End to End Application Monitoring

Avantra usually performs management and monitoring locally on the Systems. But there is also an option to monitor SAP Systems and, for example, web servers from a user perspective.

So-called End Points can be defined on any physical server that has the Avantra Agent installed, allowing system monitoring, availability and performance recording from a user perspective (even from remote sites).

In contrast to some other system management products, and in order to keep things really simple, you should not define End Points on End-User PCs, but have a single Physical Server with Avantra Agent installed on every remote site. There is no SAP GUI or web browser instrumentation with Avantra.

End-to-End Application Monitoring includes RealTime Monitoring checks, performance monitoring of connection response times, availability recording (from the End Point perspective). It can be defined for both, ABAP and Java stacks, but also for general purpose web servers. For ABAP stacks there is also the opportunity to run ABAP reports that may simulate certain typical user transactions.

Every End Point needs to have an Avantra Agent installed to execute End-to-End Application Monitoring. You can either use any existing Avantra Agent you may have placed in the remote site already, or you install another one.

Configure End-to-End Application Monitoring

In order to set up End-to-End Application Monitoring perform the following steps:

  1. Choose Systems  SAP Systems from the menu, select the desired entry from the list and push the Open button (or double-click the selection).

  2. Switch to the End-to-End tab and select the End Point type from the New drop-down.

  3. Fill in an End Point Name and push the New button.

  4. Open the newly created entry.

  5. Click Change#Checked on#: Select a Server from the list. If required, flag Show Servers of All Customers. Push the Select button.

  6. For End Point type

    ABAP

    Perform the following steps:

    1. For Connection Type

      • either choose Direct Application Server and select an appropriate item from the ABAP Application Server list,

      • or choose Message Server and Logon Group and define Message Server of Instance, Message Server Port, and Logon Group Name.

    2. You may also define an SAP Router String.

    3. You may expand the section ABAP Advanced Config in order to define an alternate IP address, different logon credentials (by default the RFC user defined with the SAP System is used), an ABAP report/variant to execute, etc.

      In case you execute an ABAP report you can also choose whether to include the report in the response time or to track it as a separate Performance counter.

    Java

    Perform the following steps:

    1. For Connection Type

      • either choose Java Application Server and select an appropriate item from the Java Application Server list, choose Protocol, Port, and URL Suffix,

      • or choose Alternate URL (e.g. Web Dispatcher) and define one in URL.

    2. Select Use basic authentication and a Proxy URL if required.

    3. You may expand the section JAVA Advanced Config in order to define an alternate IP address or different logon credentials.

    Generic Web Service

    Perform the following steps:

    1. Define a Name for the End Point and push the OK button.

    2. Fill in a URL, and f required, define a Proxy URL as well. In case the site requires authentication, set the Use basic authentication flag and define User and Password.

    3. Select the HTTP Method, and in case of POST define some POST data as well.

    4. For all End Point types you can configure further advanced settings:

      • Define how many successive connection failures will have the connection check turn Critical (Default: 1).

      • Define a warning and a critical connection response time, i.e. thresholds that will cause the connection check turn to Warning or Critical, if exceeded.

      • If or if not a Warning connection check will be considered as Uptime in the service availability.

    5. For the JAVA and the Generic Web Service instance, you may define a different User Agent String. For additional information see User Agent String in the HTTP_RESPONSE custom check.

    6. Push the Apply button.

Please note that you can define multiple End Point instances for the same End Point at a time. While there can only be a single ABAP and a single JAVAEnd Point instance for one End Point, you can configure multiple Generic Web ServiceEnd Point instances.

You can use End-to-End Application Monitoring to perform basic monitoring of SAP Systems where no local Avantra Agents can be installed:

  1. Define the SAP System as described in Defining SAP Systems.

  2. Set the Monitoring Parameter LocalMonitoringOff (see also Adding, Modifying & Deleting Monitoring Parameters) for the SAP System.

  3. Define the hosting Servers as described in Defining Servers.

  4. Set the Monitoring Parameter LocalMonitoringOff (see also Adding, Modifying & Deleting Monitoring Parameters) for the Servers.

  5. Define the SAP Instances manually as described in Assigning SAP Instances to SAP Systems.

  6. Define an End Point for the SAP System as described above.