Ale Monitoring

ALE Monitoring

Best Practice for Solution Management

Version Date: 16.05.2007

Contents 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................3

1.1 Applicability, Goals, and Requirements...............................................................................3 1.2 Best Practice Procedure.....................................................................................................5

1.2.1 Motivation for Interface Monitoring .............................................................................5 1.2.2 Preliminary Tasks.......................................................................................................5 1.2.3 Interface Monitoring concept ......................................................................................5 1.2.4 Legend ......................................................................................................................5

1.3 General Overview on ALE/EDI............................................................................................6 1.3.1 ALE (Application Link Enabling) .................................................................................6 1.3.2 EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) ..............................................................................6 1.3.3 IDocs .........................................................................................................................6 1.3.4 Change Pointers: .......................................................................................................7 1.3.5 ALE Processing Modes..............................................................................................7

1.4 Example Business Scenario with ALE...............................................................................15 1.4.1 Interface Monitoring in SAP CCMS and SAP Solution Manager................................15

2 Aspect: Error Monitoring........................................................................................................23 2.1 Manual Error Monitoring...................................................................................................25 2.2 Automated Error Monitoring..............................................................................................28 2.3 Details on IDoc Batch Job Monitoring ...............................................................................29 2.4 Handling different error statuses ALE/EDI.........................................................................30

2.4.1 Status 02: Error passing data to port.........................................................................30 2.4.2 Status 03:.................................................................................................................30 2.4.3 Status 26: Error during syntax check of IDoc (outbound)...........................................30 2.4.4 Statuses 27, 29, 37: IDOC processing towards tRFC layer has problems .................31 2.4.5 Status 51: Application document not posted .............................................................31 2.4.6 Status 56: IDoc with errors added [anything missing?] ..............................................32 Status 63: Error passing IDoc to application...........................................................................32 2.4.7 Status 60: Error during syntax check of IDoc (inbound).............................................32 2.4.8 Status 65: Error in ALE service.................................................................................32 2.4.9 Reposting of IDocs in Status Error............................................................................33

3 Aspect: Backlog Monitoring ...................................................................................................36 3.1 Manual Backlog Monitoring ..............................................................................................36 3.2 Examples of Backlog Analysis techniques ........................................................................38

Best Practice: ALE Monitoring

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3.2.1 Single IDoc time stamp analysis...............................................................................38 3.3 Automated Backlog Monitoring.........................................................................................39

4 Aspect: Performance Monitoring............................................................................................41 4.1 Manual Performance Monitoring.......................................................................................41

4.1.1 Overview of Available Tools for ALE/EDI Performance Analysis ................................44 4.1.2 Activation of Performance Monitoring With Transaction ST03N ................................48

4.2 Automated Performance Monitoring .................................................................................56 5 Aspect: Resource Monitoring.................................................................................................57

5.1 Manual Resource Monitoring............................................................................................58 5.2 Automated Resource Monitoring.......................................................................................61

6 Aspect: Data Management ....................................................................................................62 6.1 Manual Data Volume Monitoring.......................................................................................64 6.2 Automated Data Volume Monitoring..................................................................................64

7 Generic Part on System Monitoring .......................................................................................65 7.1 Performance Monitoring ...................................................................................................65

7.1.1 General information .................................................................................................65 7.1.2 Procedure................................................................................................................66 7.1.3 Transaction ST03N ..................................................................................................67 7.1.4 Transaction STAD....................................................................................................68 7.1.5 Transaction ST05.....................................................................................................72 7.1.6 Transaction SE30 ....................................................................................................72 7.1.7 Transaction ST12.....................................................................................................73

7.2 General Monitoring Guidelines for a SAP System .............................................................74 8 Further Information................................................................................................................77

1 Introduction

1.1Applicability, Goals, and Requirements To ensure that this Best Practice is the one you need, consider the following goals and requirements.

Goal of Using this Service This Best Practice helps you set up an Interface Monitoring concept with the focus on ALE Monitoring for your SAP solution. This document will outline possibilities on how to optimally monitor ALEbased interfaces manually as well as automated by using SAP Solution Manager. Both monitoring approaches aim to detect any irregularities or deviations or to detect error situations at an early stage. These procedures intend to ensure that the interface processing meets the requirements for stability, performance and completeness as well as a smooth and reliable flow of the core business processes so that your business requirements are met.

Alternative Practices You can have SAP experts deliver this Best Practice onsite by ordering a Solution Management Optimization (SMO) service for SAP Interface Management. This service is exclusively available within an SAP Support Engagement (that is, SAP MaxAttention, SAP Safeguarding or SAP Premium Support).

Staff and Skills Requirements To implement this Best Practice, you require the following teams: Application Management Team This team provides the information on the business background of the interfaces used and knows the needed business requirements for the interfaces:

• Business department • Solution support organization (for example the Basis Support or the Application Support) • Implementation project team

Business Process Operations Team The Business Process Operations team will be responsible for applying the resulting procedures derived from implementing this best practice. They include the following groups:

• Persons designated to perform business process oriented monitoring and ensure that the process runs smoothly (for example, the Business Process Champion for each business process)

• All parties in your Solution Support Organization and IT department involved in monitoring focused on the application aspects (Application Support, Development Support, Job Scheduling Management)

SAP Technology Operations Team • All parties in your Solution Support Organization and IT department involved in monitoring

focused on the system administration side (Program Scheduling Management, Software Monitoring Team, System Administration Team including the System Administrator)

Business Process Champion • The Business Process Champion is the person in the business department that is responsible

for the successful execution of the business process. He coordinates all activities necessary for the business process. Therefore, he is usually responsible for the escalation paths in case of problems. Often he is a second level in the escalation procedure, if the application monitoring team needs to escalate an issue.


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Necessary or Useful Trainings q BIT300 Interface Technology Overview q BIT350 ALE Enhancements q SMO610 BPM training course q ADM105 Advanced R/3 System Administration q ADM315 Workload Analysis

System Requirements To setup an automated IDoc monitoring on the SAP Solution Manager, the connected satellite systems has to be at least of release 4.6C. To have all described monitoring object available in SAP Solution Manager, addons STPI and STA/PI has to be installed on the SAP satellite systems.

Duration and Timing Duration Creating an Interface Monitoring concept depends very much on the complexity of your interface landscape and could take around one week for about 10 ALE/IDoc interfaces. Timing The best time to apply this Best Practice is during the planning phase or during the implementation phase of your SAP solution.

How to use this Best Practice This document gives you an overview on interface monitoring tools and procedures for ALE/EDI monitoring. The aim is not to name all available monitors and tools but to focus on the more suitable monitors and tools for each of the aspects discussed. After having got a general idea on monitoring possibilities you should evaluate which are the critical error situations in your system landscape and individually decide which monitoring procedure is suitable in your case. We do not recommend setting up a full blown monitoring but recommend concentrating on selective alert situations that will inform you in exceptional cases. In the next step you can follow the setup procedure and implement the monitoring on your systems. In case of business process related monitoring objects you have the possibility to setup a business process monitoring focused monitoring concept and involve your application teams in monitoring and error resolution activities. For a better understanding on what should be monitored it is essential to understand the ALE processing mechanism. The first section is supposed to give you a general overview on ALE/EDI and introduces to you the automated ALE monitoring functionality within SAP Solution Manager using the example business process “Processing Purchase Orders”. Sections 2 to 6 list monitoring objects both for manual as well as automated monitoring procedure concentrating on the six major areas: Resource Monitoring, Error Monitoring, Backlog Monitoring, Performance Monitoring and Data Management. The monitoring object tables list the following information:

o Monitoring object o Monitoring transaction or tool o Monitoring frequency o Indicator for an issue or error o Monitoring activity or error handling procedure o Responsibility o Escalation Procedure

The last section Generic Part includes information on scenario independent tools, for example performance monitoring.


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1.2Best Practice Procedure 1.2.1Motivation for Interface Monitoring Today’s system landscapes are often decentralized and can consist of various interfaces. Different SAP systems, legacy environments and business entities are integrated using different interface technologies. All those interfaces need to be monitored in terms of resource availability, processing errors, backlog situations and performance.

IT Operation relies completely on the fact of 100% data consistency. With an increased complexity of system landscapes we face an increased risk of data inconsistency. For early detection, specific data consistency reports have to be executed on a regular basis. Also detailed error handling and disaster recovery procedures need to be defined. A proactive interface monitoring helps to identify and avoid inconsistencies.

1.2.2Preliminary Tasks Before performing this Best Practice, ensure that you perform the following preliminary tasks or checks in the system: • Complete all installation and postinstallation actions and procedures including customizing • Ensure that the initial download has been successfully executed • Apply all SAP recommendations from SAP Service Sessions and any SAP recommendations

resulting from customer problem messages • Implement all current SAP Support Packages upon availability

1.2.3 Interface Monitoring concept For a successful and efficient Interface Monitoring concept, a process for the execution of the monitoring concept has to be defined. This includes the definition of the roles and responsibilities involved. It has to be defined who is supposed to carry out which activity and how is the communication between the different roles within the support organization supposed to take place. An Interface Monitoring concept has to be tightly integrated with the support organization. This includes the integration with the Incident/Problem Management process and the Change Management process. These processes have to be adjusted so that communication and escalation procedures contained within these processes are adequate to support the Interface Monitoring concept. This includes the final communication of open alerts to SAP. Wherever communication connected with Interface Monitoring happens outside these support processes, separate communication and escalation paths and procedures have to be defined. See the separate Best Practice for General Business Process Management for further details.

1.2.4 Legend

This symbol indicates you a paragraph from where you can navigate to another section of this document for more detailed information on a topic.

This symbol indicates you a paragraph from where you can navigate to another document within the SAP Service Marketplace for more detailed information on a topic.


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1.3General Overview on ALE/EDI 1.3.1ALE (Application Link Enabling) Application Link Enabling (ALE) is the technology used by SAP within one company to support distributed business processes across separate application components within the company’s landscape. ALE uses the business scenarios and function modules that allow transfer data to or from an SAP system without developing customerspecific programs. ALE is linked closely with Workflow Management within SAP. The data is not only transferred between the systems; in addition it can also trigger followup actions in the SAP system. From the SAP viewpoint, the following data can be exchanged via ALE:

• Transaction data, which is data from applications • Master data, such as customer or material master data • Customizing data used for an overall ALE view

Data can be exchanged between SAP Systems and external (nonSAP) systems. The following functions and interfaces form the basis of communication:

• ALE with all its components such as monitoring, archiving, • Usage of the data container called Intermediate Document (IDoc) • Transactional RFC (tRFC)

1.3.2EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) EDI is a standard format for exchanging business data. It describes the document exchange with business partners on a technical level. With EDI the technical structure of the document is retained. EDI describes the mapping of the application data structure from the sender into the EDI standard, and from the EDI standard into the application data structure of the recipient. This enables the recipient to automatically process the document by his business software. The standard is ANSI X12 and it was developed by the Data Interchange Standards Association. ANSI X12 is either closely coordinated with or is being merged with an international standard, EDIFACT.

1.3.3 IDocs IDocs are predefined data structures of SAP applications at the interface level. IDoc types form the container for the data to be exchanged. Each application has a special set of IDoc types, which provides data to be exchanged. IDocs can be used to exchange data between two R/3 systems or between R/3 and an external system (non SAP). Instead of calling a program in the destination system directly (RFC), the data is first packed into an IDoc and then sent to the receiving system, where it is analyzed and properly processed. IDoc data exchange is always an asynchronous process.

When communicating with an external system (non SAP) an EDI converter or subsystem such as Gentran receives the EDI messages in standardized format (such as EDIFACT), and then converts it to the IDoc format supported by SAP for further processing.

ALE enables a controlled exchange of Intermediate Documents (IDocs) between application systems and is used for:

• Separation and integration of operational units • Master and transactional data • Exchange with Business Partners via EDI


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Figure 11 Application Link Enabling / IDoc flow

1.3.4Change Pointers: If you want to distribute master data changes with the SMD tool (Shared Master Data), changes to the master data objects are flagged for distribution by change pointers ( → Master Data Distribution). Change pointers are basically the key fields of the table that contains the changed field. In ALE Customizing, customers can specify the fields that need to be distributed.

The SMD tool is connected to the change document interface. If the master data changes are to be distributed (defined in ALE customizing), the application writes a change document. The contents of this are passed to the SMD tool. The tool writes change pointers, reads the application data and creates the master IDoc. The master IDoc is then passed to the ALE layer, which sends it to all interested systems.

1.3.5ALE Processing Modes There are two basic ways to send IDocs via tRFC (ALE) or via flat file (EDI). The method of sending is determined by the port type and depends on the technical configuration of the target system. It is configured using transaction WE21 (ports in IDoc processing). The port type is specified in transaction WE20 (partner profiles) choose partner and select relevant outbound parameter.

