ABAP Instance Uptime Test

In most SAP environments, it is essential to monitor the uptime of critical SAP ABAP Instances in the infrastructure.  By tracking the uptime of each of the SAP ABAP Instances, administrators can determine what percentage of time a SAP ABAP Instance has been up. Comparing this value with service level targets, administrators can determine the most trouble-prone areas of the infrastructure.

In some environments, administrators may schedule periodic reboots of their SAP ABAP Instances. By knowing that a specific SAP ABAP Instance has been up for an unusually long time, an administrator may come to know that the scheduled reboot task is not working on a SAP ABAP Instance.

This test monitors the uptime of the target SAP ABAP Instance and also reports whether/not the instance was rebooted in the past. These metrics help administrators understand the performance of the target SAP ABAP Instance and identify if the reboots are actually contributing to any performance implications of the target SAP ABAP Instance.

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 every 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. 

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.

Detailed Diagnosis

To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Has the instance been rebooted?

Indicates whether the instance has been rebooted during the last measurement period or not.

 

The values reported by this measure and their corresponding numeric equivalents are described in the table below:

Measure Values Numeric Values
Yes 1
No 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the above-mentioned Measure Values while indicating if the system has been rebooted or not. However, in the graph of this measure, the values will be represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

If this measure reports the value Yes, then you can use the detailed diagnosis of the measure to know more about the last instance reboot/shutdown. When the reboot occurred last, when the instance was shutdown last, and the duration of the shutdown is reported as part of detailed metrics.

Uptime during the last measure period

Indicates the time period that the instance has been up since the last time this test ran.

Seconds

If the instance has not been rebooted during the last measurement period and the agent has been running continuously, this value will be equal to the measurement period. If the instance was rebooted during the last measurement period, this value will be less than the measurement period of the test. For example, if the measurement period is 300 secs, and if the instance was rebooted 120 secs back, this metric will report a value of 120 seconds. The accuracy of this metric is dependent on the measurement period - the smaller the measurement period, greater the accuracy.

Uptime of the instance

Indicates the total time that the server has been up since its last reboot.

 

This measure displays the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds since the last reboot. Administrators may wish to be alerted if an instance has been running without a reboot for a very long period. Setting a threshold for this metric allows administrators to determine such conditions.