HTTP Connections Test

The HTTP Provider Service represents a server socket that listens for client HTTP connections on the J2EE Engine. It takes care of parsing the URL of the incoming HTTP requests, dispatching them to the correct J2EE Engine’s module for processing, and returning the generated responses back to the client. The HTTP Connections test monitors the HTTP Provider Service and reports key statistics pertaining to client HTTP connections on the J2EE engine.

Target of the test : A SAP Netweaver Application Server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each of the Dispatchers and each of the configured server processes of the SAP Web AS.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

Specify the server for which the test is to be configured.

Port

The port number at which the specified server listens.

UserName

This test connects to a specific SAP web application server instance, and extracts critical metrics from it. Therefore, in the UserName text box, provide a valid j2ee admin user name which the test should use for connecting to the server instance.

Password

Provide the Password that corresponds to the specified UserName.

Confirm Password

Confirm the OS Password by retyping it here.

InstanceName

Provide the name of the application server instance to which the test should connect. For example, if you specify tpp here, then the test will use the login credentials (UserName and Password) provided here to connect to an instance named TPP. To know the available server instances, use the instructions provided in Determining the Name of the SAP Web AS Instance.

ConnectorPort

This test uses the P4 protocol for connecting to the SAP web application server. Therefore, the port at which the P4 protocol listens needs to be specified as the ConnectorPort. To know how to determine the P4 port, use the procedure detailed in Determining the P4 Port.

DispatcherID

This test reports a set of metrics for the Java dispatcher that receives client requests. By default, the cluster ID  of the dispatcher is auto-discovered by the eG Enterprise. Therefore, default option is specified against this parameter. Alternately, if you wish to monitor a specific cluster ID, then you can mention that cluster ID against this parameter. To know the cluster ID of the dispatcher, follow the steps discussed in Determining the Name of the SAP Web AS Instance and P4 Protocol Port .

ServerIDs

Typically, the Java dispatcher or the ICM distributes the client requests it receives to the server processes executing on the Java component of the SAP Web AS for processing.  By default, the ServerIDs are auto-discovered by the eG Enterprise. To monitor specific server processes, specify a comma-separated list of the cluster IDs of these server processes in the ServerIDs text box. To know the cluster IDs of the server processes, follow the procedure detailed in Determining the Name of the SAP Web AS Instance and P4 Protocol Port.

Providing a comma-separated list of server process cluster IDs will ensure that these cluster IDs alone appear as the descriptors of the test. If need be, you can have server process name-cluster ID pairs appear as the test descriptors. To achieve this, the specification in the ServerIDs text box should be of the following format: Server process name:Cluster ID of the server process. For example, if the cluster ID of a server process named Server0 is 12621850, then you can specify the ServerID in the format: Server0:12621850.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

New requests

Indicates the number of HTTP requests newly received from client since the last measurement period.

Number

 

Connections keep alive

Indicates the number of TCP connections that are currently open.

Number

Under HTTP 1.0, if the browser supports keep-alive, it adds an additional header to the request: “Connection: Keep-Alive”. Then, when the server receives this request and generates a response, it also adds a header to the response: “Connection: Keep-Alive”. Following this, the connection is NOT dropped, but is instead kept open. When the client sends another request, it uses the same connection. This will continue until either the client or the server decides that the conversation is over, and one of them drops the connection. Under HTTP 1.1, all connections are kept alive by default, unless stated otherwise with the following header: “Connection: close”. The “Connection: Keep-Alive” header no longer has any meaning because of this.

Connections closed by client

Indicates the number of TCP connections that have been closed by the client since the last measurement period.

Number

 

Connections closed by server

Indicates the number of TCP connections closed by the server since the last measurement period.

Number

When the server closes a TCP connection, it could be a normal connection timeout or an abnormal termination. In case of the latter, the reasons for the abnormal connection loss will have to be investigated.