Some filesystems are critical to a business, such as those used in interfaces. This custom metric group will alert if a filesystem is not mounted.
Create the Bash Script to Check the Filesystem Status
Firstly, we need to create a bash script that takes the filesystem as its input argument and then checks its status. Create the following script called /sbin/checkfilesystemmounted.sh (owner is root, permissions 755). You may put this script somewhere else if you prefer, but be sure to refer to the correct location later on in this post.
The findmnt command returns the mount details if the filesystem is mounted. The filesystem is passed as a script argument in variable $1. If the filesystem is mounted, the script returns integer 1. If the filesystem is not mounted, the script returns integer 0. For example, to check your desired filesystem, execute it like this as root:
The result should be as per the following example:
Webmethod returned successfully
Operation ID: 0A02C69098121EDDA68C041B50FE858D
----- Response data ----
description=Check if filesystem is mounted
{type:integer, name:FileSystemMounted, value:1}
exitcode=0
Create the Custom Alert in SAP Focused Run
In Focused Run, we create an alert in a Linux host monitoring template. For example, the alert name is “Interface Filesystem not Mounted”. The Alert should be in Category “Exceptions” and the Severity is up to you. In this case it is 9.
Create the Custom Metric Group in SAP Focused Run
Next, we create the custom Metric Group . A Metric Group allows variants to be created, and each variant corresponds to a filesystem you wish to monitor.
Overview Tab:
Name: “Interface Filesystem not Mounted”
Category: Exceptions
Class: Metric Group
Data Type: Integer
Technical Name: INTERFACE_FILESYSTEM_NOT_MOUNTED
Data Collection Tab:
Data Collector Type: Diagnostic Agent (push)
Data Collector Name: OS: ExecuteOperation
Collection Interval: 5 Minutes (depending on the criticality)
CUSTOM_OPERATION_NAME: checkfileystemmounted – This corresponds to the custom operation for saphostctrl created earlier
METRIC_NAME: FileSystemMounted – This corresponds to the name of the metric in the JSON output by the bash script
RETURNFORMAT: JSON – This is the output format of the bash script
Usage Tab:
Threshold Tab:
As the script returns a numeric value 0 if the filesystem is not mounted, then the threshold will alert if the value is 0.
Assignment Tab
Assign to the custom alert created earlier.
Add Variants
The variable passed to the saphostctrl operation is “FILESYSTEM”. We can add the rest of the filesystems as individual variants. The format for the operation parameters is as follows:
FILESYSTEM:/the/filesystem/you/want/to/check
For example:
You can enter as many filesystems as you like as separate variants.
Activate Alert
Go to the “Metrics, Events, Alerts Hierarchy” tab, and activate System Monitoring.
Testing the Metric
In a non-Production environment, try to unmount a filesystem, and at most 5 minutes later, there should be an alert produced.
This blog will focus on monitoring on EWM systems.
Monitoring productive EWM systems
EWM systems are at the often used as stand alone systems that make sure logistics and warehousing can keep running at high availability. If the connected ECC or S4HANA system is down, EWM can continue to support logistics operations.
EWM can be older version based on SCM/BI system core. Newer EWM systems are using S4HANA with EWM activated as standalone.
Extra in an EWM system are the use of qRFC and the CIF (Core interface). And many EWM systems have users that interact with the system via ITS GUI based handheld scanners.
CIF monitoring
The CIF is the core interface between SCM and ECC system. The interface typically uses RFC and qRFC. And it is working both ways.
Setup for the CIF specific RFC’s and qRFC’s the monitoring:
For a BW system some numbers are typically higher than on an ECC or S4HANA system. Response times of 1.5 seconds would indicate horrible performance on ECC, but are normal on BW system.
System host template
For system host the regular CPU, memory, disc template is sufficient. Finetune the thresholds to your comfort level.
This blog will focus on monitoring on SLT systems. These systems are mainly used to replicate data from source systems like ECC and S4HANA towards target systems like Enterprise HANA and HANA cloud.
Monitoring productive SLT systems
When monitoring a productive system, you will need to finetune the monitoring templates for:
ABAP 7.10 and higher Application template, for the ABAP application
ABAP 7.10 and higher Technical instance template, for the ABAP application servers
System host template
Database template
ABAP APPLICATION TEMPLATE
Make sure you cover in the ABAP application template the following items:
Availability:
Message server HTTP logon
System logon check
RFC logon check
License status
Certificates expiry
Update status
Performance and system health:
Critical number ranges
SICK detection
Dumps last hour
Cancelled jobs last hour
Security:
Global changeability should be that the system is closed
Locking of critical users like SAP* and DDIC (see blog)
Fine tune the metrics so you are alerted on situation where the system is having issues.
