Category: Basis

basis

System usage: ST03N

For many different purposes you need insights into your system usage. Which transactions are used and how intensive.

This blog will explain the system workload usage tool ST03N.

The other usage tool SCMON ABAP call monitoring is explained in this blog.

Questions that will be answered are:

  • How to get workload overview from the SAP system?
  • How to get time based profiling information from the SAP system?
  • How to get list of transactions used from the SAP system?
  • How can I quickly download ST03N data with program /SDF/ST03DL?
  • What are the limitations of ST03N?
  • How can I set the data retention for ST03N?
  • Can I check for HTTP usage next to ABAP usage?

Use of ST03N

Start transaction ST03N. In the left pane select the application server or total system and time frame to get an overview of the system workload for the several task types:

With the time profiling you can see the distribution of workload during the hours of the day:

You might see peak hours based on the spread of your users and batch jobs.

In the default system the 24 hours are not visible. Follow the steps in this blog to enable it.

If in ST03N there is no data visible, set parameter parameter stat/level to 1 (Statistical records are active). See OSS note 2675074 – No workload data in transaction ST03N or ST03.

Transactions from ST03N

To get an overview of the user transactions select in the analysis view the Transaction profile:

You can download this overview to xls for further analysis on the transactions used. For explanation on the columns, read OSS note 2778959 – ST03N – Complexity of data displayed in “Parts of response time” tab.

Please be aware of the following limitations from ST03N when making conclusions for system usage:

  • ST03N has limited time frame, some transactions are rarely used, but still vital (like irregularly used repair transactions, basis actions which are rarely done but needed in case of emergencies, year end closing transactions, etc.). See OSS note 1843151 – ST03 Data Retention Time Settings on how to set the retention periods.
  • ST03N does not collect indirectly called transactions in custom code. This means if custom code uses a call transaction XYZA, the transaction XYZA is NOT recorded in ST03N

If more detailed information is required, check the SCMON ABAP call monitoring tool, which is explained in this blog.

Alternative way of downloading ST03N data

As an alternative you can use program /SDF/ST03DL to download ST03N data:

More information about this download program can be found in OSS note 2943445 – Download Historical Workload Data from ST03.

Copying ST03N data to different system

Apply OSS note 2568736 – SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA – copy ST03N data and follow the instructions to download and upload the ST03N data. This program was primarily developed for the SAP S4HANA readiness check.

Usage of ST03N to determine HTTP calls

You can use ST03N to determine HTTP(s) calls in your system. Read more in this blog.

Usage of ST03N to determine RFC calls

You can use ST03N to determine RFC calls in your system. Read more in this blog.

LR.RFC tasks leading to distorted statistics in ST03

Some LR.RFC tasks may be very high and leading to distorted statistics or wrong interpretation on ST03. You can ignore these high LR.RFC tasks. This is explained in OSS note 3101968 – High response times of LR.RFC tasks in ST03/ST03n.

ST03N data retention

Data retention for ST03N is set in Collector and Performance DB -> Performance Database -> Workload Collector Database -> Reorganization -> Control.

For a full background, see OSS notes 1843151 – ST03 Data Retention Time Settings and 3285517 – Reorganizing and Maintenance of ST03 kernel statistical data.

ST03N bug fix OSS notes

Bug fix OSS notes for ST03N:

SAP road map explorer

What are new features SAP will deliver in the future for my technology or business product?

This is where the SAP road map explorer helps.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to use the SAP road map explorer?

SAP road map explorer

You can start the SAP road map explorer with the URL https://roadmaps.sap.com/:

Clik on the most viewed road maps, for example SAP S4HANA:

On top you can select a different product like HANA Cloud, ABAP, business technology platform, etc.

Next to the product you can use filters for your process, industry and specific topics to narrow down the list.

By clicking on the innovation you get more details. There is a tab called capability view. This is a very interesting feature, since is shows related innovations for this feature and that will save you a lot of searching time:

FIORI app for monitoring data archiving jobs

SAP has delivered diverse apps for basis administrators.

This blog will explain about the data archiving batch job monitoring FIORI app.

For generic data archiving technical setup: read this blog.

Activating the app for monitoring data archiving jobs

The full activation manual is published on the FIORI reference library.

