SAP Focused Run dashboards in alert management

The SAP Focused Run Alert Management application allows us to create a custom dashboard that can help us to report on alerts as per our custom alert reporting needs.

To create a custom dashboard, in the Alert Management App, click on the +sign (Add Custom Page) on the navigation panel.

Upon clicking on Add Custom Page , a blank pane is displayed along with the setup panel to its right.

The first step in setup is to give a name to your dashboard. For this click on Rename button in the setup area Page Management.

In the pop-up provide the name for your dashboard.

You can also give a meaningful Icon to your dashboard that will be displayed in the navigation panel. For this provide the sap icon name in the Icon field. To get a list of available icons you can also look in the SAP Icons link which takes you to the Icon explorer.

The next is to specify the grid layout (Number of rows and columns)in the view management section of setup area. By default it is 1×1 which means you can add only 1 dashboard. If you want to add more dashboards, accordingly you can adjust the grid.

Then you need to select a view, based on what you want to show in the dashboard, by selecting from the list of available views. You can select a view by simply dragging and dropping in the dashboard layout.

In this example we have selected 4 views in the 2×2 grid layout.

  • Top Open Alerts affecting most no. of Managed Objects
  • Open Alerts by Monitoring Usecase
  • Open Alerts by duration
  • Open Alerts by source

By default all the dashboards in your custom dashboard will use the Global Scope, the scope inherited from the scope you selected while opening the Alert Management App. You can also select a custom scope for your dashboard. For example in this case we want to filter for all production system alerts. For this click on the setup button of the dashboard you want to specify the scope.

Then in the setup area, in the scope selection, select your custom scope from the drop down list. Note: You must have already created your custom scope in the Scope management section.

Once you have finalized your dashboard you can publish your dashboard by marking it as public so that others can also use the dashboard.

However, by default the public custom dashboard is not added in the navigation panel of all other users. To be able to view the dashboard a user has to again click on the + sign in the navigation panel, and then in setup area select the public page.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy (Simac). Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run OCC dashboard

OCC dashboards are the most flexible form of dashboarding in SAP Focused Run. It is completely up to you to define any dashboard based on the available data.

The explanation below will give a quick introduction on how to setup a dashboard with as example a line graph with CPU for one system and amount of short dumps per hour for that system in a bar chart.

Set up new dashboard

Start the OCC dashboard Fiori tile:

Click the add a new dashboard icon on the left:

Now open on the right hand side icon the personalization. Here you can change the default 2 by 1 layout if want as well:

Now per gadget, select the personalization. First choose the type of graph, then select the query details:

Add the query by clicking the Plus sign:

Give the legend a name and press the Change query button:

First select the data source. In this example we choose system monitoring. Select next your system, and select the metric (in this case CPU). Don’t forget to save on top of the personalization!

We repeat for the other gadget, but now select short dumps per last hour as example:

Test your dashboard to see if the results are according to your expectation.

Make dashboard public

If you are happy with your dashboard, you can make it public. To do so, go to the personalization options:

Set the selected page to public, select a proper icon, and rename the default user-edit to a proper name and don’t forget to Save.

Other users can now add you dashboard from their UI personalization menu by clicking the Add Public Page and add your dashboard:

ABAP short dump trend analysis

We can use SAP Focused Run OCC Dashboards to build a ABAP Dump Trend Analysis dashboard.

Using OCC Dashboard we can use the data provider for System Monitoring to pull the data of Short Dumps per day metric in to a trend chart.

In the OCC Dashboard app you can create a new dashboard page by clicking on Add Custom Page in the navigation panel.

By default your new page will be named as custom_page, you can rename your page by clicking on Rename in the settings section and then providing a new name.

In the View Management section of the settings area you can modify the grid layout. By default you have 2 columns in 1 row. In this example we will change to 1 X 1 to keep just the ABAP Dump Trend Analysis dashboard. (Note: we can add a dashboard to each grid in the layout).

Now for adding the dashboard to the pane we just created, we click on the settings button for that pane.

Then in settings area, under View Personalization –> Render we select the graph type. In this case we want to perform a trend chart so we select Line Chart.

Now we need to create a query for the chart that would provide the data for our graph. For this in the Query section we click on the + sign to add a query.

Now in the Query Section, for the newly added row you provide a name under Legend and then click on the change button to start editing the query.

In the Query Editor screen select the data provider System Monitoring.

Now we navigate to the Scope Selection tab to select the managed systems for which the dashboard should display data. In this example we selected System Type as Application Server ABAP and IT Admin role as Production to select all ABAP production systems.

Now in the Default tab , under Extended SID select any ABAP system and then under Metrics tab select the metric Number of Short Dumps (Today). Click on Apply button to activate the selection.

Now you can see the ABAP Dumps trend lines for the selected scope of managed systems in the graph.

Note: By default a graph for System Monitoring data provider will select Auto resolution of data which will show the data for today with hourly frequency.

You can change the resolution in the Time Range Section in the Settings area. For example here we set Period for last 30 days as “l30d” and Granularity for every day or daily as “d”.

Note: OCC Dashboard graphs will always average out the data as per the granularity set for the graph w.r.t actual collection frequency of the selected metric. For instance if the metric Number of Short dumps (Today) has a hourly frequency and we show the daily data in the graph, then the value shown in the graph will be average of all hourly data collected by the metric for that day, which will of course be different from the actual final daily count. Hence to ensure data shown on graph is accurate, ensure that the Number of Short Dumps (Today) metric has a daily frequency. Then the granularity of the graph and the metric data collection frequency being exactly same, both will have the exact same and accurate data.

To know more abut OCC Dashboards and all possibilities with it you can refer to SAP Documentation here.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Frank Umans and Manas Tripathy (Simac). Repost done with permission. >>

Process Chain Monitoring in SAP Focused Run

Process Chain Monitoring in SAP Focused Run is possible via Job And Automation Monitoring which is available as of SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP02.

You can launch the Job & Automation Monitoring app in the Advanced Application Management section in the Focused Run launchpad.

When you launch the app you will be asked for a scope selection for which you can specify the systems for which you want to activate Process Chain Monitoring.

To start the setup of Process Chain Monitoring click on the settings button.

In the settings popup click on the pencil button under Technical Systems.

In the next popup select the system for which you want to configure process chain monitors by clicking on the area as shown below.

In the next screen , in the Monitoring tab click on the + sign to create a new filter to activate data collection.

Now provide a filter name and then in Job Type select SAP BW Process Chain and save.

After creating the filter move to Alerting tab and click on the + sign to create a new alert.

You can create the following types of alerts.

  • Critical Execution Status: The Execution Status is rated green, if a job finished successfully and red, if the job execution did not finish, i.e., aborted. It is rated yellow, if a job finished with warnings or errors without aborting.
  • Critical Application Status: The Application Status is rated green, if a job successfully processed the application data. It is rated red, if e.g., an ABAP job execution writes errors into the application log and yellow, if there are warnings, but no errors.
  • Critical Delay: The Start Delay rating is rated green, if the technical delay of a job (e.g., in case of an ABAP job the time passed until a job gets a work process assigned) did not exceed the threshold defined.
  • Critical Runtime: The Run Time is rated green, if the runtime of a job did not exceed the threshold defined.  

To create the alert first select the alert type.

Then in Alert Filters section provide the BW Process Chain name for which you want to activate alerting. Also you must provide the job type as BW Process Chain. You can optionally enter further filters like Execution User, Executable Name, ABAP Client and whether it’s a Standard Job or not.

Note: With Job & Automation monitoring you can create alerts for Standard ABAP jobs as well. The filters Executable Name and Standard Job is applicable only for ABAP Job type.

Optionally you can also set Notification Variant, Alert Severity and enable Automatic Alert Confirmation in the Alert Settings section.