Figure 12 Transaction WE20 ALE processing mode

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005/helpdata/en/0b/2a61bd507d11d18ee90000e8366fc2/content.htm

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005/helpdata/en/0b/2a6196507d11d18ee90000e8366fc2/content.htm


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1.3.5.1 ALE tRFC Most common between R/3 systems is the (asynchronous) transactional RFC interface (standard ALE scenario)

Integrated business processes across distributed systems within one company Example: replication of master data between several SAP Systems Distribution of master data, transactional data, and control data This occurs during application Customizing

The advantages of transactional Remote Function Calls (tRFC) over synchronous and asynchronous RFCs are:

The calls are buffered, even if the recipient partner is not active. When the partner is available again, a new attempt can be made to transfer the data.

If an SAP system receives the data, the requests are handled as transactions. This means that all functions called in one tRFC are either processed together or not at all.

Each tRFC is sent exactly once, so that there are no accidental double postings of application data.

All erroneous attempts to post data are displayed in the tRFC monitor.

1.3.5.2 EDI Flat File

Most common between R/3 system and EDI subsystem is the flat file interface (standard EDI scenario). An EDI subsystem/converter maps IDocs to international standard formats

SAP systems use Intermediate Document (IDoc) format to store application documents for transfer

Examples of standard formats: UN/EDIFACT, ANSI X.12

1.3.5.3 Processing Modes Processing in the application layer and the ALE layer are completed on both the outbound and inbound processing sides. The communication layer transfers the data by transactional Remote Function Call (tRFC) or by EDI file interface to the receiving system where it can be posted.

Outbound and Inbound IDocs can either be processed individually (immediate transfer) or as a collection/package using a background job. This setting is made in the partner profile using transaction WE20.

1.3.5.3.1 Outbound IDoc Processing Transaction WE20 → Partner Profiles → Select the relevant Partner → Select the relevant Outbound Parameter.


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Figure 13 Transaction WE20 – Partner profile outbound

When the output mode “Tars Immediately” is activated, IDocs are transferred immediately to the receiver system as soon as IDocs are created. There is a performance overhead associated to this technique as a new connection is opened for each IDoc sent, in addition the same programs, user contexts, and database tables are read multiple times. If immediate processing is implemented, the sender also has to wait for an acknowledgement about the success of the processing from the receiver. This could cause performance problems especially if runtime is quite long in the receiving system and could lead to backlogs if the sender is restricted in his parallel processing capabilities.

It is recommended where possible (business requirements may dictate that immediate processing is required) to use the output mode “ Collect IDocs” . With the output mode “Collect IDocs” IDocs are collected and set as a package to the receiving system; this can save processing time because it usually avoids the overhead of opening multiple connections (only one connection opened per package) and loading the programs and user contexts, avoids reading common database tables from disk several times and so on.

In addition to setting the collect flag “ collect IDocs” the report RSEOUT00 needs to be scheduled on a regular basis as a background job (TA SM36). Using this report you can enter the maximum number of IDocs that should be transferred before a COMMIT WORK is set and the IDocs become blocked. If too high a number for “max number of IDocs” is selected, it can lead to runtime errors (for example Timeouts). In this case, you must choose a lower value.

Packet Size: A general recommendation is between 50 and 100. However, it depends on a number of factors like size of the IDocs (in case of large IDocs a small package size is better) or network bandwidth. The packet size that suits best for a given interface should be carefully investigated using test runs or alternatively as part of an SAP Interface Management Optimization service.

For more information visit: http://service.sap.com/ifm ).

http://service.sap.com/ifm


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Figure 14 Report RSEOUT00


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1.3.5.3.2 Inbound IDoc Processing: Transaction WE20 → Partner Profiles → Select the relevant Partner → Select the relevant Inbound Parameter.

Figure 15 Transaction WE20 – Partner Profile inbound

Trigger Immediately: Upon receipt inbound IDocs are immediately released for posting. ALE inbound processing splits the IDoc packets into individual IDocs; this results in an overhead such as,. the same programs, user contexts, and database tables are read multiple times.

Trigger by Background Program It is important to note that if the receiver system uses 'trigger immediately' option, whether IDocs are processed in the package or not depends on the character of the Inbound function module (if function module supports mass processing or not is defined in transaction BD51). If mass processing is not supported, IDocs will be posted one by one.

Inbound IDocs and IDoc packets are first saved in the database into single IDocs. Single IDocs can be put into packets and then processed this functionality is provided by report RBDAPP01, which allows you to specify the package size for the RFC call. This type of package processing is valid for all IDoc types as there are no special requirements for the inbound function module. However there is limited optimization potential here as a commit is triggered for every processed IDoc because the ALE layer calls the function module several times in the same dialog process. This does however reduce the administrative load on the R/3 System because if packaging was not implemented, each IDoc would be processed in a new dialog process meaning, the same programs, user contexts, and database tables are read multiple times.

If you use function modules that can process IDocs in mass, this has a significant optimization potential as overhead is reduced significantly. This type of package processing can be used depending on the configuration of the Inbound function module used for an IDoc. This can be checked via transaction BD51. If the input type value is set to ‘0’ the function module is enabled for mass processing. In this case, one commit is triggered for all IDocs belonging to a packet. It offers additional


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optimization potential apart from the loading of the programs and users contexts and avoids reading the common database.

It is recommended where possible (business requirements may dictate that immediate processing is required) to use the inbound processing mode “Trigger by background program”.

To do this carry out the steps below in ALE Customizing:

1. Set up background processing: TA WE20 → Partner Profiles → Select the relevant Partner → Select the relevant Inbound Parameter

Inbound processing mode should be set to: “Trigger by background program”

2. Schedule posting and configure packaging: Create variants of report RBDAPP01 and schedule as required using transaction SM36. To specify a package size use field pack size. As a guide, you should use a packet size of between 20 and 100 IDocs.

Figure 16 Report RBDAPP01 Additionally, ensure that separate batch jobs for report RBDAPP01 are scheduled with variants that include all IDocs that are set to immediate processing; not just those that are set to be ‘triggered by a background program’. This leads to a tighter control on the handling of the incoming IDocs. (IDocs are configured to be posted immediately but if no free dialog work processes are available when Inbound IDocs are created they will remain unprocessed with status 64. IDocs will not be processed unless report RBDAPP01 is scheduled.)


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Figure 171 Report RBDAPP01 – Parallel processing

As illustrated above report RBDAPP01 can be configured to facilitate parallel inbound processing. Parallel processing can be used to improve performance and spread the load to a specific group of application servers. If the indicator “Parallel Processing Active” is set then the inbound processing of the application uses one free dialog process for each IDoc packet on the application server ('asynchronous RFC' is used for this). This means that the packets can be processed in parallel. If several IDoc packets have been selected, then the IDoc processing can occupy all the dialog processes on the application server. If the indicator is not set then the IDocs will not be processed in parallel. This means that each packet will be passed to the application in turn. Only one work process will be used for this action on the application server.

The input field server group defines the RFC Server group which will be used by the report in parallel processing. Server groups are set up using transaction RZ12 below.

Figure 182 Transaction RZ12 – RFC Server Group Maintenance

Application servers in a server group can be used in parallel for updating IDocs in the background. There might be only one application server in a server group, however we recommend that you have multiple application servers configured for a server group so that the load can be balanced between the servers of a server group and also it improves availability.

By default, a parallelprocessed job uses all qualified servers in an SAP System according to automatic resourceallocation rules. However, by defining RFC groups, you can control which servers can be used for parallelprocessed jobs. An RFC group specifies the set of allowed servers for a particular parallelprocessed job. If you do not specify a server group, all dialog processes in the SAP system are used in parallel. This could result in resource shortages in the application servers.


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Generally, SAP recommends (if resources allow) to have a dedicated group of servers to handle RFC communication and to have separate servers for DIALOG end users. If however, resources are not available, it is also possible to limit the amount of resources used by RFC by limiting the resources of the RFC server group – current resource configuration can be checked by double clicking the Group. (See figure 163 below).

Figure 193 Transaction RZ12 – Determination of resources

You can assign the above RFC resource parameters to these RFC server groups to limit the load generated from RFCs within an SAP system as described in SAP Notes 74141 and 99284

Note: To implement packaging of IDocs for a flat file (using file port such as,. EDI), it must be verified in advance that the middleware/target system can handle files that include multiple IDocs. In addition a fixed file name should not be used as there is the risk that a file that has not yet been processed will be overwritten in the target system. Therefore the file port (WE21) should be configured to use a function module which generates dynamic file names such as, using a unique number (for example, IDoc number, MSGGUID or original application document number, and so on.). A timestamp would not suffice because if parallel processing was activated there is a possibility of the same timestamp being generated for two different files thus one will overwrite the other.


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1.4Example Business Scenario with ALE For the different aspects of interface monitoring the SAP Solution Manager can be used. In this section we provide you an overview on its functionality with reference to the following example business scenario: PC Express is a midsize company. Its main business is buying PC components, composing them to preconfigured PCs and selling them within Europe. The sales department is divided between Great Britain, other EU countries and non EU European Countries. One of their core business processes is named “Processing Purchase Orders” and is maintained within the SAP Solution Manager.

Figure 110 Business Process: Processing Purchase Orders

In the business process “Processing Purchase Orders” IDocs of message type ‘MATMAS’ (Material Master) are sent from the SAP ECC sender system to the SAP MM receiver system via an ALE distribution model. To monitor the IDoc flow from endtoend the monitoring on the sending and the receiving system needs to be set up for the IDoc processing – in this example of message type ‘MATMAS’.

1.4.1 Interface Monitoring in SAP CCMS and SAP Solution Manager

For some monitoring activities it is possible to use a tool for automated monitoring. This is also possible with interface monitoring. Such automated monitoring is optimally implemented using Business Process Monitoring or System Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager. Business Process Monitoring (BPMon) within SAP Solution Manager is the proactive and process oriented monitoring of the core business processes of your company. It includes the observation of all technical and business applicationspecific functions that are required for a smooth and reliable flow of the business processes. Business Process Monitoring (BPMon) reveals even slight deviations from a predefined ideal business process state which would otherwise remain undetected until the flow of the process would be seriously impacted. It gives automated alerts including the possibility to notify these via various communication means like email, SMS and so on. Types of errors that can be monitored are for example errors from logs (system log, application log and so on), throughput and backlog KPIs for various applications, dialog performance, update errors, and so on The possibility to keep the alerts for a defined time allows to evaluate a kind of history and to identify trends in the alert occurrence at an early state.

IDoc message flow


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For further details on Business Process Monitoring refer to http://service.sap.com/bpm. Wherever monitoring via SAP Solution Manager is possible you will find a separate table, indicating the relevant automatic monitoring functionalities. The approach of this section is to outline the setup procedure for a selective interface monitoring for messages involved in your core business processes.

1.4.1.1 Standard ALE/EDI Monitoring The Interface Monitoring functionalities are based on the SAP Computing Center Management System or CCMS Alert Monitor (transaction /NRZ20) and could be used independently of the SAP Solution Manager, if needed. The standard CCMS monitors on the satellite system show an ALE/EDI IDoc Monitoring for all message types in inbound and in outbound direction. The standard monitoring group can be found in transaction /NRZ20 → SAP CCMS Technical Expert Monitors → System / All Monitoring Segments / All Monitoring Context → ALE/EDI <SID>(CLIENT) Log.sys ‘name of logical system’.

Figure 111 CCMS ALE/EDI Standard Monitoring Groups

1.4.1.2 Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring Besides the standard monitoring objects available in SAP CCMS you can setup a specific ALE monitoring. This gives you the possibility to individually monitor IDocs which refer to certain business processes. In our example IDocs of type ‘MATMAS’ are exchanged between two SAP systems. This

http://service.sap.com/bpm


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interface is part of the core business process “Processing Purchase Orders” and is a critical interface which needs to be monitored on a regular basis. The customizing of ALE/EDI monitoring objects can be done with transaction BDMO. With transaction BDMO it is possible to create new monitoring objects only for a specific message type and to activate them accordingly. This can be done either in inbound or in outbound direction or both. If two SAP systems are involved you need to do the customizing on both the sending system (outbound direction) as well as the receiving system (inbound direction). System wise, these objects are considered as customizing. Therefore, they have to be set up in the development system and from there transported via the quality assurance system to the productive system. To create a new monitoring object the button Create/activate monitoring objects in the entry screen of transaction BDMO must be used.

Figure 112 BDMO – Create/Activate Monitoring Objects

In the following screen the new entry needs to be entered and set to active.

