Monitoring SAP by using SAP Solution Manager

You can monitor SAP by using an SAP Solution Manager or an ABAP sensor. To monitor SAP by using the SAP Solution Manager, you need to integrate the SAP Solution Manager with Instana after you install the Instana host agent. Then, you can view all the metrics and alerts from the SAP Solution Manager in the Instana UI.

Instana extracts the system monitoring data from the SAP Solution Manager by adding an OData REST endpoint to the SAP Solution Manager. The Instana Integration Proxy converts this SAP data to Instana compatible format and sends it to the Instana backend. The following image shows this data flow from the SAP Solution Manager to the Instana UI.

Data flow path

Support information

To make sure that the sensor is compatible with your current setup, check the following support information sections:

Supported OS

Instana supports all operating systems that are supported by the SAP Solution Manager 7.2. For information about the supported operating systems for the SAP Solution Manager, see Supported OS.

Supported versions

Instana supports SAP Solution Manager 7.2.

Prerequisites

Before you can view the SAP metrics and alerts in the Instana UI, you need to complete the following steps:

  1. Configure the SAP Solution Manager for system monitoring.

    To enable monitoring, you need to configure the Technical System Monitoring in the SAP Solution Manager for the following SAP components by using the SOLMAN_SETUP Tcode:

    • Technical System

      • SAP ABAP
      • SAP J2EE

    • Technical Instance

      • SAP ABAP
      • SAP J2EE

    • Database

      • IBM Db2
      • SAP HANA database 1.0 and 2.0

    • Tenant Database Instance

      • SAP database x.x Tenant Instance

    • Host (Server)

      • The applicable operating system

      The metrics for the SAP components must be activated through their individual System Monitoring templates in the Solution Manager. The supported metrics are listed in the metrics section. For help with activating metrics, contact your Solution Manager Basis administrator.

  2. Create a user account in SAP Solution Manager

    To access the REST endpoint provided by the OData service, you need to create a user account in the SAP Solution Manager that has full authorization. The Instana Integration Service uses this user authentication information to connect to the OData endpoint.

  3. Install the Instana OData Service on the SAP Solution Manager

    The Instana OData service extracts the metrics from the Solution Manager and displays a REST endpoint through which the metrics are exported to Instana. This process is done by using an ABAP program that needs to be installed in the Solution Manager through the SEGW TCode. You need to have the ABAP Developer role and be registered with a Developer Access Key.

    You can download the OData Service from the IBM Monitoring Instana Integration Service.

    For more information about the installation instructions for this service, see the readme.pdf file that is contained in this deployment package.

  4. Install and configure the Instana Integration Service to connect to the OData service

    The Instana Integration Service retrieves the metrics from the OData Service endpoint. It identifies and separates the SAP entities, correlates the topology of related entities, transforms performance metrics to Instana compatible format, and generates alerts from events.

    You can configure a single instance of the Instana Integration Service instance to connect to OData service URLs from multiple Solution Managers. During its configuration, you can enter an identifiable zone name for every Solution Manager. Then, all the SAP hosts monitored by the Solution Manager are added to this zone in the Instana Infrastructure UI. For more information about configuring OData Service, see OData Service.

    To install the Instana Integration Service, see Agent-based integrations.

  5. Configure the Instana host agent to connect to the Instana Integration Proxy

    You need to configure the Instana host agent, either running on the same host as the Integration Service or remotely, to enable the ibm-apmproxy sensor to connect to the Instana Integration Proxy. The Instana Integration Proxy provides the SAP data to the ibm-apmproxy sensor upon request. The sensor then passes it on to the Instana backend. For more information about the host agent configuration, see the Integration Service readme.txt file in the deployment package.

  6. Enable the SAP feature flag

    To enable the SAP monitoring feature flag in Self-Hosted Classic Edition (Docker), see Enabling optional features.

    To enable the SAP monitoring feature flag in the Kubernetes-based self-hosted Instana backend, see Enabling optional features.

Viewing metrics

After you install the host agent and integrate the SAP Solution Manager, you can view SAP metrics and alerts in the Instana UI.

Infrastructure view

Every OData service URL connection is displayed in its own zone with hosts represented as towers. The towers are shown with the SAP icon instead of the usual OS icon that Instana host agents display. All the SAP components that are running in that host are stacked in each of these towers.

The following image shows the SAP components that are running in the host: SAP components

To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

  1. In the sidebar of the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
  2. On the Map tab, click a tower specific to SAP.
  3. Click Open Dashboard.

You can see the SAP dashboard with all the collected metrics.

Platform view

To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

  1. In the sidebar of the Instana UI, select Platform > SAP. This view lists the SAP systems, instances, and databases as separate tabs.

    The following image shows the SAP dashboard in the Instana UI: SAP dashboards

  2. Click the specific system, instance, or database from the tab to see its metrics.

Alerts from the SAP Solution Manager are also forwarded to Instana and triggered automatically. Therefore, you can manage alerts from both SAP and non-SAP systems.

The following image shows the alerts from SAP Solution Manager: Alerts from SAP Solution Manager

Metrics

The following metrics from specified systems, instances, and databases are displayed in the Instana UI. The collection interval, threshold values, and alerts are specified in SAP Solution Manager in the System Monitoring configuration and cannot be set or overridden in Instana.