Optionally you can also provide Resolution Instructions in the Alert Resolution area.

If you select alert type Critical Delay or Critical Runtime you also have to enter the thresholds.

Finally click on the Save button to save and activate the alerting.

Note: When we activate monitoring of process chain by creating the filter in the Monitoring tab, we activate data collection for Process Chain monitoring. This will enable data collection of all process chains of that managed system. You can see status of all process chain runs for that system in the main page of the Job & Automation Monitoring app. Additionally and optionally you can create/enable alerting in the Alerting tab to alert on specific process chain failures.

Note: Since the launch of Job & Automation Monitoring in Focused Run 3.0 FP2 the old Job Monitoring feature has been renamed to Job Monitoring ABAP Only. The Job Monitoring ABAP Only functionality is completely deprecated as of release of Focused Run 4.0.

For more details on Job & Automation Monitoring you can refer to SAP documentation here.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy (Simac). Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run certificate expiry monitoring

SAP Focused Run can be used to monitor expiry of a lot of different type of certificates:

  • ABAP PSE certificates (read below)
  • Host agent PSE certificates (read below)
  • SSL certificates (see this blog)
  • Cloud Connector BTP certificate expiry (read below)
  • SNC certificate expiry (read below)
  • SNC expiry in SAP router

ABAP PSE certificate monitoring

In system monitoring you can monitor if ABAP system certificates are expiring or are already expired. SAP provides a standard metric for this based on configuration validation rule SAP ABAP PSE CERTIFICATES CHECK. This rule is taking all certificates that are to be expired in the next 7 days and all expired certificates.

This rule has two setbacks:

  • 7 days upfront warning might be too short
  • It reports all expired certificates that are already years expired and don’t harm the system

New rule for ABAP PSE certificate monitoring

For the improved setup we will defined 2 new rules:

  • To be expired certificates, with date selection -30 till tomorrow
  • Expired certificates, with date selection today till next 30 days.

Start with creating the policy in configuration validation (more on configuration validation in this blog):

Add a new policy Z_ABAP_PSE_TO_BE_EXP for the to be expired, and give it this syntax:

Add a new policy Z_ABAP_PSE_EXP for the expired ones:

Both are basically a copy of the standard SAP one with the changed dates.

Please note you need to change both the dates in the Compliant and Non-Compliant section.

Create custom metric

Now you can create a custom metric using the newly created rule. For full description on how to create custom metrics, read this blog. Create the custom metric in the ABAP system template:

Refer to the newly create custom CoVa (configuration validation) rule:

And set the threshold:

For the to be expired certificates, we only want warning.

We repeat the same for the expired certificates, but now we make it a red alert by setting the thresholds differently.

Make sure both are now activated for monitoring:

Trouble shooting

There might be false alerts raised for this metric. This is for both the custom and standard SAP metric. The source is usually the data collection.

SAP note 3138046 – False Alert ABAP PSE certificates expiring in Focused Run describes the checks to perform.

Go to the configuration and configuration validation FIORI tile and select the system and search for the PSE certificates data collection details:

Monitoring Host Agent PSE Certificate Expiry

You have configured SSL for enabling secure connections to SAP Host Agent. In such a case you need to regularly update or extend the validity of the SAP Host Agent PSE certificate. With Focused run System Monitoring you can create custom metric for monitoring SAP Host Agent PSE certificate expiry.

Setup Monitoring Host Agent PSE Certificate Expiry

Step1: Navigate to Host Template maintenance

SAP Host Agent resides at OS level of each host of systems that you are monitoring using Focused Run. Hence you need to monitor the PSE certificate for SAP Host Agents of each host in your customer network.

In our recent blog we have explained how you can configure URL Certificate monitoring in Health Monitoring in SAP Focused Run. However configuring certificate monitoring for each SAP Host Agent in your customer network using Health Monitoring will be very cumbersome.

An easier way will be to setup a custom metric in the host level system monitoring template which when activated will be automatically applied to all hosts for which the monitoring template is used.

For template maintenance you can navigate to System Monitoring Template Maintenance app on the Focused Run launch pad.

In the template maintenance app navigate down to the Host (Server) node and then to the respective template which you want to edit and click on Edit button.

Step2: Create Custom Metric

In order to create a custom metric you need to activate expert mode. For this click on the Expert Mode button as shown below.

After enabling expert mode you can click on Create button. Select Metric in the drop down from Create button.

In the Metric creation pane, under Overview tab enter the details as shown below.

Then in the Data Collection tab, provide the details as shown below.

For the URL field you need to mention the URL https://$SAP_ComputerSystem.FQDName$:1129/SAPHostControl/?wsdl in which the expression $SAP_ComputerSystem.FQDName$ will dynamically resolve the respective FQDN of the host picked up from LMDB. Hence it is important to select the check box under Placeholder and select LMDB under Placeholder type.

Then navigate to the Threshold tab and provide the threshold as shown below. In this example the threshold is Yellow if certificate is expiring in 30 days and Red if its expiring in 15 days.

Then click on Next button to navigate to the Assignment tab where we assign this metric to an existing alert. In this step just click on the Finish button to save the metric. In this step we don’t assign to any alerts yet as we are yet to create a custom alert for this custom metric.

Step3: Create custom Alert and assign to custom Metric

In the expert mode maintenance go to the Create button and then from the drop down select Alert.

Enter the details as shown below and click on Next button.

Then in the Assignments tab you will see the custom metric you just created. Select the check box for this metric and click on Finish to save the alert.

Now your custom metric is ready together with alerting active.

To activate this template update on all hosts navigate to Managed Objects tab for the template and click on Apply and Activate button.

Upon activation the new metric will be available in system monitoring as shown below.

For more details on how to setup SSL for SAP Host Agent you can refer to the SAP documentation here.

SNC certificate expiry monitoring

SNC Certificate expiry is very critical for ABAP systems where SNC logon is used. As soon as the certificate expires users will no more be able to login to system.

In System Monitoring for ABAP systems SAP provides a standard metric called Expiring PSE Certificates which monitors all PSE certificates that includes SNC certificates. When this metric turns red it will tell how many certificates are expiring/expired but not which one. Hence its beneficial to monitor separately the status of SNC Certificates.

This monitoring can be achieved by using Configuration Validation.

You can create a custom policy with the below XML code that checks the PSE_CERT store to check on status of SNC Certificate.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<targetsystem desc="SNC Certificate about to expire" id="ASML_SNCERT_TOBE_EXP" multisql="Yes" version="0000">
<configstore name="PSE_CERT" system_type="ABAP">
<checkitem desc="Valid in range" id="1" operator="">
<compliant>APPLICATION like '%SNCS%' and CONTEXT like '%' and TYPE like '%' and SUBJECT like '%sapci%' and ISSUER like '%' and SERIALNO like '%' and VALID_FROM like '%' and ( ( ( replace_regexpr ('^$' IN valid_to WITH (replace(current_date, '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '')))) &gt; to_number(replace(add_days(current_date, 30), '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '') ))
or (( replace_regexpr ('^$' IN valid_to WITH (replace(current_date, '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '')))) &lt; to_number(replace(add_days(current_date, 0), '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '') )) )</compliant>
<noncompliant>APPLICATION like '%SNCS%' and CONTEXT like '%' and TYPE like '%' and SUBJECT like '%sapci%' and ISSUER like '%' and SERIALNO like '%' and VALID_FROM like '%' and not ( ( ( replace_regexpr ('^$' IN valid_to WITH (replace(current_date, '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '')))) &gt; to_number(replace(add_days(current_date, 30), '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '') ))
or (( replace_regexpr ('^$' IN valid_to WITH (replace(current_date, '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '')))) &lt; to_number(replace(add_days(current_date, 0), '-', '')||replace(current_time, ':', '') )) )</noncompliant>
</checkitem>
</configstore>
</targetsystem>

Note: In the above XML code, SUBJECT like ‘%sapci%’, you have to replace sapci with a hostname pattern that you use for all your SAP ABAP system hostnames.

