How To Monitor SAP Systems

Monitoring of all Production systems should be done once

in each shift, other non-production system should be
monitored once in a day.

1. ACTIVITY: Check SAP Process Overview

TCODE: SM51/ SM50
What to Monitor: Transaction SM50/ SM51 is used to check the status of the SAP
instance and the status of all work processes in that SAP Instance.

As shown in the fig above most of the work processes should be in Status “waiting”
and all the work processes should be in Start mode “Yes”.
Also if there is any job running in any work process in DIALOG mode for a long
time we have to check with the user (under whom the job is running) whether we can
kill that job.
Look for any work process where the status column is in “Stopped”
Look for any Dialog/ Update/ Spool work process where the Time column is “7200” (2
hours), contact the user for terminating the process
2. ACTIVITY: System Wide Work Process Overview
TCODE: SM66
What to Monitor: Transaction SM66 is used to check the status of the status of all
work processes across all the Application Servers and CI in a SAP Instance.

This transaction is useful to check the status of all the jobs running in all the work
process of all the Application Servers including CI and can be used same way as
SM50.

So this transaction will be used in PRD systems only.

3. ACTIVITY: Users Logged On

TCODE: AL08/ SM04
What to Monitor: Transaction AL08 is used to check for the number of users logged
into the system (Directly/ RFC)

Monitor the logon interactive users, load should be distributed across all dialog
instances, e.g. it should not be like that one dialog instance there are 170 users and on
other there are only 10 users.

4. ACTIVITY: Spool Requests

TCODE: SP01
What to Monitor: Transaction SP01 is used to check the status of spool jobs.

On the initial screen the userid should be blank and the date should be yesterday and
client should be the productive client in that system as below:
 Click on Execute button.

Then check that there should not be much Spool requests Ended with Errors (more
than 20). If it is then we have to find the cause of the problem, which could be the
connection to the Print Server etc.

5. ACTIVITY: Check SAP Locks

TCODE: SM12
What to Monitor: Transaction SM12 is used to check all the SAP locks in the
system make sure all the fields in the initial screen of SM12 are blank as below

Then in the next screen check that there should not be locks more than 1 day old, if
there are locks more than 1 day old, check if there is any job running by that user id
for that table, if it is not delete that lock entry.

And also there should not be more than 800 locks at a time, keep on refreshing for
some time and if still locks are at the higher side, check the user id and the job (in
SM50) containing most of the locks and discuss with the user to delete that particular
job and ask the user to schedule this kind of job to run in the night time so that other
user will not be impacted with these locks.

6. ACTIVITY: Check for Updates

TCODE: SM13
What to Monitor: Transaction SM13 is used to check the status of the updates in
SAP instance.

First of all on the initial screen ensure that the Update is active as shown below:
 Then click execute button and check that there should not be more than 10 updates
pending or in process at a time and also check if there are multiple occurrences of the
failed updates with different user ids, if it is then we have to diagnose the problem.

7. ACTIVITY: Check System Log

TCODE: SM21
What to Monitor: Transaction SM21 is used to the SAP System locks of either CI or
any particular SAP Application Server or all Application Server of the SAP Instance.

Define the time either as the time when you did the last monitoring or start of that
date. Check the logs of CI and all application servers and if you find any abnormal
trend in the log or multiple entries of same kind of error, then try to find out the
corresponding short dump and check the details of the error and try to analyze the
error or if required check the OSS notes with the key words either from the system
error or from short dump, otherwise raise an issue in the issue tracker.
8. ACTIVITY: Check Background Jobs
TCODE: SM37
What to Monitor: Transaction SM37 is used to check the status of Background Jobs.

First check for the cancelled jobs for today and the previous day with the selection
criteria as below:

If there are cancelled jobs we have to check the logs of the job and find out the cause
of the job failure and then take the corrective action accordingly.

Also we have to check the jobs with status release which has not run and are just
there in the release status. Then we have to find out the cause why those has not run
till now and fix that.

9. ACTIVITY: SAP Buffers

TCODE: ST02
What to Monitor: Transaction ST02 is used to check the status of SAP Buffers.

Look at the following information at the main screen.

 In the above screen the value of the “Current use” should not be near to the value of
“In Memory” for any of the above SAP Memory variables.

10. ACTIVITY: Workload Analysis

TCODE: ST03
What to Monitor: Transaction ST03 is used to check the workload analysis of a
particular Application Server or all Application Servers of SAP Instance.

