Regularly monitoring the SAP system is imperative to ensure its optimal performance. Addressing any minor issues promptly is crucial as they can escalate into significant problems over time. Therefore, it is highly advisable to monitor SAP systems daily. Sharing these monitoring reports with the entire group of SAP technical members involved in your project is even more beneficial. This collaborative approach allows the team to collectively identify potential issues that may have been overlooked by individual members.
Here are essential aspects that should be frequently monitored in SAP Systems:
- Check SAP Process Overview (SM51/SM50/SM66): Use these transactions to monitor work processes that are running for a long time. If you see any processes running in a Dialog mode for a longer time, then inform and find out from the users what they are trying to do.
- Logged-in users in AL08/SM04: This is used to check the number of users logged in the system. Make sure the users are evenly distributed across all instances. If you see a lot more users in one instance than the other, there is something wrong, check the load balancer settings or other options.
- Spool Requests: Check the number of Spool requests created each day, there shouldn’t suddenly be a spike in the process unless there is a new process in place.
- Lock Objects SM12: Check this transaction for any locked objects. If there are any locks for more than a day, than that is a problem, find the user or the programmer to dig more further to see if this is really required.
- Update requests on SM13: There should not be more than 10 updates at a given time.
- System Logs SM21: Check the logs frequently for any abnormal trends, find corresponding system dumps (ST22) and contact the necessary developers or check OSS Notes.
- Check Background Jobs: SM37 is used to check background jobs. Check for any jobs running for a long time, and check for past run time of the same jobs to see if there was a sudden increase in the duration.
- SAP Buffers: User ST02 to check for the SAP Buffers, The “current use” should not be near the value of “in memory”.
- Workload Analysis: Use ST03 is used to check the workload analysis of the SAP Instance.
- Operating System Monitor: Use ST06, to check the Operating system status. Check the utilization of system resources, and check the event logs. If CPU utilization is higher than 60%, find the programs and transactions and take corrective measures.
- ST11 to display Developer traces.
- St22 for ABAP dump analysis.
- St04 /ST02 for Database Analysis to monitor expensive Statements, monitor database performances.
- WE02 for failed IDocs.
Moreover, by utilizing OS Monitor (ST06), you can access data fetched through the service SAPOSCOL, which presents valuable information such as CPU Utilization, Memory Utilization, and disk response time.
When monitoring CPU utilization, it is essential to ensure that the CPU idle time does not fall below 30%. If the CPU idle time is less than 30%, the following potential issues should be considered:
- The ABAP programs might be resource-intensive, containing multiple conditions and endless loops, which can strain the CPU's performance.
- The CPU might be insufficient to handle the system's workload due to hardware not being procured according to appropriate sizing guidelines.
- Although the hardware was initially procured adequately, the number of users has dynamically grown, ranging from 300 to 600. In this case, it is advisable to deploy additional instances to handle the increased load.
If the CPU appears to be under stress due to expensive programs, it is recommended to refer the matter to the development team for optimization.