Figure 113 BDMO – New Entry

In some cases it might be necessary to recall transaction BDMO to have the new entry available. In the entry screen it is now possible to select the newly created monitoring object. The following screen will pop up:

Figure 114 BDMO – Customize Monitoring Object

The specific message types for the inbound and/or outbound direction of an interface need to be specified. If one direction should not be monitored explicitly, it can be left blank. It is also possible to


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specify more than one message type if needed. The system type of the partner system needs to be maintained as well as the system number from the partner (see transaction WE20). In section Period you can specify the number of days for the age of the IDocs that should be included into the evaluation. In field Wait time status changes OUT or field Wait time status changes IN you can specify a waiting time in minutes to change a status. If this time has not elapsed since the last status change, the previous status is used and not the last one. Use cases might be the following:

a. Monitoring on the number of IDocs, which are in status 03 for longer than 60 minutes. Those IDocs are sometimes processed on an hourly basis. Therefore it makes sense to evaluate the IDocs in status 03 if they have not been processed since longer than 60 minutes.

b. Monitoring on the number of IDocs, which are in status 51 for longer than 30 minutes. This way the alerts are suppressed for IDocs which are “temporarily” in error status 51 because their status might be changed by the next processing retry. But if this is not the case after 30 minutes they are counted as IDocs in status 51.

In field Days until now you can specify the age for IDocs in days which won’t be included into the evaluation.

The Monitoring Object is created in a development system and is then regularly transported into the productive environment. Hence the Partner no. that is specified in the development system already has to be the connected productive system which should be monitored later on.

If the same interface should be monitored on the sending system as well as on the receiving system, it is necessary to create the respective monitoring objects on both these systems; one for the outbound direction and the other for the inbound direction. To be able to assign both monitoring objects to the same interface in the SAP Solution Manager they must have exactly the same names. To actually create the monitoring objects, then choose Monitoring Object / Start all in the entrance screen of transaction BDMO. This will create new entries in the CCMS (transaction /NRZ20) and start the data collection for the ALE/EDI alerts but just once. The scheduling of a periodic background job needs to be done on every satellite system in transaction /NRZ21 → Technical infrastructure → method execution → activate background dispatching. This way the program RBDMONI_CCMS_IDOC is scheduled in the background job SAP_CCMS_MONI_BATCH_DP, per default on an hourly basis. Depending on your requirements you can change the frequency to enable a more realtime alerting.

Test the runtime of this program during peak time and evaluate the additional system load generated before transporting to your productive system!


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After the program execution the created monitoring objects are generated in SAP CCMS:

Figure 115 ALE/EDI Specific Monitoring Objects

Area 1: IDocs are generated via change pointers. Therefore the number of open change pointers is relevant for monitoring.

Area 2: An IDoc changes its status during the message processing. In the SAP CCMS the main statuses are grouped together depending on the direction. Ø For outbound direction the following groups are available containing the listed statuses:

Ø For inbound direction the following groups are available containing the listed statuses:

Area 3: If the IDoc processing is done via tRFC you can monitor the number of remote calls waiting to be processed. The selection works for the RFC destination specified for the involved partner in the partner profile. To check the processing mode navigate to transaction WE20, select the partner number, select the message type and click on details.

Area1

Area 2

Area 3


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Figure 116 tRFC settings for ALE processing

Per default the threshold values for the SAP CCMS MTEs are usually set too high and need to be adjusted either directly within SAP CCMS or within the SAP Solution Manager.

1.4.1.3 Implement Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager The setup of interface monitoring will be done in the Setup Business Process Monitoring session. At least one business process with steps on different systems and defined interfaces must be available before it is possible to configure interface monitoring. In node Interface Monitoring all existing interfaces for the corresponding business process and the selected steps are displayed, such as, all pairs of consecutive business process steps on different systems. To customize the interface, the required interface must be selected for Monitoring. To differentiate between the interfaces, Interface Name (per default “<Sender SID>><Receiver SID>”, the Interface Technique (for example, ALE/EDI, qRFC), Initial Step (usually the business process step that sends information), Final Step (usually the business process step that receives information), Sender and Receiver (SID respectively) are displayed. The Interface Name and the Interface Technique can be changed manually.


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After saving the entries for every interface that is selected for monitoring a respective subnode Interface “<Name of the Interface>“ (<Interface Technique>) will be created.

Figure 117 Setup Interface Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager

This subnode is either used for loading Monitoring Objects from the connected local CCMS (for ALE/EDI, qRFC and tRFC this is described in the following subsections) or the subnode is empty for all other Interface Techniques.

1.4.1.3.1 Implement ALE/EDI Interface Monitoring If an interface is selected for monitoring with the Interface Technique ALE or EDI, a subnode appears: Interface “<Name of the Interface>“(<ALE or EDI>). It is now necessary to assign the previously created monitoring objects from the satellite system to the respective interface. This means that the objects must be loaded into the session. This happens with the pushbutton: Reload CCMS: ALE Mon Objects. All ALE/EDI monitoring objects available on the satellite systems (that is, Outbound objects on Sender side and Inboundobjects on Receiver side) are loaded into the session. This is not visible at first, but when the F4 value help is used for either SID or ALE Monitoring Object, then all reloaded Monitoring Objects appear and can be selected for monitoring. Copy the selected objects and save.

Figure 118 Use Value Help for ALE/EDI monitoring objects


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A new sub node, Alert Monitors, appears. All Outbound alerts for the Sender system and all Inbound alerts for the Receiver system, relating to the Monitoring Objects selected in the node above, are loaded into the session. Additionally, all the corresponding threshold values are loaded from the local CCMS. The next step is to decide what kind of alert should be selected for monitoring. To transfer the threshold values for a single line from right to left, doubleclick the copy icon between them. To transfer all the threshold values at once, select "Copy All". It is also possible to change the threshold values for the alerts manually. When saved, the new values are transferred to the local CCMS of the monitored system.

Figure 119 Selection of ALE/EDI related alerts


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2 Aspect: Error Monitoring From the previous sections, you know the general ALE processing mechanism and how to setup selective and automated IDoc monitoring within Business Process Monitoring in the SAP Solution Manager. The next sections will deal with individual aspects of interface monitoring.

Error monitoring is intended to detect critical situations and exceptional cases during interface processing. As these incidents can endanger the entire data flow between the involved systems, their identification can be extremely important and time critical. Monitoring procedures should, therefore, ensure a clear visualization and prioritization of incidents to support their fast and effective resolution.

Error Monitoring includes the monitoring of all error situations documented within the system. Error situations can be identified by the occurrence of error messages or error statuses. Each step in the processing of the IDoc has a different status number. All IDocs start with status 01 (IDoc generated) in Outbound, and the numbers from 01 to 49 are reserved for Outbound status (5099 are Inbound status). The various error statuses which can occur for outbound and inbound IDocs and which should be monitored on a daily basis, are detailed below:

Possible error statuses for Outbound IDocs

Code Description 02 Error passing data to port 04 Error within control information of EDI subsystem 05 Error during translation 07 Error during syntax check 09 Error during interchange handling 11 Error during Dispatch 15 Interchange Acknowledgement negative 20 Error triggering EDI subsystem 21 Error passing data for test 23 Error during retransmission 25 Processing despite syntax error (outbound) 26 Error during syntax check of IDoc (outbound) 27 Error in dispatch level (ALE service) 29 Error in ALE Service 30 IDoc ready for dispatch (ALE service) 31 Error no further processing 34 Error in control record of IDoc 36 Electronic signature not performed (timeout) 37 IDoc added incorrectly 40 Application Document not created in receiving system

Possible error statuses for Inbound IDocs

Code Description

51 Error: Application document not posted 52 Application document not fully posted 54 Error during formal application check 56 IDoc with errors added

57 Test IDoc: Error during application check

60 Error during syntax check of IDoc (inbound)


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61 Processing despite syntax error (inbound) 63 Error passing IDoc to application 65 Error in ALE service 68 Error no further processing

Monitoring Requirements: In a typical solution landscape, multiple systems and different interface technology are utilized. There are various tools for monitoring and problem analysis. The figure below shows the various technologies and the SAP tools we can use to monitor ALE/EDI scenarios in a solution landscape manually:

Figure 21 Standard ALE processing error monitors

Monitoring Objects: The figure below shows how data is distributed using ALE. Errors can occur at any of the 5 steps, so these steps represent our monitoring objects, that is:

• Application creates IDoc + passes it to the ALE layer (Application layer (sender system)) • Outbound processing in the ALE layer (ALE layer (Sender system)) • IDoc sent to the receiving system in the communication layer (Communication layer)) • Inbound processing in the ALE layer (ALE layer (receiver system)) • IDoc passed to the Application (Application layer (receiver system))


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Figure 22 ALE layers

2.1Manual Error Monitoring As in the above description, the following table documents the handling of errors at the five processing statuses.

Monitoring Objects w/o SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit. Freq.

Indicator or Error

Monitoring Activity or Error Handling Procedure

Respon sibility

Escalation Procedure

Check if IDocs were created successfully by ‘Application Layer’ (sender system)

BD87 As required bybusiness

IDoc in error or no IDoc created

Use BD87: enter correct date/time frame and logical message type. Double click on various statuses to get a list of IDocs. If IDoc is found in failed status, review status text for reason for failure. If IDoc is not found, check if interface is configured to collect and, if so, check if background job is running.

Business Process Operations Team / SAP Technology Operations Team

Application Management Team / Business Process Champion

IDocs in status “Error in Application Layer” (receiver system)


Existence of the following statuses: 51, 52, 54, 57,

Call transaction BD87on receiving system. Choose timeframe and various selection criteria. A list of IDocs will be displayed for various message types. It is possible to drill down to display the IDoc and its status records (by double clicking).

For IDocs in status 51 BD87 will state whether an application log exists for the IDoc. If this is the case you can drill down to display the




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IDoc. If you doubleclick on the IDoc status record, an application log pushbutton becomes available in the status record display. If no button is available, it means that a detailed log is not available. It may be possible, however, to get some information using transaction SLG1. You can specify <*IDOC NUMBER*> in field “External ID”.

IDocs in status “Error in ALE layer ” (sender system)


Existence of the following statuses: 02, 21, 26, 27, 29, 34, 37

Call transaction BD87on sender system. Choose timeframe and various selection criteria. A list of IDocs will be displayed for various message types. It is possible to drill down to display the IDoc and its status records (by double clicking). Analyze reason accordingly.



IDocs in status “Error in ALE layer ” (receiver system)


Existence of the following statuses: 56, 60, 63 , 65,

Call transaction BD87on receiver system. A list of IDocs will be displayed for various message types. It is possible to drill down to display the IDoc and its status records (by double clicking). Analyze reason accordingly



IDocs stuck in commun ication layer ”

SM58/BD 87

As required bybusiness

BD87 shows IDocs in status 03

SM58 shows tRFCs in error status

In BD87, choose timeframe and check for IDocs in status 03. If there are IDocs in status 03, ensure report RBDMOIND Is running. If report is running check transaction SM58 as below.

In SM58, choose timeframe to see a list of tRFCs with errors. Doubleclick to get more details for each tRFC.




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Error in external system


Existence of following statuses 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 11, 15, 17, 23, 36, 40

Choose timeframe and various selection criteria on the sender system and analyze the reasons in BD87.



Inbound IDocs from flat file

WE08 As required bybusiness

Was the file processed recently for directory correspond ing to active EDI scenario? If not, there is a problem.

Transaction WE08 > double click on directory check date of last processing and last IDoc/record number. If IDoc was not processed recently, test access to specified directory using transaction WE21 > choose file port and perform an access test.

In addition check for errors in BD87.



Workflow triggered by Inbound IDocs

SWI2_DI AG


If listed workitem it is in error

Call Transaction SWI2_DIAG. Choose timeframe and various selection criteria. A list of workflows will be displayed in error status. Double click on individual work items to find out why they failed



IDocs with errors

WE07 As required bybusiness

IDocs with errors

Call transaction WE07. Choose timeframe and various selection criteria to display a list of IDocs with errors. Double click to drill down to display IDoc and status records.



IDoc background jobs

SM37 Once daily

Jobs with errors

Validate using transaction SM37 that the various ALE/EDI background jobs are scheduled and are running successfully as listed below (this should be done at least once a day).




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2.2Automated Error Monitoring For details on how to setup the automated error monitoring, refer to the section Interface Monitoring in SAP CCMS and SAP Solution Manager.

Automated Monitoring Objects with SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


Outbound IDocs in status “Error in IDoc interface” (statuses: 02, 20, 21, 26, 27, 29, 34, 37)

SAP CCMS / SAP Solution Manager

Hourly IDocs in this status

Analyze the reasons in BD87



Outbound IDocs in status “Error in external system” (statuses: 04, 05, 07, 08, 09, 11, 15, 17, 23, 36, 40)






Inbound IDocs in status “Error in application” (statuses: 51, 54, 57)






Inbound IDocs in status “Error in IDoc Interface” (statuses: 56, 60, 63, 65)






Background jobs for IDoc processing listed above

SAP Solution Manager

As needed

Cancellations, Maximum duration

Analyze the reason in SM37



IDoc processing monitoring using SAP workflow

SAP Workflow

As needed

Error situations (by status)


Business Process Operations Team / SAP

Application Management Team / Business Process


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(refer to SAP note 116610)

Technology Operations Team

Champion

Update errors for transactions or programs


Hourly Update errors V1 / V2

Analyze the reasons in SM13

Business Process Operations Team


tRFC errors (refer to figure ALE/EDI Specific Monitoring Objects)


Hourly Too many remote calls waiting

SM58 Business Process Operations Team / SAP Technology Operations Team


2.3Details on IDoc Batch Job Monitoring

Confirm that the below background jobs are scheduled and are running successfully, using transaction SM37. Monitoring should include an assessment of:

• Occurrence of failed/cancelled jobs: The job logs should be investigated to determine what caused the error. Further information about the cause of the failure may be available in the system log transaction SM21.

