SAP Active Global Support

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1 SAP Active Global Support Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting Customer Cases Show SAP Enterprise Support Strengthens Monitoring and Alerting Functionality

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3 Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting Table of Contents 5 SAP Solution Manager Offers a Single Infrastructure for Monitoring and Alerting 6 Technical Monitoring and Alerting Functionality in SAP Solution Manager Ongoing Observation of Systems, Solutions, and IT Processes Automating Processes for Technical Monitoring and Alerting Work Centers Support Various User Roles Integration with Incident and Problem Management Technical Analytics Increase Transparency and Optimization Project Management Technical Prerequisites 10 Key Benefits of Monitoring and Alerting with SAP Solution Manager 11 Value-Added Services from SAP Active Global Support Standardizing System Monitoring Improving System Health Fostering Timely Decisions SAP Enterprise Support Academy Offerings To Learn More

4 The SAP Active Global Support (SAP AGS) organization works with customers of SAP Enterprise Support services on a variety of strategic topics. This helps participating customers become early service adopters. In addition, SAP AGS can use their experiences to determine optimum deployment strategies and develop new services and best practices. Here we describe results from a work group dedicated to technical monitoring and alerting. Ensuring that software solutions perform optimally involves continuous monitoring of mission-critical systems, the quick resolution of issues when they arise, and the creation of a plan to avoid future problems. The IT teams responsible for adhering to the monitoring and control standards of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) for IT service management must keep pace with new initiatives that impact their daily workloads. Under current economic conditions, the resources available for these tasks are often limited. SAP AGS continuously looks for new ways to help our customers run their businesses more effectively. In 2012 we established a technical monitoring and alerting work group within the SAP Enterprise Support Advisory Council program to further these efforts. In keeping with the co-innovation, co-collaboration, and co-investment philosophy of the council, we work with SAP Enterprise Support customers around the world on new offerings that address technical monitoring and alerting issues in a system atic way. With our customers help, we are enhancing func tionalities and services provided by the SAP Solution Manager application management solution and SAP Enterprise Support.

5 Run SAP like a Factory: The Operations Control Center Concept SAP Solution Manager Offers a Single Infrastructure for Monitoring and Alerting In 2011 SAP launched the Run SAP like a Factory initiative to help our customers bundle all of their capabilities and resources into a centralized operations control center. Through this center, SAP Solution Manager can enhance system transparency, business processes, and process integration. Technical monitoring and alerting is one important task within application operations in the Run SAP like a Factory program. (See Figure 1.) Additional tasks include technical analysis (which involves root cause analysis), exception management, data-volume management, and technical administration. A new monitoring infrastructure within SAP Solution Manager helps to integrate these closely related operations for both SAP and non-sap software. As a single infrastructure for monitoring and alerting, SAP Solution Manager provides ready-to-use dashboards for management reporting and helps identify potential incidents. Key monitoring and alerting features available in SAP Solution Manager include: Central configuration, administration, and self-monitoring An open infrastructure that streamlines integration of new technologies for monitoring and alerting Templates that enable mass configuration of your business processes Integrated reporting capabilities Functionality to help your IT staff collaborate with SAP experts Graphical status representation Integration with non-sap products SAP Solution Manager introduces a layer of diagnostics that make technical monitoring the standard for central monitoring and alerting. The revamped diagnostics architecture isolates the component that is the root cause for an incident. Additional functions for solution monitoring and IT reporting aim to detect problems proactively and report on capacity trends, servicelevel agreements, and solution quality. Figure 1: The Run SAP Like a Factory Concept Business process operations Application operations Setup Setup Central monitors Operations control center Input Improve Continuous optimization process Detect Analyze Solve Trigger Change management Setup Orchestrated by SAP Solution Manager Input Incident management, service request management, and guided procedures Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting 5