Short manual:

  • Activate SICF service bas_ilm_jobmon
  • Activate ODATA service ILM_JOB_MONITOR_SERVICE
  • Manually add the tile in your catalog (use edit home page and than add the app)

Using the app display data archiving jobs

The main FIORI app tile will already show the amount of failed jobs:

When you open the app the overview screen comes:

On the left hand side you can choose the archiving object. On the right hand side you can see the last archiving jobs for the selected object.

When you click on a job, you can see the details per job:

There are tabs for the job results, job log details and application log.

Bug fix notes

Bug fix OSS notes:

FIORI app for display mail transmissions

SAP has delivered diverse apps for basis administrators.

This blog will explain about the display email transmissions FIORI app.

Activating the app display email transmissions

The full activation manual is published on the FIORI reference library.

Short manual:

  • Activate SICF service nw_aps_om_eq
  • Activate ODATA service APS_OM_EMAIL_QUEUE_SRV
  • Manually add the tile in your catalog (use edit home page and than add the app)

Using the app display email transmissions

The main FIORI app tile will already show the amount of email transmission errors today:

By clicking the tile you reach the overview screen

By clicking the line you get details plus hints on the possible issue:

Custom program for checking webservice availability

In SOAMANAGER you can test if a web service can be reached by pressing the test connection button. Unfortunately there is no standard SAP program that performs this test in the background. So how to monitor the availability of a web service?

Solution: custom Z program that can be run online or in background.

In this case we have chosen to put the alert into SM21 system log. But you can also replace this part of the code with sending an email.

Preparation

In SE92 (see this blog) create a new message for the system log.

Z program for monitoring web service

Now create a new Z program:

REPORT z_bc_ws_check.

CONSTANTS zmesid TYPE char3 VALUE 'ZZ1'. "system log message ID defined in SE92
DATA: zif_soap_ping TYPE REF TO cl_soap_ws_ping.
DATA: zlv_ok TYPE boolean.

PARAMETERS zservice TYPE seoclsname. "webservice name
PARAMETERS zlp TYPE prx_logical_port_name. "logical port name


START-OF-SELECTION.

  AUTHORITY-CHECK OBJECT 'S_SRT_CF_C' "check soap runtime auhtorizations.
      ID 'ACTVT' FIELD '03'.

  IF sy-subrc EQ 0.

* create object for soap ping test
    CREATE OBJECT zif_soap_ping TYPE cl_soap_ws_ping.

* initialize ok code
    zlv_ok = 'X'.

* try the ping test
    TRY.
        CALL METHOD zif_soap_ping->if_soap_ws_ping~ping_ws
          EXPORTING
            service = zservice
            lp_name = zlp.
      CATCH cx_soap_ping.
* any error, clear the ok flag
        zlv_ok = ' '. "not ok
    ENDTRY.

    IF zlv_ok EQ ' '. "not ok
* write to SM21 system log
      WRITE: / TEXT-004. "ping not ok
      CALL FUNCTION 'RSLG_WRITE_SYSLOG_ENTRY'
        EXPORTING
          sl_message_area  = zmesid(2)
          sl_message_subid = zmesid+2
          data_word1       = zservice ##NO_TEXT.

      IF sy-subrc EQ 0.
        WRITE: / TEXT-001. "succes to write to SM21
      ELSE.
        WRITE: / TEXT-002. "fail to write to SM21
      ENDIF.
    ELSE.
      WRITE: / TEXT-003. "ping ok
    ENDIF.
  ELSE.
    WRITE: / TEXT-005. "not authorized
  ENDIF.

Create the text elements accordingly.

You can change the authorization check and in stead of writing system log message in SM21 do some other alerting like sending a mail, or pick up the entry in SAP Focused Run monitoring.

Running the program

Run the program:

Enter the webservice name and logical port. Hit execute.

You can also run the program in background mode. For example every 15 minutes. Create multiple steps for multiple web services to test.

Explanation

The program simply creates the object of type CL_SOAP_WS_PING to perform the web service ping. The ping test is then performed. Based on the result the text ok or an entry to SM21 is written.

ST07 Application monitor

The ST07 application monitor tool can help you in analysis of your system for performance and usability. It gives an overview of how many users are using which functional part of your SAP system.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to run the ST07 application monitor?