• Job runtime: This depends on many factors (Functionality/activity of the job, hardware, system resources etc). Therefore, we cannot give exact statements about performance indicators. If a background job is deemed to be running long, investigate using the job log. It is also possible to perform an ABAP or SQL trace using transaction ST12 see

Section 7 of this document.

Typical Inbound jobs run programs:

1. RBDAPP01 (posts IDocs)

2. RBDMANI2 (posts status 51 IDocs)

Typical Outbound jobs run programs

3. RSNAST00 – WE15 (If using message control, you can check via partner profile WE20). Also, validate message control is set up properly via NACE. (Creates IDocs)

4. RSEOUT00 (sends IDocs – we14)

5. RSARFCEX (clears IDocs out of ALE/RFC layer)

6. RBDMOIND (changes IDoc from status 03 to 12)

7. RBDMIDOC (Change Pointers, can check via BD50)


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2.4Handling different error statuses ALE/EDI There are instructions below on issue resolution for the most important error statuses.

2.4.1Status 02: Error passing data to port Common causes of error:

• Access to the file system does not work, because a user has insufficient authorization to relevant directory to write a file.

• Directory might not exist • File System full.

Analysis steps/Solution: Start by checking access to the outbound directory from each application server (WE21). If there is a problem with a specific application server, then the connection from this server to the outbound directory should be checked.

Check if the directory exists and there is enough space left in the file system.

Ensure that the user has at least assigned authorization object S_DATASET, see also SAP notes 334097 and 90111.

2.4.2Status 03:

Status 03 signifies that an IDoc in the sending system has been passed to tRFC, but it has not yet been input in the receiving system, this means that the tRFC call has not yet been executed.

Common causes of error: • Report RBDMOIND not scheduled • tRFC call has failed • No ‘Commit Work’ statement has been issued in the application program which creates the

IDoc.

Analysis steps/solution: The report RBDMOIND is responsible for the status change from 03 to 12: If an IDoc has been passed to tRFC (IDoc status 03), but has not yet been transferred to the receiving system. If the report is running, but you still see a large number of IDocs in status 03 then proceed as follows: Call SM58 to analyze the problem in more detail. You should test the RFC connection. Maybe the network is down, or the receiving system does not have any dialog work processes available or there are other resource issues.

If necessary, the Gateway developer trace needs to be reviewed and/or a RFC trace needs to be created and analyzed. To do so, use the transaction SM59, (See the note 532918 for more details).

If this does not solve the problem, debug the application program that creates the IDoc.

2.4.3Status 26: Error during syntax check of IDoc (outbound) Common causes of error: IDOC configuration is not correct; this should not happen in a productive system. Processing discontinued only if “Cancel Processing After Syntax Error‘ is flagged in WE20 (Partner Profiles). The following checks are performed:

• Mandatory segment is missing • Sequence of segments in a group in which the segment appears is incorrect • More segments exist in a segment group for the IDoc as defined for the basic IDoc type


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Analysis steps/solution: • Check IDoc error status using transaction WE02/WE05 • Review IDoc structure using transaction ‘WE30’ • If necessary, debug the application transaction to the function IDOC_OUTPUT_<message

type> (in case of MC) or MASTERIDOC_CREATE_<message type>) (in case of direct outbound processing).

2.4.4Statuses 27, 29, 37: IDOC processing towards tRFC layer has problems

IDOC processing towards tRFC layer has problems.

Common causes of error: • No relevant entry in partner profile • Receiver fields in IDoc header are not filled correctly

Analysis steps/Solution: • Check IDoc error status using transaction WE02/WE05 • Review Partner Profile (WE20) and distribution model (BD64) • Check content of IDoc receiver fields in IDoc header • Debug the application program

2.4.5Status 51: Application document not posted IDoc could not be posted.

Common causes of error: • Problems within Application Customizing • Incorrect IDoc data • Programming errors

Analysis steps/Solution: • Check IDoc error status using transaction BD87/WE02/ WE05

• Check Application log: For IDocs in status 51, transaction BD87 will state whether an application log exists for the IDoc. If this is the case, you can drill down to display the IDoc. When you doubleclick on the IDoc status record, an “application log pushbutton” becomes available in the status record display. If no button is available it means that a detailed log is not available. It may be possible, however, to get some information using transaction SLG1 you can specify <*IDOC NUMBER*> in field “External ID”.

• Debug the application, by setting a breakpoint in the relevant IDoc inbound function module (WE20)

• If IDocs are in status 51, you can try to reprocess the IDocs:

o Automatic reprocessing RBDMANI2: You can use the report RBDMANI2 to resubmit the IDoc. The program can also be scheduled as a periodic job, to collect IDocs that could not be posted because of a lock problem. This does not relieve you of monitoring the IDocs to make sure that no other errors are present.

o Resending IDoc: Check if the error can be resolved by changing the businessrelated objects. If this is possible, you can reprocess the IDoc. If the error cannot be corrected, then a new IDoc has to be created and the “old” IDoc has to marked for deletion.

o Manually edit IDoc: Check if you can manually correct the IDoc. Keep in mind that some IDocs must not be changed according to local laws. When this is done, you can


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reprocess the IDoc. You will find more information below on reprocessing IDocs in status 51.

2.4.6Status 56: IDoc with errors added [anything missing?] Status 63: Error passing IDoc to application

Common causes of error: • Missing Inbound Partner Profile or inbound parameters are not defined in the inbound partner

profile. • IDoc contains characters that are not compatible with internal character set • Error in ALE service

Analysis steps/Solution: • Check status error message in transaction BD87 or WE02/WE05 • Add or change Inbound Partner profile • Create conversion rule • Automatic reprocessing using report RBDAGAI2

2.4.7Status 60: Error during syntax check of IDoc (inbound) Processing is discontinued, only if “Cancel Processing After Syntax Error” is flagged in partner profile (transaction WE20).

Common causes of error: • Mandatory segment is missing • Sequence of segments in a group in which the segment appears is incorrect • More segments exist in a segment group for the IDoc as defined for the basic IDoc type

Analysis steps/Solution: • Check IDoc error status using transaction BD87 or WE02/WE05 • Review IDoc structure using transaction ‘WE30’ • In the case of EDI, analyze the structure of the IDoc file and check how the sender system fills

the parameters IDOC_CONTROL_REC_40 and IDOC_DATA_REC_40 of function module ‘IDOC_INBOUND_ASYNCHRONOUS’

• Automatic reprocessing using RBDSYNEI

2.4.8Status 65: Error in ALE service Common causes of error: Filtering does not work

Analysis steps/Solution: • Check IDoc error status using transaction BD87 or WE02/WE05 • Review ALE customizing using transaction ‘SALE’ • Automatic reprocessing using RBDAGAI2


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2.4.9Reposting of IDocs in Status Error

Figure 23 Transaction BD87

In the status monitor (BD87), you can choose a particular IDoc to try to reprocess it. If you rightclick, you can choose between Process or Restrict and process. If you choose process, you restart the processing of the IDoc(s). If you choose, Restrict and process, you have to make a few more choices, as shown in the figure below.

Figure 24 BD87 Manual IDoc processing

You can further restrict the IDocs you wish to process in this screen. Use the execute button at the top to begin processing. If Bkgd processing is unchecked, you can see the window below. This choice gives you more options to process the IDoc. Process starts the processing of the selected IDoc(s). Delete flag sets the IDoc status to 68, meaning that the IDoc has an error and does not need to be processed again, but can be archived or deleted. IDoc display shows you the payload of the IDoc. ALE/EDI Interface Management.


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Figure 25 BD87 Display Status Records

If you click IDoc display, you will see the current information on the IDoc. To display the errors in the IDoc, click the Segments with errors button. The next figure shows you a sample error.

Figure 26 BD87 – Display Status Records

Figure 27 BD87 – Display Data Records

Analyze the error situation. Check if the error can be resolved by changes in the businessrelated objects so that the IDoc can be reprocessed correctly. If this is not possible, you need to decide what the next steps are: • Either resend corrected data from the sending system and then mark the IDoc for deletion or


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• Manually process the IDoc by entering the corrected IDoc data directly into the appropriate SAP application transaction. Then, mark the IDoc for deletion. Please keep in mind that this is an either or activity, you can’t do both!

The appropriate agent also probably needs to decide what steps need to be taken.

Figure 28 BD87 – Delete Flag

By clicking the Delete flag button, you mark the IDoc for archiving or deletion. The status for this is 68. This denotes the fact that the document had an error, was deleted and does not need any further processing. If the IDoc is of type Master data, it is quite easy to resend a new master data IDoc. It is defined in a central system; therefore, we can set the deletion flag and send a new IDoc. However, if the IDoc contains transactional data, it may not be so easy to resend the IDoc. In this case, it is recommended to correct the errors first (that is, customizing error or missing data). After the IDoc is corrected, the IDoc should be reprocessed and should not be deleted.

The other option is to modify the IDoc:

Figure 29 BD87 – Status change after deletion

If the IDoc does not contain legally binding data; that is, data that must not be changed according to the local countries law, you have the option to change the data so that it will be processed the next time. You can edit the IDoc content manually by clicking on the ‘notepad’ icon in front of the segment. Then you switch to change mode by clicking Data record > Display > Change. Once the changes have been made, you can reprocess the IDoc again. To give you a little more understanding on the procedure, we would like to explain a little about what happens in SAP ERP. When you reprocess an IDoc, the following things happen in the system: A copy is created of the org. IDoc. (This is done for documentation purposes). This copy has either status 33 (sender) or 70 (receiver). In addition to this, the copy can not be processed! The original copy gets status 32 (sender) or 69 (receiver). A status record is also created with 32 (sender) or 69 (receiver) and its long text contains the IDoc number of the IDoc copy.


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3 Aspect: Backlog Monitoring Backlog monitoring enables you to monitor the number of messages that are processed, or have not been processed in a defined time window. Based on this information, reporting on the interface throughput can be set up. This might serve as an indicator of delays in business critical data flows, as well as an indicator for interacting applications, in case the data volume processed exceeds or falls below defined threshold values. This gives the corresponding organizational units the time necessary to adapt their operations to the upcoming increase or decrease of unfilled work items.

Backlog situations for IDocs in nonerroneous statuses can also indicate severe error situations in the ALE processing.

3.1Manual Backlog Monitoring Monitoring Objects w/o SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


tRFC Queue SM58 As required bybusiness

Slow processing

Call transaction SM58 and specify timeframe. Choose execute, look at number of entries in table. Investigate reason for IDoc being stuck in the tRFC queue.

Specifically look out for function module IDOC_INBOUND ASYNCHRONOUS which is used to transfer the IDoc to the target system. If you see many entries in the tRFC queue, which utilize this function module, analyze why tRFC has not been processed. Status text “Transaction recorded’ indicates lack of resources in the target system

Ensure that background job RBDMOIND is scheduled and running successfully



IDoc display BD87 As required bybusiness

Slow processing

In cases were IDocs are configured to be sent/posted immediately. Call transaction WE02/WE05. Choose various selection criteria and execute. Double click on status




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records of IDoc for technical information. On tab “Technical info” compare timestamps for various statuses.

See section 3.2.1 below for example.

If processing is found to be slow, use techniques detailed in Section 7 of this document to investigate reason for slow processing.

Background jobs

SM37 As required bybusiness

Slow processing

When IDocs are posted by a background job i.e. with the report RBDAPP01, you can check the processing time from the job duration using transaction SM37. Specify the selection criteria and execute, the Job log will show how many IDocs where posted. From the number of posted IDocs and the job duration, you can figure out the throughput. In case Parallel processing is in use SAP Note 547253 must be implemented. (This strategy can also work with outbound jobs such as RSEOUT00, RSNAST00 and RBDMIDOC but outbound processing is normally quite fast). If processing is found to be slow, use techniques detailed in

section 7 of this document to investigate reason for slow processing.




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3.2Examples of Backlog Analysis techniques 3.2.1Single IDoc time stamp analysis

In cases were IDocs are configured to be sent/posted immediately. Use transaction WE02/WE05 to select an IDoc and display its status records as below, The status 50 shows that the IDoc has been added to the application and status 53 is when the IDoc has been posted. Subtracting the difference between the timestamps gives the processing duration. If you find that the IDoc processing has taken to long use techniques described in section 7 of this document to analyze reasons it may be of benefit to trace the inbound processing function module i.e. IDOC_INBOUND_ASYNCHRONOUS.

