Service Levels, Hours and Reports

Service Hours

Service Hours in Avantra define certain parts of the week, like 24x7 or from 8 am to 6 pm every working day, etc.

They can be used in Service Level Agreements, Filters, and Parameter Sets.

Service Level Agreement

You can define Service Level Agreements and assign the agreements to servers and/or SAP Systems. A Service Level Agreement primarily consists of a definition of Service Hours and a Committed Availability Rate.

For Systems having a Service Level Agreement assigned, the Service Level Report generation process considers Availability Data within the Service Hours (instead of the default 7x24) and compares the computed availability rate with the Committed Availability Rate.

For Service Level Agreements, you can also choose whether the Service Hours are defined in local system time or in UTC. If they are in local system time, then each of the System’s TimeZone settings is considered to compute the availability rate.

Maintaining Service Level Agreements

In Avantra, Service Level Agreements are strongly related to availability data. Usually, in the Service Level Reports the System's availability rates are calculated based on 7x24 time ranges.

Within Service Level Agreements you can define Service Hours. Once a Service Level Agreement is assigned to a certain System, this System's availability rate is calculated with respect to the defined Service Hours. Each Service Hours record itself consists of a single or multiple Time Ranges defining one or more time slices on one or more days of the week.

To create a Service Level Agreement, you need to define Service Hours (or select one of the pre-defined ones), and in order to define Service Hours, you need to define Time Ranges.

For a Service Level Agreement, you can decide if the attached Service Hours are meant to be in UTC or in local time. If they are meant to be in UTC, all System's availability rates (of the Systems having theService Level Agreement assigned) are computed based on UTC times. Otherwise, for each System, its TimeZone information is considered for availability rate computation.

If there is no TimeZone defined for a particular Server or SAP System, the TimeZone value of the Customer owning the System is considered. If this one is set neither, the local timezone of Avantra WebUI is taken into account.

Further, a Service Level Agreement requires the definition of the Committed Availability Rate. In the Service Level Reports, the System's availability rate will be reported against exactly this value.

To view Service Level Agreements, you need the View SLA Permission. In order to create, modify, or delete Service Level Agreements, Service Hours, Time Ranges, and in order to view all defined Service Hours you need the Edit SLA Permission.

Creating a Service Level Agreement

To create a new Service Level Agreement, perform the following steps:

  1. Select Reporting  Service Level Agreements from the top-level menu. Choose New from the toolbar.

  2. Fill in Name and push the New button.

  3. Fill in an optional Description and define the percentage (without the % sign) for the Committed Avail.~Rate

  4. Select a value from the Service Hours list. See also Service hours.

  5. If you want the Service Hours to be treated as UTC time, flag the UTC check box.

  6. Push Apply.

Assign a Service Level Agreement

Finally, you need to assign the defined Service Level Agreement to some Systems, either Servers, SAP Systems, Databases or a combination of these:

  1. Choose Systems  SAP Systems, or Systems  SAP Instances, or Systems  Databases, or Systems  Servers, or Systems  SAP Business Objects, or Systems  Cloud Services from the top-level menu.

  2. Select the list items and choose More  Assign SLA.

  3. Select the appropriate Service Level Agreement and push the Assign button.

Service Level Report

You can easily generate a Service Level Report for each Customer. If, for example, you schedule the Service Level Report generation at the beginning of each month, your Customers can easily download the monthly reports. But you can also generate the Service Level Reports manually using Avantra WebUI in order to select content, reporting period, etc.

Service Level Reports can be customized. It is possible to change language, colors, fonts, page size, images, etc. to suit your specific needs and requirements.

All Service Level Reports are generated in PDF format and stored in the Avantra Database. Service Level Reports are generated automatically based on a schedule and can be sent to email addresses.

Generating Service Level Reports

In Avantra WebUI, Service Level Reports can be generated manually or automatically based on a schedule.

Select Reporting  Service Level Reports from the top-level menu to create and manage Service Level Reports. There are five tabs:

Generating Service Level Reports ad-hoc

Select the first Report tab. You can find the following actions:

The Service Level Report generation dialog provides the following configuration options:

Customer

Define the customer to include in the Service Level Report. You can select the Include sub customers checkbox to include also the sub customers. Only systems which belong to this customer can be included in this report.