Application monitor

If you start ST07 you reach the application monitor start screen:

Here you can see how many users are defined and actually logging on across the modules. Basis is very high usually since this includes SMEN which is the start menu. The Other category is for Z transaction codes and/or addon software.

By double clicking on any line you can inspect the lower application levels.

DB access analysis

From the main screen, you can hit the button DB accesses to view which application parts are responsible for the majority of the database accesses:

Reporting performance issues to SAP

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • Which information should I provide when reporting a performance issue to SAP?
  • What should I have already checked before submitting performance issue to SAP?

When to report a performance issue to SAP?

You can report a performance issue to SAP when you are sure it is caused by standard SAP.

There are 2 cases:

  1. Overall system performance
  2. Specific transaction performance

Validations to be done upfront:

What information to provide in a performance issue to SAP?

In case of specific performance issues, add as much specific information as possible. Try to have a case in a development, test or acceptance system as well. In these systems SAP can replay the performance issue without running the risk of hampering the end users performance. Add trace files (ANST, ST12) to speed up the analysis for SAP. It also makes debugging and running large trace files easier for SAP.

SAP checklists

Good checklists are present in OSS notes:

ST12 performance tracing

The ST12 performance tracing tool allows you to collect performance data for solving a performance issue for a single transaction.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • Which data is collected in a ST12 performance trace?
  • How do I execute a ST12 performance trace?
  • How do I analyse a ST12 performance trace?
  • How can I export a ST12 performance trace?

Performance trace collection

Start transaction ST12:

Select the user ID that you want to trace (can be your own user) and leave the ST12 session open. In a second session execute your actions. When you are done, return to the ST12 session and press the End traces & collect button:

Confirm the traces to collect.

Evaluation of traces

On the Collected trace analysis screen section hit the Full screen button:

This will open the easier to use full screen mode for analysis:

Now you can expand the traces and use the ABAP trace, performance trace, SQL trace buttons to launch the required performance analysis tools.

For more background on the tools read the blogs about:

Downloading the trace file

You can download the generated trace file to export to different system or to send to SAP. For example you have recorded the trace in production and want to do the further analysis on the development system.

To export goto transaction ST13 and use tool ANALYSISBROWSER:

Then select menu option Download / Text Download / Export to frontend to download the trace to your desktop or laptop.

Background

OSS background notes on ST12 performance tracing:

Application server performance: ABAPMETER

Sometimes you might get very weird performance results in a productive system. In the end it might turn out that performance on an application server is ok, and on another one it is not ok. This can be because of different infrastructure per application server or different settings.

The ABAPMETER performance tool will help you to analyze the differences between application servers. It will fire a series of standardized tests to each application server.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to run the ABAPMETER performance tool to check for differences in application server response times?

Running the ABAP meter performance tool

Start transaction ST13 and select tool PERF_TOOL to goto the performance tools:

Now select the ABAPMETER tool and press execute:

The tool will now run the tests per application server. Pending on the amount of application servers it might take a few minutes.

Results are shown:

You can now see if there are significant differences between the application servers.

Even if all are the same, note 2879613 – ABAPMETER in NetWeaver AS ABAP also contains hints on some of the key values. They might show network issues.

Background

Background OSS notes:

Snapshot monitoring

Snapshot monitoring enables you to capture snapshot of current performance and usage of work processes. This can be used to analyze performance issues.

Questions that will be answered in this blog are:

  • How to setup snapshot monitoring?
  • How to analyze the results of snapshot monitoring?
  • How can I see SM50 processes running when there are issues?

Setting up the snapshot monitor

Start transaction /SDF/SMON for snapshot monitoring:

If you don’t have any snapshot monitoring yet, you will reach the schedule screen:

Now you can plan a separate snapshot monitoring run, or set up the daily run:

For each run: check to increase the Interval timing!

Analyzing the snapshot monitoring results

With the Analysis button you can analyze the results:

In the snapshot monitor (/SDF/MON) you can drill down:

Double clicking at the line shows you the SM50 processes running at that point in time:

This enables you to analyze issues that occur for example in the middle of the night, and you want to see what is running at that point in time.

References

The tool /SDF/MON has been replaced by the SMON tool in netweaver 7.5 (using tcode /SDF/SMON). You will find notes for both tools.

SAP wiki for snapshot monitoring can be found on this link.

Explanation OSS notes:

Bug fix OSS notes: