Dialog Response Test

This test monitors the responses sent by the Dialog service, and returns key performance metrics pertaining to the responses.

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.
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
Total response time for a dialog step	The average time that the user waits at the front end for his or her request to be processed. It is the sum of the Dialog process time, Network transfer time, Queue time and GUI Callback time.	Secs	If the user response time increases, while the standard response time remains stable, it means that the problem must be at the front end or in the connection to the application server.
Network transfer time for a dialog step	The time taken by the network for the first data transfer between the front end and the application server and during the last data transfer from the application server to the front end.	Secs	The value of this measure does not include round trips.
Queue time for dialog process	The average wait time in the dispatcher wait queue.	Secs	With a normal workload, there should always be free dialog work processes available. In such a case, the wait time will only be a few milliseconds.
GUI callback time	The average length of time that a work process waits for the front end during the communication between the application server and the front end.	Secs
Dialog process time	The total time that is required for processing a SAP ABAP dialog step, including the database processing time.	Secs	Check the CPU performance, system paging, dialog work processes, and database performance for any performance lag in the dialog process time.
Load generation time	The average load generation time for source texts, graphical user interfaces and screen information from the database.	Secs
Database response time for the dialog step	The average time for processing logical database requests.	Secs	Read requests can either be sent to the database buffers or to the fast local SAP buffers. The efficiency of the buffers, the required number of requests as well as a large number of database change requests affect the total access time. The database access time also takes into account the db server, CPU performance as well as network transfer times.
Dialog std response time	The time taken for a standard transaction that simulates the normal workload of a transaction by accessing data on the database and executing a series of ABAP function modules.	Secs	If the dialog response time is deteriorating consistently, while the standard response time remains stable, check the number of users logged on. If there are only a small number of users, the use of very resource-intensive transactions by one user can, in extreme cases, significantly increase the response time. If this is the case, there is often no serious performance problem.