In the initial screen click on the drop down button on the right side of Administrator
and choose Expert Mode as shown below:

Then expand your system name e.g. “fsphsapqcos_QCO_00” and then click on
“Today” or the previous day date as below:
Then check the DIALOG response time and it should not exceed 1000 ms, if it is
higher than 1000 ms then we have to check the transactions/ programs impacting the
response time.
11. ACTIVITY: Operating System Monitor
TCODE: ST06
What to Monitor: Transaction ST06 is used to check the Operating System status
e.g. CPU utilization, Memory utilization, Disk utilization, Status of SAP OS
Collector, to Stop/ Start SAP OS Collector, to check the Event Viewer Logs of the
Windows System, to check the connectivity with any application server or any user
front end system etc.

If the CPU utilization is higher than 60% please look into it and find the program/
transaction impacting the CPU utilization.

12. ACTIVITY: Display Developer Traces

TCODE: ST11
What to Monitor: Transaction ST11 is used to check the Developer Trace Files and
if you find any abnormal trend in the trace files, we have to look into it.

13. ACTIVITY: ABAP Dump Analysis

TCODE: ST22
What to Monitor: Transaction ST22 is used to check the Short Dumps in the system,
if there are high numbers of repetitive short dumps especially with the Standard SAP
Systems we have to look into those error. Go into the detail of those short dumps and
check the details, there you will find the program causing the short dump, statement
causing the short dump and also How to solve the problem. Find the OSS note with
the programs or other key words causing the short dump.

Below is the useful information that you can find for the short dumps in ST22.
14. ACTIVITY: Database Analysis
TCODE: ST04
What to Monitor: Transaction ST04 is used to monitor Database Performance
Analysis, Database Error Logs, Database Backup (Full/ Log) Status, and Missing
Indexes at the Database Level etc.

Here are some screen shots of these monitors:

 Check
Database
Error Logs

Database Check
Performance Database
Status Backup Status

Missing
Indexes
15. ACTIVITY: Check Database Performance
TCODE: DB02
What to Monitor: Transaction DB02 is used to monitor Database Performance,
Database Space utilization (Data files/ Log files), Detailed Analysis of Database
Objects (Tables/ Indexes).
16. ACTIVITY: Client Settings (Weekly)
TCODE: SCC4
What to Monitor: Transaction SCC4 is used to check the Client Settings. The
current client setting for all P1 systems/ clients is shown below, if any system/ client
setting is different from listed below, please inform Pat/ Sanjay/ Darryl.

SID/ Changes and Cross-Client Object Changes Protection: Client

CLNT Transport of Client Copier and
Specific Objects Comparison Tool
DCO/ 010 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Overwriting
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
DCO/ 020 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
DCO/ 200 cross-client Customizing objs
DCO/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to cross-client No Restriction
Customizing objs
DSC/ 010 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Overwriting
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
DXI/ 100 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Overwriting
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
QCO/ 020 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
QCO/ 100 cross-client Customizing objs
QCO/ 200
QCO/ 101 Changes w/o automatic No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
recording, no transports cross-client Customizing objs
allowed
QSC/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
cross-client Customizing objs
QXI/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
cross-client Customizing objs
PCO/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
cross-client Customizing objs
PSC/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
cross-client Customizing objs
PXI/ 100 No Changes Allowed No Changes to Repository and No Restriction
cross-client Customizing objs
CUA/ 010 Changes w/o automatic Changes to Repository and cross- No Restriction
recording, no transports client Customizing Allowed
allowed
CUA/ 100 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Overwriting
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
CUA/ 110 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Overwriting
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
PSM/ 100 Automatic Recording Changes to Repository and cross- No Restriction
of Changes client Customizing Allowed
17. ACTIVITY: Check E-Mail and Fax Messages
TCODE: SOST
What to Monitor: Transaction SOST is used to check if there are any failed e-mails
or faxes that did not go out from SAP. By default the Period will be the current day
plus the previous and the Sent Status will include Waiting, Errors, and Sent. The
main item of concern is Errors. When you encounter an error please review and if
possible attempt to resend. Selecting the failed item and selecting Repeat Send will
attempt to resend the message. If this fails, please alert other Basis personnel for
further troubleshooting.
18. ACTIVITY: Check for failed IDOCs
TCODE: WE02/ WE05
What to Monitor: Transaction WE02 is used to check all of the IDOCs in the system
over a given time period. There are both Inbound and Outbound IDOCs. We are
looking for IDOCs that did not process properly and these usually have a status of 51.
When you see an IDOC with a status of 51 you can double-click the IDOC to get the
details of what failed. Please forward this information to the appropriate team for
further investigation.