ALM Cloud Services
Some ALM functions are available as independent cloud services. They can be used by SAP Solution Manager, as well as other cloud offerings of SAP. A major advantage is release independence - customers can use the services independent of the release/support-package level of their on-premise environment, and they do not need to manage updates.
One frequent use case is the access to up-to-date content. All ALM offerings have access to the latest content. For customers with SAP Solution Manager, there is no need to import all available content, only that content which is required by the customer while using the cloud extensions is transferred.
The other important use case is the delivery of support services by SAP. Even if a customer's component is not on the latest support level, the latest support services can be delivered. This improves not only the quality of the delivered services but also the general collaboration between the customer and SAP Support.