Monitoring SAP with the ABAP sensor

Instana supports the following operating systems that are supported by SAP Java Connector for local and remote monitoring:

• For local monitoring (the Instana agent is installed on the same host as the ABAP server):

  • AIX
  • Linux (x86 and IBM PowerPC 64-bit LE)
  • Windows

• For remote monitoring (the Instana agent is installed on a different host and connects remotely to the ABAP server):

  • AIX
  • Linux (x86 and IBM PowerPC 64-bit LE)
  • Windows
  • IBM i (OS/400 PASE)
  • Apple macOS (64 bit - Intel and Apple silicon)
  Note: For remote monitoring, the SAP can run on any platform, including IBM i, and be remotely monitored by installing the Instana agent on these platforms.

For more information about the operating systems supported by SAP Java Connector, see Supported OS.

The ABAP sensor supports the following SAP versions:

• SAP R/3 3.1
• S/4 HANA and later
• SAP Java Connector 3.1.8 or later

To add the SAP JCo library to a Linux-based system, complete the following steps:

1. Locate the installed Instana agent in the /opt/instana/agent directory.

2. In the Instana agent installation directory, create the system/com/sap/sapjco3/<Major>.<Minor>.<patch> directory

where in system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13 the Major is 3, Minor is 1, and patch is 13.

Update these values based on the JAR version that you use.

The following steps consider SAP JCo 3.1.13 as an example; modify the version based on the JAR version file that you use:

1. Verify that you set up a directory structure, such as /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13.

2. Download and extract the SAP JCo package, and follow the instructions that are mentioned in the Readme.txt file.

   The installation of JCo is platform-specific, and you must download the JCo version for the platform on which the Instana agent is run. The ABAP sensor gets deployed on the same computer as the Instana agent and communicates with the SAP system to fetch metrics.

3. After you download and extract the .zip file, copy the sapjco3.jar file from the extracted folder to the /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/ directory.

   Note: Avoid extracting the .zip file directly in the /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/ directory since it contains many extra files that are not required for setting up the sensor. You need only two files, the sapjco3.jar and a single OS-specific library file in this directory.

4. In the /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/ directory, rename the sapjco3.jar file to sapjco3-3.1.13.jar.

   Note: You must have only one .jar file in the specified directory. In this example, the .jar file is sapjco3-3.1.13.jar.

5. Place the OS-specific library file in the /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/ directory. The file extension is .dll or .so.

   After you place the files in the directory, your directory must appear as follows. The following example shows a Linux-based installation directory after you place the file in it:

   ls /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/
   libsapjco3.so  sapjco3-3.1.13.jar
    

   You must not rename files with the extension .dll or .so.

6. Update the libpath parameter in your configuration.yaml file to /opt/instana/agent/system/com/sap/sapjco3/3.1.13/. For more information, see Configuration parameters.

Instana supports both local and remote monitoring for the SAP ABAP sensor.

To connect ABAP sensor to ABAP instances directly, add the local or remote configurations as shown in the following examples. Enter the appropriate values for the parameters. The default polling interval for metric is set to 60 seconds.

You can configure ABAP sensor to connect to your ABAP instances through Message Server.

To connect to ABAP instances through SAP Message Server, use the configuration as shown in the following example:

# SAP ABAP
com.instana.plugin.sap.abap:
  remote : # Connecting via Message Server
    - host: 'remote.messageserver-host.com'
      port: '3600' # Default port for Message Server
      type: 'message_server'
      client: '100'
      user: 'User1'
      password: 'password'
      group : 'PUBLIC' # Optional, Default is PUBLIC
      lang: 'en'
      pool_capacity: '10'
      libpath: <INSERT_SAP_JCO_LIBRARY_LOCATION>
      # path to JCo drivers. For static agent configuration details, follow documentation.
      poll_rate: 60 # seconds
 

If your SAP ABAP Instance or message server does not allow direct connections from external clients and instead requires a connection through SAProuter, you need to add the following additional parameter in the configuration.yaml file:

sap_router: '/H/saprouter-host'
 

If the SAProuter is running on a different port than the default port 3299, you can specify the port number as follows:

sap_router: '/H/saprouter-host/P/saprouter-port'
 

Make sure that the user specified in the ABAP sensor configuration in the YAML file is authorized to pull metrics from SAP JCo.

To pull metrics from SAP JCo, you need to provide the following Authorization Object parameters in the SAP user account:

Authorization Object: S_RFC
    RFC_TYPE: Function Module
    RFC_NAME: *
    Activity: Execute

Authorization Object: /SDF/E2E
    Activity: 03

Authorization Object: S_ADMI_FCD
    S_ADMI_FCD: ST0R

Authorization Object: S_RZL_ADM
    Activity: 03

Authorization Object: S_TABU_DIS
    DICBERCLS: &NC&,EDI0,SA,SC,SS,SPWD
    Activity: 03
 

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.

To view the metrics on Platform, complete the following steps:

1. From the navigation menu in the Instana UI, select Platform > SAP. You can view lists of the Systems, Instances, and Databases.
2. To view the SAP instance that is connected to the ABAP sensor, click the Instances tab. The sensor name is listed as AbapInstance@HostName_SID_InstanceID.

The following table outlines the frequency of metric collection by the ABAP sensor:

SAP ABAP sensor generates build-in events for various scenarios. For more information, see Built-in Events Reference.