Fig 31 Single IDoc time stamp analysis


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3.3Automated Backlog Monitoring Depending on your ALE customizing and the IDoc processing, different IDoc statuses can be considered responsible for backlog situations, if their processing doesn’t start in time. The most common statuses therefore, are 03, 30 and 64. A large number of IDocs does not necessarily indicate a backlog situation in the IDoc processing. Therefore, the length of time that the IDoc has been in a certain status needs be considered. With field “Wait time status changes OUT” or field “Wait time status changes IN” you can specify the time which is uncritical for an IDoc to be in a certain status. For details refer to section Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring. If the IDocs are processed by background jobs, their cancellation or long runtimes can be the reason for backlog situations in the IDoc processing. Therefore, background job monitoring can be a better option for monitoring upcoming backlogs. For details on Business Process Monitoring within SAP Solution Manager refer to the setup guides at “ http://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information“ or follow those links:

http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700006137522006E http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700006137532006E

Automated Monitoring Objects with SAP Solution Manager: Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


IDocs in status “IDoc generated” outbound (statuses 01, 25, 32, 42) [Refer to section “Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring”]


Hourly Number of IDocs in this status




IDocs in status “IDoc generated” inbound (statuses 50, 58, 61, 64, 66, 69, 70) [Refer to section “Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring”]






IDocs in status “Ready for dispatch” outbound (status 30) [Refer to section “Specific ALE/EDI Monitoring”]







http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700006137522006E



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Background jobs for IDoc processing listed above


As needed

Cancellations, Maximum duration, Start delay, Out of time window, Job Logs, Parallel Processing


SAP Technology Operations Team

SAP Technology Operations Team / Application Management Team


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4 Aspect: Performance Monitoring This section will give you some suggestions on how to monitor your systems’ performance for ALE/EDI. The first step is to understand that we actually need to look at least two systems, depending on the landscape and solution. Optimization steps may need to be done in two systems. The performance of ALE depends on many factors (type of business process, number of messages, activities running on the distributed systems, hardware, and so on).

Performance monitoring enables you to monitor for the interface performance and compare it with predefined key performance indicators. Proactively applied performance monitoring notifies you in situations of reduced interface throughput, which, in turn, can avoid backlog situations for performance critical interfaces. Reactive performance monitoring allows for the documentation of the service level delivered.

Monitoring Requirements: The first step in measuring Performance is to have a baseline to measure against. There are different ways of using IDocs there is really no simple way to define what is a good performance or bad performance. Therefore, the first step is defining KPIs (Key performance indicators) for the ALE/EDI interfaces. By doing so, you define what minimum performance you require. This depends on a number of factors and is based on your business needs.

All parties in the process need to adhere to these KPIs and the actions to be taken if these limits are exceeded. One way to find these KPIs is to use your QA system (or the future productive system) and measure it. These numbers might be useful in defining the KPIs. Another method is to analyze your business process. For example, if you need to send 3600 IDocs per hour (each containing the business data for one sales order), so you need to be able to process one IDoc per second. In the following sections we are going to describe some techniques which can be used to measure the performance of the ALE/EDI processing in a SAP R/3 system. There is also a SAP course called “ADM315 Workload Analysis” which covers this and many more performance monitoring topics in greater detail.

4.1Manual Performance Monitoring Monitoring Objects w/o SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


Performance of the ALE processing – General Overview

ST03N >> Workloa d Overvie w


High processing times

Call transaction ST03n > switch to Service Engineer mode and choose Workload Overview. Look at task type ALE and RFC for an overview of performance of ALE/EDI to see where time is being spent. See section 4.1.1.1 of this




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document for details.

Review section 7 of this document on how to further investigate any observed bottlenecks.

RFCs/ALE Function modules

ST03N >> RFC PROFIL ES



Analyze the performance of the various RFC function modules related to IDoc processing i.e. aRFC_DEST_E XECUTE, aRFC_DEST_S HIP, aRFC_DEST_C ONFIRM, EDI_DATA_INC OMING, INBOUND_IDO C_PROCESS, IDOC_INBOUN D_ASYNCHRO NOUS, IDOC_START_I NBOUND. See Sections 4.1.1.2 and 4.1.1.3 below for details.



RFC, Function Modules, Reports/Jobs

ST03n >> Applicat ion Statistic s



Analyze the performance of r ALE/EDI relevant transactions/rep orts to determine where time is being spent. See section 4.1.1.4 of this document for details.

Review section 7 of this document on how to further investigate any observed bottlenecks.



RFC, STAD As High Call transaction Business SAP


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Function Modules, Reports/Jobs

required bybusiness

processing times

STAD. Choose a time frame for the analysis and the ALE/EDI user. On the next screen you see a list of all the statistical records for the chosen timeframe. Select a record which utilizes ALE/RFC and is showing bad performance. Double click for detailed analysis.

Process Operations Team / SAP Technology Operations Team

Technology Operations Team

RFC, Function Modules, Reports/Jobs

ST12 As required bybusiness


Call transaction ST12 and specify various selection criteria. For further information on how to use ST12 see

section 7 of this document.


Application Management Team

Background Jobs

ST03n As required bybusiness

Slow processing

Call transaction ST03N. Switch to “Expert Mode” and choose server and from lower window choose Transaction Profile > Standard. Sort by “Task Type” Background. Use statistics to analyze any performance bottlenecks for relevant background jobs as listed in section

IDoc batch job monitoring. Further information is




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available below

in section 7.

Also see section Backlog monitoring.

4.1.1Overview of Available Tools for ALE/EDI Performance Analysis

4.1.1.1 ST03N – Workload Overview

Once the RFC and ALE/IDOC application statistics have been activated they can be used to analyze ALE/EDI performance. For a general overview of how a specific server is performing choose the relevant server that you want to analyze, time period, and then go to ‘Analysis Views’ >> Workload Overview. Look at task type ALE for an overview of performance.

Figure 41 – Workload overview with ST03N

For a more detailed analysis of ALE/EDI performance use the RFC profiles, select a specific server of interest/or select all servers (Total – as below) and choose a time period i.e. day, week, month.


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Figure 42– RFC profiles – list of called function modules

4.1.1.2 ST03n RFC Client Profile Using the RFC Client profile (choose: Analysis views > RFC profiles > Choose RFC profile: “RFC Client Profile.”) as illustrated below allows analysis of ALE/EDI communication when this particular server acted as the RFC client. Choosing the tab ‘Function Module’ displays a list of the called RFC function modules for the selected server/servers over the selected time period. As this is the RFC client we should be looking out for long connection times – this can be achieved by sorting by ‘Call Time‘ (average or total, in SAP releases NW2004 and NW2004s these columns is called ‘T Time’ and ‘Ø Time/RFC’) to get those function modules with the longest processing times at the top of the list. Detailed analysis (i.e. RFC trace) should be performed on the function modules where as a ruleof thumb the following is true: call time – execution time > 20% (i.e. >20% processing time is spent on establishing a connection). Possible reasons for long connection times include:

• Establishment of the connection takes long e.g. RFC server is overloaded or insufficient number of registrations by the RFC Server programs

• Data transfer takes too long e.g. network bandwidth or amount of data to be transferred to high

It is also possible to double click on each function module to access greater detail about the called function module – information available includes local RFC destination, target RFC destination, user who called function module, bytes sent, bytes received see figure below.

Figure 43 – RFC Client Profile

Choose a particular RFC profile i.e. Client or Server

Double click for further details


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Choosing tab ‘Transaction’ allows you to view a list of all RFC spawning transactions. Similar to above double clicking on the transaction provides further information.

4.1.1.3 ST03n RFC Server Profile Using the RFC Server profile (Analysis views > RFC profiles > Choose RFC profile: “RFC Server Profile.”) as illustrated below allows analysis of ALE/EDI communication when this particular server acted as the RFC server. Choosing the tab ‘Function Module’ displays a list of the called function modules for the selected server/servers over the selected time period. As this is the RFC server you should be looking out for high load function modules i.e. executed frequently and long running function modules. This can be achieved by sorting by ‘Number of calls‘ and ‘Total execution time‘ to get those function modules which impose most load on the RFC server.

Sort by ‘Number of RFC Calls‘: • if for example the number of calls for an ALE/EDI function modules within a certain time

frame e.g. 24 hours indicates that it is called every few seconds or with an even higher frequency it should be analyzed why it is called so often. (Maybe IDoc collection can be implemented so that function modules are not called so often.).

Sort by ‘Total execution time’: • to get those ALE/EDI function modules that cause the highest RFC load on the system –

these should be analyzed in detail using an RFC trace.

In the RFC Server Profile it is also possible to double click on each function module to access greater detail about the called function module – information available includes local RFC destination, remote RFC destination, user who called function module, bytes sent, bytes received (see figure below).

Figure 44 –RFC Server Profile

**The Function modules which you should pay particular attention to when analyzing performance of ALE/EDI include: aRFC_DEST_EXECUTE, aRFC_DEST_SHIP, aRFC_DEST_CONFIRM, EDI_DATA_INCOMING, INBOUND_IDOC_PROCESS, IDOC_INBOUND_ASYNCHRONOUS, IDOC_START_INBOUND

Double click for further details


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4.1.1.4 ST03n – ALE/IDOC Application Statistics

To see the ALE/IDOC application statistics, you need to go to the appropriate application server. When you choose the sever another window will appear in the lower right hand side and then you choose the application statistics. Then you see following figure

Figure 45 ST03n displaying Application statistics

Upon double clicking a row further details can be displayed including user who executed the report/transaction see figure below:

Fig 46 ST03n displaying Application statistics (additional details)

With the information above you can detect if there are performance problems database, ABAP. If you can find a high database time then you proceed with a SQL trace ST05 and a high CPU time proceed with the ABAP runtime analysis SE30 see section 7 of this document regarding using SE30 and ST05 .


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4.1.2Activation of Performance Monitoring With Transaction ST03N

ST03n can be used to investigate ALE/EDI performance issues within the SAP system but you have to do some configuration to enable this. The following two sections describe how to enable the monitoring and how to use the tool to monitor ALE/EDI.

In the workload monitor ST03N, you can analyze the workload caused by Function Modules relating to ALE/EDI by displaying the RFC profiles, you can answer the following questions:

• Which transaction, which function module, and which user caused what workload through RFC calls as an RFC client or an RFC server?

• What workload do the transactions, function modules, or users cause in which local or remote RFC destinations?

For transaction steps with RFC, the kernel writes subrecords with additional information about the processing time, the destination, and the function module used. The parameter stat/rfcrec (default: stat/rfcrec = 5) specifies the maximum number of subrecords of each type (RFC client, RFC server, RFC client destination, and RFC server destination) that the kernel writes. If more RFCs are performed during a transaction step, only the five calls with the longest execution time are therefore logged, which is sufficient for performance analyses. The restriction to a maximum of five records represents a compromise between the required accuracy on one side and the workload created by the performance collector on the other side. A larger value for stat/rfcrec can lead to performance problems in the collector. The RFC client and RFC server records contain data such as execution time and called function for individual RFCs. The RFC destination records contain the total of all RFC calls per destination and therefore no additional information about the called function modules.

In addition to RFC profiles it is also possible to activate ALE/IDOC application statistics. The application statistics allow you to analyze resource consumption in detail from an application viewpoint. Using special calls within the ABAP coding, the system collects statistics for individual parts of an application. While the workload statistics always analyze a complete dialog step, you can use the application statistics to analyze the resources used by an individual function within a dialog step (such as price determination).

4.1.2.1 Activating the Statistical Collectors – RFC

It is possible that no RFCstatistics are stored, as it is possible to turn them off in the system. The steps to reactivate the monitoring are different for 4.x, NW2004, NW2004s versions of SAP. Here we will describe the different methods of activation. For each system version you need to enter transaction ST03N >> Expert Mode.

a) For SAP 4.x:

In ST03N, you need to go into the collector branch > workload collector > Collector and reorg.


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Figure 47 – activation of RFC Statistics with ST03N

Push button: Modify parameters.

Figure 48 – activation of RFC Statistics with ST03N

In this screen SAP suggests that you activate all the check boxes and options. At least the "Cumulate RFC profiles"entry under "Statistical data to be cumulate & Controls for the collector" has to active. Then save the choices. In addition it is highlighted above how you can modify the residence times for statistical data.


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b) For SAP NW2004:

Call transaction ST03N >> then Collector and Performance DB

Figure 49 – Activation of RFC Statistics with ST03N

In all the mentioned sub screens you have the choice to use the SAP Defaults button. This option will set the parameters to values which are suggested by SAP. Make sure to note which parameters you modified in the system. As everything you have set manually will be erased by the defaults.

Choose Performance Database > Reorganization here you can modify all the settings relating to the retention times of performance data.

Figure 410 – ST03n Retention time for per formance data

Next choose Workload Collector >> Control Data. In this screen you can choose how much data is stored on the local file system. Be aware that there is no exact information on how large the files can get, so please make sure that you have enough disk space available for these logs.


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Figure 411 – ST03n Retention of statistic files

Next choose Workload Collector Database>> Statistics to Be Created, here you can choose what data is stored in the system. SAP suggests activating all the checks, but the RFC statistics is the minimum which should be activated.

