Solution Manger

Hi

Iam baiscally ABAP consultant trying to know about Solution manager.Can anyone pleas clarify me ...

I read so many posts and documents,but failed to understand what exactly solution manager .

--Do we need to know Basis for SM??

--As per me,SM is like maintaining documents in diff phases of Proj??is there any installation required by SM Technical people??

--If one wants to learn,what are things to learn and for which positions,we