALM runs on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). Initially, the SAP Cloud ALM Service Key gets generated there and usually gets copied to the Landscape Management App.

The following screenshot shows the content of the Service Key:

The following main elements build a Service Key:

api

The first part (without /api) is the URL of the SAP Cloud ALM tenant (1)

clientid

This is the name of the communication user (2)

clientsecret

This represents the password of the communication user (2)

url

This is the token service url used for the OAuth authentication (3)

verificationkey

This is the public key of an x509 client certificate generated by SAP (4)

Carl explained to Adam in the last session to Adam the importance and use of the Service Key during the classic setup. He also mentioned the Landscape Management application in the SAP Cloud ALM tenant, where the Service Key has to be managed if needed.

Adam now wonders whether he needs more background information regarding this Landscape Management application, to fulfill all requirements for a successful communication between the Public Edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud tenant and the SAP Cloud ALM tenant. With this further knowledge, he expects to understand the interrelations better if something goes wrong in the communication setup.

Carl explains that this app helps manage the information about services, business services, and systems you use for your SAP solution landscape. This information is the basis for all SAP Cloud ALM apps.

The main features of the Landscape Management in SAP Cloud ALM are:

• Automatic Import of Customer Cloud Services: Cloud services subscribed to by the customer are automatically imported and updated from SAP's cloud landscape directory. The initial import contains all cloud services that belong to the same customer number as SAP Cloud ALM. Customers can maintain a Corporate Group (CCC) S-User and import cloud services that belong to subsidiaries of the same Corporate Group.
• Connectivity Maintenance: Landscape Management is the main application to set up the necessary connectivity for any use case that uses a pull mechanism to collect monitoring data, trigger activity in managing components, or send data to other receivers, like SAP Focused Run or incident management integration.
• Access to SAP Cloud ALM Service Key: Customers can store and access their SAP Cloud ALM Service Key in Landscape Management. The Service Key is needed to connect to the SAP Cloud ALM APIs. For example, for push monitoring use cases. Via Landscape Management, this Service Key can be retrieved without accessing the SAP BTP Cockpit.
• Status overview for SAP Cloud ALM use cases: Landscape Management shows which use cases are supported for each known service and system. You can select service types in the scope selector based on their supported use cases. Furthermore, for each service or system, Landscape Management shows if the use case is already configured, if the data collection is active or inactive, and if the data collection is in an error state.
• Event integration with Business Service Management: Business Service Management status events are displayed attached to every service and system type on the overview screen in Landscape Management. This way, customers always know which of their services maintenance is planned or downtime has been posted.

More information about the Landscape Management application can be found in the SAP Support Cloud ALM Expert Portal.

At GloManCorp, the use case for monitoring is defined in the following way: The data collection takes place in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant and will be sent via an automatic push mechanism at regular intervals to the SAP Cloud ALM tenant. It is then brought to display for further analysis, such as metrics.

In this way, the communication partners are clearly defined as the sender, which is the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and the receiver, which is represented by the SAP Cloud ALM.

Carl explains to Adam that a communication scenario is a Design Time description of how two communication partners exchange information. It consists of inbound and/or outbound services and supported authentication methods.

Furthermore, the communication scenario provides technical information, such as the used inbound and outbound services and their service type, for example, OData or SOAP, and the number of allowed Communication Arrangement instances. If the scenario exposes inbound services, it specifies the authorizations required to execute the services.

It follows the basic concept of Communication Arrangements and Communication Scenarios included the Communication Scenario used for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition connection to the SAP Cloud ALM for Operations:

Communication System

A communication system is a system specification that represents a communication partner and the technical information required for the communication, such as the host name, port, users for inbound and/or outbound communication, certificates, and so on.

An administrator user on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition has to create the communication system in the Communication Systems app in the SAP Fiori launchpad. The communication partner can vary for each system.

Communication User

A communication user is a specific technical user assigned to a communication system. The user can be assigned a password or X.509 certificate.

This user is added for inbound and/or outbound communication to communication systems.

Communication Arrangement

A communication arrangement is a Runtime description of a specific communication scenario. It describes which communication partners communicate with each other in the scenario, and how they communicate.

To describe this Runtime behavior, you have to create a communication arrangement for a scenario, assign the communication system and communication users, and select the authentication method that shall be used.

Note

When configuring communication arrangements and connections to external systems, always choose the most secure communication method. Always choose the most secure encryption algorithm and use the maximum available length for the key.

You can maintain the inbound and/or outbound services depending on the scenario.

An administrator in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant creates the communication arrangement in the Communication Arrangements application using the SAP Fiori Launchpad.

Communication Scenario

Each communication arrangement must be based on a communication scenario.

A communication scenario bundles predefined settings for inbound and/or outbound communication and is a basis for communication between systems. In addition, it combines Design Time artifacts.

More details for this topic can be retrieved from this SAP Help Page.

To send data from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to SAP Cloud ALM, within the Classic Setup you need to create a Communication System within the SAP S/4HANA Cloud tenant. At GloManCorp, Adam has to take care of this task. Carl demonstrates how to create such a Communication System and explains the different steps and input values needed.

With the Communication Systems app, you can create Communication Systems. Communication Systems are created to enable communication among different systems.

With this application, you can create new Communication Systems that you can use later to establish Communication Arrangements. You have to register these systems in the Communication Systems​​ application to enable the communication between different systems. The Communication System represents the communication partner within a communication:

• For inbound communication, this is the system that calls services provided by your system.

• For outbound communication, this is the system that provides services called by your system.

How to set up the Communication System for the SAP Cloud ALM is explained in a video with the title Set Up Application Monitoring for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition on the SAP Cloud ALM Expert Portal.

More information about Communication Systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition can be found in the SAP Help Portal.

Carl explains that the Communication Arrangement refers to the Communication Scenario and defines the purpose using a specific Communication System created beforehand. In this way, it represents the run-time of a Communication Scenario, whilst the scenario itself is the design-time (coding).

In an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition tenant, many communication types and purposes are predefined.  For example, SAP_COM_0527 is for Application Monitoring Push Integration, SAP_COM_0395 is for Asset Management Master Data Integration, and others. In our case, we use the Communication Arrangement SAP_COM_0527.

After the Communication Arrangement is saved, the collected data will be pushed over to the SAP Cloud ALM tenant according to your job execution schedule.  From the SAP Cloud ALM tenant, some capabilities become Active.

General information on how to create a Communication Arrangement is documented at SAP Help Portal.

Now we establish the connection between SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP Cloud ALM. As a follow-up action, we want to check whether the configuration was successful.

You can open a service or system by choosing the corresponding line. The Supported Use Cases tab shows each use case's ​Configuration Status​ and ​Runtime Status​ ..

More information on the administration of Services is available in the SAP Help Portal.

As a final step, we want to call the Health Monitoring function within the SAP Cloud ALM and check if monitoring data is available.

To do so, log on to the SAP Cloud ALM, choose the group SAP Cloud ALM for Operations and select the tile Health Monitoring. In our case, monitoring metrics are available for the configured Product.

For more information about SAP Cloud ALM for Operations, visit:

• SAP Cloud ALM for Operations Expert Portal
• SAP Cloud ALM - Application Help – SAP Cloud ALM for Operations
• SAP Learning content: Onboarding, Setting Up, and Administering SAP Cloud ALM
• SAP Learning content: Operating with SAP Cloud ALM

Alternatively, to find all free Learning Journeys about SAP Cloud ALM, use the SAP Learning Page with a filter for SAP Cloud ALM.