Technique/SAP BW2010. 7. 25. 02:08

Best Practice: BW Process Chain monitoring with SAP Solution Manager - Part 2: Setup Example
Dirk Mueller SAP Employee
Business Card
Company: SAP AG
Posted on Jul. 23, 2010 04:23 PM in Application Lifecycle Management, Business Intelligence (BI), SAP NetWeaver Platform, SAP Solution Manager

 

Setup example: BW Process Chain monitoring as part of Business Process Monitoring

This blog is the second part of a series describing best practices for BW Process Chain monitoring with SAP Solution Manager. You can read the first part of this series here

Before describing the single steps that need to be performed for setting up the BW Process Chain monitoring, we assume that the following steps are already performed:

  • The BW system containing the process chains is successfully connected as a managed system in the Solution Manager.
  • A solution containing the managed BW system is already created.
  • The prerequisites mentioned in the first part of this series are met.

First of all we recommend creating a suitable structure in the "Business Scenarios" section of the Solution Directory (this can be found in the Solution Manager under "Solution Landscape Maintenance"). In our example we use the following structure:

Display Solution Directory

 

Now we can start the "Setup Business Process Monitoring" session for our solution. The above created "Business Process" must be selected:

2 - Change BPM Setup

 

Then choose the process chains ("Business Process Steps") that you have maintained:

3 - Change BPM Setup

 

Now select the Monitoring Type "Background Processing":

4 - Change BPM Setup

 

Save your changes and proceed to the next check called "Background Processing". Here you have to choose an "Object identifier". Usually this identifier is identically to the name of your process chain. As "Job Type" you have to choose "BW Process Chain". The "Schedule Type" is usually "On Weekly Basis".

5 - Change BPM Setup

 

After saving your changes you have to provide the name of the process chain(s) that you want to monitor - in our case "DM_TEST_CHAIN_1". You can enter wildcards in the column "BW Process Chain ID" and search for the process chain in the managed BW system by choosing the option "Save + Check Identification". Then choose a process chain in the result list. Please enter "use chain start condition" as the "Start Procedure" of the process chain:

6 - Change BPM Setup

 

In the tab "Schedule on Weekly Basis", please activate the days on which you want to have the monitoring of the process chain(s) active:

7 - Change BPM Setup

 

Then, we need to enter the thresholds for the single key performance indicators that we want to monitor (e.g. "Start Delay", "Not Started on Time", ...). Additionally you can enter multiple chain elements. The same logic applies here: you have to enter and search for the "Process Type" and "Variant" of the single step of the Process Chain step and provide the thresholds. For example:

8 - Change BPM Setup

 

Finally, we need to generate and activate this monitor in the Solution Manager and the managed BW system. This can be done using the check "Generation/Activation/Deactivation":

9 - Change BPM Setup

 

Please note that the generating of the customizing and the activation must not result in errors.

Now you can switch to the "Operations" section of the solution. Here you will see now the previously created hierarchy in the Solution Directory that results in a graphical overview like this:

10 - Solution View

 

By clicking on the alert icon (in our example a red alert in the business scenario "BW Process Chains", business process "ERP Loads"), the Business Process Monitoring session starts and we can check for details on the alert(s) that have been raised:

11 - Monitoring View

 

By choosing the RSPC icon, you can directly jump into the managed BW system for further analysis of the alerts.

Frequently Asked Questions about Business Process Monitoring are answered under http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Monitoring.

The previous blogs provide further details about Business Process Monitoring functionalities within the SAP Solution Manager.

 


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Posted by AgnesKim
Technique/SAP BW2010. 7. 25. 02:06

Best Practice: BW Process Chain monitoring with SAP Solution Manager - Part 1
Dirk Mueller SAP Employee
Business Card
Company: SAP AG
Posted on Jul. 23, 2010 04:17 PM in Application Lifecycle Management, Business Intelligence (BI), SAP NetWeaver Platform, SAP Solution Manager

 
Nearly every SAP customer who operates an SAP BW or SAP APO system encounters one main challenge - how to control and monitor BW Process Chains?! The definition of Process Chains is normally directly performed with the help of standard BW transactions like RSPC. The scheduling of the Process Chains is then usually also performed directly from within BW. Some customers schedule their Process Chains via external scheduling tools like SAP Central Process Scheduling by Redwood. Then perhaps comes the "toughest" part: How to monitor those Process Chains, especially if you have several hundred or even thousand Process Chains running per day?

Old and new monitoring capabilities for BW Process Chains

At least the most important, i.e. most business critical, Process Chains should be monitored and in case of a problem a solution has to be found as fast as possible. What monitoring alternatives have been available in the past?

  • Manual monitoring via transaction RSPC or RSPCM. A very time-consuming way of monitoring and especially for complex chains it is nearly impossible to keep an overview. Further, the defined process chains that are monitored by RSPCM are user-individual.
  • Automated monitoring via Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager as described in the Best Practice document "Background Job monitoring with SAP Solution Manager". Up to now the setup was also somewhat time-consuming and only single jobs within the Process Chain could be monitored so that only a milestone monitoring could be achieved. Further, the monitoring definition requires manual adoptions as soon as a process chain is activated.
  • Automated monitoring via SAP CCMS described in the Best Practice document "Background Job monitoring with SAP Solution Manager". Here the setup was very easy but the monitoring functionality was somewhat limited as only the status of a complete chain could be monitored. No details of chain elements were available and no other monitoring capabilities than just the chain status were available.

Now the Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager was enhanced in order to overcome all those limitations described above. Besides the monitoring of simple background jobs it is now also possible to monitor complete Process Chains just by entering the corresponding Chain ID. Additionally you can also monitor single steps within a Process Chain. With this monitor you can of course monitor the status of a Process Chain (and selected elements), but you are not limited to status monitoring only. You can also monitor whether a Process Chain and/or one of its specific elements

  • Did not start or finish on time (Start Delay and End Delay)
  • Is running outside a defined time window
  • Has a runtime that is longer than expected
  • Is running into a status indicating an error or warning

Besides these more technical alerts you can also perform automated content checks for a complete Process Chain and/or one of its specific elements like

  • Did the Process Chain process too many/few records?
  • Were too many/few data packages processed?
  • Are there exceptional job log entries?

A big advantage of monitoring BW process chains using the Business Process Monitoring in SAP Solution Manager is that you see the BW process chains in the context of the complete business process in a graphical way. Correlating the impact of an incident to the business process itself is now possible at a glance.

Below you can find the technical prerequisites of the involved software components:

  • SAP Solution Manager 7.0 EhP1 SP23 or higher
  • ST-SER 701_2010_1 or higher on SAP Solution Manager side
  • ST-PI 2008_1_XXX with SP2 or higher on backend side
  • ST-A/PI 01M or higher on backend side
  • Implementation of SAP Note 1436853 - BPM for BW Process Chains and Steps - Prerequisites

 

A second part on this best Practice will cover the setup in SAP Solution Manager. It will be available soon. The corresponding link will be posted here as soon as it is available.

Frequently Asked Questions about Business Process Monitoring are answered under http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SM/FAQ+Business+Process+Monitoring.

The previous blogs provide further details about Business Process Monitoring functionalities within the SAP Solution Manager.


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Posted by AgnesKim