Figure 412 ST03N – Selection of data to cumulate


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c) For SAP NW2004s:

Call transaction ST03N >> then Collector and Performance DB

Figure 413 – Activation of RFC Statistics with ST03N

In all the mentioned sub screens you have the choice to use the SAP Defaults button. This option will set the parameters to values which are suggested by SAP. Make sure to note which parameters you modified in the system. As everything you have set manually will be erased by the defaults.

Choose Performance Database > Reorganization here you can modify all the settings relating to the retention times of performance data.

Figure 414 – ST03n Retention time for per formance data

Choose Workload Collector Database >> Reorganization > Control here you can modify all the settings relating to the retention times of aggregated performance data.


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Figure 415 – ST03n maintenance of collector parameter s (retention periods aggregated data)

Choose Workload Collector >> Instance Collector > Control here you activate collection of aggregated performance data at instance level.

Figure 416 – ST03n maintenance of collector parameter s (Instance statistics aggregation)

Choose Workload Collector >> Total Collector > Control here you activate collection of aggregated performance data at overall system level.

Figure 417 – ST03N maintenance of collector parameters (Total statistics aggregation)

The parameter stat/rfcrec which controls the number of RFC subrecords to be generated is configured using ST03n (Expert mode) >> Collector and Performance DB >> Statistics Records and File >> Online Parameters >> Dialog Step Statistics. (This is the same procedure for all versions of SAP).


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Figure 418 – Configur ing the number of RFC subrecords

4.1.2.2 Activating the Statistical Collectors – ALE/IDOC Application Statistics

The steps to activate collection of the Application Statistics are described in this section. The first step is to “set” the ST03N to expert mode then navigate as illustrated below to Collector and performance DB >> Statistics records and file >> Online parameters >> Application statistics.

Figure 419

Then the window below is opened where you can select ALE/IDoc statistics and save the setting. This activates the monitoring for the ALE/EDI RFC functions: IDOC_INBOUND*, INBOUND_IDOC* and EDI_DATA_INCOMING. When these particular calls are made their statistics are summed up and recorded in ST03n.


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Figure 420 – Activation of application statistics

In addition to the above you need to make sure that in the corresponding instance profile the profile parameter stat/as_level is set to 1(meaning the application tracing is active, 0=not active). If there is ALE activity you can see if application statistics are being measured by checking the file called astat. Goto AL11 , choose the directory data as illustrated below.

Figure 421 – Transaction AL11 (Checking if application statistics are generated)

If the application statistics collection works properly, you will notice that the file called astat will grow. It will grow according to how much data is processed. If there is no traffic then the file remains small.What happens, is that the Kernel writes the statistics into a file called STAT. The application statistics are written into the file called astat. In addition the Job RSSTAT87 is activated, and it writes the application statistics in the table MONI. From which the ST03N can display the data.


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4.2Automated Performance Monitoring Using the SAP Solution Manager and its Business Process Monitoring functionality, you can monitor background jobs for their runtime, start delay, end delay, out of time window etc. If you need to monitor the total response time of a specific function, module or program involved in the IDoc processing, use the “Dialog Performance Monitor” in the SAP Business Process Monitoring functionality, where you can monitor for the average response times for specified function modules and/or programs. For details on Business Process Monitoring within SAP Solution Manager, refer to the setup guides at “http://service.sap.com/bpm > Media Library > Technical Information“ or follow those links:

http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700006137522006E http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700006137532006E


Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


Background jobs for IDoc processing


As needed

Maximum duration, Start Delay




Total Response time of specific function modules and/or programs


15minutes

High total response time

Analyze the reason in ST03N, STAD, ST12







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5 Aspect: Resource Monitoring Resource monitoring includes the monitoring of the availability of involved components, as well as their resource consumption. This chapter will show you how a resource monitoring for interface monitoring with ALE/IDoc scenarios could be done. In the first subsection you find possibilities on how to do a manual monitoring and error handling. The second subsection outlines possibilities for an automated monitoring.

Monitoring Requirements: To enable the successful execution of interfaces, it is important that sufficient resources are available. It is important that the following resources are monitored for availability to ensure optimal interface performance

Monitoring Objects: • Work processes • Queues • CPU • Memory • Buffers • Database

Figure 51 Resource overview in ALE processing


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5.1Manual Resource Monitoring Monitoring Objects w/o SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Indicator or Error


Responsibility Escalation Procedure

aRFC resource monitoring

SARFC Hourly during peak hours and in case of performan ceproblems or error messages

Number of aRFC resources currently available for asynchronous RFC calls

Monitor current state of individual work processes. Ensure that enough work process capacity is available at peak times.

If an application uses a lot of transactional or asynchronous RFC, this can overload the participating application servers. It is important that enough work processes are available for both Dialog users and for RFC communication.

Resource usage by RFC can be controlled using various profile parameters. See SAP Note 74141 for tuning hints regarding resource configuration for RFC



Local work process overview

SM50 Hourly during peak hours and in case of performan ceproblems or error messages

WP status, WP utilization




System wide work process

SM66 Hourly during peak hours and in case of performan ceproblems

WP status, long running jobs

Similar to SM50 but for systemwide statistics.



Work processes in target system

SM58 Hourly in case of performan ceproblems or error

Status Text shows ‘Transaction recorded’ indicates lack of resources in the

Check the target system with SM66




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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Indicator or Error



messages target system

Work processes in sender system

SMQS Hourly In case of performan ceproblems or error messages

Status of the destination ‘WAITCONN’ indicates lack of rfc resources in sending system assigned to this rfc destination

Check the number of work processes configured for this particular destination using transaction SMQS > check the value specified in column “Max. Conn” for the destination.

Check the configured number of resources dedicated to RFC against the number of available work processes on sender system by using transactions SARFC and SM50.

Decide if enough work processes are configured for destination



Outbound/i nbound Queues

SMQ1/ SMQ2

Hourly In case of performan ceproblems or error messages

Status of queues, if entries in a queue are not processed and queue remains in a certain status for more than 30mins

Refer to SAP Note 378903



System parameter s for a high interface load

SMGW & ST11

During periods of very high ALE/RFC load and or performan ceproblems

Error messages in the gateway trace or other developer traces regarding terminations i.e. SAPRC=672, R3_LOGIN_FAI LED, No wp_ca block received, No free block found in the WP Communication Area, MAX_CPIC_CLI ENTS, CONN_EXCEE DED,

Review recommendations as per SAP Note 384971




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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Indicator or Error



Operating system monitor

ST06 Hourly (dependin g on the business process) and in case of performan ceproblems

High paging rate and CPU utilization

Monitor the CPU and memory consumption. A hardware bottleneck can have a negative impact on the overall response time, as well as the response time of an individual business transaction. Monitor hardware load during high RFC transmission times especially.



R/3 System buffer monitor

ST02 Hourly In case of performan ceproblems or error messages

Swaps Monitor memory resource usage for specific R/3 application servers. To ensure optimal performance, check that the R/3 parameters are set correctly with transaction ST02. Incorrectly sized R/3 buffers or memory allocation can result in poor performance. One such example would be when a work process enter PRIV mode.



Database perform ance monitor

DB02 Weekly and in case of performan ceproblems

Table sizes, table indexes for tRFC and aRFC i.e.

Ensure that the data quality is sufficient, that there are no missing indexes, and that there is sufficient space available. In general, if table sizes are larger than 500MB, reorganize the table and decrease its size. See SAP Note 375566. Monitor the growth of tables and indexes, especially on tRFC and qRFCtables (ARFCSSTATE ARFCSDATA ARFCRSTATE) Since the tRFC and qRFC tables shrink and expand constantly, the storage quality of the indexes for these tables might be inadequate. This has a negative




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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Indicator or Error



impact on the performance

5.2Automated Resource Monitoring Many of the manual monitoring objects for the general system availability, performance and stability are available within SAP CCMS and SAP Solution Manager.

Completely automated technical resource monitoring can be performed individually, per system and instance, within the System Monitoring part of SAP Solution Manager. The setup of System Monitoring within SAP Solution Manager is done in transaction DSWP > ‘Operations Setup’ > ‘Solution Monitoring’ > ‘System Monitoring’ > ‘Setup System Monitoring’. For further information consult the following guide: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001872602002E


Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


SAP System resources: number of free work processes, dialog steps per minute CPU utilization Memory usage DB key figures etc.)

SAP CCMS / SAP Solution Manager’s System Monitoring part

15minutes

Resource shortage

Analyze the system stability and performance

SAP technology operations team




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6 Aspect: Data Management

Monitoring Requirements: The Interface relevant tables listed below have a direct impact on performance. These tables grow very quickly, and if they are not managed correctly, they can cause interface(s) to execute slowly.

Monitoring Objects: A data management strategy should be set up for the following interfacerelevant tables.

DB Table Name Table Description EDIDOC EDI intermediate document cluster EDIDC Control records (IDoc) EDID4 IDoc Data Records EDIDS IDoc Status Records EDI30C Intermediate document cluster (data records) from 3.0C

EDI40 IDoc data records for 4.0 BDCP IDoc Change pointer BDCPS IDoc Change pointer status ARFCSSTATE ARFC Call Status (Sender) ARFCSDATA ARFC Call Data (Sender) TRFCQOUT tRFC Queue (outbound) ARFCRSTATE Status of ARFC Calls on Receiver Side TRFCQDATA qRFC (inbound queue) TRFCQSTATE qRFC Call Conditions (Inbound Queue)

TRFCQIN tRFC Queue (Inbound Queue)

SWWWIHEAD Workflow Runtime: Header Table for All Work Item Types

SWWLOGHIST Workflow Runtime: History of a Work Item

SWP_HEADER Workflow Instances: Header Data of a Workflow Execution

SWP_NODEWI WF: Work items for nodes in a workflow definition

SWPNODELOG Workflow: Instance Data of Nodes of a Workflow Execution

SWPSTEPLOG Workflow: Instance Data of Steps of a Workflow Execution

SWW_CONT Workflow Runtime: Work Item Data Container

SWW_CONTOB Workflow Runtime: Work Item Data Container (Only Objects)

SWW_WI2OBJ Workflow Runtime: Relation of Work Item to Object

SWWEI Workflow Runtime: Work Items of Type E (Event Items)

SWWWIDEADL Workflow Runtime: Deadline Data for Work Items

SWWUSERWI Current Work Items Assigned to a User

a) IDoc related tables IDocs, like most other SAP objects, need to be archived regularly. Otherwise, they will use up disk space unnecessarily. Setting up an archiving plan early in the implantation phase,


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assures you of a well running system. This will reduce the size of the database considerably once the archived objects are removed.

Recommendation: Define an archiving strategy for your IDoc tables and implement using transaction SARA. Further information available at:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005vp/helpdata/en/dc/6b81ed43d711d1893e 0000e8323c4f/content.htm

Regarding reorganizing IDoc Change pointer tables run the report RBDCPCLR periodically – review the below URL for further information:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005vp/helpdata/en/12/83e03c19758e71e100 00000a114084/content.htm

The tables IDOCREL and SRRELROLES, which contain links to application documents, for example, can grow quite large and a data management strategy should also monitor and manage these tables. Report RSRLDREL can be used to remove obsolete entries from these two tables. Unlike the IDocs tables, link tables are not required to be archived before they are deleted. See SAP Note 505608 for further information.

Time stamps for Serialization at IDoc level are stored in table BDSER. This table can grow quite large. Report RBDSRCLR should be scheduled to keep this table at a manageable size. See SAP Note 752194 for further information.

b) RFC related tables For RFC tables, such as ARFCSSTATE, ARFCRSTATE, ARFCSDATA, ARFCRDATA, TRFCQOUT, TRFCQDATA, TRFCQSTATE and TRFCQIN, performance problems often occur as a result of a large number of blocks allocated for these tables, outdated statistics and poor storage quality.

Recommendation: If you find that the tables are large or have poor storage quality, you can improve performance by reorganizing these tables. Once that is complete, follow the regular maintenance steps below:

The following reports are used to delete entries from the RFC tables:

RSARFCDL: Deletes tRFC Entries from Log File. This report deletes the error log of the ARFC in the background. RSARFC01: tRFC Reorganization. RSTRFCES: Deletes ARFCSSTATE, ARFCSDATA, TRFCQOUT entried. RSARFCER: Deletes tRFC in reference to the status

Refer to SAP Note 324545 and 375566 for additional details.

These tables are considered volatile, and statistics should not be collected. Also, due to the high volume of data, and frequent changes, the indexes for these tables should be reorganized on a regular basis.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005vp/helpdata/en/dc/6b81ed43d711d1893e0000e8323c4f/content.htm

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005vp/helpdata/en/12/83e03c19758e71e10000000a114084/content.htm


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c) Workflow related tables

The work item tables can grow quickly (tables included are SWWWIHEAD, SWW*). Even if you are not explicitly using workflow for the IDocs, ALE/EDI can create work items.

