Background Processes Test

This test measures the extent of usage of the background processes.

This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence : Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick SAP ABAP the desired Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose the test from the disabled tests list, and click on the < button to move the test to the ENABLED TESTS list. Finally, click the Update button.

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 background server of the 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.
IsPassive	If the value chosen is Yes, then the server under consideration is a passive server in a SAP ABAP INSTANCE 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.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Utilization of background work processes	The percentage of the background processing capacity currently utilized. The value is averaged over the background work processes and by default, averaged over the last hour.	Percent	This measure and the System wide queue length measure (of the BackgroundService test) show if there is a serious bottleneck in the background processing capacity. The optimal situation is to maintain a high level of utilization of the work processes and a short wait queue.
Running background processes	The number of background work processes running on an application server.	Number	It does not make sense to have more than 2-3 work processes per CPU on a background server, as these work processes will already be fully utilizing the CPU. Set the number of these processes using the system parameter rdisp/wp_no_btc.
Server queue length	The number of released jobs that are explicitly to be executed on this application server, but for which there are no free background work processes.	Jobs	An alert for this measure when there is a short System wide queue length suggests that the distribution of jobs is not optimal. Only specify a target server if it is absolutely necessary.