6 Use Predefined KPIs to Observe Both SAP and Non-SAP Software Technical Monitoring and Alerting Functionality in SAP Solution Manager The infrastructure delivered by SAP Solution Manager includes a variety of monitors and predefined key performance indicators (KPIs) for observing various SAP and non-sap solutions. (See Figure 2.) You can define thresholds according to your specific requirements, collect all alerts in a unified alert in-box, and limit the alerts to critical situations. The in-box helps to integrate incident and notification management, root cause analysis, and collaboration with support services from SAP. Ongoing Observation of Systems, Solutions, and IT Processes SAP Solution Manager delivers a comprehensive structure for monitoring and controlling IT services that helps you fulfill ITIL requirements for these service operations. The measurement and control of services and solutions is based on a continuous cycle of monitoring, reporting, analyzing, reaction, and optimization. Technical monitoring and alerting support from SAP Solution Manager provides ongoing observation of your systems, solutions, and IT processes. It can help you create reports on the quality of services as part of service-level management. With SAP Solution Manager, you can develop KPIs that can help you proactively avoid system problems. This approach to operations can add significant value and reduce costs. There are predefined KPIs for highly technical areas such as hardware usage. You can also use application-specific KPIs either predefined or those that you create for monitoring the workload of processes, exceptions, and throughput. The software can help you measure and monitor data-volume figures and compile historical data for capacity management. Tools for analyzing and solving the root causes of problems help you avoid critical system disruptions. A data-volume management cockpit lets you see when predefined thresholds are reached or exceptions occur. Various notification mechanisms can inform the support or expert teams who are responsible for acting on those issues. Notifications may include a simple to the responsible group or may be integrated with the incident management process to allow full reporting and tracking of activities related to incident tickets. Figure 2: Monitoring and Alerting Functionality Unified alert in-box Central access point for all alerts coming from the different monitoring scenarios Integration of incident and notification management, root cause analysis, and collaboration features System monitoring Status overview for technical systems, instances, databases, and hosts Ability to drill down to single metrics and events and jump in to metric reporting and landscape information End-user experience monitoring Measurement of availability and response times from an end-user perspective Deep integration in end-to-end trace analysis for root cause analysis Process integration (PI) monitoring Central entry point for specific monitoring for complete PI domains by the SAP NetWeaver Process Integration offering Central monitors contained for PI components, PI channels, and message flows Integration of all scenarios in end-to-end monitoring and alerting infrastructure Business intelligence (BI) monitoring Central monitoring for SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions based on the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) application and SAP BusinessObjects BI platform Monitoring of SAP NetWeaver BW process chains and SAP BusinessObjects BI specific jobs Interface and connection monitoring Monitoring of remote function call connections as well as interface channels between SAP and non-sap software systems

7 Automating Processes for Technical Monitoring and Alerting Effective measurement and reporting is the basis for a wellintegrated system optimization process. Figure 3 shows the elements of this process. Manual monitoring is a highly effort-intensive approach that usually requires expert involvement. Analysis and statistical tools are deployed to query measuring points and evaluate them on an experience basis. Appropriate measures are then applied to counteract critical developments. Automating monitoring processes involves defining and measuring KPIs and comparing and evaluating these with predefined threshold values. The quality of the automated monitoring concept largely depends on the selected KPIs and the definition of relevant threshold values. With fully automated monitoring, suitable countermeasures are initiated as soon as threshold values are exceeded. Incident reports can be created automatically in the SAP IT Service Management application. Monitoring is a process of definition, implementation, deployment, operation, and optimization. The appropriate degree of automation depends on the effort and benefits involved. Manual expert monitoring is advisable to verify automated monitoring. If adequate definition has not been made for certain KPIs and their threshold values, the monitoring concept must be adjusted. Work Centers Support Various User Roles SAP Solution Manager functionality is bundled into work centers that relate to typical user roles in common IT service management processes. You can define authorizations for each of these roles, and users can maintain and adapt personal work-center home pages to their specific needs. The software includes work centers for system monitoring, system monitoring for service providers, and technical monitoring. Content for reverse business process documentation is available in the work center for the solution documentation assistant. Figure 3: Process Flow of Application Operations Monitor Proactive real-time monitoring Notify Reactive handling of critical events Analyze Lower mean time to problem resolution Optimize Optimized excellence of technical operations Report Proving value to business The SAP Enterprise Support Advisory Council seeks to assist in the development of SAP Enterprise Support offerings that help our customers operate more effectively and introduce innovation more quickly. Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting 7