Select Systems

To include all systems from the selected customer select the radio button All systems. To include only systems with a specific system role, select Select by System Role. Select Advanced Selection to define a specific selection of systems to include in the report.

Time Period

This can be either the previous month, or any other month in the past, or an arbitrarily defined period in time. Choose Last Month, Select Month, Select Month(s), or Select Day and make further selections accordingly.

Remark

Include the remarks defined for this customer in the report. See below.

Summary of Availabilities

Include a chapter with a summary of system availabilities. Select the checkboxes to exactly define what to include in the report.

Business Services

Include a chapter about Business Services.

Servers

Include a chapter about the monitored servers. You have several checkboxes to define which collected data to include.

SAP Systems

Include a chapter about the monitored SAP Systems. You have several checkboxes to define which collected data to include.

Databases

Include a chapter about the monitored Databases. You have several checkboxes to define which collected data to include.

Changes

Include a chapter about the system changes. You have several checkboxes to define which data to include.

RealTime Monitoring

Include a chapter with RealTime Monitoring check results. You can include All RTM Checks or a selection, which is the recommended approach.

Please be aware that this option will always report the latest RealTime Monitoring results, no matter which Time period you choose for other data. This is indicated by a timestamp in the RealTime Monitoring section of the Service Level Report.

You may use the option Group checks by check name to report a sub-section for each check name. Otherwise, it will be a single section with all checks being sorted alphabetically.

Daily Checks

Include a chapter with the daily check results. You have the option to include all daily check results, daily checks which have a specific status, or only daily checks for a specific check type.

Customer Users

Include a chapter with all users who have access to this customer.

Tickets

Include a chapter with the tickets which have been opened, worked on, or closed within the given time period.

Hide table of content

Select the checkbox to exclude the table of content. If you want to include only some levels of the table of content, select the checkbox and set the number of levels to include.

Ignore downtimes if less than

In order to avoid very short Downtimes being shown in the availability statistics, you may select this checkbox. Downtimes less than the defined number of minutes are ignored and considered as uptime.

Group systems by application type

Select this option to create chapters for each application type. This will introduce an additional level in the table of content.

Exclude performance data for days which are not covered by SLA

By default, all collected performance data is used for the report. Select this checkbox if you only want to include performance data that was collected when an SLA is defined and active.

Don’t show forecast for performance charts

By default, the reported data is extrapolated into the future for those types of resources where it is useful. The extrapolation is suppressed if you set this flag.

Rename document

You have the option to define a name for the generated report.

Publish SLR automatically after generation

Select this checkbox to publish the report. If the report is not published, the report is not visible to other users, only the user who created the report can view see the report. It is not recommended to publish a report during testing and fine-tuning.

Published reports are stored in the Avantra database. Unpublished reports are stored in the file system.
Apply style

Select a style to apply to the report. Styles can be defined in the Styles tab, see below.

Once you configured what to include in the report, press Generate SLR. If you did not set all mandatory settings, a message indicating the reason is shown. If all mandatory settings are set, the Generating SLR dialog is opened which shows you the progress of the generation. During generation, you have the option to stop the generation, or you can send the generation to the background. Sending a generation to the background closes the generation dialog and you can continue to work in Avantra WebUI. You will find the report after a time in the Reports tab. Once the report is generated you have the option to view the report, press Close and open SLR.

You need the Generate SLRs Permission in order to generate Service Level Reports.

Generating Service Level Report templates

Service Level Report templates define a set of settings used to generate a Service Level Report. Typical settings are the customer, the monitored systems to include, which performance data to include, and many more. It is highly recommended to create a set of templates that can be used to create a Service Level Report. Templates are also used for the automated generation of Service Level Reports.

Select the second Templates tab.

You can find the following actions:

  • Press New to create a new template. After setting a name for the template, a dialog to define the template settings is opened. The template can be saved to be used later for Service Level Report generation.

  • Press Open to view or edit a template.

  • Press Copy to copy a template and give a new name.

  • Press Delete to delete a template.