Recommendation: Reorganize the work items. The archiving object is WORKITEM. See SAPHELP for further information on archiving work items:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/8d/3e704c462a11d18900000 0e8323d3a/frameset.htm

For workflow tables i.e. SWWW* schedule relevant house keeping jobs or set up archiving using transaction SARA (SAP Note 49545 explains how to delete unnecessary work items).

In the following bestpractice document, you will find standard recommendations on the topic data management and specific recommendations for different DB tables including interfacerelated DB tables: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700005044382000E or visit quicklink http://service.sap.com/ilm.

6.1Manual Data Volume Monitoring Monitoring Objects without SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


Table Growth DB02, DB15

Daily Table sizes and free DB space

Analyze the reasons for the DB growth in transactions DB02 and DB15. Specifically look out for interface tables listed above.



6.2Automated Data Volume Monitoring Automated Monitoring Objects with SAP Solution Manager Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monit Freq.

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility


DB growth (CCMS[transaction RZ20] > DB

SAP CCMS / SAP Solution Manager’s

Daily Free DB space

Analyze the reasons for the DB

SAP Technology Operations

SAP Technology Operations

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/8d/3e704c462a11d189000000e8323d3a/frameset.htm


http://service.sap.com/ilm


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administration > Data archiving)

System Monitoring

growth in transaction DB15, DB01

Team Team / Application Management Team

7 Generic Part on System Monitoring In this part of the ALE Monitoring Best Practice, you will find information about common monitoring activities that are not specific to special business process steps. The following topics are covered:

• Performance Monitoring • General Monitoring Guidelines for a SAP System

These sections are referenced in the corresponding business process steps of the scenario specific parts above.

7.1Performance Monitoring In this section, you will find the description of a general procedure for monitoring the performance of your SAP system. The different transactions that are mentioned in the procedure are described in detail below. Please keep in mind that this is general information.

Please also consider the training BC315 Workload Analysis. This course covers topics like workload monitor, statistical records, expensive SQL statements, memory management, database monitor and buffer analysis among others.

7.1.1General information As part of the daily monitoring activities of your SAP system, you should not only watch system availability, system resource consumption and middleware queues (among others), but also the performance of your SAP system. There are several transactions available with which you can monitor the average performance of the system and analyze the causes of poor performance. Poor performance of a system is generally equal to extremely high response times. This may be related to long lasting transactions steps (dialog steps), background jobs running too long, etc.

The response time of a transaction step is the difference in time between the point when the request arrives in the SAP System and the point when the SAP System completes the processing. In addition to this measurement of time, other times, such as waiting times or database times, are still measured in SAP. If you subtract these components from the response time, this leaves the processing time which cannot be measured directly. ABAP programming code is processed during the processing time.

Definitions of the most important components of the Response time:

Time in work process Time actually spent in the work process (after the dispatcher has found a free work process)

Wait time The dispatcher is waiting for a free work process (= dispatcher queue). CPU time It is only given as a sum per transaction step in the workload statistics DB time Time for accessing and waiting for the database interface, and therefore for

the underlying database Load/Generating time Time for loading/generating screens, ABAP programs, and CUA elements (not

for presentation). Rollin time Time for rolling in the roll area context of a dialog step Enqueue time Time for setting a logical SAP enqueue Processing time This time is calculated as follows:

Processing time = Response time Wait time Load/Generating time DB time Rollin time Enqueue time

Important: the CPU time should not be added to the above times as it is a total, consisting of parts of the times listed above that cannot be calculated. CPU time is returned by the operating system. The accuracy of the reported value depends on the timer of the operating system (under UNIX, for example, the timer works with 100 Hz so that the CPU time is reported as a multiple of 10 ms). Due to


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this rough resolution of the CPU time, it is possible that a slightly longer CPU time is displayed for a dialog step than for the response time. The RollOut time is not part of the response time, as it only occurs after the data is transferred to the presentation server. The Roll wait time is the time a work process is waiting for the response of a RFC. The Roll wait time is processed on a client, whereas the user context is in the roll area. Therefore, neither resource is used up nor does a bottleneck occur here for high Roll wait time. High Roll wait times occur frequently. This may be caused by calls of Windows or other external applications from within the R/3 System. The application of the RFC is started here. The user context enters the roll areas and roll wait time is processed until the application is exited, that is, the RFC connection is cancelled. The transaction step is only exited at this point. They also occur when the R/3 System communicates with the frontend controls. While the data on the frontend is being processed, the R/3 context is rolled out, thus releasing the work process. This can occur several times during a transaction step. If frontend Office applications such as Microsoft Word are started and closed, only after a long time (several minutes), a very long Roll wait time occurs here also. Roll wait is not part of the response time for transaction steps of task type RFC. This is because no resource use occurs for the application server.

7.1.2Procedure The following table gives you an overview of which transaction you use for which purpose during performance monitoring and a first analysis of performance problems.

Transaction Trans. Code Use for … Use when?

Workload monitor ST03N

General performance overview for the different task types and analysis of system workload

Daily (e.g. 3 times) and upon performance problems

Workload / statistical records

STAD Detailed performance monitoring of a short time frame, a single user or a specific transaction or program

When performance problems occur

Performance trace ST05

SQL trace of a specific step, short sequence of steps or part of a long running job

When performance problems occur with high DB times

ABAP runtime analysis

SE30

Getting an overview of the duration and performance of the source code, from individual statements up to complete transactions

When performance problems occur with high CPU times

Single Transaction Analysis

ST12

Get an overview on the time distribution (DB, CPU, which Function Module or SQL statement etc.)

When performance problems occur with high DB or CPU times

Key performance indicators Performance monitoring is most useful if you have previously defined key performance indicators. Generally speaking, Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. In this case, we refer to the system response time for single dialog steps of your core business process(es), for transactions or background jobs. The key performance indicators should be agreed on by the business departments and the systems administrators (happy medium between what is needed for business reasons and what is achievable from the system side). It is also important to use the right granularity for KPIs. There is no need to define a KPI for the response time of each and every step in the process, but it important that they are not defined in a too general way (e.g. less than 2 sec for each dialog step) as this might be too tight or too wide for specific needs. Furthermore, performance monitoring should not only refer generally to a task type, but should rather go one or to steps further into single transactions or even steps. For example: Company ABC is using the call center scenario for inbound calling and also using the marketing scenario to create target groups via infoset or BW queries. As the call center agents need very good response times for business partner searches in order to answer a call, and the queries for large target groups may take several seconds, it is not recommended that company ABC just monitors the average response time for dialog transactions. They should, instead, monitor on transaction or even on dialog step level.

Daily monitoring of system performance and the compliance of the response times to the established KPIs should be done using the workload monitor (transaction ST03N). This monitor provides an


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overview of the response times and the components (CPU time, DB time, Wait time, etc). In case of performance problems, you should use this and other transactions for a deeper analysis:

• If a single user reports problems, use transaction STAD to find what part of the response time is particularly high in his case. Compare it with other users to see if it is an isolated problem. Continue the analysis depending on the result.

• If a single dialog step (one step within a transaction) has a bad performance, use transaction STAD to find what part of the response time is particularly high in this case. Continue the analysis depending on the result.

• If you have a general performance problem, use the system monitors to check resource consumptions. Use the time profile of transaction ST03N to check if performance has been decreasing over time or if there are peaks. Use the user profile for a comparison among different users and user groups, if you follow a useful naming convention.

• Get a performance trace (transaction ST05) if you find that the performance problems are related to high DB times. Get an ABAP runtime analysis (transaction SE30) if you find that the performance is related to high CPU or high processing times.

• In case you can not find the cause of the performance problem or need further assistance for the analysis contact the next support level or open an OSS message on component XXSER TCC.

7.1.3Transaction ST03N Transaction ST03N is a very powerful transaction with lots of functions. Therefore, we can only mention a few here, based on what is important for performance monitoring. The workload monitor is used to analyze statistical data from the SAP kernel. When analyzing the performance of a system, you should normally start by analyzing the workload overview. For example, you can display the totals for all instances and then compare the performances of individual instances over specific periods of time. You can quickly determine the source of possible performance problems using the large number of analysis views and the determined data.

You can use the workload monitor to display the: • Number of configured instances for each SAP R/3 System • Number of users working on the different instances • Distribution of response times • Distribution of workload by transaction steps, transactions, packages, subapplications, and

applications • Transactions with the highest response time and database time • Memory usage for each transaction or each user per dialog step • Workload through RFC, listed by transactions, function modules and destinations • Number and volume of spool requests • Statistics about response time distribution, with or without the GUI time • Workload and transactions used listed by users, payroll number, and client • Workload generated by requests from external systems

For all of this data, you can display it for a particular instance (not only the one to which you are logged on) or optionally totaled for all instances. Depending on your user mode, you can choose the time period for which you want to display the data; day, week and month (or determine the length of time yourself using the Last Minutes’ Load function). For most analysis views, you can display all task types or only certain ones.

The workload monitor has an interface that is divided into two parts. Use the tree structures on the left of the screen for the following settings:

• Select the user mode • Select the time period for which you want to display the workload • Select various functions and analysis views (which data you want to display).

The system then displays the result on the right of the screen in a standardized ALV Grid Control.

For general performance monitoring you can use the following options: • User mode à choose expert mode • Workload à choose the instance and time frame you are interested in. Selection between the

last days, the last weeks and the last months is possible. If you are interested in a particular


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time within the last 24 hours, choose Detailed Analysis, than Last Minute’s Load and than the required time frame on the appropriate instance.

• In the first workload overview, you find the response times and its components for the different task types (Background, Dialog, HTTP, RFC, Update, etc). You can now go to Analysis Views à Transaction Profiles à Standard. Here, you can get a more detailed view, selecting for instance the task type dialog and the aggregation per transaction.

The following screen shot shows transaction ST03N using the options: Expert mode, workload for server us0306_Q4C_02, time frame from 03.01.2005 – 09.01.2005, standard transaction profile, showing dialog transactions sorted by average response time.

Figure 71 Transaction ST03N

7.1.4Transaction STAD In the transaction STAD, every step on SAPApplication Server is recorded. The records for all instances of a SAP system are displayed. The Business Transactions Analysis (transaction STAD) calculates the system resource usage of individual transactions for SAP R/3 Systems and provides a detailed analysis of a transaction and the dialog steps. The selection criteria include user, transaction, program, task type, start date, and start time. The analyzed time period can be larger than the interval defined by Read Time, as the system analyzes complete transactions as far as possible. However, it is not always possible to perform a complete analysis for longrunning transactions. As the business transaction analysis is time consuming, you should use as short an interval as possible (around 10 minutes).

The aim of this monitor is to analyze in detail how long the response times for particular steps in a process (or transaction) and are these response times distributed among their components (DB time, CPU time, Wait time, GUI time, etc) have been.

If you want to use this transaction to analyze the performance of the steps done by a particular user, proceed as follows:

• Tell the user to execute the steps once, slowly one after the other and write down the exact time at which he executed them.


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• Go to STAD and display the statistical records relating to this single execution (use the user name and the appropriate time frame to display the correct records).

• Format the output list (button “Sel. Fields”), including the fields ‘GUI time’, ‘CUA reference program’ and ‘CUA internal command’. The last two fields can help you to identify the single steps executed.

• Use the time stamps of the statistical records and the execution times you wrote down to assign STAD records to the dialog steps that were performed.

• Check which steps are actually having a bad response time and what part is contributing most to it (DB, CPU, GUI, …).

• Depending on the result, proceed with a deeper analysis of the worst steps using, for example, transaction ST05 (for long DB times), transaction SE30 (for long CPU times) or a network analysis (not described in this document) in case of high GUI times.

• Depending on what you are analyzing, it might be wise to let the user execute all steps twice and use the second execution for the analysis. This way, you ensure that all buffers (for example, program buffers) are filled.

You can also use this transaction to see what was going on in the system during specific periods of poor performance in detail. With this analysis, you can see if there was a few users having particularly high response times or if there was a general performance problem. Procedure: Go to transaction ST03N and search for the hour with the worst performance or the highest workload using the time profile. Call transaction STAD with the following selection criteria:

• Show all statistic records, sorted by start time à Checked • Start date à Today’s date • Read time à 1 hour • Start time à start time of high workload (from ST03N) • User à * • Resp. time à >= 5000 ms • Task type à D (dialog) or B (batch) or R (RFC) or * (all)

Please be aware that this query may take several minutes.

The following screen shots show the initial screen of STAD with the options: Show all statistic records, sorted by start time, reading of the records for 10 minutes starting from 16:50 hours, for all users (*) that executed dialog transactions lasting longer than 1000 ms.


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Figure 72 Transaction STAD Below, there are two screen shots showing the result of this query. For each time stamp, you see which program was executed, within which transaction, on which server. For each, the user, response time, time in work process, CPU time, DB time, GUI time, CUA ref. Program and CUA internal command are displayed. These columns are not all part of the first standard output. They where adjusted using the “Select output fields” button (F9).