8 Integration with Incident and Problem Management To get the full benefit from monitoring, the KPIs and thresholds you define for your notification process must be fully integrated with support processes such as incident and problem management. Such integration provides a fast and complete overview of the current operating status. Ideally, there is integration between incident and problem management processes and the IT service desk, so that alerts are raised automatically when incidents occur. This significantly improves the opportunities for reporting, tracking, and control. SAP Solution Manager provides a comprehensive framework for incident and problem management that runs from issue discovery to continuous solution improvement or change requests. SAP Solution Manager serves as the leading workplace for all your support experts. You can choose whether you will transfer alert messages to and from an external service desk or work in both service desks, based on your analysis of the effort that is required and the likely outcome. Technical Analytics Increase Transparency and Optimization Values for every KPI monitored by SAP Solution Manager are stored in the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) application, which provides many opportunities for reporting on historical and aggregated data. (For an overview of the software s technical analytic functionality, see Figure 4.) SAP Solution Manager supplements the predefined reports available from the SAP EarlyWatch Alert service. In addition, you can integrate the reporting functionality available in SAP Solution Manager with reporting functionality in SAP NetWeaver BW to create reports for every value stored in your database and define your own service-level reports. Currently, SAP delivers predefined dashboards for graphic reporting in the following areas: Technical operations End-user experience monitoring Alert management reporting Custom-code management Business process operations Security Continuous improvement IT service management Test management Figure 4: Overview for Technical Analytics in SAP Solution Manager Management reporting Customer-specific dashboards Use of dashboard framework Dashboard applications developed by customers Standard dashboards Preconfigured content Dashboard applications developed by SAP Document-based service-level reporting Predefined content that can be individually tailored Level of data aggregation and interpretation Customer-specific reporting Report content and presentation mode that is completely customizable Technical reporting Interactive reporting (key performance indicator reporting) Predefined report content Displayed data that can be individually browsed Document-based SAP EarlyWatch Alert service Predefined content for document-based reports

9 As a single infrastructure for monitoring and alerting, SAP Solution Manager provides ready-to-use dashboards for management reporting and helps identify potential incidents. You can also create customized dashboards that provide access to KPIs stored in SAP Solution Manager on a highly aggregated level. By increasing transparency, these dashboards can help your IT teams manage their services and support processes more effectively. Project Management SAP recommends using a phased implementation approach that treats the installation of individual solution features as separate projects or work packages. (See Figure 5.) The first step in the process is the design phase, during which the host systems and databases for the pilot implementation are selected. In the monitoring phase, we activate monitoring templates to control and monitor the solutions, and then we copy and customize them. In the alerting phase, we adjust thresholds for the monitored KPIs and define reaction methods or activities if an alert occurs. You can take advantage of powerful reporting opportunities in all phases. This implementation process can be continuously repeated for ongoing system improvement. Any SAP software implementation project is supported by best practice documentation available in SAP Solution Manager. All application lifecycle management (ALM) processes supported by SAP Solution Manager are stored in a structured directory of business processes, known as a business process repository. This makes it easier to implement the ALM processes and helps users: See and understand the ALM standard processes supported by SAP Solution Manager Choose use cases or best practices that suit their needs Combine processes to help ensure a smooth data flow without gaps Configure and implement ALM processes and SAP Solution Manager functionality Figure 5: Phased Approach Design Monitoring Alerting Reporting You will find a preview of the content currently available at implementationcontent.sap.com/bpr (service.sap.com/bpr) Available implementation content Business Process Repository Solutions/Applications SAP Solution Manager <ALM Process> SAP Solution Manager 7.1. SAP Solution Manager contains predefined work packages for implementing the monitoring and alerting functionality. You can also create your own road maps that specify implementation phases, tasks, activities, and accelerators and incorporate documentation for these road maps. Technical Prerequisites A variety of expert-guided implementations a unique combination of training, live configuration, and on-demand expertise for SAP Solution Manager are available to SAP Enterprise Support customers. An expert-guided implementation (EGI) course involving basic configuration for SAP Solution Manager is recommended for customers implementing new monitoring functionality. Completion of this course and related configuration steps provides a foundation for implementing specific monitoring scenarios and functionality. As SAP Solution Manager becomes an essential element in your operations plan, you must run the software in a highavailability environment. You need an operational concept for SAP Solution Manager similar to those for other production systems in your landscape. Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting 9

