Monitoring SAP HANA

You can monitor the SAP HANA database with Instana by using the SAP HANA sensor. The SAP HANA sensor is automatically deployed and installed after you install the Instana agent. Instana supports both local and remote monitoring of the SAP HANA database.

Supported information

The SAP HANA sensor supports the following operating systems (OS) and runtimes:

Supported OS

Depending on the type of monitoring required, the Instana agent can be installed on different OS for monitoring SAP HANA databases.

  • Local monitoring (Instana agent is installed on the same host as the SAP HANA database):

    • Linux (x86 and IBM PowerPC 64-bit LE)
  • Remote monitoring (Instana agent is installed on a different host and connects remotely to the SAP HANA database):

    • AIX
    • Linux (x86 and IBM PowerPC 64-bit LE)
    • Windows
    • IBM i (OS/400 PASE)
    • Apple macOS (64 bit - Intel and Apple silicon)

Supported runtime

You can monitor the SAP HANA database only if the Instana agent uses Java 8 runtime.

Java 11 is not supported.

Configuring the Instana agent

To monitor SAP HANA, you need to configure the static or dynamic agent that is used.

Configuring the static agent

Note: For versions before Instana release 282, follow these instructions:
  • If the agent uses Azul Zulu 1.8, no need to update the setenv file.
  • If the agent runtime uses Eclipse OpenJ9 11, update the setenv file to point to a Java 8 runtime.

When you use the static agent, you need to provide the com.sap.cloud.db.jdbc:ngdbc driver manually.

To monitor the SAP HANA database with the static agent, complete the following steps:

  1. Download the ngdbc-2.22.12.jar driver from the Maven Central Repository.

  2. Add the ngdbc-2.22.12.jar driver to the <agent-installation-dir>/system/com/sap/cloud/db/jdbc/ngdbc/2.22.12 directory.

  3. To configure the agent to use the Java 8 runtime, complete the following steps:

    You need to perform the following steps only for Instana release 282 and later or if the agent was set up earlier by using Eclipse OpenJ9 11.

    1. Go to the <agent-installation-dir>/bin directory, and open the setenv file.

    2. Add the line export JAVA_HOME=<path-to-java-home> after UNSET JAVA_HOME as shown in the following example:

      unset JAVA_HOME
      export JAVA_HOME=<path-to-java-home>
      
    3. Save the changes and close the file.

    4. Restart the Instana agent.

Configuring the dynamic agent

Note: For versions before Instana release 282, follow these instructions:
  • If the agent uses Azul Zulu 1.8, no need to update the setenv file.
  • If the agent runtime uses Eclipse OpenJ9 11, update the setenv file to point to a Java 8 runtime.

To configure the agent to use the Java 8 runtime, complete the following steps:

You need to perform the following steps only for Instana release 282 and later or if the agent was set up earlier by using Eclipse OpenJ9 11.

  1. Go to the <agent-installation-dir>/bin directory, and open the setenv file.

  2. Add the line export JAVA_HOME=<path-to-java-home> after UNSET JAVA_HOME as shown in the following example:

    unset JAVA_HOME
    export JAVA_HOME=<path-to-java-home>
    
  3. Save the changes and close the file.

  4. Restart the Instana agent to apply the changes.

For more information about agent installation prerequisites and supported JDKs, see Installing host agents.

Configuring the SAP HANA sensor

With the SAP HANA sensor, you can monitor the SAP HANA database both locally and remotely. Local monitoring of SAP HANA involves setting up the Instana agent on the same host as your SAP HANA process, while remote monitoring involves setting up the agent on a separate host.

Local monitoring

In local monitoring, the sensor collects both host metrics and HANA database metrics, offering a comprehensive full-stack view of the data.

Depending on the mode in which SAP HANA is run (multiple containers or single container), you can set different username and password combinations in the agent configuration yaml file <instana-agent-dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml to connect to the database.

The configuration parameters for local monitoring are shown in the following example:

# SAP HANA
com.instana.plugin.saphana:
 local:
   singleContainer:
     user: ''
     password: ''
   multiContainer:
     HXE:
       user: ''
       password: ''
     my-test-db:
       user: ''
       password: ''

The default user is SYSTEM.

Remote monitoring

The remote monitoring functionality is available for only Instana 277 and later.

In remote monitoring, the Instana SAP HANA sensor monitors SAP HANA databases that are deployed on different hosts than the one hosting the Instana agent. The SAP HANA sensor can monitor more than one database.

The configuration parameters for remote monitoring are shown in the following example:

# SAP HANA
com.instana.plugin.saphana:
  remote: # multiple remote configurations are supported
    - host: 'remote.host-1.com'
      port: '' #sql port
      databaseName: ''
      user: ''
      password: ''
    - host: 'remote.host-2.com'
      port: '' #sql port
      databaseName: ''
      user: ''
      password: ''

For the single container mode, the database name is blank. For the multi-container mode, you must enter a value for the database name.

Viewing metrics

To view metrics from SAP HANA in infrastructure view, complete the following steps:

  1. From the navigation menu, select Infrastructure.
  2. Click an SAP HANA host.
  3. Click Open Dashboard.

You can see the SAP HANA dashboard with all the tracked configuration and metrics.

Tracked configuration

  • System ID
  • Database Name
  • Instance Number
  • Version
  • Port
  • Usage
  • Maximum Number of Sessions
  • Host Status

Metrics

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

Metrics Collected frequency
Total CPU Utilization 1 second
CPU Time 1 second
Workload 1 second
Workload Rate (per min) 1 second
Requests 1 second
HANA Memory Usage 1 second
Host Memory Usage 1 second
Heap Memory Usage 1 second
Virtual Memory 1 second
Swap Memory Usage 1 second
Disk Usage Summary 1 second
Disk Usage Percentage 1 second
Disk Usage by Type 1 second
Sessions 1 second
Connections 1 second
Connected Users and Applications 1 second
Threads 1 second
Job Worker Threads 1 second
SQL Executor Threads 1 second
SQL Plan Cache Statistics 20 seconds
Service Details 1 minute
Garbage Collection Statistics 1 minute
Expensive Statements 1 minute
Alerts 1 minute
Service Network I/O Statistics 1 minute
System Events 1 minute
Active Statements 2 minutes
Transaction Statistics 2 minutes
Aggregated Cache Information 2 minutes
Scheduler Jobs 15 minutes
Lock Wait Statistics 15 minutes
Backup Progress 30 minutes
Archive Log Backup 1 hour
User Locks 1 hour
I/O Statistics 1 hour
Table Size 24 hours

To see SQL Plan Cache Statistics metrics, set the plan_cache_statistics_enabled field to true in the agent configuration file.

The SAP HANA sensor generates built-in events for various scenarios. For more information, see Built-in Events Reference.