Process Observer Discussion

[JChristophNolte]

This thread is dedicated to questions and discussions around the Process Observer component that is part of Business Suite.

Process Observer is used in different scenarios, including and prominently with Operational Process Intelligence.

For details on what Process observer is see here.

[Former Member]

Hi Christoph and Bernd,

One of our clients has shown interest in using process observer for one of their requirements. Our client and we have some questions on process observer.

1. What is the SAP roadmap for this tool. Will SAP continue to support this tool

2. What is the impact on performance because of this continuous logging of data

3. The data generated in the process log will be huge. How to manage the huge log data

4. In case of this client, there will be around 20,000 invoices created in an hour. With that    amount  of data, what will be the impact on the performance and how much log data will get generated in the process log.

5. Is there any way to integrate the data from this tool with Solution Manager

Thanks & Regards

Radhika

[Former Member]

Hey Radhika,

you are describing some of the Questions that have arisen here as well.

Especially Question #3 we are trying to figure out a way to compact the data while backing it up. Some sort of Aggregation rule (everything older than 3 weeks will be aggregated to a daily rate). Have you given any thoughts regarding something like that?

BR,

Marc

[Former Member]

Hi Marc,

We have some ideas on storing the historical log data or even purging the data after a fixed period of time.

But the log might be huge even with two weeks of data depending on the number of events created. thats why, I supported the question 3 above with some sample data in question 4.

Might have to plan for periodic back up of data.

Thanks

Radhika

[bernd_schmitt]

Hi Radhika & Marc,

in order to give answer to some of your questions above:

1) The Process Observer tools is supported in the context of the standard support of the SAP Business Suite. IMS support for the tool is in place and will be given provided with the same timelines as the other components of the suite. Beyond this we are shipping dedicated improvements, based on customer co-innovation projects, customer connect, as well as new developments like the S4HANA. We ship the innovations as part of new EhPs as well as SPs and notes for selected existing EhPs. Currently we are providing these innovations for EhP6 and EhP7.

2) The impact of one event on the DB depends on your process definitions, but also on the DB configuration and retention strategy. Worst case (4-byte for characters) may result in entries of 4kB per Events you collect with Process Observer. For more realistic scenarios you may count 2,5-3 kB/Events.

3) We are providing a deletion report/transaction POC_MASS_DELETE that allows you to remove old process instances from your DB. You can specify time intervals and process status to specify what you want to delete/keep. You may in addition keep old process log information in a BI system or HANA system side-by-side.

4) you can make some estimates for the data volume given the information in 2). As for the number of events you calculate processing up to 1 Mio. events per hour should not be a problem, given some preconditions: install latest performance improvements and avoid performance bottlenecks like using the generic (build-in) DRB functionality when processing BOR events. These are however no exact performance numbers yet. We are working on publishing a sizing guide that will give more exact numbers for you.

5) As for integration with BPA please check this article: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-48621 . The integration was tested, but not yet delivered in the standard of SAP Solution Manager. For this requirement, please address directly Stafan Voll who is the development lead and global owner for Business Process Improvement with BP Anallytics in the SAP Solution Manager.

Regards,

Bernd