10 Identify Potential Problems While Improving Operational Efficiency and Resource Utilization Key Benefits of Monitoring and Alerting with SAP Solution Manager SAP Solution Manager builds the foundation for a reliable and stable operation of complex heterogeneous system landscapes, as well as their instances, databases, and hosts. Central configuration functionality, combined with predefined monitoring templates, can significantly reduce the total cost for configuring and operating the infrastructure. The software helps you recognize problems before they become business-critical and provides the system monitoring essential for other areas of your technical operations. It can also provide the data you need to prove operational efficiency, optimize resource utilization, and increase control over enterprise-wide processes. By helping you establish a centralized and proactive strategy for system monitoring that avoids organizational redundancies, the software helps reduce the cost for solution operations. Other benefits include: Homogeneous management of heterogeneous solution landscapes through work-center integration Central monitoring of the technical components of a solution landscape Timely recognition of critical developments through graphical reproduction Establishment of KPIs for quality and quantity in technical operations Expert tools that make the status of the system landscape more visible Support for analyzing and improving business processes Increased administrative efficiency that helps reduce your total cost of operation A single monitoring and alerting infrastructure for SAP and non-sap products Ready-to-use functionality for management reporting Proactive identification of potential system incidents A variety of expert-guided implementations a unique combination of training, live configuration, and on-demand expertise for SAP Solution Manager are available to SAP Enterprise Support customers.

11 How Our Customers Have Benefitted from SAP Solution Manager Value-Added Services from SAP Active Global Support The SAP Enterprise Support Advisory Council seeks to assist in the development of SAP Enterprise Support services that help our customers operate more effectively and introduce innovation more quickly. Approximately 100 customers from all parts of the globe participate in pilot programs that provide valuable feedback for creating well-designed offerings and making them accessible to SAP Enterprise Support customers worldwide. Work groups created by the council in 2012 have helped participating customers become early adopters of the latest functionality available from SAP Solution Manager and use their experiences to determine appropriate strategies for deploying SAP Enterprise Support. A by-product of this collaboration is the continued development of SAP Enterprise Support services and best practices. The technical monitoring and alerting work group contains customers of varying sizes and industries, providing a meaningful sample of use and benefit cases. Many participants seek to improve their existing monitoring programs and leverage new functionality in SAP Solution Manager to take a more proactive, standardized approach. Here are some of the ways our customers have used the technical monitoring and alerting features of SAP Solution Manager. Standardizing System Monitoring One customer used SAP Solution Manager to standardize its monitoring processes. Objective A customer had manually monitored its SAP software systems and used a job scheduler for background processing. Monitoring methods were different for each system, and the monitoring items and thresholds were not standardized. The company used SAP Solution Manager to standardize system monitoring defining its own monitoring items, thresholds, and monitoring frequency. By using the software for all its systems, the customer expects to enhance monitoring quality and reduce the effort and cost of designing and implementing its monitoring processes. The customer also expects to improve operational quality using tools for root cause analysis and resolution and by monitoring the performance of critical transactions. Proposals and Actions The customer took advantage of the EGI courses offered by the SAP Enterprise Support Academy program, designed to enable customers to execute complex activities with the help of experienced SAP support engineers. In this instance, the customer attended the EGI courses Basic Configuration of SAP Solution Manager 7.1 and System Monitoring and Reporting to set up SAP Solution Manager. The courses and independent follow-up helped the customer implement the system monitoring configuration for the development systems and the SAP ERP 6.0 application and SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3 by using the template provided by SAP Solution Manager 7.1. This configuration will be the template used by the group for system monitoring. The customer then tested the template on the development systems and completed it. In addition, the customer joined training offered by the SAP Education organization on executing root cause analysis ( E2E 100 Root Cause Analysis ). To monitor the performance of critical process steps, the customer received on-the-job training through the SAP AGS EGI course End-User Experience Monitoring Reporting Analytics. This enabled the customer to implement the technical monitoring process. Benefit The customer was able to use the implementation template provided by SAP Solution Manager rapidly and at low cost. The EGI courses gave the customer information for defining operational requirements such as monitoring items, thresholds, and monitoring frequency. As a result, this company expects to reduce system monitoring efforts and improve the quality of its operations. Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting 11

