Background Jobs Test

SAP background processing automates routine tasks and helps you optimize your organization’s SAP computing resources. Using background processing, you tell the SAP System to run programs for you. Background processing lets you move long-running or resource-intensive program runs to times when the system load is low. It also lets you delegate to the system the task of running reports or programs. Your dialog sessions are not tied up, and reports that run in the background are not subject to the dialog-step run-time limit that applies to interactive sessions.

The SAP System offers sophisticated support for background processing. You can choose from a variety of methods for scheduling and managing jobs. You can run both SAP-internal and external programs. And, for easier scheduling and management, you can run related programs as “ job steps” within a single background processing job, allowing a single background job to accomplish a complex task that consists of multiple processing steps.

Often job execution takes too long when the job consists of too many complex tasks. This prolonged execution of a job may consume a considerable amount of resources and therefore hamper the execution of other background jobs. In order to figure out the background jobs that are executing for a longer time and the status of the job, administrators may use the Background jobs test! This test monitors the current status and the previous status of each background job that is executing, the time taken for job execution and the time delay encountered by the jobs during execution. This way, administrators can figure out the background job that is executing for a longer duration and blocking valuable resources.

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.
PortNo	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	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.
MaxLogLines	In order to troubleshoot the jobs that were aborted, the eG agent facilitates collecting the last n lines of the jobs that were aborted. To achieve this, specify the number of lines of an aborted job that needs to be retrieved for troubleshooting in the MaxLogLines parameter. By default, the value of this parameter is 3.
UserJobs	Sometimes, administrators may wish to periodically monitor certain background jobs. To monitor such jobs, specify a comma-separated list of jobs in the format: Job:Time period (in hours) in the UserJobs text box. Say for example, you wish to monitor a job named Print with a time period of 2 hours, then specify Print:2 in the UserJobs text box. By default, none is specified against this text box.
StandardJobMonitor	If you wish to monitor the standard jobs in the target SAP ABAP instance, then set the StandardJobMonitor flag to Yes. If you set this flag to No, then standard jobs will not be monitored. By default, the value of this flag is Yes.
DD Frequency	Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD Frequency.
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

Current status

Indicates the current status of this job execution.

The values that this measure reports and their numeric equivalents are provided in the table below:

Measure value	Numeric value
N/A	0
Planned or Scheduled	1
Released	2
Ready	3
Active	4
Finished	5
Cancelled or Aborted	6

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the values listed under Measure Values to indicate the current status of this job execution. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the numeric equivalents i.e., 0 to 6 only.

Previous status

Indicates the status of this job that was executed before the last known execution of this job.

The values that this measure reports and their numeric equivalents are provided in the table below:

Measure value	Numeric value
N/A	0
Planned or Scheduled	1
Released	2
Ready	3
Active	4
Finished	5
Cancelled or Aborted	6

Note:

By default, this measure reports one of the values listed under Measure Values to indicate the status of the job execution before the last known execution. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the numeric equivalents i.e., 0 to 6 only.

Duration

Indicates the total time taken to execute this job.

Minutes

Compare the value of this measure across the jobs to figure out the job that took too long to execute.

Delay

Indicates the time delay encountered by this job during execution.

Minutes

A low value is desired for this measure.

If there is an alarming increase in the value of this measure, it indicates that adequate background processes are not available for executing this job. The background processes may not be available when there are too many job executions and when a job is executing endlessly. In such cases, administrators need to overlook the issue and rectify the same before any serious performance degradation of the server occurs.

Comparing the value of this measure across the jobs will help you identify the job that encountered the maximum time delay.