The Service Level Report template dialog is the same as the Generate SLR dialog with two more form fields. You have the option to set a name for the template and a Shared checkbox that indicates whether this template is shared or not. Shared templates are visible and useable by other users. Templates which are not shared are only visible by the user who created the template. Templates must not contain all mandatory fields which are required to create a Service Level Report. If you later select the template to create the report, you must set the remaining mandatory fields.

You need the Edit SLR Templates Permission in order to create, modify, and delete Service Level Report Templates.

Managing Service Level Report Remarks

The intended use for SLR Remarks is to include customized free text messages in Service Level Reports. Assume you have had a special incident during the reporting period that is supposed to be part of the Service Level Report.

There is a default SLR Remark assigned to all customers. This remark can be modified, and — of course — you can select if it will be included in the Service Level Report during the generation process. The default SLR Remark cannot be deleted.

You may also define new SLR Remark records, but at most one per customer. If there is a customer assigned SLR Remark (and you choose to include SLR Remarks during Service Level Report generation), this one will be included instead of the global one.

  • Press New to create a new remark.

  • Press Open to view or edit a remark.

  • Press Delete to delete a remark.

You need the Edit SLR Remarks Permission in order to create, modify, and delete Service Level Report Templates.

Managing Service Level Report Styles

Service Level Report styles can be used to customize a Service Level Report. Avantra provides a default style, but if you want to change colors, fonts, images, and more, you can do so with styles.

In the Service Level Report generation dialog, a style can be selected.

  • Press New to create a new style.

  • Press Open to view or edit a style.

  • Press Delete to delete a style.

You do not have to define all available style settings in the style definition dialog. Only define the settings where you want to modify the default settings. Settings that are not changed in a style will always use the built-in default styles. Styles have no influence on the content and data in the report.

You must have either the Administrator Role or the Super Administrator Role assigned in order to manage Service Level Report Styles.

Managing Service Level Report Jobs

Service Level Report jobs are used to automate the creation of Service Level Reports.

A Service Level Report job is based on a schedule that defined when to create the report and a template that defines what to include in the report.

  • Press New to create a new job.

  • Press Open to view or edit a job.

  • Press Delete to delete a job.

SLR Jobs are configured in the SLR Job Details dialog. The following options can be set:

Active

Select this checkbox to actually execute the job based on the schedule. SLR jobs that are not active are not executed.

Name

Set a name for the job.

SLR Template

Select the template which defines the content and data to include in the report. Make sure that the template contains all mandatory settings. If the template does not contain all mandatory settings, the job cannot create the Service Level Report.

Customer

Set the customer (or override the customer from the template) to be used in the report.

Schedule

Click Edit to define a schedule when the job runs and create the Service Level Report.

Last

Select the number of months, weeks, or days to include in the report.

A time period in the SLR template is ignored from the SLR job.

An SLR job will always calculate a new time period based on the current execution time. For example: if you want to create a Service Level Report on the 2nd day of the month which includes data from the previous month, then create a schedule, select Monthly, select Day, and choose 2. For Last type 1 and select months.

Publish

Check to publish the Service Level Report into the database and to make it visible to other users.

Copy to folder

Check to copy the generated report to the specified folder. Please make sure that Avantra has write permission on this folder. You can use macros (%%CUSTOMER%, %%YEAR%%, %%MONTH%%, %%DAY%%) for the folder. Avantra will create that folder if it does not exist.

Send Email

Check Send Email to send the Service Level Report to an email receiver. Set the following email options. The Service Level Report will be inserted as an attachment to the email.

  • From email address which is used as sender.

  • To email address which defines the recipient.

  • CC / Bcc email address which defines CC and BCC recipients.

  • Subject the email subject.

  • Body the email body.

You must have either the Administrator Role or the Super Administrator Role assigned in order to manage Service Level Report Jobs.

To define mail settings for your automatic reports, navigate to Administration  Settings  Avantra Master and verify the following fields: Mail.from, Mail.host, Mail.password, Mail.port, and Mail.user. In case your outgoing email server requires additional encryption, please also set the value for the fields Mail.ssl, Mail.ssl-port, Mail.tls.