[61] in sapr3-soft
unknown
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (luli@usa.net (by way of SAP Modera)
Thu Feb 13 12:37:36 1997
To: sapr3-soft@MIT.EDU
Date: 11 Feb 1997 09:14:25 -0500
From: luli@usa.net (by way of SAP Moderator <luli@usa.net>)
I am attempting to create a database of information on performance and
resource utilization for the R/3 environment. I want to export the data
from R/3 in order to use other tools (probably SAS) for analysis. So, I am
attempting to determine the best way to collect the required information.
I examined the information in the MONI table, but the summarized
information in MONI is not sufficient. The primary problem, is that most
of the information in MONI is summarized by day, week, or month, but I
believe that I need to see the data summarized into intervals of an hour or
less.
The un-summarized information required is available in the stats file,
which is maintained by each application server. This file is more
difficult to access than MONI, because it is a flat file rather than a
table, and because there are separate stat files for each app server, which
must be merged together.
It appears that what I need is to write an ABAP program or programs which
will extract the required data, and copy it to a more portable and easily
read flat file, which can be transmitted periodically to another system for
analysis.
How are other users addressing this type of requirement? Is anyone else
reporting performance data at a level of summarization less than a day? Do
you write all your reports in ABAP, or do you transmit data to a different
system for analysis?
Since the stats file history is purged periodically (once a day?), if I
wrote an extract program to read the stats file, it would need to run
several times a day to insure that no records are purged before they are
exported. Most likely I would set it up to run hourly, which is the
schedule that CCMS uses. I would need to include logic similar to that
used in CCMS to determine where in the file to resume processing, since
some of the records would have been processed in the previous execution.
Another alternative would be to modify the CCMS program that reads the
stats file and summarizes it to build the MONI table. This would be the
most "efficient", because I would not need to read all of the stat files a
second time, and I could leverage more of the existing code. However, I am
reluctant to modify the existing code for maintenance reasons, and I am not
aware of any user exit points in this process where I can capture the
required information without modifying the SAP supplied code.
It occurred to me that if I were to modify the CCMS program, I could update
it to create hourly summaries in addition to the daily, weekly, and monthly
summary in the MONI table. However, it is not clear that this is
worthwhile. I would then still need to write an ABAP to extract the
required information from MONI for export. This is easier than reading the
stat files, but in this case I would just have two programs to maintain
instead of one. This would also increase the likelihood of maintenance
problems, due to the new records added to MONI.
The required process would be much easier if SAP were to provide any of the
following:
1. An API which allows me to retrieve all of the data in the stat file.
The existing API which retrieves "accounting" data (presumably for
chargeback), retrieves only the summarized daily statistics.
2. A process which merged all of the information in the stats files into a
database table, which would then contain at least one days history. (But
preferably, a configurable number of days.)
3. A simple and documented exit into the CCMS program which would allow a
site to capture the required information, while protecting against
maintenance problems with future R/3 upgrades.
As far as I have been able to determine, none of the above are available
however.
As you can tell, I am concerned about obtaining the required data in the
way which will most minimize future problems, both operational problems,
and problems during future upgrades. In addition, it would be desirable if
a solution were to avoid the requirement for re-reading all of the stat
files a second time.
I would be happy to consider any third-party products that provide the
required functionality, but I am unaware of any which do so at this time.
Any vendors out there who can respond to this? (BMC?, Tivoli?, anyone?)
All suggestions and experiences in this area are welcome.
TIA.
---
luli@usa.net
