ABAP Instance Network Test

Often slow response time in a SAP environment may frustrate users particularly while they use SAP to create sales orders, update purchase orders etc. This may be due to the network being slow, unstable, or unavailable leading to users experiencing slow transactions, failed jobs, or system timeouts. To ensure that administrators proactively identify network issues and prevent performance degradation, eG Enterprise offers the ABAP Instance Network Test.

This test helps administrators track the network connectivity of the target SAP ABAP Instance and in the process, helps in identifying packet loss, network delay and network unavailability before end users start complaining.

Target of the test : A SAP ABAP instance

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target SAP ABAP Instance being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed
Host	Host name of the server for which the test is to be configured.
Port	Enter the port to which the specified host listens.
ClientName	Specify the ID of the client system as what the eG agent will be connecting to the SAP ABAP instance. To know how to determine the client ID to use, follow the instructions provided in Determining the Client ID/Name for the eG Agent to Connect to the SAP ABAP Instance.
SAPUser	Typically, to connect to a SAP ABAP instance and run tests, the eG agent requires the permissions of a SAP user who has been assigned with certain authorization objects. Ideally, you will have to create a new user role on the SAP ABAP instance for this purpose, associate the above-mentioned authorization objects with that role, and assign the new role to an existing SAP user. The procedure for the same has been provided in Creating a New User Role for Monitoring and Assigning it to a SAP User. Once the new role is assigned to a SAP user, specify the name of this user against SAPUser.
Password	The password of the specified SAPUser.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
SysNo	SysNo is an indicator of the TCP/IP port at which the SAP server listens. For example, for a server that listens at port 3200, the SysNo will be ‘00’. Similarly, if the SAP server port is 3201, the SysNo will have to be specified as ‘01’. Therefore, in the SysNo text box specify the system number of the SAP server with which the specified client communicates. To know the system number for the ABAP server being monitored, follow the procedure detailed in Identifying the SAP Router String and System Number.
Router	If the SAP client with the specified ClientName exists in a network external to the SAP server, then a router will be used to enable the server-client communication. In such a case, specify the router string of the router in the Router text box. If both the client and the server exist in the same network, then specify ‘none’ against the Router text box. To know what is the SAP Router string for the ABAP server being monitored, follow the procedure detailed in Identifying the SAP Router String and System Number.
InstanceName	This is set to none by default. This implies that the eG agent automatically discovers the instance name at run time.
Timeout	Indicate the duration (in seconds) for which this test should wait for a response from the SAP ABAP instance. By default, this is set to 120 seconds.
JCO Version	The eG agent uses the SAP JCO library to connect to the SAP ABAP system and pull out metrics. To enable the eG agent to make this connection and query the metrics, you need to specify the version of the SAP JCO library that the agent needs to use. For instance, to instruct the eG agent to use JCO v2.1.19, it would suffice if you specify the ‘major version number’ alone against JCO Version – in the case of this example, this will be 2.x. Note that if you have downloaded the SAP JCO CONNECTOR files for SAP JCO version 3 from the SAP market place (as instructed by Downloading the SAP JCO Connector files Required for Monitoring ), then the JCO Version configuration should be 3.x.
Run Agent Based	In modern SAP environments, SAP ABAP Instances are typically hosted on SAP S/4 HANA Cloud, Private Edition (SAP PCE). To ensure that Operating System-level metrics are collected from these SAP ABAP Instances and reported seamlessly, the default configuration for this flag is set to No. This ensures that the eG remote agent collects the metrics upon execution of this test. However, if you prefer to monitor the target SAP ABAP Instance using an agent-based approach - which is the recommended approach, then, set this flag to Yes.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Network availability	Indicates whether the network connection is available or not.	Percent	A value of 100 indicates that the system is connected. The value 0 indicates that the system is not connected. Typically, the value 100 corresponds to a Packet loss of 0. The value 0 for this measure could mean that the target device/server is either down or too busy, or the interconnecting network is down.
Average network delay	Indicates the average delay between transmission of packet to a target and receipt of the response to the packet at the source.	Seconds	An increase in the value of this measure is a cause for concern. Given below are some common reasons for such an anomaly: The network between the target device/server and the eG agent is congested. When there is an increase in traffic on the interconnecting network, data transmission can slow down data transmission, thereby increasing communication latency. The quality of the network connection between the eG agent and the target device/server is sub-par. Poor signal quality, faulty transmission lines, etc. can result in an increase in packet loss and/or network latency. The target device/server is overloaded. If the target is very busy, it takes longer to respond to requests, and this will result in an increase in latency. There are problems with network routing between the target device/server and the eG agent . A faulty network router, routing loops, etc., can increase network latency. Check the detailed diagnosis of this test to track latency on the first three hops between the agent and the target device/server. The latency to each hop can be used to determine which hop the problem lies in.
Minimum network delay	Indicates the minimum time between transmission of a packet and receipt of the response back.	Seconds	A significant increase in the minimum round-trip time is often a sure sign of network congestion.
Packet loss	Indicates the percentage of packets lost during transmission from source to target and back.	Percent	An increase in the value of this measure is a cause for concern. Given below are some common reasons for such an anomaly: The network between the target device/server and the eG agent is congested. When there is an increase in traffic on the interconnecting network, packets may be dropped. The quality of the network connection between the eG agent and the target device/server is sub-par. Poor signal quality, faulty transmission lines, etc. can result in an increase in packet loss and/or network latency. The target device/server is overloaded. If the target is very busy, it takes longer to respond to requests, and this will result in packet drops. There are problems with network routing between the target device/server and the eG agent . A faulty network router, routing loops, etc., can increase packet loss. Check the detailed diagnosis of this test to know the hops that are on the path from the external agent to the target device/server, and the packet loss on each hop. This information can be used to diagnose the hop(s) that could be causing excessive packet loss.