What’s new in Avantra 25 - AIOps for Cloud ERP

I am pleased to announce that we have released Avantra 25, the next evolution of the Avantra platform. This year we have focused on all things cloud, from native support of SAP BTP and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition to SAP RISE capable automation templates in our add-in library and our very own Avantra AIR cloud-based AI extension for Avantra, there’s a lot to like with Avantra 25.

Avantra AIR: AI check explainer

Avantra 25 is the first release of Avantra to fully integrate with our new cloud product, Avantra AIR. In its first version, this AI extension of your core Avantra server will provide easy to understand explanations of your Avantra check results using cutting edge AI techniques and a knowledge base filled with key information about each check. 

If your key support personnel are armed with more knowledge at critical moments, diagnosing issues and performing service recovery becomes a breeze. While Avantra AIR is an add-on to our core product, it is integrated right in the check display to supply information when you need it.

We’re currently running a beta programme for AIR early adopters but if you’re interested in receiving a demo, reach out to your Customer Support Representative for more information. Read more here!

Next generation dashboards

With Avantra 25 we have a breaking change that the classic dashboard experience is no longer available by default. We’ve been hard at work on the next-generation dashboarding process for several releases now and it’s finally ready to take a primary role.

Next generation dashboards have a what-you-see-is-what-you-get designer view that allows you to see in real-time the effect of any changes to the dashlet’s display. And we’ve gone through each and every dashlet to make sure they’re more responsive to different screen sizes and layouts so your dashboard always looks good. Dashlets also have a click through to the system or check they’re referring to so you can use it as a launching page to discover the status of your landscape.

We’ve drastically simplified the sharing experience too so that individual dashboards can be templates shared with different links to see different customer data on each link.

Other changes include being able to hide the navigation, showing only the dashboards you own, export and import, design change for sections to make them easier to move, lots of work on the layout grid as well as showing your classic UI dashboards in a much nicer way. Some dashboard layouts may require a little bit of alignment to get them looking sharp as we’ve changed the default sizes for most dashlets to fit the new designs.

We’re keen to get your feedback on new dashboards, so tell us what you think!

Next generation checks and credentials

As you might have seen in the recent Avantra summit, Checks have a new look in Avantra 25 with a brand new timeline view showing the history of the check. Search through a check’s history by time and overlay any notifications that were sent. This is great to work out why something happened and what Avantra did about it.

We’ve also improved the check display itself so you can always export the table, choose the columns you want and sort to find the information you need.

Credentials for managed objects have also been renovated in this release. We’ve created an easier experience to create and update credentials on a managed object so that you can enable more monitoring or supply those extra credentials that your latest workflow needs.

We’ve made great progress towards our goal of being able to completely manage your Avantra managed objects within the next generation UI but we’ve still got a bit to do. With that in mind, we’re setting up our feedback council to pick the brains of our customers about how you use specific elements of Avantra so we build the right processes in the future next generation UI. We’ll be reaching out to some of you, but if you’d like to be involved, get in touch!

Combined SAP Cloud with on-premise

One of the major features of Avantra 25 is our native support for new SAP cloud service objects such as SAP Business Technology Platform BTP and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition. We’ve been hard at work creating checks that get to the heart of the things that cause issues with these technologies to alert you of these problems long before they become a serious issue.

We’ve created over 30 new checks to highlight expired certificates, incorrect security settings, users with critical authorisations, an increase in failed logon attempts and many more. My favorite check is the cost analysis on SAP BTP which can be used to highlight unusual spending. Probably a system started to prototype something and no-one realized it was in the wrong global account and not going to be free (and I might be speaking from experience!).

We even made it simple to discover all the sub-accounts and applications within BTP automatically so all that you need to do is add the BTP Global Account and we go away and figure out what else needs to be monitored (and set up the credentials for you!). To use this feature, you might need a new license and our support team would be happy to help create that for you when you upgrade, please do reach out!

Enhanced Ansible support

Ansible is a well known open source automation engine focusing on configuration management and application deployment. With Avantra 23 we added a built-in step to allow you to add your own playbook to a workflow but as the rest of the automation engine grew around it, this step wasn’t that easy to use any more. With Avantra 25 we’ve added the ability to create Ansible steps in the step library in the same way as you create JavaScript steps, with native support for input variables and inventory handling!

Ansible has quite an active community that has built incredible modules that are able to automate all kinds of systems and changes, and now it’s possible to integrate those modules within an Avantra automation combining the best of both technologies. If you already use Ansible, import your existing playbooks through our GIT integration to include them in Avantra workflows and you can use custom Ansible plugins too!

Avantra manages the automation, creates a dynamic inventory based on the system selectors used and uses built-in credential handling to simplify the setup. Then execute the workflow manually, by a schedule, dashboard or through an API, keeping a log in Avantra of all that happens.

Custom check templates

I’m super excited about custom check templates. We added automation type add-ins in Avantra 24 and since then we’ve been trying to figure out how to support checks in the same way. With custom checks we can share rapidly changing content, for example, a new template to detect the newest security vulnerability affecting systems, or share best practice templates for optional components, for example if you use EDOCs, these are the checks for you, without forcing you to do a platform/agent update.

So what are check templates? Let’s first explain custom checks. Custom checks have a logic component, the settings/code that controls what they do, and a customer and system selector that controls which systems the check is run on and who can edit/modify them.

Custom check templates are essentially just the logic of the check, either code or best practice scenarios of “these are the jobs to monitor for X” or “watch these processes in Windows” without any of the customer/system selection work. They appear in the new custom check dialog and you simply create a custom check from the template rather than the types (RUN_JS,RUN_PROG etc.). Assign a customer and system selector and off you go, it’s like a normal custom check! Creating a custom check template is also super easy so you can reuse checks across multiple customers or provide a library for your customers to customize Avantra.

We have some exciting plans for custom check templates that we’ll release through add-ins, including beta programs for upcoming/potential features to test the waters. Stay tuned for more info on this.

SAP SUM repeat automation

With Avantra 25.0 we also announce the beta release of the “SAP SUM repeat” automation template. This automation add-in will allow you to record an upgrade process, provide it to the Avantra workflow and then repeat it as many times as you need, maybe in conjunction with other automation templates.

For example, consider the scenario where you’re preparing for your SAP S/4HANA upgrade. Use our Ansible integration to take a VM backup from your cloud hypervisor, perform a system refresh using Avantra’s automation add-in, and run a SUM repeat automation to apply the upgraded components to your system. And apply the transports needed with our transport automation.

Schedule it for every weekend for the project duration to iron out any of the challenges you might face in production. Just an idea, combine these building blocks in any way the business needs.

Conclusion

We are thrilled to unveil Avantra 25, the next-generation evolution of our platform with a significant focus on the cloud. This release is packed with powerful new features and enhancements designed to make managing your SAP landscape more intuitive, efficient, and future-ready.

A complete list of changes can be found in the 25.0 release notes on our documentation website.

At Avantra, we are delighted when our customers tell us about their experiences. Let us know what you are looking for in Avantra by creating an idea at ideas.avantra.com, email us at support@avantra.com or speak to your customer success manager.

Talk to an Avantra expert and find out how Avantra can transform your SAP landscape.