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To make the following steps easier, you may want to download the list with spreadsheet format. Make sure you have displayed all the columns you need before downloading. Be aware, also, that the STAD records are only kept in the system for a limited period (normally 24 or 48 hours). Go through the list of long lasting dialog steps and search for those dialog steps that are long lasting on average (those appearing several times). You may identify which steps belong together by comparing the transaction, the program, the CUA reference program and the CUA internal command. If you can’t find a CUA ref program or a CUA internal command in this list, or if you are not sure on the assignment, please proceed as described below. Please beware that the table beneath only shows typical CUA internal commands for some common steps. However, these commands can be different in your system depending on customizing settings, user exits, particular system usage, and so on.

• Execute the typical steps of your core business processes once. Execute the steps slowly one after the other and write down the exact time at which you executed them. The steps should be performed by a key user.

• Go to STAD and display the statistical records related to this single execution (use the user name and the appropriate time frame to display the correct records).

• Format the output list (button “Sel. Fields”), including the fields ‘GUI time’, ‘CUA reference program’ and ‘CUA internal command’.

• Use the time stamps of the statistical records and the execution times you wrote down to assign the “CUA internal commands” or the “CUA reference program” to the dialog steps that were performed.

• Use this information to identify which dialog steps are having extremely high response times during you peak load time.

Use this information to analyse, in detail, what is harming the performance of the corresponding transaction or dialog step. Use also the information on the distribution of the response time (DB time, CPU time, GUI time) given in the list, to identify the cause of the problem. Depending on the result proceed with a deeper analysis of the worst steps using, for example, transaction ST05 (for long DB times), transaction SE30 (for long CPU times) or a network analysis (not described in this document) in case of high GUI times. In addition, search for those taking particularly long (for example, more than 10 seconds). Contact the responsible user to find out what he was doing at that time, if the did some unusual steps or if he noticed a bad response time. If you cannot identify the cause, you may use the procedure described for transaction ST05 for a deeper analysis.

For details on the Performance monitoring on Function Code level and the monitoring setup procedures use the following link http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700003081072005E and navigate to section 2.1.



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7.1.5Transaction ST05 The performance trace tool contains a range of trace functions that you can use to monitor and analyze the performance of the system in database accesses, locking, and remote calls of reports and transactions. It allows you to record database access, locking activities, and remote calls of reports and transactions in a trace file and to display the performance log as a list. It also provides extensive support for analyzing individual trace records.

To use the performance trace, you need the authorization to start transaction ST05 and the system authorizations "Change trace switches" (authorization STOM for authorization object S_ADMI_FCD) and "Analyze traces" (authorization STOR, also for authorization object S_ADMI_FCD).

The performance trace contains the following tracing options: • SQL Trace: This allows you to monitor the database access of reports and transactions. • Enqueue Trace: This allows you to monitor the locking system. • RFC Trace: This provides information about Remote Function Calls (RFCs) between

instances.

The aim of the procedure described below is to find the SQL statements that are causing high response times in the SAP system. If you identified a transaction or a process step that is taking too long, you may use transaction ST05, to find out if one or more SQL statements are causing the performance problem. Procedure: Call transaction ST05 and make sure you are on the same instance as the user you want to trace:

• Check the option SQL trace (also Enqueue and RFC trace if needed) • Activate the trace with filter • Enter the user name of the user that will perform the steps • Confirm • Ask the user to perform the relevant steps (and nothing else) • Deactivate the trace • Display the trace. Make sure the user name is correct. Write down the displayed time stamps

(trace period) to be able to find the same trace in the system later on. Use the extended trace list to display the time stamps for each SQL statement.

• Depending on what you are analyzing, it might be wise to let the user execute all steps twice and use the second execution for the analysis. This way, you make sure that all buffers (for example, program buffers) are filled.

Go trough the trace and search for the statements with a high duration (marked red). Use the ‘explain’ function to see if the correct index is being used for that statement.

In case you cannot find the cause of the performance problem, or need further assistance for the analysis, contact the next support level or open an SAP message on component SVBO. Attach the trace, a detailed description of the performed steps and the related STAD records to the message.

7.1.6Transaction SE30 The runtime analysis tool allows you to examine the performance of any ABAP programs, such as, reports, subroutines, function modules or classes. It saves its results in performance data files, which you can display as lists. You can use these results to identify runtimeintensive statements, to combine table accesses, and show the hierarchy of program calls. From the results of the runtime analysis, you can identify:

• Excessive or unnecessary use of modularization units • CPUintensive program functions • Userspecific functions that could be replaced with ABAP statements • Inefficient or redundant database access.


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Depending on the size of the program, considerable volumes of data can be generated during the runtime analysis. For this reason, this tool is set to Full aggregation by default. This means that only the standard hit list is generated with all calls. The standard hit list does not include Group hit list, Hit list of database tables, Class hit list, Instance hit list, Method hit list, Event hit list, Hit list of internal tables, Call hierarchy and Statistics. To cancel this restriction, switch off aggregation by replacing the standard variant in the initial screen with a temporary variant, for example. In this variant, you can then configure the measurement restrictions according to the selected objects to be measured.

The runtime analysis consists of two parts:

• Recording performance data • Analyzing the performance data

In the first part, the system measures the transaction, program or procedure and writes the result to a performance data file. You can restrict the measurement to certain objects. You can also measure up to ten external processes. In the second part, the performance data is analyzed, and the system displays the results in list form. For more information on this transaction and its use, refer to the application help.

The runtime analysis tool measures the CPU time required by the measurable components of a transaction, a program or a procedure. The information is stored in a performance data file, which you can analyze either immediately or at a later date. The CPU time required to measure the runtime is subtracted from the total CPU usage. If you measure the runtime of a program more than once, you are unlikely to get the same result on each occasion. There are various reasons why it is very difficult to obtain identical runtimes. For example, in the first measurement, the system might read data records from the table buffer on the application server, but in a second run, it may have to read them directly from the database. Runtimes also depend on the overall system or network load (for example, the number of jobs or systems currently active in your SAP System).

In case you cannot find the cause of the performance problem, or need further assistance for the analysis, contact the next support level or open an SAP message on component SVBO. Attach the runtime analyses, a detailed description of the performed steps and the related STAD records to the message.

For more information on automated performance monitoring via CCMS and SAP Solution Manager, also read section 2.1 of the document Application Monitoring with SAP Solution Manager.

7.1.7Transaction ST12 The Single Transaction Analysis tool allows you to examine the performance of transactions or ABAP programs, such as reports, subroutines, function modules or classes. You can trace the ABAP coding as well as the database activities (SQL trace / performance trace) in one run. It saves its results in performance data files, which you can display as lists. You can use these results to identify runtimeintensive statements, to combine table accesses, and show the hierarchy of program calls. From the results of the runtime analysis, you can identify:

• Excessive or unnecessary use of modularization units • CPUintensive program functions • Userspecific functions that could be replaced with ABAP statements • Inefficient or redundant database access.

ST12 allows you to aggregate the ABAP trace data per modularization unit (subroutine, loop, function call …) and gives the possibility to analyze the ABAP trace in different ways with a graphical help for easier identifying the call tree structure from different perspectives. The performance trace and the ABAP trace, if done from within one ST12 trace execution are kept in one named version and can be analyzed together.

ST12 comes with the support tools addon STA/PI à see note 69455 for details.



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Note that the ST12 ABAP trace transaction is not officially documented and is only released for use by SAP or certified Service consultants during SAP Service Sessions (for example SAP GoingLive Check or Solution Management Optimization Services). ST12 is only available in two languages (EN/DE).

STA/PI is small and does not interfere with productive coding. It can be implemented anytime and there is no need to logoff users.

For details about the use of transaction ST12, see note 755977.

Depending on the size of the program, considerable volumes of data can be generated during the runtime analysis. For this reason, this tool is defaulted to aggregation per calling position. This reduces the volume of records for a loop to the number occurrences in the coding of a loop – instead of separate records for each loop cycle. Note 755977 gives you more details.

The runtime analysis consists of two parts:

• Recording performance data • Analyzing the performance data

In the first part, the system measures the transaction, program, or procedure, and writes the result to a performance data file. You can restrict the measurement to certain objects. You can also measure up to ten external processes. In the second part, the performance data is analyzed, and the system displays the results in list form. For more information on this transaction and its usage please see the application help.

For more information on automated performance monitoring via CCMS and SAP Solution Manager please also read the chapter 2.1 of the document Application Monitoring with SAP Solution Manager.

7.2General Monitoring Guidelines for a SAP System For the administration of an SAP R/3 system, there are a number of monitoring activities we strongly recommend scheduling and supervising on a regular basis. The following list is not complete, especially jobs and tasks for the database administration (such as backups, archiving transaction logs, update statistics for cost base optimizer and so on) are not mentioned, however it gives you an impression of what you have to do in order to keep a system running. If you have further questions on these subjects, please refer to the Solution Management Optimization Service System Administration.

The table below lists transactions used for General System Checks: Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monit orTime

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility

R/3 System workload analysis

ST03N daily tbd Average dialog response time < 1000 ms

Review response times in comparison to system load and performance influencing changes within the system of the analyzed period. Identify and improve performance of any transaction whose response time exceeds the times defined in the Service Level Agreement (SLA), if it exists. Monitor RFC response time statistics and Dialog response times for online transactions.

Software monitoring team

Database perform ance

ST04 Weekly and in case of performa

tbd Increased database response time /

Monitor database statistics. Monitor the buffer cache hit ratio Check for missing indexes; ensure




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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monit orTime

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility

Analysis nce problems

Expensive SQL statements

that the data quality is sufficient, and that there is sufficient space available.

Operating system monitor

ST06 Hourly (dependi ng on the business process) and in case of performa nce problems

tbd High paging rate and CPU utilization

Monitor the CPU and memory consumption. A hardware bottleneck can have a negative impact on the overall response time, as well as the response time of an individual business transaction. Especially monitor hardware load during high RFC transmission times.


R/3 System buffer monitor

ST02 Weekly and in case of performa nce problems

tbd Swaps Monitor memory resource usage for specific R/3 application servers To ensure optimal performance, check that the R/3 parameters are set correctly with transaction ST02. Incorrectly sized R/3 buffers or memory allocation can result in poor performance. One such example would be when a work process enters PRIV mode.


Local work process overview

SM50 hourly during peak hours and in case of performa nce problems or error message s

tbd WP status, WP utilization



System wide work process overview

SM66 hourly during peak hours

tbd WP status, long running jobs

Similar to SM50 but for system wide statistics.


Database perform ance monitor

DB02 Daily and in case of performa nce problems

tbd Table space sizes, table indexes for tRFC and aRFC

Ensure that the data quality is sufficient, that there are no missing indexes, and that there is sufficient space available. In general, if table sizes are larger than 500MB, reorganize the table and decrease its size. See SAP Note 375566. Monitor the growth of tables and indexes, especially on tRFC and qRFCtables (ARFCSSTATE ARFCSDATA ARFCRSTATE)


ABAP dump analysis

ST22 daily and in case of an errors

tbd Dumps Check short dumps; analyze aborted programs. Select a period and click on the List button. Select an error, and then choose Display to see the short dump.



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Monitoring Object

Monitor TA/Tool

Monitor Freq.

Monit orTime

Indicator or Error


Respon sibility

For SAP developed programs that experience frequent terminations, investigate SAPNet for a possible resolution and if necessary, open a customer message. For customer developed programs contact the appropriate member of the development team.

System log SM21 daily and in case of an errors

tbd Entries Check for general system program errors and table space errors or transactions that encounter errors. Maintain date/time and select Reread system log. Position cursor on a time, and then choose Display.


Update tasks

SM13 daily and in case of an errors

tbd Status Check for entries that have status ‘ERR’. Update records should be monitored regularly and the appropriate user should be contacted immediately to resolve any outstanding updates. Together with the user, determine whether the update request can be re started or has to be deleted.


Display Statistical Record

Transac tion STAD

In case of bad performa nce

tbd Status Determine the performance of single statistical records



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8 Further Information Troubleshooting If executing this Best Practice did not produce the desired results,

• Search for related notes in the SAPNet. • Open an SAP Customer Message describing your problem (please see the respective

component in section Error Handling, Restartability and Escalation of every step).

Literature • For detailed information on how to administer an SAP R/3 system, see the book:

Liane Will, SAP R/3 System Administration, 2003

• For information on how to monitor and tune the general system performance, see the book: Thomas Schneider, SAP Performance Optimization Guide, 2006.


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© Copyright 2007 SAP AG. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP AG. The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice. Some software products marketed by SAP AG and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. Microsoft ® , WINDOWS ® , NT ® , EXCEL ® , Word ® , PowerPoint ® and SQL Server ® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM ® , DB2 ® , OS/2 ® , DB2/6000 ® , Parallel Sysplex ® , MVS/ESA ® , RS/6000 ® , AIX ® , S/390 ® , AS/400 ® , OS/390 ® , and OS/400 ® are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. ORACLE ® is a registered trademark of ORACLE Corporation. INFORMIX ® OnLine for SAP and Informix ® Dynamic Server

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