Central Services Process Status Test

Central services form the basis of communication and synchronization for the SAP ABAP cluster. They are responsible for lock administration, message exchange, and load balancing within the cluster.

Central services run on one physical machine and constitute a separate instance. This SAP Central Services Instance (SCS) comprises the message server and the enqueue server.

The message server keeps a list of all server processes in the SAP ABAP cluster and provides information about their availability to Internet Communication Manager (ICM). It also represents the infrastructure for data exchange between the participating server processes.

The enqueue server manages logical locks. The enqueue server runs on the Central Services instance of the SAP ABAP cluster. It manages the lock table in the main memory and receives requests for setting or releasing locks. It maps the logical locks to the database.

If one of these processes is not running or is error prone, then, the data requests cannot be catered as the locks cannot be set or released. Sometimes, the process may suddenly stop while a lock is being held. This may cause data overhead which leads to performance bottlenecks on the target SAP ABAP Instance. To avoid such performance implications, it is necessary to monitor the status of the central services round the clock! The Central Services Process Status test helps administrators in this regard.

This test auto-discovers the central service processes and for each process, reports the current status. This test also reveals if the process is running or not and if the process was restarted recently. In addition, administrators may also be enlightened to the uptime of the process. This way, administrators may be able to figure out which process is actually lagging behind to run and is contributing to performance bottlenecks.

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 process 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.

Port

Enter the port to which the specified host listens.

Central WSDL Port

This test uses the SAPControl web service to pull metrics on application and service status. To enable the test to communicate with the web service, you need to configure the test with the port number of the web service. Therefore, specify the port number of the SAPControl web service against WSDL Port. To determine the exact port number of the SAPControl web service, you can look up the etc/services file on the SAP WAS being monitored. If the port number is not declared in the etc/services file, you can specify the default port number of the web service against WSDL Port. If the web service is not SSL-enabled, then the default port number of the web service will be: 5<NR>13. Similarly, if the web service is SSL-enabled, then the default port number of the web service will be: 5<NR>14. <NR> in the port number refers to the system number of the SAP server being monitored. The system number 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 system number will be ‘00’. Similarly, if the SAP server port is 3201, the system number will have to be specified as ‘01’. Accordingly, the default port number of an SSL-enabled SAPControl web service will be 50014 , if the system number is 00, or 50114, if the system number is 01.

SSL

Set this flag to Yes, if the SAPControl web service is SSL-enabled. Set this flag to No, if the SAPControl web service is not SSL-enabled.

OS Username and OS Password

To enable the test to access the SAPControl web service and determine component state, you need to configure the OS Username and OS Password parameters of the test with the credentials (i.e., name and password) of an OS user, who fulfills one of the following conditions:

  • The name of the OS user should be declared using the service\admin_users profile parameter; (OR)
  • The name of the user group to which the OS user belongs should be declared using the service\admin_groups profile parameter; (OR)
  • The OS user should have the permission to execute the sapstartsrv executable

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

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

Status

Indicates the current state of this process.

 

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value Numeric Value
Normal 1
Critical 2
Error 3
Offline 4

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the current status of this process. The graph of this measure however, is represented using the numeric equivalents only i.e., 1 to 4.

Is process running?

Indicates whether/not this process is running.

 

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value Numeric Value
Yes 1
No 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether/not this process is running. The graph of this measure however, is represented using the numeric equivalents only i.e., 0 or 1.

Has process restarted?

Indicates whether/not this process was restarted during the last measurement period.

 

The values reported by this measure and its numeric equivalents are mentioned in the table below:

Measure value Numeric Value
Yes 1
No 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether/not this process was restarted. The graph of this measure however, is represented using the numeric equivalents only i.e., 0 or 1.

Elapsed time

Indicates the time elapsed since this process was restarted.

Seconds