Once you have created the policy, you can directly activate alerting on the policy.

For that go to the Configuration and Security Analytics app in the Advanced Configuration Monitoring area.

In the app navigate to Configuration Validation Alert Management under the the Related links tab.

In the Alert Management app click on Create button to create the alerting for the policy you just created.

In the next popup, enter details as shown below and then click on Select policy to select the policy for which you want to activate the alert.

In the next popup select the policy by clicking on the policy name.

Now click on Save to activate the alerting.

Additionally you can also activate email notification on the alert. For this in the Alert Management main screen, select the alert and then click on Notification/Outbound.

In the next popup select the notification variant and save.

Cloud Connector BTP certificate expiry

With SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP 2 SAP has delivered a configuration validation policy using which you can monitor Cloud Connector BTP Certificate expiry.

Note: For using this functionality you just have to ensure that you have registered your cloud connector managed system to your Focused Run System and have performed SSI for the cloud connector managed system.

You can do the monitoring via the Configuration & Security Analytics app in the Advanced Configuration Monitoring area of Focused Run Launchpad.

In the app click on the select button to select the policy to monitor Cloud Connector BTP Certificates.

In the pop-up you can search for SCC and then select the policy SAP_SCC_PSE_CERT. This is the standard policy delivered by SAP that performs configuration validation on Cloud Connector BTP Certificate expiry.

This policy monitors if a BTP certificate in cloud connector system is going to expire in less than 30 days or is already expired.

The first view upon selecting the policy is the Systems view. In this view all SAP Cloud Connector systems registered in Focused Run system are listed. A systems is marked as non compliant if it has any certificate which is going to expire in less than 30 days or has any expired certificates. This view also tells how many certificates are there in the system and how many are non compliant.

You can click on the row to see the details of the certificates which are expiring or expired.

To know more about Configuration and Security Analytics you can refer here.

Also you can find more detail at SAP documentation here.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy (Simac) and Frank Umans. Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run SSI (Simple System Integration)

For activating SAP Focused RUN monitoring functionalities on an SAP ABAP system you need to perform Simple System Integration of SAP ABAP Systems

Simple System Integration, or shortly known as SSI, is a guided procedure similar to the managed system setup in SAP Solution Manager. SSI is used for integrating a managed system to SAP Focused Run system. Unlike SAP Solution Manager managed system setup, SSI is fully automatic and has no manual steps.

In order to ensure SSI is completed successfully we need to ensure all -prerequisites are met.

The term SSI is bit misleading. It is not so simple as it seems. Once you have the procedure known for your landscape it does become simple. The first one is NOT simple.

Focused Run Prerequisites

Before you can perform SSI for any managed system, you need to ensure the basic framework setup prerequisites are met. For this ensure all activities mentioned in section 5.2.4 Preparing Simple System Integration of the SAP Focused Run master guide.

Managed System Prerequisites

1.) Simple Diagnostics Agent deployed on all hosts of ABAP Managed system.

See below for description on how to do this. You can also refer the SAP documentation here.

2.) ABAP Managed system is registered in LMDB and Data Supplier Completeness check is green.

In our future blogs we will explain how to register various types of managed systems into LMDB. And for troubleshooting in case Data Supplier Completeness check is not green, you can follow SAP’s documentation here.

3.) Database preparation is complete.

You need to perform certain database specific pre-requisite configurations in order to perform the integration of the underlying database of the managed system. In this SAP documentation SAP has outlined the steps for various types of databases.

4.a) For ABAP a system user is created in the managed system production/main client. This user will be required for RFC connection to the managed system. We refer to this user as FRUN user. You can refer to this SAP documentation to get the list of roles that needs to be assigned to this FRUN user for an ABAP based system.

4.b) For JAVA a system user is created in the managed system production/main client. This user will be required to authenticate local HTTP and P4 calls by the simple Diagnostics Agent for data collection. We refer to this user as FRUN user. You can refer to this SAP documentation to get the list of JAVA roles that needs to be assigned to this FRUN user.

Deploying Simple Diagnostic Agents on Managed Systems

Deploying Simple Diagnostic Agents (SDA) on Managed System hosts is a prerequisite to performing Simple System Integration (SSI) of Managed systems on focused run system.

The SDA is installed/deployed as an add-on to the SAP host agent. Hence it’s mandatory to install SAP Host Agent on each host of the managed system which needs to be monitored by SAP Focused Run System.

The deployment of the SDA on the managed system system host is carried out from the SAP Focused Run system itself.

Below steps need to be performed for deploying SDAs on managed system hosts.

Download binaries from marketplace

Download the latest version of the binaries SDA and SAP JRE (Java Runtime Environment) from SAP Support Portal as follows:

  • Go to Software Downloads – SAP ONE Support Launchpad
  • Select tab Support Packages & Patches –> By Category –> SAP Technology Components –> Focused Run –> Focused Run 3.0 –> Downloads –> Comprised Software Component Versions
  • Download from SAP JRE 8.1 and SIMPLE DIAGNOSTICS AGENT 1.0

Following platforms are supported:

  • IBM AIX
  • HP-UX on IA64
  • Linux on Power BE & LE
  • Linux x86_64
  • Oracle Solaris SPARC
  • Oracle Solaris x86
  • Microsoft Windows Server on x86_64

You can find all information regarding latest available version of SDA and its compatible JRE version in SAP Note 2369401 – Release Note for Simple Diagnostics Agent 1.0.

Upload Binaries onto SAP Focused Run system

Upload the binaries to SAP Focused Run, by running the report SRSM_AMA_UPLOAD_BINARY, with transaction SA38.

Upon completion of the upload you will see the below output.

Deploy SDA on Managed system host

Register Managed system host on Focused Run system: Before you can deploy SDA on managed system host, the host has to be registered to the Focused Run System. For this execute the following script at OS level as sapadm user from folder /user/sap/hostctrl/exe

./saphostctrl -function ConfigureOutsideDiscovery -enable -sldusername FRN_LDDS_FRS -sldpassword xxxxxxxxxx -sldhost <hostname of FRUN system> -sldport <http/https port of FRUN system>

./saphostctrl  -function  ExecuteOutsideDiscovery -sldreg

Upon executing the above commands at host level, you can see the host listed in Agent Administration of Focused Run system. Navigate to the Agent Administration app in the Infrastructure Administration block of the Focused Run launchpad.

In the Agent Administration App, select the host for which you want to deploy the SDA, select Install/Update Agent and click on Go.

Upon completion of the deployment, you will see the agent version listed in the Diagnostic Agent Version column.

After SDA installation/update is successful you also need to configure the agent. This will enable the agent to receive monitoring definitions from the focused run systems as well as enable Self Monitoring of the agent.

Upon completion of configuration, you will see green icon under availability column. Also Configuration status updated to Confirmed.

You need to follow the same steps for installing and configuring agents on all application server hosts as well as database hosts of the managed system.

Note: You should perform the Simple System Integration of a managed system only after you install and configure agents on all its hosts. You can also list hosts and their agent status of a particular managed system in the By Technical System tab of the Agent Administration app.

Performing SSI of ABAP managed system

For executing SSI navigate to the SSI app in the Infrastructure Administration section of the Focused Run launchpad.

In the SSI app scope selection area you can enter the managed system extended SID individually or you can select a more generic filter to list multiple systems.

SSI is performed in 2 steps for ABAP systems.

