SAP Monitoring & Performance Checks: Complete Tutorial with Tcodes

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Last Updated: 08 January 2021

How do we do monitor a SAP System?

Checking Application Servers (SM51)

This transaction is used to check all active application servers. Here you can see which services or work processes are configured in each instance.

Monitoring Work Processes for Individual Instances SM50:

Displays all running, waiting, stopped and PRIV processes related to a particular instance. Under this step we check all the processes; the process status should always be waiting or running. If any process is having a status other than waiting or running we need to check that particular process and report accordingly. This transaction displays a lot of information like:

1. Status of Work process (whether it's occupied or not)
2. If the work process is running, you may be able to see the action taken by it in the Action column.
3. You can which table is being worked upon

Some of the typical problems:

• The user takes a long time to log on/not able to logon/online transaction very slow. This could be the result of the DIA work processes are fully utilized. There could be also the result of long running jobs (red indicator under the Time column). If necessary you can cancel the session by selecting the jobs then go to Process>Cancel Without core. This will cancel the job and release the work process for other user/process
• Some users may have PRIV status under Reason column. This could be that the user transaction is so big that it requires more memory. When this happen the DIA work process will be 'owned' by the user and will not let other users use. If this happens, check with the user and if possible run the job as a background job.
• If there is a long print job on SPO work process, investigate the problem. It could be a problem related to the print server or printer.

Monitoring System-wide Work Processes (SM66)

By checking the work process load using the global work process overview, we can quickly investigate the potential cause of a system performance problem.

Monitor the work process load on all active instances across the system

Using the Global Work Process Overview screen, we can see at a glance:

• The status of each application server
• The reason why it is not running
• Whether it has been restarted
• The CPU and request run time
• The user who has logged on and the client that they logged on to
• The report that is running

Monitor Application User (AL08 and SM04)

This transaction displays all the users of active instances. Execute Transaction SM13 and put '*' in the field USER and click on button.
  If there are no long pending updates records or no updates are going on then this queue will be empty as shown in the below screen shot.
 

• Click on button and get the information.

• Click on button and get the below information:

Is any update cancelled?

Is there a long queue of pending updates older than 10 minutes?

Monitoring Lock Entries (SM12)

Execute Transaction SM12 and put '*' in the field User Name SAP provides a locking mechanism to prevent other users from changing the record that you are working on. In some situations, locks are not released. This could happen if the users are cut off i.e. due to network problem before they are able to release the lock.

These old locks need to be cleared or it could prevent access or changes to the records.

We can use lock statistics to monitor the locks that are set in the system. We record only those lock entries which are having date time stamp of the previous day.
 

Monitoring System Log (SM21)

We can use the log to pinpoint and rectify errors occurring in the system and its environment.
We check the log for the previous day with the following selection/option:

• Enter Date and time.
• Select Radio Button Problems and Warnings
• Press Reread System Log.

Step 1: Go to ST02 to check the Tune summary.

Step 2: If you see any red values, in SWAPS, double –click the same.
  Step 3: In the below screen click on the tab 'Current Parameters'
  Step 4: Note down the value and the Profile parameters
  Step 5: Go to RZ10 (to change the Profile parameter values)

Step 6: Save the changes.

Step 7: Restart the server to take the new changes effect.
 

CPU Utilization (ST06)

Idle CPU utilization rate must be 60-65%, if it exceeds the value then we must start checking at least below things:

• Run OS level commands – top and check which processes are taking most resources.
• Go to SM50 or SM66. Check for any long running jobs or any long update queries being run.
• Go to SM12 and check lock entries
• Go to SM13 and check Update active status.
• Check for the errors in SM21.

ABAP Dumps (ST22)

Here we check for previous day's dumps