SAP IT Operations Analytics Reviews

I have been working with SAP IT Operations Analytics for more than 15 years. I am managing SAP in a customer site.

Currently, we are only depending on SAP Fiori analytics. It's operational analytics that we're using, and SAP provides sometimes some sort of predictive Fiori apps for specific functions or systems. It's a mix of all, as it's an area of the solution. For the IT operational analytics tool, we are talking about supply chain, marketing, production, sales and distribution, finance and controlling, all these kinds of basic business cycles, typical business cycles. This tool helps us with daily performance measures and KPIs in all business cycle functions. Outstanding financial reporting every month, cash flow, all these kinds of KPIs are already measured on a daily basis. The predictive analytics capabilities of this tool relate to future expected demand, future expected capacity, and production volume we can produce in the next three months or half a year or next year. It's a predictive analytic system. The main title is SAP Fiori which depends on what we could stack SAP Analytics Cloud. Inside or under this hood, there are lots of KPIs in supply chain, lots of KPIs in production, and so on.

It's important to make SAP IT Operations Analytics tool more flexible in terms of customization because when it comes to specific business models, the requirements of the business may vary, and there's a wide range of variety between each business model. Oil and gas is different than retail, which is different than FMCG. Everything is different, and companies are trying to push toward best of breed. Much of the time, best of breed does not meet the real requirements of each department head or the business model itself, so these tools need to be more flexible. The setup process is not a big deal for us. When we need to configure something or set up something new, the new technology of low-code, no-code is very good, and we are looking forward to more improvement in this part, because sometimes you miss a list of developers and need to write code. Therefore, we need it to be more easy for normal users. It's about how much professional teamwork is needed on these tools. Much of the time, normal users know they need to develop their own dashboard or analytics for a reason, and they are facing the problem of needing to understand how to write code. Recently, lots of tools came under the title of low-code, no-code, where you just need to drag and drop some fields to get your report. This area needs to be more agile and easy for normal users. System usability should be easier.

I have been working with SAP IT Operations Analytics for more than 15 years.

I have faced no challenges with operations analytics during these years of usage. Any kind of reporting or analytics or insights being asked by any department head or function, or even top management, is available all the time. Sometimes, we have to develop little changes according to requirements, which may change over time.

I have no complaints regarding how stable this solution is; any cloud solution is most of the time very stable, and we don't have any problems with stability.

For scalability, it is certainly scalable in my environment because cloud solutions are already scalable by nature. Any time I need to scale anything, whether vertical or horizontal, it's just a mouse click nowadays.

I have had a chance to contact SAP support for issues and problems. My impression of the way they provide support is great. Really, all these companies, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, have very professional teams providing support for each user according to the kind of support agreement. I am happy with the time they provide support, both the speed and the quality. For support, I give them a rating of nine out of ten, as there is always room for improvement. Maybe something here or there needs to be improved.

We have evaluated other options, such as Power Platform from Microsoft, which is a very good tool, but it requires some developers and a lot of integration with different data sources. Power BI is definitely good. I prefer SAP over Power Platform because it's a corporate system in our company.

Regarding deployment time in SAP IT Operations Analytics, everything is related to cloud-based solutions, as software as a service. We are not trying to do any effort in this implementation because all these tools are available on the cloud. Setup is already done by the cloud vendors Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and SAP, meaning you are paying a subscription only. You don't need to implement anything; you just need to do the setup for your business inside these ready tools.

Approximately 400 technology users are working with SAP IT Operations Analytics, but for the IT team itself taking care of the system, there are around 18 persons.

We are trying to empower the normal business users so they can do what they want by themselves as much as possible.

The solution is indeed expensive for my company. It is expensive compared to other solutions, always more than similar solutions available in the market. I cannot release numbers regarding how much the license would cost.

SAP IT Operations Analytics is helping me in AI-driven projects, but AI is not providing any mature solution so far. There's a lot of propaganda around AI, but real practical solutions to benefit the business are not mature yet, so we didn't try to implement anything. We'll see in the future what will happen. Those who would like to use SAP IT Operations Analytics need to understand what they need, as this is the most important question. They need to have a clear understanding of what their real business requirements are. It's an ocean; if you jump in trying to ask yourself what you need to do, you will get nothing in the end. Many times, people get the technology first, and because the business requirements may not be supported in the system, they end up getting lost and paying money for nothing. I rate this solution nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

Other

The tool is valuable for two reasons: design and development and regular operations. If you're using any SAP product, you can access this platform for free. It tracks the lifecycle of SAP products from inception to end-of-life.

We can integrate different environments, including development, quality, and production. You can open implementation projects, define users' roles, manage training, design, and store all project-related documentation. Before going live, there's a checklist and cutover plan. Configuration moves from development to quality, then production, to ensure everything runs smoothly. Once in production, the platform tracks system performance, open cases, maintenance, upgrades, and new features. You can monitor everything through dashboards, reports, event notifications, and support tickets, both internally and with SAP.

The most valuable feature for me is the tracking of configurations from development to production. It helps ensure everything is in place and makes it easy to see any changes made along the way. Additionally, having visibility into cloud system performance and capacity is crucial. It allows us to monitor usage and ensure everything is running smoothly. Another important aspect is the documentation and versioning of changes, which helps keep everything organized and easy to track.

The solution works well, but we need better project planning. Accessing some features is a bit complicated, and we're waiting for improvements from SAP. It should also improve integration. 

The solution was introduced two years back and we have been using it for a year. 

The solution is stable. 

The product is scalable. My company has four to five customers. 

The tool's technical support is fast. 

Setting up the system is pretty straightforward. It's not too complicated, but some changes are being tested, especially regarding integration with SAP products. This part might require more information and be a bit complex, especially if you're unfamiliar with SAP products.

To implement this solution, customers can purchase the standard packages and then do some minor configurations to connect their systems. Alternatively, they can build their operations using the platform's features requiring technical expertise. The pricing is based on the chosen package, and users can configure authentication methods.

The license for the product ranges from 8,000 to 30,000 yearly, depending on the customer's sizing. While it may not be cheap, it is considered affordable for the value it provides.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

We use Operations Analytics for performance. I work with SAP analysts using their analytics tool to evaluate or identify potential areas of the infrastructure that need to be upgraded. Usually, we need extra space or RAM because we're dealing with the cloud. We're in a hybrid cloud situation, so I have physical servers that need resources, plus we're moving company stuff to AWS, GCP, and others. But we also have to tune that virtual infrastructure, which must be adjusted and optimized. So, that's how the analytics tools are used in my world. We identify bottlenecks where things aren't flowing in the SAP system. It lets you see more threads being utilized by a database. Operations Analytics helps you detect the forensic signal that tells you something's going to happen. You can use it to get proactive before an outage occurs. So we're starting to use analytics to look at things. We can add memory or add space or a disk before it becomes a problem in the environment for the application.

Operations Analytics provides statistics, so it's like the dashboard in your car that tells you the temperature, RPMs, etc, and if something goes wrong in your car, a warning light comes on. So in analytics, you set thresholds for the thread count, and it sends you an email when it reaches a certain amount. Operations Analytics also has data on metrics like CPU and memory utilization. And the next step in analytics technology will be AI, where software takes action and tunes the cloud. So that's where the research is headed. 

The next step for Operations Analytics is the ability to take the data and make intelligent decisions with the software. For example, you could automate the software with statements like: "If the thread count's high and RAM utilization is low, then report this." It would be great to have a monitoring tool that could implement conditional solutions like this. Right now, it comes up with the indicators, but it doesn't necessarily send the lower-level technician to the right spot. The engineer and the database SME have to notice it, then those two come together and tell the low-level engineer what to do. The next step is to remove the middle man and get the notification right to the technician so that you can correct the situation right away. You've also saved staffing costs by using one person instead of three. So there are all kinds of efficiencies that come out of that.

I've been doing infrastructure for about 30 years. I have certifications in Checkpoint, Cisco, and Windows, and experience working with SAP systems and JD Edwards. So I have quite a diverse background, from financials to manufacturing, but the financial sector is where I started. That's where I learned about best practices and rigid restrictions. I started as a hands-on person and worked my way up to VP of eCommerce for a national banking firm.

Operations Analytics is scalable, but it depends on the amount of money you have and how much development you're willing to go through. So You get a specific set of tools out-of-the-box, like buying a toolkit at Home Depot. You start with a basic set of tools, and then you occasionally buy a new one. I do not know the specifics on the cost of the licenses, but it's big money. Of course, it depends on how many platforms you're looking at. It's all a sliding scale.

It's not complicated to set up Operations Analytics. The cool thing is the stuff that I'm working with is out-of-the-box. Most of those indicators are easy to get through the tool, so it's not a custom setup situation. Customization only comes into the picture when you have custom code. Then you have to set up custom analytics to read those. So it's easy to set up the dashboards for the most part. But even the base dashboard can give you a wealth of information to work with.

I rate Operations Analytics seven out of 10. There's always room for improvement.

On-premises