Step 1: Edit Configuration

For ABAP systems in this step you need to enter the details of the FRUN user that you created as a prerequisite.

For this select the row for the ABAP system and click on the Edit Configuration button as shown in below screenshot. Next in the pop-up enter the credentials of the FRUN user.

Step 2: Configure Automatically

In this step, select the ABAP managed system for which you want to perform the SSI and click on the button Configure Automatically.

Note: When you perform SSI for the main technical system, it will automatically perform the SSI for all the underlying components in the system hierarchy. That is, if you perform SSI for Application Server ABAP, it will also perform the SSI for the system's database. However the if you perform first the SSI of the system's database it will not automatically perform the SSI of the main technical system and you will again have to perform the SSI for the technical system again separately.

Additional Pre-requisite for JAVA Managed Systems.

Other than the above mentioned pre-requisites, for JAVA systems, you also need to Install BCI Adapter ( CA Introscope Wily Adapter) to collect performance metrics and trace data of the NW Java.

You can also refer to section SAP NetWeaver Application Server Java in this SAP Focused Run expert portal blog for managed system preparation.

Installing CA Wily Introscope BCI Adapter for SAP Java Systems

SAP Focused Run system collects performance metrics and trace data of the SAP Netweaver Java systems through the CA Wily Introscope Byte Code Injection (BCI) Adapter.

Before you perform SSI for a SAP JAVA system you need to install and configure the BCI Adapter on each instance of the Java stack

Upon installing the BCI Adapter, SAP JAVA system reports performance and trace data to the CA Wily Enterprise Manager (Wily EM) and later on SAP Focused Run monitoring will collect the data from Wily EM for the relevant monitoring metrics.

Unlike SAP Solution Manager, for SAP Focused Run BCI Adapter setup for managed system is a completely manual step. This blog is therefore intended for the technical or SAP Basis consultants who are responsible for installation and setup of SAP Focused Run system.

The following steps are required to install and configure the Introscope Agent

  1. Extract the Introscope Agent files
  2. Configure the Introscope Agent
  3. Introscope-enable the application code by setting Java VM parameters
Pre-Requisite for BCI adapter

The BCI Adapter needs to connect to a Wily Enterprise Manager. You must ensure the Wily Enterprise Manager is already connected and configured for your SAP Focused Run system. In our blog we have explained how to configure Wily EM to connect to a Focused Run system.

You can also refer to this SAP Blog.

Extracting Introscope Agent Files

Extract the agent installer file ISAGNTJ5STD*.zip into the Netweaver CCMS directory, usually: :\usr\sap\ccms.

Upon extracting you will find wily directory in the :\usr\sap\ccms directory

Configuring Introscope Agent Settings

For a SAP JAVA System the agent configuration settings are found by default in the file :\usr\sap\ccms\wily\core\config\IntroscopeAgent.profile.

To configure the Introscope Agent you need to locate the following parameter and set the values.

1. introscope.agent.enterprisemanager.transport.tcp.host.DEFAULT = <IP address or hostname of the Enterprise Manager

2. introscope.agent.enterprisemanager.transport.tcp.port.DEFAULT = <port on which the Enterprise Manager listens for Agent connection. Default is 6001>

3. introscope.autoprobe.directivesFile = < DEFAULT is sap_typical.jar,sap_ep.jar,sap_ep_iviews.jar,sap_xi_typical.jar > . You may need to add further duirective jar files by adding entries to
the property, separated by comma.

Below table shows the various directive file names for various java application types.

sap_typical.jarMain instrumentation set for SAP
Netweaver. Includes support for generic
Netweaver functionality, like database,
JCO, Web Services. This jar is always
mandatory.
sap_sapvm.jarFor SAP Netweaver 7.10 and higher with
JDK5 or higher. Specific
instrumentation, e.g. memory
allocation. Do not activate for Java
1.4!
sap_bo_enterprise.jarSAP Business Objects Enterprise 3.x
instrumentation
sap_boe_webapp.jarSAP Business Objects Enterprise 4.x
instrumentation
sap_ep.jarSAP Portal specific instrumentation
sap_ep_iviews.jarAP Portal instrumentation: One node
per iView – should be preferred for
installations with many roles or when
collaboration rooms are used. Requires
sap_ep.jar
sap_ep_iviews_rolename.jarRe-activate metrics for each
iView/rolename combination. Activate
only one of these 2:
sap_ep_iviews.jar or
sap_ep_iviews_rolename.jar!
sap_duet.jarSAP Duet specific instrumentation
sap_hybris.jarInstrumentation for Hybris.
sap_smp.jarInstrumentation for SAP Mobile
Platform.
sap_omnichannelbanking.jarSMP instrumentation extension for Omni
Channel Banking
sap_xi_typical.jarDefault and mandatory instrumentation
file for PI
sap_xi_adapters.jarExtended instrumentation for PI
adapters.
sap_xi_passport.jarExtended PI instrumentation to detect
passport propagation.
sap_xi_full.jarExtended instrumentation for PI. Some
of these metrics might have a performance impact
sap_smd.jarSolution Manager self-monitoring
sap_mdm.jarSAP Master Data Management
sap_compliance.jarSAP Compliance (SAP GRC, SAP EC, SAP
REACH, …)
sap_epm.jarSAP EPM (SAP SSM, …) instrumentation
sap_retail.jarSAP Retail (SAP POS, SAP Triversity…)
sap_hilo.jarSAP Visual Intelligence instrumentation
sap_srm_crm.jarSAP SRM & SAP CRM (SAP Convergent
Charging, SAG Frictionless
e-Commerce, …)
sap_manufacturing.jarSAP Manufacturing (SAP SAP
Manufacturing Execution, SAP xMII, …)
Sap_hadoop.jarSAP Hadoop instrumentation
sap_partner.jarInstrumentation for SAP partner
products. See SAP Note 1852015.
sap_tomcat_typical.jarDefault and mandatory instrumentation
file for Apache Tomcat
sap_tomcat_full.jarExtended instrumentation for Apache
Tomcat
sap_websphere_typical.jarDefault and mandatory instrumentation
file for IBM WebSphere Application
Servers
sap_websphere_full.jarExtended instrumentation for IBM
WebSphere Application Servers
sap_weblogic_typical.jarDefault and mandatory instrumentation
file for Oracle WebLogic Server
sap_cem_integration.jarInstrumentation for integration with CA
product CEM (only for SED)
Activating the Agent: Set Java VM Parameters

You have to add Java VM options to enable the agent. Typically, you will only want to activate the agent on the SAP J2EE server nodes, not on dispatchers.

You need to set the following parameters for the Java VM.

  1. Run the SAP J2EE Configtool.
  2. Navigate to Instance/VM Parameters/System and enter the following new parameters
NameValue
com.wily.introscope.agent.agentName${SYSTEM_NAME}${INSTANCE_NAME}$[elem/Name]
com.wily.introscope.agentProfile<drive>:/usr/sap/ccms/wily/core/config/ IntroscopeAgent.profile

3. Navigate to Instance/VM Parameters/Additional and enter the following new java parameter

-javaagent:/usr/sap/ccms/wily/Agent.jar

4. Save and Repeat steps 1 to 3 for all instances of the SAP JAVA system.

5. Restart the SAP instances.

To verify that Config tool changes were made, open the file: :\usr\sap\\\j2ee\cluster\instance.properties and check for a line beginning with ID.JavaParameters, and see if it contains the lines you entered in the step above.

Configuring Wily Enterprise Manager for monitoring in SAP Focused Run

Configuring Wily Enterprise Manager for monitoring in SAP Focused Run

The BCI adapters send the monitoring data to the central Wily EM . The Wily EM then sends the monitoring data to Focused Run System

Configuring Wily Enterprise Manager (Wily EM) for monitoring in SAP Focused Run is required if you monitor following types of systems where many monitoring metrics data is collected by BCI adapters.

