Basic Concepts

One of the most important aspects in the area of system management is Monitoring. Monitoring in Avantra is the execution of health Checks on the target Systems. Avantra follows a split monitoring approach: many System conditions have to be checked frequently and the results are reported in the RealTime Monitoring. Other conditions, especially in the context of SAP Systems only need to be verified once a day, like e.g. the backup. These results are summarized in the Daily Checks. And in addition to the Checks executed on the monitored Systems there is also an End-to-End Application Monitoring providing system monitoring from an end-user perspective.

Every Check provides a Check Result that can be confirmed, as well as a Check history. Check Confirmation in Avantra is not a click-and-forget kind of thing. Even confirmed Checks pop-up periodically until an issue is finally solved.

The configuration of Checks (or Monitoring as such) is implemented by means of the so called Monitoring Parameters. They can be defined on a per-System level or for a Static Group or Dynamic Group of Systems by the so called Parameter Sets. Using the latter ones allows you to enforce a consistent Monitoring Policy across your System landscape.

You can interrupt the monitoring process either ad-hoc or in a scheduled way by using Maintenance Windows. Like the other monitoring configuration items, Maintenance Windows can be defined on a per-System level or for a Static Group or Dynamic Group of Systems.

While there is a comprehensive list of built-in Checks in Avantra you may want to extend monitoring to other applications, interfaces, or to specific aspects of a System. Avantra provides a feature rich toolbox of so called Custom Checks that allow you to extend monitoring easily to your needs. If you need to extend monitoring vertically instead, i.e. building new Checks based on the Check Results of existing Checks (or Custom Checks) you may want to define so called Composite Checks. Or even Business Services if you want to correlate across System boundaries.

Finally, if you want to forward Check Results to administrators, Customers, or third-party applications, you can use the built-in Notifications mechanism to integrate Avantra perfectly into your operation environment.

Reporting is another important area in system management. But before there is something to report you have to collect, track, and record data. In Avantra there is

All these data, among other, is contained in the Service Level Reports that can be generated manually or per-schedule under consideration of Service Level Agreements and Maintenance Windows.

You can define different styles for the Service Level Reports, customize the content using templates, and define multiple scheduled jobs for the generation process.

Avantra provides a bunch of features that are really helpful in this context:

A major difference between Avantra and almost all other system management applications is the focus on a Service Provider perspective. Avantra is designed consistently keeping Service Provider and large-scale enterprises in mind.

Therefore Customers are a fundamental building block in Avantra. Every System is assigned to a Customer (in the meaning of the Customer being the System owner). On the other hand, Users in Avantra are assigned to Customers as well when it comes to Permissions: a User either represents a Customer or has the permission to perform certain tasks on behalf of the Customer (or even for all Customers if a user represents the Service Provider itself).

The best is probably to think of Customers as a simple grouping mechanism (e.g. for Systems) on the one hand, and as the smallest entity you can grant Permissions for on the other hand.

Even more, Customers can be arranged in a hierarchical structure. Due to the inheritance of Permissions more complex groupings can be achieved.

Other areas where the Service Provider perspective plays an important role are:

Automation is at the core of Avantra and powers everything from custom checks through to the intelligent notification system. To build a landscape that is resilient and able to react to the ever changing situation, Avantra gives you access to a powerful, customizable and intelligent automation engine. The latest version of Avantra includes the following out of the box:

Each of these actions can be performed either manually, in conjunction with a Maintenance Window or as a Notification Action (meaning they can be triggered as a result of the output of a system or landscape check). You can also dynamically adjust resources in conjunction with Composite Checks and your Business Services. Avantra’s automation engine is incredibly powerful and is the foundation for intelligent operations.

Avantra consists of several components:

Avantra distinguishes four types of licensed items: SID, Additional SAP Instance, Stand-alone Database, and Server.

{virtual-cluster-server} do not require a license itself, but they can only run on a Physical Server that consumes a _Server license.

You do not need a license for instances of type Java_Scs, Abap_Scs, or Enqueue Replication Server.

You do not need a license for the System Database of an SAP HANA multi-container installation.

All {system}s require a license once they are active, even if monitoring is turned off manually or by a Maintenance Window. A System switches to the license state _Retired once it is {not-operational}. Retired systems still require a license for 40 days starting from the day they were set to not operational. After 40 consecutive days in state Retired they automatically change to the license state _Decomissioned and the license is available again for other Systems.

If there are more Physical Servers, SAP Systems, SAP Instances and Databases active than actually licensed, the ones entered last into Avantra are ignored, i.e. messages sent by the affected monitoring agent are dropped, instead there are UNKNOWN Check Results in the RealTime Monitoring.

Avantra comes in two Editions: Avantra and Avantra Pro. Certain features, like Cloud Integration, Automation, Business Services, Dashboards, and SAML are only available in the Avantra Pro Edition.

Licenses are issued by means of a license key that you request using the UI, and that is mailed to you in return. This process is described in detail in Obtaining and Installing the License.

The license key usually is restricted to a certain license period, depending on your contract. It is also bound to one Avantra Server instance with failover scenarios being supported.

After the installation of the liense key your license will run through an Activation process automatically every 30 days. The same happens in case of failover scenarios, hardware changes, network configuration changes, etc. If your Avantra Server has no Internet connection, you need to perform these Activation steps manually through your browser.