ABAP system

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the ABAP system:

Table 1. ABAP system metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability System Availability

ABAP System Availability
Configuration ABAP Transports

Expiring ABAP Certificates

Users with Critical Profiles

System Configuration

SAP Notes

RFC Destinations

ICF Service Change

Global Changes Allowed

Failed ABAP Transport
Exceptions ABAP Short Dumps

ABAP System Log

Batch Jobs

Enqueue Processing

IDoc

Number of Errors in the Gateway Error Log

Number of Push notification queues in error status

Spool

Update Processing

bgRFC

qRFC

tRFC
Performance User Load

Performance of Gateway Service Requests

Average payload size sent per service call

ABAP instance

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the ABAP instance:

Table 2. ABAP instance metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric
Performance Number of users

Dialog Work Process

Batch Resources

ICM

Gateway resources

Spool Resources

Update Resources

Memory

Error Conditions

Java system

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the Java system:

Table 3. Java system metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability BMP Kernel Status
Configuration Expiring certificates per instance
Exceptions Number of erroneous messages

Number of erroneous tasks

Number of failed process instances

Number of suspended process instances

J2EE Messages Issue
Performance J2EE Messages Performance

Number of active process instances

Number of active process tasks

Number of completed process tasks
Self Monitoring Configuration XML is outdated

DPC Database Extractor

Data Supplier for Technical System is missing or outdated

Diagnostic Agent for Technical System Monitoring unavailable

Errors in Last Monitoring Configuration

Host Agent Connection Status

Last Configuration Status in Monitoring

Java instance

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the Java instance:

Table 4. Java instance metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability Java ICM Status

Java Instance Availability

Java Server Node Status

Java INSTANCE HTTP AVAILABILITY

Java Enqueue Server Status

ADS Instance Http Availability

Portal Start Page Http Availability
Performance Application Threads

DB Average Response Time

Enqueue Response Time

Frontend Response Time

GC Time Percentage

Garbage Collection

Http Sessions

SAP Connector Performance Response Time

SAP Performance BLS Response Time

System Threads

Web Service Response Time

HANA DBMS

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the HANA DBMS:

Table 5. HANA DBMS metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability Availability of Asynchronous Table Replication

Database Availability

HDB HOST STATUS METRIC Database Host Status
Configuration Database Recoverability (log mode OVERWRITE)

Delta Merge (mergedog) configuration

Discrepancy between host server times

Enablement_of_Automatic_Log_Backup

Insecure Instance SSFS Encryption Configuration

LOB Garbage Collection Activity

License Expiry

Licensed Memory Usage

RFC Connections

Runtime of the Log Backups

Trace Settings

Unassigned_Volumes
Exceptions Age of Most Recent Data Backup

Auto Merge for Column Store Tables

Broken backup history

Catalog Consistency

Columnstore Unloads

Consistency of internal system components after system upgrade

Disk Usage

Existence of Data Backup

Failed Delta Merges

Failed IO Reads

Failed IO Writes

Internal Disk-Full Event

Internal Events

LCAPPS Logging Events

LCAPPS Tracing

Log segments not free for reuse

Missing Volume Files

New Crash Dump Files

New Page Dump Files

New RTE Dump Files

Record Count of Column Table Partitions

Size of Diagnosis Files

Status of Most Recent Data Backup

Status of Most Recent Log Backup

Storage Snapshot Preparation Time

Table Growth of Rowstore Tables

Tables histories > 1 billion rows

Tables > 1 billion rows
Performance Cached view size

Delta Merge Duration

Long-Running Blocking Situations

Long-Running Statement

Long-Running Serializable Transactions

Long-Running Uncommitted Write Transactions

Open Connections

Percentage of Transactions Blocked

Total Memory Usage of Table-Based Audit Log

Size of Delta Storage of Column-Store Tables

Table Growth of Non-Partitioned Column-Store Tables

SAP HANA system

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the SAP HANA system:

Table 6. SAP HANA system metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability System Availability
Configuration System Configuration
Exceptions System Exceptions
Performance System Performance
Self monitoring Configuration XML is outdated

Connection from SMD Agent to Host Agent failed

DPC Database Extractor

Data Supplier for Technical System is missing or outdated

Diagnostic Agent for Technical System Monitoring unavailable

Errors in Last Monitoring Configuration

System Self monitoring

DBTenant

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the DBTenant:

Table 7. DBTenant metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability DB Instance Status

Inactive Services

Restarted Services

Services Status
Exceptions Failed IO Reads

Failed IO Writes

Host Physical Memory Usage

Long Running Savepoint Operations

Memory Usage of Services

Most Recent Savepoint Operation

New HANA Trace Files

New OOM Trace Files

Number of Diagnosis Files

Number of Log Segments

Total Memory Usage of Row Store (%)
Performance Host CPU Idle

Large Heap Areas

Log Switch Race Count Ratio

Log Switch Wait Count Ratio

MVCC Versions

Memory Usage of Main Storage of Column-Store Tables

Memory Usage of Name Server

Minimum CPU rate (MHz)

Plan Cache Hit Ratio

Row Store Fragmentation

Row Store version space skew

Threads currently waiting for locks (%)

Db2 DBMS

The following table lists the metrics that are collected from the Db2 DBMS:

Table 8. Db2 DBMS metrics
Category SAP Solution Manager metric name
Availability Db2 Database Status

Db2 Instance Status

DBA Cockpit Connection Status
Exceptions ADM1823E Transaction Log Held by an Open Transaction

ADM1849C LSN Exhaustion

Corrupt page

Disk Error

File System Full

Maximum Number of Objects in Tablespace

Transaction Log Full

Number of Deadlocks Since DB Start

Number of Lock Escalations Since DB Start

Number of Lock Timeouts Since DB Start

Primary Logs Fill Ratio