  • SAP Netweaver AS Java
  • SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
  • BOE Web Application Server
  • SAP Data Services
  • Apache Tomcat
  • SAP Archiving and Document Access (ADA) by OpenText for Tomcat
  • SAP Invoice Management (IM) for OCR Option by OpenText
  • SAP Convergent Charging
  • SAP Mobile Platform
  • SAP Hybris Commerce Suite

Unlike SAP Solution Manager, no Wily EM is required for monitoring in Focused Run if none of the managed systems use BCI adapters for their monitoring.

For connecting to a SAP Focused Run System the Wily EM installation should be of version 10.5 or higher and the EM Management Module (MM) Packages shall have minimum version MM 10.5 SP02 Patch 0 or higher.

Note: You can have only one Wily EM per customer network, however, if you install an Enterprise Manager Cluster, you can install any number of Enterprise Manager Collector Instances in the same Customer Network.

You can follow SAP Note 797147 for instructions on how to install Wily EM.

Prerequisite for Wily EM

The only prerequisite for connecting a Wily EM to a Focused Run system is that you should have installed host agent on the host of the Wily EM and have configured outside discovery of the host agent to connect to the Focused Run system.

To configure outside discovery of the host agent execute the following command:

Execute the below script  from /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe:

./saphostctrl -function  ConfigureOutsideDiscovery -enable -sldusername <FRUN LDDS or SLDR user> -sldpassword xxxxxxxxxx -sldhost <FRUN host or SLDR host> -sldport <FRUN or SLDR port>
Configuring the Wily EM

To connect the Wily EM to the Focused Run system perform the following steps.

  1. Update IntroscopeEnterpriseManager.properties file setting: introscope.enterprisemanager.name=<virt name>
  2. Restart Wily EM.

Performing SSI of JAVA managed system

For executing SSI navigate to the SSI app in the Infrastructure Administration section of the Focused Run launchpad.

In the SSI app scope selection area you can enter the managed system extended SID individually or you can select a more generic filter to list multiple systems.

SSI is performed in 2 steps for JAVA managed systems.

Step 1: Edit Configuration

In this step you provide the credentials for the SDA agent to connect to JAVA Managed System.

  1. The FRUN User and password you created as a pre-requisite
  2. The HTTP and P4 ports for connecting to the Java managed system.

Step 2: Configure Automatically

In this step, select the JAVA managed system for which you want to perform the SSI and click on the button Configure Automatically.

Note: When you perform SSI for the main technical system, it will automatically perform the SSI for all the underlying components in the system hierarchy. That is, if you perform SSI for Application Server JAVA, it will also perform the SSI for the system's database. However the if you perform first the SSI of the system's database it will not automatically perform the SSI of the main technical system and you will again have to perform the SSI for the technical system again separately.

Mass SSI and Mass Agent Update

Focused Run also provides even higher level of automation by allowing to perform SSI at a time for multiple systems.

Once the SSI automatic activities finish, you can check the logs of the SSI automation steps in the Log Messages area.

SAP Focused Run also provides a mass agent update app in the Focused Run launchpad using which you can update SDAs in all connected hosts of a particular data center on a single go. This is specifically useful for updating the SDA’s for all hosts after SAP releases a new version of SDA.

You can access the Agent Mass Update app in the Infrastructure Administration section of Focused Run Launchpad.

However before you use this app , you have to ensure that you have already uploaded the binaries as we have explained above.

For updating the agent just open the app and select the Data Center for which you want to update the agents and click on Update agents to start the update.

After you start the update, you can monitor the progress with the progress bar where it also lists how many agent installations were successful and how many have failed.

Note: SAP normally releases a new version of SDA every 2 to 3 months. You can download the latest version of SDA from here.

Connecting Managed Systems to Multiple Focused Run Systems

You may need to connect the same managed system to more than one Focused Run System. For instance, connecting a sandbox managed system to a development Focused Run system for test purpose and to a production Focused Run system where it is actually monitored.

For connecting the same system to one more Focused Run system you basically need to perform the same steps again but this time targeting to the new Focused Run systems.

  • Perform host outside discovery to register the host on focused run system. Execute the following commands using the credentials of the new focused run system to which you want to connect the managed system.
    1. ./saphostctrl -function  ConfigureOutsideDiscovery -enable -sldusername FRN_LDDS_<SID> -sldpassword xxxxxxxxxx -sldhost <FRUN Hostname> -sldport <FRUN http port>
    2. ./saphostctrl  -function  ExecuteOutsideDiscovery -sldreg
  • On the new Focused Run system agent administration configure the agent on the host you registered in previous step..
    1. Install/Update Agent

2. Configure Agent

Note: The agent installation will not deploy a new SDI binary to the hostagent in this case as there is already a SDI in the host agent coming from the previous Focused Run system. However the installation step will simply link the new Focused Run system to the existing SDI by pushing its new configuration XML file to the SDI. This you can check by logging on to agent internals.

  • Configure SLDR to send data to both Focused Run Systems. This the most important step that you do differently than connecting the managed system to the first Focused run system. This will ensure data suppliers from managed system get forwarded to both Focused Run systems. Two know more about SLDR setup you can follow the SAP documentation here.

  • Now update the data supplier settings of the managed system to send data to this SLDR .( For example RZ70 in SAP ABAP system and NWA in SAP JAVA system).
  • Now the managed system will be listed in the Simple System Integration app of the new Focused Run system. Configure the SSI of the managed system to enable the managed system in the new Focused Run systems monitoring.

Decommissioning Managed Systems

We need to perform decommissioning of a managed system if

1. The managed system itself has been decommissioned or

2. The managed system is not required to be monitored in the Focused Run system anymore.

Case 1: Managed System is Decommissioned

Step 1: The first step of decommissioning would be to disconnect the Simple Diagnostic Agent from the Focused Run system. For this you can directly uninstall the Host Agent.

You can uninstall by running the following command at OS level

  • UNIX, IBM i: ./saphostexec -uninstall
  • Windows: saphostexec.exe -uninstall

Step 2: Deactivate all monitoring for managed system in Focused Run system

For this in transaction SA38 execute report RSRSM_SSI_CLEANUP

  1. Select a Customer Network
  2. Go to the Cleanup Technical System tab
  3. Select a Technical System
  4. Select the option to Cleanup unused hosts
  5. Press Delete Selected Objects

Case 2: Managed System is not required to be monitored in the Focused Run System

Step 1: You have to ensure the managed system is no more sending landscape data to the Focused Run system. For this disable all SLD data suppliers for the technical system. (In case of ABAP systems its in transaction RZ70 and in case of Java systems its the Data Supplier settings in the NWA.)

Step 2: Disable outside discovery for all hosts of the technical system by executing the following command.

  • UNIX, IBM i: ./saphostctrl -function ConfigureOutsideDiscovery -disable
  • Windows: saphostctrl.exe -function ConfigureOutsideDiscovery -disable

Step 3: Execute the decommissioning report RSRSM_SSI_CLEANUP as mentioned in step 2 of case 1.

For further details you can refer to SAP documentation here.

In addition to the above two cases, you might need to decommission system if the system is being migrated or upgraded to a different or higher version. For example migrating a standard ECC system to S4HANA. Instead of adjusting the monitoring of existing system, you decommission the system and then reconnect the system to Focused Run system. In our future blog we will explain how to decommission in such cases.

Agent Log Configuration – enabling debugging for troubleshooting

In case of data collection issues you will need to troubleshoot Simple Diagnostic agent logs .

