SAP User Sessions Test

By tracking the user logins to the SAP ABAP system, administrators can understand how actively the system is being used and accordingly plan the capacity of the system. In addition, the response time of the instances are also analyzed, thus turning the spotlight on instances that respond too slow. For this purpose, eG Enterprise periodically executes the SAP User Sessions test.

This test reports the number of user sessions logged into all the instances of the SAP ABAP System, measures the dialog activity levels of the users, and reports the response time of the instances. This way, the test indicates how well the ABAP system is being utilized, proactively reveals a consistent rise in user activity on the system, and pre-emptively points to instances that are slow to respond to requests.

Target of the test : A SAP ABAP System

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target SAP ABAP System 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.

Application Server

For the eG agent to connect to the target SAP ABAP System and collect metrics, this test should be configured with the IP address of any of the SAP ABAP Instances associated with the target SAP ABAP System. Specify such IP address in this text box.

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. 

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 sessions

Indicates the number of user sessions logged into all the instances of the SAP system.

Number

This measure is a good indicator of load of the SAP ABAP System.

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to figure out the instance on which maximum number of users were logged in. For each instance, the detailed diagnosis lists the instance name, number of users, dialog work process utilization, dialog queue usage, activity, long runner duration etc.,

Dialog activity

Indicates the rate at which dialog steps were processed per minute by the system across all the instances during the last measurement period.

Steps/min

A high value combined with a high Dialog process time points to a general overload; a very low value, indicates an error.

Maximum response time

Indicates the maximum time taken by an instance to respond to requests.

Seconds

Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to figure out the instance that is taking too long to respond.

Average response time

Indicates the average time taken by an instance to respond to requests.

Seconds

A high value for this measure indicates issues with load balancing across the instances. To minimize the average response time, administrators should optimize the load balancing technique across all the instances of the SAP ABAP system.