ABAP Instance Network Traffic Test

Sometimes, during peak business hours, when users experience slow SAP transactions, intermittent logouts, and failed background jobs, administrators may first want to investigate the network interfaces connected to the SAP ABAP Instance for network connectivity issues. When packet loss and packet errors occur, data sent between users, application servers, and databases do not reach its destination, forcing retransmissions that increase latency and cause delays in screen responses or RFC calls. If these issues occur across multiple network interfaces, the impact becomes widespread, affecting dialog users, batch processing, and system-to-system communication simultaneously. Therefore, it is essential for the administrators to keep track on the packet traffic and errors. The ABAP Instance Network Traffic test helps in this regard.

For each network interface this test reports the packet traffic and packet errors. This test also throws light on the packet transmission collisions on each network interface. By continuously analyzing packet loss and packet error metrics, administrators can quickly isolate the network interface and take corrective actions before users experience significant disruption, thereby ensuring stable performance and reliable SAP operations.

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 each network interface on 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.
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.
IsPassive	If the value chosen is Yes, then the server under consideration is a passive server in a SAP ABAP cluster. No alerts will be generated if the server is not running. Measures will be reported as “Not applicable” by the agent if the server is not up.
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
Incoming packet traffic	Indicates the number of packets received by this network interface of the target SAP ABAP Instance per second.	Packets/sec	Compare the value of this measure across network interfaces to figure out the network interface that is handling maximum incoming traffic.
Outgoing packet traffic	Indicates the number of packets sent through this network interface of the target SAP ABAP Instance per second.	Packets/sec	Compare the value of this measure across network interfaces to figure out the network interface that is handling maximum outgoing traffic.
Incoming packet errors	Indicates the number of packets received by this network interface per second with errors.	Errors/sec	Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A high value for this measure is an indication for the administrators to initiate troubleshooting at the earliest. Compare the value of this measure across network interfaces to figure out the network interfaces that is receiving maximum number of error-prone packets.
Outgoing packet errors	Indicates the number of packets sent through this network interface per second with errors.	Errors/sec	Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A high value for this measure is an indication for the administrators to initiate troubleshooting at the earliest. Compare the value of this measure across network interfaces to figure out the network interfaces that is transmitting maximum number of error-prone packets.
Collision rate	Indicates the number of network transmission collisions that occurred per minute on this network interface.	Collisions/min	Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A high collision rate can signal network congestion, misconfigured duplex settings, or overloaded switches, all of which can impact system reliability and user experience. Compare the value of this measure across network interfaces to figure out the network interfaces that is experiencing collisions during network transmission.