In some cases you might need to get further details after you see an error message in the standard SDA logs in Agent Internals. In such cases you will need to enable application specific logging. E.g. activate debug logging in order to analyze issues with a specific application or component of the SDA

For E.g.: You saw an error in agent internals like

2019-08-15 15:48:01,696 ERROR [MAI FRD 5] com.sap.solman.agent.mai.http.WebDispGetServerListCollector
com.sap.solman.agent.mai.cim.EvaluationException: division by zero
at com.sap.solman.agent.mai.cim.ExpressionEvaluator.evaluate(ExpressionEvaluator.java:72)

In this case, you will want to put to debug this class: com.sap.solman.agent.mai

Following Application components of SDA for which logging can be enabled.

Application / ComponentName (Column in Log Configuration Dialog)
JCocom.sap.solman.agent.conn.jco
MAIcom.sap.solman.agent.mai
SDA Corecom.sap.solman.agent.core
SSLcom.sap.solman.agent.core
SLDRcom.sap.solman.agent.sldr

To enable logging you can follow the following steps.

Step 1 : Open Agent Administration

Step 2: Select the agent/host for which you want to enable logs in Debug, on the option Agent Action select “Open Log Configuration” and click on Go.

In the next dialog screen enter the application classes for which you want to enable debug as shown below. After entering the classes click on Save.

In the next execution, the Agent logs will present more details.

You can collect the log files by selecting the Option Download Log File and then click on Go. It will download all SDA logs in a zip file to your desktop/laptop.

Note: Do not forget to remove the log configurations after downloading the logfiles.

Reference SAP Note 2696231 – How to set the Simple Diagnostic Agent to debug.

OSS notes

Relevant OSS notes to check.

Notes for the managed system:

Notes for SNC setup:

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy. Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run guided procedures

SAP Focused Run has offer guided procedures guide and automate tasks

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to run the guided procedure for ABAP health check?
  • When to run the guided procedure for ABAP health check?

Running the ABAP health check guided procedure

The goal of the ABAP health check guided procedure is to structurally check the health of an ABAP system.

To start the guided procedure for system health check, open the Guided Procedures Fiori tile:

Now select from the guided procedure for advanced system monitoring the System health check for ABAP systems:

Select the Plus icon to execute a new guided procedure:

Add the scope of systems to the guided procedure:

Then press the Execute Manually button to start.

The guided road map will now open:

Select the checks and press Perform to execute the checks. After the checks are done, you can zoom in the detailed results:

The next checks are shown below:

When to run this ABAP system health check guided procedure?

he ABAP system health check guided procedure can be run:

  1. In case of reported system issues with performance: to quickly find potential root cause
  2. For example monthly or quarterly to check how system is doing

You can also automate the guided procedure and run it on scheduled basis and mail the results to you. This you can for example setup for your primary ECC production system on daily basis.

Automated scheduling of health checks including mail sending

SAP Focused Run provides a mechanism to periodically schedule automatic execution of guided procedures. With this you can optionally enable email notification. This way we can schedule periodic run of System Health Check guided procedure. From each automatic execution of the guided procedure, an email will be sent with the status of the system health check.

Scheduling Guided Procedures

In the Guided Procedures app navigation block click on Guided Procedure Planning.

In the Guided Procedure Planning area, click on the “+” sign to create a new Plan and follow the steps to create a plan.

Step 1: Select guided procedure System Health Check for ABAP Systems.

Step 2: Scope Selection: Select the systems (Ext. System ID) for which you want to run the system health check.

Step 3: Processing Parameters: Select for one time execution or periodic execution.

Step 4: Notification Settings: In this step provide the following details for setting up the email layout for sending the email notification for the guided procedure execution result.

  1. Email Customization (Optional) : Select either of the two options available for this field. With this selection we use the pre-built/inbuilt SAP eMail template provided by SAP.
  2. To: Provide the Recipient List to which you want to send the mail to (You can’t provide direct mail IDs here).
  3. Type: Select Single or Aggregated. The single option sends individual mails for every single system selected in the scope whereas the Aggregated option send an aggregated mail including all systems selected in the scope.

Finally you can click on the Create button as shown below to schedule your guided procedure.

Once scheduled, you can navigate back to the Guided Procedure Planning home screen to see the list of scheduled guided procedures and their current execution status.

Below is sample email for your reference.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy (Simac) and Frank Umans. Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run operation dashboard

With Focused Run a dashboarding framework is available called Operation Dashboard. This enhancement comes under the Advanced Analytics & Intelligence (AAI) functionality of Focused Run.

With Operation Dashboard you can configure a 3 level drilldown dashboard to track the current situation of monitoring and alerting in the areas of System Monitoring and Real User Monitoring.

Currently you can track metrics and alerts only from areas of System Monitoring and Real User Monitoring.

Views in Operations Dashboard

Operation Dashboard provides 3 types of view to provide a consolidated view of the current status of monitoring and alerting.

  1. Analytics Map: Consolidate monitors to a specific region on the world map. The region is colour coded to the aggregated monitoring status of the monitors included. Aggregation uses worst case rule i.e The colour of the region is green only if all the involved monitors are in green.

2. Tile View: Shows the consolidated monitoring status of a specific Scenario/System/Managed Object. Aggregation uses worst case rule.

3. List Deatils View: Shows the list of involved monitors.

The above three views are linked automatically to eachother to enable the drill down functionality. That is, if you click on a perticular region which is rated in the world map view, you will get the correspoding systems/componenets for that region in the tiles view and the corresponding monitoring metrics in the list view.

Operation Dashboard Setup

To access Operations Dashboards click on Operations Dasboard tile under Advanced Analytics & Intelligence section in the Focused Run Launchpad.

Step 1: Create a new Operation Dashboard

Create a new Operations Dashboard by clicking on Add Custom Page in the navigation pannel of Operations Dashboard app.

Step 2: Name your dashboard

When you create a new dashboard, the dashboard setup are will appear on the right hand side of your screen. Click on the rename button as shown below.

Step3: Configure layout

You can configure the layout of your dashboard in a Grid format. Each grid in the layout will hold a view of your dashboard. As we have 3 types of views you can form a layout of 3 grids. To configure the grid layout click on the Grid button in the setup area – View Management section:

In the pop-up you can drag and drop to form a Grid layout:

Step4: Select monitoring content

To customize your Operations Dashboard, you first need to select the monitoring content as the source of data from either of System Monitoring or Real User Monitoring or both. For this navigate to Page Personalization area.

In the Default Settings area you can

  1. Select or deselect monitoring area (System Monitoring/ Real User Monitoring)
  2. Select or deselect metric or alerts
  3. Select or deselect category (Availability/Exception/Performance)
  4. Alert Severity ( Alerts of same or more severity are included in the scope of the dashboard)

Step 5: Create scenarios

In Order to link systems/ components to a particular region in the world map you need to create scenarios and link them to specific regions in the world map.

In this step you create named Scenarios or Regions to which you can later on tag your monitors. For this navigate to the Content Settings Area , Custom Scenarios Settings. To create a new scenario click on the + sign.

In the pop-up you can directly enter the country name or code or you can click on search to search for your respective country/region and it’s code.

You can see the list of all scenarios you created in the Custom Scenarios section.

Step 6: Add monitors and tag monitors

In this step you add systems/components and tag them to specific scenarios you created in the previous step.

For this navigate to Content Settings area, Data Source Settings and click on the + sign.

In the pop-up screen select the system/component you want to add and accept to continue.

Now back in the Data Sources list select the scenario for the system/component you just added.

Now your Operations Dashboard is ready.

  1. In View 1: World Map, the regions are coded as per the aggregated rating of all systems/componenets tagged to a specific scenario in the Data Sources settings in Step 6.
  2. In View 2: Tiles View, by default shows the Region/scenarios aggregated rating in tiles. In this view you can drill down to aggregated rating for each system/Compoenent/monitor by simply clicking on the tile. (For instance below shows the Tile view of the systems in Germany shown in the image 2 of this blog.

