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

Supported information

Supported OS

Instana supports all operating systems 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 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.

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

SAP dashboards

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.

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

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

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

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
Total number of process instances
Total number of 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

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

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

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

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

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
Transaction Log Full
Primary Logs Fill Ratio