SM, NWA, PMI, ALM, CEN, CCMS - I am a little bit confused

Question

Hey everybody,
since a few days I am reading SAP documentations, forums, blogs, wikis and so on...
And every day i am finding a new SAP tool for monitoring and alerting.
Does anyone here can give me a little overview.
And may be answer a few questions?
Like, when I am using SolMan, does I really need the rest of the tools.
Or where is the benefit ALM versus SolMan (the monitoring functions only, of course).
Thanks a lot.
Kind regard.
Dirk

Answer 1

Hi Dirk,
Which tool you want to use depends upon requirement,
I am listing out some features of solman with links so get an overview
EWA-early watch alert
http://www.sap.com/southafrica/partners/presentations/pres/Solution%20Manager%20Overviews/Solution%20Mgt%20for%20Operations.pdf
The SAP EarlyWatch Alert is a diagnosis which monitors solutions in SAP and non-SAP systems in the SAP Solution Manager. The system processes the downloaded data. You can display the report as an HTML document. You can also create the report as an MS Word document. You can use the documents as status reports. You can analyze and avoid potential problems with these reports.
SAP EarlyWatch Alert is the prerequisite for Service Level Reporting.
Service level reporting
Service Level Reporting:
·        is the interface between your IT department and the person responsible for a business process.
·        provides analyses across the systems and business processes in your solution landscape.
You can thus react quickly to risks, and continually improve your IT service.
system monitoring
The system monitoring monitors the systems in your solution landscape, in real time.
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sm40/helpdata/en/81/e06b41466b021de10000000a155106/frameset.htm
Business process monitoring.
Business process monitoring monitors your most important business processes, which can be distributed across complex system landscapes. You can also monitor the interfaces between your business process steps.
This enables you to identify critical problems proactively.
Solution reporting
You can analyze:
· Services
· System availability
· Service Desk
· Change requests
You can save the reports in the SAP Solution Manager, and open them with MS Excel.
BI Reporting.
You want to analyze SAP Solution Manager contents, across systems and chronologically, with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI), e.g.:
●     System information
●     Application information
●     Key Performance Indicators
You can send the data to an external BI System, or use the BI System based on SAP Netweaver, in the SAP Solution Manager.
Please follow help.sap link,
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sm40/helpdata/en/81/e06b41466b021de10000000a155106/frameset.htm
Please reward points if it helps.