3. In View 3: the List View, shows the monitors for all the system/componenet shown in Tiles view, that is, if you drill down in Tiles View, accordingly filtered monitors are shown in Tiles view.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy. Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run health monitoring overview

Health monitoring can be used to monitor special use cases:

  • SLL certificate monitoring
  • Windows service monitoring
  • OS process monitoring
  • OS scripts
  • Logfile monitoring
  • URL availability monitoring

Health monitoring

Health monitoring can be started with the Fiori tile:

The overview screen opens:

From the overview you can immediately zoom to the error by clicking on the red bar:

Health monitoring content update

For updating content of health monitoring, follow the instructions in OSS note 3360399 – Unable to import the FRUN-CONT package FRUNCONT40003_0-80008241.ZIP.

URL availability monitoring

Health Monitoring provides a functionality called Availability Monitoring wherein we can monitor:

  1. HTTP Availability: Monitoring availability of URLs.
  2. TCP Availability: Monitoring the availability of a TCP port or the availability of a host.
  3. RFC Availability: Monitoring availability of RFCs specifically for measuring availability of an application server instance of an SAP system or the availability of a message server port of an SAP system.

In this blog we will explain how you can configure a HTTP Availability monitor to monitor availability of a URL.

Setup of URL availability monitoring

Step1: Assign Agent for data collection

The HTTP availability is measured by making a URL http or https call by a designated Simple Diagnostic Agent from your specific customer network in the Focused Run system.

The first step is to assign a Simple Diagnostic agent as the collector for this metric.

For this open the Health Monitoring App from the Focused Run launchpad.

Navigate to Configuration area by clicking on the Configuration button.

Expand the Customer Networks node and click on the change button.

In the next popup select the agent from the list of all connected agents to this customer network.

Step2: Configure HTTP Availability Metric

In the Configuration area expand the metric node and click on the change button for Availability under Metrics node.

In the next pop-up screen click on the Plus button to add a metric.

In the next pop-up screen select HTTP Availability

Enter the following details for a basic URL Availability check.

FieldDescription
Metric NameA descriptive name for the metric
Customer NetworkSelect the customer network for which you want to create the metric
Collection FrequencySpecify the collection frequency, how frequently the check should be performed.
URLEnter the URL to be monitored
ProxyEnter the proxy detail if the URL is reached via a proxy from the customer network. Else select None.
AuthenticationEnter the authentication type None or Basic or oAuth and enter the details based on authentication type.
TimeoutPeriod in milliseconds (ms) before a call fails.
Number of RetriesNumber of times the data collector calls a URL until it receives a response.

You can also further customize based on type of call you want to do to the URL for instance sending a POST request. For details you can refer to the SAP documentation here.

Optionally you can also enable alerting and notification in the Alert section of the configuration.

After entering all the details save your configuration to activate the metric.

URL availability monitoring usage

To navigate to the URL availability monitors you can click on the Availability button in the navigation panel.

Or you can also navigate from home screen.

Upon navigating to the Availability monitor metric list you will see the status of all URL availability metrics configured. The metric list view shows us the number of days and hours since the URL is available or unavailable. It also shows us the response time when accessing the URL.

This way you can not only monitor the URL availability but also the performance of an URL with regards to the response time while accessing the URL.

OS process monitoring

With OS Process Monitoring functionality we can monitor the availability of critical OS level processes on any host.

With System Monitoring templates you can also activate custom metric for monitoring OS processes however this will be applicable for all system/hosts for which you activate the template.

For monitoring critical OS processes for specific hosts you need to setup using Health Monitoring functionality.

To access Health Monitoring functionality you can navigate to Health Monitoring app in the Focused Run launch pad.

Prerequisite for OS process monitoring

The only prerequisite for configuring OS process monitor in Health Monitoring is that you should have registered the host and deployed Simple Diagnostic Agent (SDA) on the host where you want to monitor the critical process.

Setup of OS process monitoring

For setting up the OS process monitor you need to navigate to the settings page of the Health Monitoring App.

In the settings area expand the metrics node and click on the pencil button (Edit Metric) for OS Processes.

In the OS Process edit metric screen click on Add Metric button to start creating the OS Process Metric.

In the OS Process edit metric screen click on Add Metric button to start creating the OS Process Metric.

FieldDescription
Process NameName of the OS process. This parameter needs to be maintained as a regular expression. SDA will use this expression for searching for the respective OS process at OS level.
User (Optional)You can further restrict the search for processes running through a specific user. You need to enter the name as a regular expression
Command Line (Optional)You can further restrict by the specific command line with which the process is running . This is specifically useful if there are multiple processes running with the same name but you want to monitor the process which is running with a specific argument or parameter. This also needs to be maintained as regular expression.
HostnameName of the host where the process to be monitored. You can select from a list of all hosts connected (also SDA deployed) to the Focused Run system.

In the General Settings tab you can also specify the data collection frequency and the threshold. By default 5 minutes frequency and Already Rated threshold is set.

Optionally you can update the alert settings for this metric in the Alert Settings tab. By default alerting is active with medium severity.

After entering all details, to activate the metric click on Save button.

You can monitor all you OS process metrics in the OS Processes tab of the Health Monitoring App.

SSL certificate monitoring

You can configure monitors to monitor the SSL certificate of a URL using Health Monitoring functionality in SAP Focused Run system. This monitor measures the remaining validity (in days) of a SSL certificate for a https call to a URL. The URL is called by Simple Diagnostics Agent of a designated host in your customer network.

The Health Monitoring app also provides a separate section called as URL Certificate Monitor where in you can centrally monitor expiry of SSL certificates of any https URL.

To navigate to URL Certificates monitor you can click on the URL Certificate button as shown below in the navigation panel of the app.

Setup of SSL certificate monitoring

To configure URL Certificate monitors , navigate to the Configuration area, expand the Metrics node and click on the change button.

In the popup window click on the Add Metric.

In the Metric Configuration window enter the following details in the General tab.

FieldDescription
Metric NameA meaningful name to the monitor
URLURL whose certificate to be monitored.
Proxy URL (Optional)The Proxy URL if the URL is accessible via a proxy URL
Customer NetworkThe Customer Network to which this URL belongs. The designated SDA from this customer network will be performing the check.
Technical System (Optional)You can optionally link this monitor to a specific cloud service you have registered in your LMDB. This is the Cloud Service you would have created if you are using AIM scenario for Cloud Service Monitoring. Select from the drop down.
Collection IntervalFrequency of data collection. Select from available options.
ThresholdThreshold for remaining days for expiry. By default 200 Days for Yellow and 100 days for Red.

Additionally and optionally in the Alert Settings tab you can activate alerting and notification settings as shown below.

That’s it, now your monitor is active.

Using SSL certificate monitoring

To monitor navigate to the URL Certificate tab in the Health Monitoring App.

You can also refer to this SAP documentation to know more about various features available with Focused Run Health Monitoring.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy and Frank Umans. Repost done with permission. >>

SAP Focused Run self monitoring

When using Focused Run you monitor systems. But how about the health and stability of the monitoring tool itself? Here is where self monitoring plays an important role.

Questions that will be answered are:

  • What to check in self monitoring?
  • How much metrics are collected and stored in my Focused Run installation?
  • How can I check all grey metrics in system monitoring?

Self monitoring

Self monitoring can be started with the Self Monitoring Fiori tile:

If you click the tile the overview page comes (this page will take time to load):

The interesting part is unfortunately hidden in the below screen (you need to scroll), which is the CPU utilisation.

The other interesting part is the amount of data collected and stored. This is not so interesting for yourself, but more interesting for your manager to show how much data HANA can handle, or to show how much work is really automated.

Simple diagnostics agent

On the top left icons, click on the Simple DA agent button to get the agent overview screen:

Important here:

  • Check that all agents are up
  • Check that all agent versions are not too old

Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure

The next option is to check the MAI (monitoring and alerting infrastructure) data collection:

Important here is to fix the systems in error.

Wily Introscope

The Wily option will show if your Wily Introscope connected to Focused Run is ok. Wily is used for special use cases like JAVA and Business Objects products.

Managed system overview

The managed system overview gives the overview of the diverse systems and application status:

Any red or yellow item can mean a setup issue. But it can also be because of missing authorizations and privileges of the Focused Run technical user in the connected managed system.

Central component monitoring

The central component monitoring shows the overview of the central components:

Identifying all grey metric in System Monitoring

In SAP Focused Run there is no standard mechanism to identify and display all grey metrics in System Monitoring, a grey metric can cause critical situations not being captured and alerted in monitoring hence we need to monitor such grey metrics.

In this blog we explain how you can list all the grey metrics by directly reading from database tables that store the monitoring data.

Focused Run system monitoring metric aggregate data is stored in table AEM_METRIC_AGGR. We can filter on metric status = Grey to see the list of grey metrics.

Open the table in transaction SE16:

Increase the width and no of hits and click on execute:

Now you have all the data that you can export to an excel sheet. For this select the following menu option.

Select file type as Text with Tabs.

Provide the path and filename to save the file and then click on Generate button.

Now open the .txt file in MS Excel.

In the Home tab select option for filtering as shown below

Now set the following filter for the column LAST_RAT

Now you will get the list of all grey metrics as shown below.

Note: The Context_ID value will give you the ID of the managed object, Metrtric_type_ID will give you the ID of the metric name and the Last_text will give you the return text of the last data collection which will give you the reason for grey metric.

In order to get the managed object name and metric type you can use the following in transaction MAI_TOOLS –> Metric Event Alert Details.

In the selection screen for Managed Object ID enter the Context ID from the excel and for Metric Type ID enter the same from the excel. Also select the checkboxes as shown below and execute.

Now you will get the info on the Template as well as the Metric name which is currently in grey.

SAP instructions for grey metrics

You can also check the instructions from SAP in OSS note 2859574 – How to list all current Grey Metrics in FRUN.

Alerting on critical metrics turning grey

It is essential to activate alerting on critical metrics turning grey in order to avoid missing critical issue not getting detected by Focused Run.

Since SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP2 , a new metric has been added to the self monitoring template in System Monitoring, the Grey Metrics metric measure what percentage of critical metrics in Grey.

This metric by default uses threshold 30% for Yellow and 70% for Red rating. You can change this threshold to show red if value crosses more than 1% so that if there are any critical metric that is in grey then alert is raised.

Note: This metric considers only those metrics which are marked as critical in Self Monitoring app. The percentage is calculated based on how many metrics out of the metrics designated as critical metrics in Self Monitoring app are in Grey.

To designate a metric as critical metric navigate to Self Monitoring App in Focused Run launchpad –> Infrastructure Administration.

In the Self Monitoring app navigate to MAI Data Quality.

In the Overview screen select the Managed System type to go to its details screen.

In the Details page it shows list of systems with their critical metrics that are in grey. To modify the list of designated critical metrics click on the chnage button.

In the new popup use the text search button to enter the text of the metric you want to add to the list.

Finally click on the “+” button and then click on close to save the added metric in the critical metric list.

Now the added metric will be considered as critical metric while calculating % of Grey Metrics.

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Frank Umans and Manas Tripathy (Simca). Repost done with permission. >>

Activating early watch report (EWA) for ABAP and JAVA managed systems in SAP Focused Run

EWAs in Focused Run

When you have performed Simple System Integration (SSI) for the connected managed system on the Focused Run system, by default SSI itself activates the SAP early watch (EWA) reporting for a managed system, provided the managed system has IT Admin Role defined as Production system. For more information on how to set IT Admin Role read this blog.

For non productive systems you can also manually activate EWA.

Additionally for all ABAP systems (Production and Non-production), you will need to configure SDCCN in managed system so that EWA data is sent to the Focused Run system.

Note: In an Focused Run environment, EWAs are not generated on the Focused Run system, but rather at SAP side. Only data is collected at the Focused Run side and the EWA is then available in Service Messages at SAP. For accessing the EWAs you can navigate from the launchpad using the EWA Workspace tile. For more details click here or here.

General EWA tips and tricks can be found in this blog.

Steps for activating EWA for ABAP Systems

STEP 1: Activate EWA on Focused run System

Goto Launchpad and click on the SAP Early Watch Alert Status tile.

In the EWA Status Application first you need to select scope to include all ABAP systems as shown below.

To activate EWA, change under Active column from NO to YES for the respective system.

After Activation status changes as shown below. Refresh after 5 minutes to ensure that the first circle is Green.

STEP 2: Configure SDCCN on Managed System

Once EWA session for an ABAP system is activated, the SDCCN of the respective ABAP system must read the EWA session data from Focused Run system. For more details read OSS note 2359359 – SDCC Enhancement for ABAP Systems Connecting to Focused Run.

For this first create a HTTP destination from the managed ABAP system to Focused Run system using report /BDL/CREATE_HTTP . Provide the following input and execute the report.

  1. HTTP Destination: By default, it shows as SDCC_SID, you’d better change the SID to the real target system id. This is the suggestion, but you can specify any name if you want.
  2. SSL Status(HTTPS): This checkbox means whether you want to use HTTPS for the communication. By default, it will only use HTTP.
  3. Path Prefix: By default, the service used by SDCCN is /sap/bc/sdf/sdcc/. You cannot change this unless you mark the checkbox “Force Mode”.
  4. User Name: FRN_EWA_<FRUN SID> which you have created during the initial setup of FRUN system
  5. Run report /BDL/CONFIGURE_SDCCN_HTTP to activate SDCCN. Provide the HTTP destination that created in step 2 and change the job user. Only the first check box must be  selected (only on FRUN 1.0 both check boxes must be selected).
  6. The job user must have authorization SAP_SDCCN_ALL

After running this report with above parameters, the SDCC_OSS RFC will be removed from RFC destinations, and the new HTTP destination will be added to RFC destinations.

STEP 3: Create Maintenance Package on SDCCN in Managed System

Now you need to create a maintenance package in transaction SDCCN of managed system.

To Ensure the EWA activation is properly completed, goto transaction SDCCN on the managed system and ensure that the EWA sessions for the managed system is registered.

When EWA Data is sent to Focused Run and processed at the SAP side, you will see all circles in Green for the respective ABAP system as shown below.

Activating EWA for JAVA Systems

Goto Launchpad and click on the SAP Early Watch Alert Status tile.

In the EWA Status Application first you need to select scope to include all java systems as shown below.

To activate EWA, change under Active column from NO to YES for the respective system.

After Activation status changes as shown below. Refresh after 5 minutes to ensure that the first circle is Green.

To Ensure the EWA activation is properly completed, goto transaction SDCCN on the FRUN system and ensure that the EWA session for respective Java system is registered.

When EWA Data is sent to FRUN and processed, you will see all circles in Green for the respective JAVA system as shown below.

EWA troubleshooting

In case of issues you can follow the link to the troubleshooting guide of SAP:

Data retention

The EWA data is kept for 1 year. To change this, read the blog on housekeeping settings.

Relevant OSS notes

OSS notes:

Guided answers

SAP guided answers:

<< This blog was originally posted on SAP Focused Run Guru by Manas Tripathy from Simac. Repost done with permission. >>