SLT uses far more background and dialog processes than a normal system. It is basically continuously busy processing records.
SLT DMIS template for SLT system
For SLT systems, apply the SLT DMIS template:
In the SLT system itself, make sure job /1LT/IUC_HEALTH_C with program R_DMC_HC_RUN_CHECKS runs. This will collect data that is needed for SLT itself, but which is also re-used by SAP Focused Run.
Anyhow you should make sure to regularly apply the notes for the DMIS component. See this blog.
SLT DMIS dummy template backend system
For SLT to work, the DMIS component is installed in both the SLT system and the backend system. For the backend system SLT component, Focused Run will pick up the template as well. But this will not make any sense in monitoring, since it is the source system and not the SLT system.
For this reason, set up a dummy empty template with every monitoring item disabled:
Assign this dummy template to your backend system.
ABAP APPLICATION SERVER TEMPLATE
Make sure you cover in the ABAP application server template the following items:
Availability:
Local RFC logon test
Local HTTP logon test (if any BW web scenario is used)
Process Chain Monitoring in SAP Focused Run is possible via Job And Automation Monitoring which is available as of SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP02.
You can launch the Job & Automation Monitoring app in the Advanced Application Management section in the Focused Run launchpad.
When you launch the app you will be asked for a scope selection for which you can specify the systems for which you want to activate Process Chain Monitoring.
To start the setup of Process Chain Monitoring click on the settings button .
In the settings popup click on the pencil button under Technical Systems.
In the next popup select the system for which you want to configure process chain monitors by clicking on the area as shown below.
In the next screen , in the Monitoring tab click on the + sign to create a new filter to activate data collection.
Now provide a filter name and then in Job Type select SAP BW Process Chain and save.
After creating the filter move to Alerting tab and click on the + sign to create a new alert.
You can create the following types of alerts.
Critical Execution Status: The Execution Status is rated green, if a job finished successfully and red, if the job execution did not finish, i.e., aborted. It is rated yellow, if a job finished with warnings or errors without aborting.
Critical Application Status: The Application Status is rated green, if a job successfully processed the application data. It is rated red, if e.g., an ABAP job execution writes errors into the application log and yellow, if there are warnings, but no errors.
Critical Delay: The Start Delay rating is rated green, if the technical delay of a job (e.g., in case of an ABAP job the time passed until a job gets a work process assigned) did not exceed the threshold defined.
Critical Runtime: The Run Time is rated green, if the runtime of a job did not exceed the threshold defined.
To create the alert first select the alert type.
Then in Alert Filters section provide the BW Process Chain name for which you want to activate alerting. Also you must provide the job type as BW Process Chain. You can optionaly enter further filters like Execution User, Executable Name, ABAP Client and whether it’s a Standard Job or not.
Note: With Job & Automation monitoring you can create alerts for Standard ABAP jobs as well. The filters Executable Name and Standard Job is applicable only for ABAP Job type.
Optionaly you can also set Notification Variant, Alert Severity and enable Automatic Alert Confirmation in the Alert Settings section.
Optionaly you can also provide Resolution Instructions in the Alert Resolution area.
If you select alert type Crtical Dealy or Critical Runtime you also have to enter the thresholds.
Finally click on the Save button to save and activate the alerting.
Note: When we activate monitoring of process chain by creating the filter in the Monitoring tab, we activate data collection for Process Chain monitoring. This will enable data collection of all process chains of that managed system. You can see status of all process chain runs for that system in the main page of the Job & Automation Monitoring app. Additionaly and optionally you can create/enable alerting in the Alerting tab to alert on specific process chain failures.
Note: Since the launch of Job & Automation Monitoring in Focused Run 3.0 FP2 the old Job Monitoring feature has been renamed to Job Monitoring ABAP Only. The Job Monitoring ABAP Only functionality is completely depricated as of release of Focused Run 4.0.
For more details on Job & Automation Monitoring you can refer to SAP documentation here.
The detailed monitoring data from system monitoring is only kept 28 days.
For specific reasons you might want to store certain details longer for specific systems in a condensed way. For example, you want to keep short dumps and failed jobs for your productive systems on daily basis for 1 year.