12 Improving System Health Another customer sought to improve existing monitoring practices for multiple systems. Objective In a typical week, the customer s IT team worked from a checklist that appraised the overall health of its SAP software systems. Like many organizations, this customer found it challenging to monitor everything, every day, and proactively address potential problems. Proposals and Actions The customer received configuration guides as part of its SAP Enterprise Support agreement to start the implementation of SAP Solution Manager. By following the guides, the customer successfully set up monitoring for multiple ABAP programming language systems, the SAP ERP and SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) applications, and SAP NetWeaver BW with built-in alerts configured around key interest areas. SAP AGS works with SAP Enterprise Support customers around the world on new offerings that address technical monitoring and alerting issues in a systematic way. Benefit The customer eliminated some of the tasks from its checklist and increased its focus on activities with greater business value. The effort for logging into individual systems and landscape components was reduced during the initial phase of the project and should continue to decline. The customer plans to set up monitoring for the SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) offering and SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions and continue to refine existing templates and thresholds to minimize unnecessary alerts. Fostering Timely Decisions A third customer used SAP Solution Manager to provide information for timely IT decisions. Objectives The customer runs critical business processes on the SAP Bank Analyzer set of applications, SAP ERP, the SAP Supplier Relationship Management application, the SAP NetWeaver Portal component, and the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio of solutions. This customer had manually executed system monitoring and the reporting of technical items. A regular review by SAP EarlyWatch Alert was integrated into the customer s application operations. The customer wanted to reduce the time involved in creating technical reports for IT management and standardized, system-specific reporting. The customer also wanted to provide IT managers with a quick overview of the productive technical system landscape they need for timely decision making through interactive reporting and management dashboards. The customer s IT strategy is to monitor as much as possible automatically (using best practices and standards supported by SAP), keep the SAP system landscapes highly available (with optimal performance), and set up an exception-handling process. In addition, the customer sought to enable management reporting with a single keystroke, establish proactive alerts on relevant thresholds that safeguard the system availability, monitor performance continuously, and give employees the system knowledge they require. Proposals and Actions An initial meeting was set up to discuss the functionality SAP Solution Manager offers. The customer received further technical knowledge transfer by replaying the Meet the Expert session for technical monitoring and alerting in SAP Enterprise Support Academy. The customer then participated in the expert-guided implementation courses for basic configuration and system monitoring and reporting to set up a monitoring and alerting framework. The customer had follow-up calls with the SAP Enterprise Support advisor to get answers to questions and define further milestones.

13 Benefits By implementing SAP recommendations in the production environment, this customer was able to set up a monitoring and alerting framework within nine weeks. The customer can now spot unplanned disruptions coming and avoid them, as well as detect and resolve actual incidents more quickly. The IT team was empowered to set up and individualize the metric objects. Customized thresholds that safeguard the customer s strong operational requirements are now aligned with the organization s business requirements. Together, the customer and SAP Enterprise Support: Implemented a trend analysis for (historical) technical system data Established a proactive early-warning framework Provided aggregated management reporting available with a single keystroke This has significantly reduced manual monitoring efforts by the customer s IT team as well as monitoring costs and has met management s expectation for less unplanned disruption, efficient exception handling, and business continuity. SAP Enterprise Support Academy Offerings The following expert-guided implementation services offered by SAP Enterprise Support helped address the needs of customers we discussed above: SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Road Map Technical Upgrade to 7.1 Basic Configuration for SAP Solution Manager 7.1 System Monitoring and Reporting End-User Experience Monitoring Reporting Analytics PI Monitoring and Trouble Shooting BI Monitoring and Trouble Shooting SLR and IT Reporting Service Level and IT Performance Reporting Also helpful were the following Meet the Expert sessions: SAP Solution Manager 7.1: Application Lifecycle Management with SAP Solution Manager SAP Solution Manager 7.1: Application Operations Business Intelligence Monitoring SAP Solution Manager 7.1: Central Process Integration Monitoring Technical Operations: System Monitoring Technical Operations: End-User Experience Monitoring Application Operations: Business Intelligence Monitoring To Learn More The SAP Enterprise Support work group participants are providing SAP with a rich source of scenarios and use cases for technical monitoring and alerting. Based on their feedback and use cases, several development requests have been submitted that are currently in evaluation. You can find additional information on the latest services and knowledge transfer channels at /enterprisesupport and For more information on the tools and services mentioned here, please refer to: Technical operations: SAP Solution Manager: SAP online knowledge products for SAP Solution Manager: SAP Help Library technical monitoring and alerting: /a d0bb466c38e2beda35/frameset.htm Using SAP Solution Manager to Enhance Technical Monitoring and Alerting 13

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