Deployment Models and Operational Responsibility
The customer IT operations requirements vary by deployment model. Here are some general scenarios:
- For an on-premise solution, the IT team is responsible for the entire solution and needs to learn about the technical and functional specifications of maintaining all aspects of the software and infrastructure.
- For a solution hosted in a private cloud, the IT team is responsible for monitoring application performance, troubleshooting, and all application support activities. Always refer to your service level agreement (SLA) and roles & responsibilities documentation to see exactly who is responsible for which activities. For any customer-specific enhancements built into the solution, the IT team is responsible for maintaining them through future release upgrades, which includes re-testing customized processes to verify the enhancements weren't affected.
- For a public cloud solution, the IT team is responsible for troubleshooting and trying to resolve general application support issues and escalating actual technical problems to the cloud provider. They are also responsible for maintaining any customer-specific enhancements through future release upgrades. This includes re-testing existing business processes after an upgrade is installed by the cloud provider to ensure the upgrade didn't affect any of their customer-specific enhancements.
- When application support is handled by a third party, knowledge about the solution must be transferred from the project team to the third party. Business process owners, business relationship managers, and service desk agents within your organization still need to learn about the solution, and you should also consider changes in your incident or change management support processes.
Note- Cloud solutions have service level agreements (SLAs) that define the system availability, services, planned downtime, and other information related to the cloud subscription. Information regarding SLAs can be found in the SAP Trust Center.
- If a customer is implementing a cloud solution for the first time, the IT team needs to be trained in the new tools they should use to monitor and maintain the cloud landscape, and when to communicate with the cloud provider for any activities outside their scope.