Here is where the aggregation framework can help you.
Set up aggregation framework
To setup up the aggregation framework go to the System monitoring Individual maintenance FIORI tile:
On the left hand side choose the option Aggregation Framework:
Choose the button Create Variant to create a new variant:
Fill out the name and basic description and press the Continue with next step button:
The next screen is bit more complex:
In sequence: first search for the extended system ID and press go in the top left section. In the bottom left section, select the system you want. In the top right section now select Add filter from the left button. And press the Add selected objects for aggregation button on the bottom right part. Now press the Continue with next step button:
Select the metrics on the left hand side and add the filters on the right hand side. When done press the Continue with next step button:
Press the Start Calculation button and check your results. Then press Save.
Using the aggregation framework
For using the aggregation framework there are no special requirements. Whenever you use an aggregated metric in system monitoring, you can simply use the details with a long period.
Settings for the aggregation framework
In the aggregation framework configuration screen, you can click on the configuration wheel top right to set the retention period for Short/Medium/Long:
When you are using a web dispatcher, you want to check that the main URL is available. You can achieve this via URL monitoring in health monitoring (see blog).
In some cases you want to integrate this vital start URL into system monitoring, since that is your main central tool.
You can create a custom monitoring metric to measure and act on this.
In the use case below we will setup URL monitoring for web dispatcher for SAP Netweaver Gateway serving FIORI pages.
Creation of the custom metric for web dispatcher URL monitoring.
Create a custom metric following the steps in this blog. The template to be adjusted is the technical system SAP Web Dispatcher template.
Don’t forget to tick it on for monitoring otherwise it is not active.
In expert mode create a custom metric.
Create technical name Z_WEBDISPATCHER_URL_AVAILABILITY:
In the data collection:
Data to enter: RFC on diagnostics agent (push). Select SRSM Ping Http Unsp. Select the HTTPS protocol and setup the URL to monitor: /sap/bc/ui2/flp?sap-client=xxx&sap-language=EN. This is the main FIORI start URL. The port number is taken from the LMDB settings of the web dispatcher: $SAP_WebDispatcherIPServicePort->SAP_IPServicePort.PortNumber$.
Define the threshold for alerting:
We take here three measurements. If we don’t then with a single glitch in the network an alert will be triggered.
And assign the metric to the system message alert group:
This blog will focus on monitoring on GTS systems.
Monitoring productive GTS systems
GTS systems are at the not frequent in use. When in use they do play a vital role in import and export business scenario’s when good are crossing borders.
Since a GTS system is normally installed, and often no to little maintenance and software changes are performed on the system. Also basis teams tend not to look at it too often, since it normally runs stable.
In case of non-availability of GTS, ECC scenario’s linked to GTS might fail and can causes severe business disruptions.
For this reason it is important to set up monitoring in FRUN for your GTS system and also configure mail alerts in case of issues. They will not happen too often, but when they happen you can act fast. This will also save the basis team spending a lot of time on checking GTS system for log (most cases, the checks are good).
When monitoring a productive system, you will need to finetune the monitoring templates for:
ABAP 7.10 and higher Application template, for the ABAP application
ABAP 7.10 and higher Technical instance template, for the ABAP application servers
System host template
Database template
ABAP application template
Make sure you cover in the ABAP application template the following items:
This blog will focus on monitoring on SCM systems. Also known as APO systems.
Monitoring productive SCM systems
SCM systems are at the often used logistics optimization systems. They are mainly used in combination with traditional ECC systems. They are less needed in combination with S4HANA systems (or you can use the embedded SCM of HANA).
The core of an SCM system is a BI system. Many data is using similar extractors and process chains as a BI system. Hence follow the tuning needed for a BI system.
Extra in an SCM system are the LiveCache and the CIF (Core interface).
LiveCache monitoring
LiveCache is normally running on a MaxDB database.
So it is important to activate, assign and finetune the metrics for the MaxDB database:
Focus on:
Availability
Backup
Performance
Next to the database, you also need to activate, assign and finetune the LiveCache specific application template:
This template contains the primary elements to monitor for the LiveCache functions like:
Availability of LiveCache as a function
Structure check for LiveCache
Memory issues for LiveCache specifically
Fine tune the metrics so you are alerted on situation where the system is having issues.
CIF monitoring
The CIF is the core interface between SCM and ECC system. The interface typically uses RFC and qRFC. And it is working both ways.
Setup for the CIF specific RFC’s and qRFC’s the monitoring: