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Introduction
From 2402 Release, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition added a new system monitoring capability, collectively called the Technical Monitoring Cockpit for monitoring the ABAP system. The Cockpit provides a seamless connection between your system workload and single ABAP statistics records (main records and sub-records) down to SQL statements and their prepared plan. Now you have a good starting point to conduct performance analysis on the SAP S/4HANA system in case of high response times.
As this Technical Monitoring Cockpit is not unique to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, but also to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and the Business Technology Platform, the discussion here applies to them as well.
I plan to tackle this topic in a series of blogs in bite sizes so that you can easily consume them during your day-to-day work.
- Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through: this blog provides a guided tour of the Cockpit to readers, walkthrough (clicking through) various functions and resolve some confusions.
- Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts: this blog explains what metrics we are looking for in the Cockpit, and how they can be helpful to you, especially when something seems suspicious.
- Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System (to be published): this blog discusses how to analyze a situation unique to you, which might or might not be answered in the collected system data.
Let’s do a guided tour in this blog: What is the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, how to access it, and how to navigate different screens in the Cockpit.
What is the Technical Monitoring Cockpit?
First thing first, I want to solve a mystery around theTechnical Monitoring Cockpit at the very beginning!
When you get on an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system, search a Fiori application called Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you will find nothing. Wait a minute, when you search the same app in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, you easily find the app Technical Monitoring Cockpit with the App ID F4031.
The Technical Monitoring Cockpit App as Shown in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library
In the Implementation Information section, it lists below App Launchers, i.e. these apps launch the Technical Monitoring Cockpit App:
- HANA Thread Samples
- SQL Trace Analysis
- Sampled Work Process Data
- System Outbound Communication
- System Workload
- Table Analysis
You might ask what is going on here? Here is the story: The Technical Monitoring Cockpit was designed as a big workbench tool for system root cause analysis. Under this umbrella tool, there are many Apps, like System Workload, HANA Thread Samples, System Outbound Communication, etc. as shown in the above list. You can view these apps as an entrance to the system analysis, and they are all under the Technical Monitoring Cockpit umbrella after getting into the door. For example, if you search HANA Thread Samples App, it still displays Technical Monitoring Cockpit as the app title (shown below). Only the chart section and the table section have the title of HANA Thread Samples.
The HANA Thread Samples App
Now if you click on the Apps -> Recently Used (or Apps -> Most Used), the app HANA Thread Samples is listed as the Technical Monitoring Cockpit. When you click it, it goes back to the HANA Thread Samples App.
The Technical Monitoring Cockpit Is Shown as an App in the Recently Used or Most Used Tab
Also you will notice that HANA Thread Samples App doesn’t exist in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library. When you type the name to search it, it returns only the Technical Monitoring Cockpit.
Here is the conclusion:
- There is no app called Technical Monitoring Cockpit in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system, although it is listed in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library. It is a system analysis workbench title.
- To explore different features of the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you need to enter the name of various analysis apps, such as HANA Thread Samples.
- In the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, you don’t find any system analysis app like HANA Thread Samples. It points you to the Technical Monitoring Cockpit.
This confusion will be resolved by our development, but I don’t know when.
Accessing the Technical Monitoring Cockpit
To access the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, you need to have the right authorizations, especially the Business Catalogs. The Business Catalogs grant the access to the Technical Monitoring Cockpit are:
Business Catalog | Business Catalog Description |
SAP_A4C_BC_DEV_SUP_PC | Development - Analysis and Support |
SAP_CORE_BC_TMC_MON_PC | Technical Monitoring – Analysis |
In the Fiori Launchpad, we organize apps by Spaces and Pages. The Pages list relevant apps are:
Page | Page Description | Page Title |
SAP_A4C_PGT_DEV_SUP_PC | Development - Analysis and Support | Analysis and Support |
SAP_CORE_PGT_TMC_PC | Administration - Technical Monitoring | Technical Monitoring |
Here is the example of the Technical Monitoring page. The relevant apps are marked with a medal.
The Technical Monitoring Page
The Pages are organized under Spaces which in turn are assigned to a business role. The following four Spaces contain above two Pages:
Space | Space Description | Space Title |
SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR | Administrator | Administration |
SAP_BR_APPL_SUP_ENG_DEV_SUP | Application Support Engineer - Development Supporter | Development Support |
SAP_BR_DEVELOPER | Developer | Development |
SAP_OC_SPT_ADMINISTRATION_PC | Administration - Output Control | Administration - Output Control |
In my case, I access these apps by clicking on the Administration Space, then the Technical Monitoring Page on the Fiori Launchpad (see above figure).
Walking through the Technical Monitoring Cockpit
When you are in the Technical Monitoring Cockpit, regardless of how you enter there through which door/entrance/app (such as HANA Thread Samples), click on the so-called Hamburger Menu (next to SAP logo), a menu panel is opened on the lefthand side as shown.
Menu Panel of the Technical Monitoring Cockpit
It is not obvious that these menus lead to the relevant apps. For example, when you click on the menu Dashboards -> Application System Overview, you can see four apps are listed:
Four Apps under Dashboard ->Application System Overview
On the other hand, when you click on the menu Information -> Workload -> Captured Request Statistics, the app Captured Request Statistics is launched directly. You cannot drill down further by clicking on the arrow icon (details).
The Captured Request Statistics App
I am listing these menus and their relevant Apps in the below table. I add brief comments to some apps as I don’t plan to discuss further. All other apps will be explained in my blogs.
Navigating the Technical Monitoring Cockpit
Regardless which app you use, the navigation technique is basically the same by clicking and drilling down. Let me use System Workload app as an example, as it has more data to work with. I close the Hamburger Menu to save the limited launchpad space.
The System Workload app can be launched in three ways: 1) Using Hamburger Menu, Dashboards -> Application System Overview-> System Workload: Response Time Contribution. 2) Using App Finder and type in “System Workload”. 3) Using Space and Pages, Administration-> Technical Monitoring-> System Workload.
In the System Workload screen, there are four sections vertically: Title, Time Range, Chart and Details Table (Top 10 entries if there are more than ten).
The First Window of the System Workload App
Title Section
There is not much you can do in this section.
Time Range Section
To define a range of data you are going to focus on, you need to define a time range. The Time Slider is visual and convenient but not accurate. More accurate definition is by using the time windows on the left and right. For example, currently I define a time range starting from 2024-09-16 11:40 to 2024:09:17 11:40. That is exact one day of length. This duration information is displayed in the center of the window as “1 D”. If we extend the time range, the duration could be “1D 1h 19m”.
The double arrow icon (left and right) helps you to move the Time Slider exactly to the left or right by the duration. If the duration is “1D 1h”, the new time range becomes 2024-09-15 10:40 to 2024:09:16 11:40.
There is a pull-down window to adjust the granularity of the data. By default, it is “In 10-Minute Intervals”. I change that to “In Hours” to be used in Section Chart discussion later.
Chart Section
Depending on what data you are looking at, it mostly shows the stacked bar chart or a line chart.
In addition, this chart has multiple tabs. When you click on one of them, it opens a similar screen with a chart and a table for that particular interested area, such as ABAP CPU Time. I will leave them for discussion in the subsequent blogs. From chart navigation perspective, they all behave the same way.
To check out a specific bar, you can hoover the mouse over the bar. It shows the time and value of the data in a pop-up label.
Hoover Over to Read a Bar
Another way to read the bar value is by clicking on that bar. A vertical dash line appears on that time, and all the same type bars are highlighted. The value of that bar you clicked is shown at the upper left.
Click to Read a Bar Value and Time
If you click on the ABAP Processing Time icon in the Legend, it highlights all the same type bars and displays the Mean Value of that bar type. In this case, it is 20.16 seconds.
Click the Legend Icon to Read a Mean Value of One Type of Bars
The top row of the Chart Section has many filters. In the Public Cloud, the Fiori apps use OData V2, so this is a good Request Entry Type to choose. With this filter, the details table is impacted as well, by only showing the data associated with the OData V2 requests.
Filter Data with Request Entry Type = OData V2
At the table, each vertical column values can be filtered as well by double clicking the column title. But this filter only affects the value display in the column. The filter in the Chart Section affects both chart and table.
Details Table Section
The Details Table below the Chart usually lists top ten data records. At the bottom, the R stands for Rest, i.e., the total amount minus the sum of top ten records. The T stands for Total, i.e., the total amount of top ten records in the table. If there are less than ten records in the table, the total value of R should be zero. T will be whatever is available in the table.
The primary function of the Details Table is to drill down by clicking on the Details Icon at the end of each row.
Let’s take a closer look at the top row. Its Request Entry Name is /SAP/ESH_SEARCH_SRV/0001, and the Program Context is /sap/opu/odata/sap/ESH_SEARCH_SRV/DataSources. It tells us the top workload is caused by a search function originated from a Fiori app. By clicking on the Details Icon, we can have further information about this search program: how it consumes ABAP Processing Time within this 24-hour period.
Details of Request Processing Time
Here you need to be careful. The chart uses a set of aggregated data. When you use the granularity of hours, you could find peak values totally different from using granularity of As Collected.
The three figures below show the ABAP Processing Time in three granularities: As Collected, At 10-Minute Intervals, In Hours. The peak Processing Times shift based on the granularity: 4:49:00, 4:50:00, 7:00:00, respectively. Obviously, the Peak Value at 7 am is quite misleading.
ABAP Processing Time Peak at 4:49:00 (Granularity: As Collected)
ABAP Processing Time Peak at 4:50:00 (Granularity: At 10-Minute Intervals)
ABAP Processing Time Peak at 7:00:00 (Granularity: In Hours)
When you change the granularity, the table rows change as well. The time is aggregated according to the granularity. To get an accurate entry point for analysis, I would use the granularity of “As Collected”.
The table is sorted by the column ABAP Processing Time, with the highest value at the top. From the Start Time column, you can observe the top Processing Times, some are on Sep. 16, and some are in Sep. 17.
Now if you drill down further of the top row, you will reach the ABAP Statistics Record window. Immediately you learn that there are 12 records and this is the first one (1/12), the highest ABAP Processing Time. By clicking on the arrows at the top, you can scroll through these twelve rows.
ABAP Statistics Record Screen
When you look at the ABAP Statistics Record, not only you can find out who runs this program at that time, but also status of Database Connections and Memory Consumptions. I will discuss them in subsequent blogs.
Conclusion
The Technical Monitoring Cockpit is an umbrella covering many analysis tools/apps for administrators and developers. You can enter this Cockpit from different entrances/apps. The layout and structure of different apps under this umbrella follow a systematic approach from the navigation perspective. After reading this blog, you should be NEVER LOST when using this new tool.
References:
- SAP Help: Monitoring the System Workload
- Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Clicking Through
- Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – The Key Concepts
- Blog: Technical Monitoring Cockpit Introduction Series – Diving into Your Own System Workload (to be published)
