Release Notes Avantra 21.11

Introduction

These release notes refer to an older version of Avantra and may no longer be accurate in the latest version. Please consult the latest release notes.

Avantra 21.11 is a major release replacing Avantra 20.11. With Avantra 21.11 we’ve introduced our new Avantra Enterprise edition as well as including new features across Avantra Standard and Professional too. Read on to find out what’s new in 21.11!

What’s new in 21.11

Automated SAP HotNews Analysis

  • SAP HotNews download and analysis is completed automatically each night

  • Easily answer the question “Are my systems affected?”

  • Combines SAP component information with OS and DB information for impact analysis

  • Notes can be marked as active or inactive, so irrelevant HotNews can easily be hidden

  • Track the implementation status of active notes

SAP Notes inventory

  • See complete information around SAP Notes within all systems as standard

  • Easily see if there are SAP HotNews items that affect the current SAP system and have not yet been implemented

ML based predictive analytics

  • Uses built-in machine learning algorithms to inform whether current readings are truly an issue or not

  • Reduce out of hours false alerts caused by “spikey”, “bursty”, or “flapping” monitoring situations

  • Works based on time series data combined with classic threshold based monitoring

  • Supported on the CPU Load and HANA CPU Load check types:

All new UX for dashboards and charts

  • Consumer-grade user experience with enhanced reporting capabilities

  • Available alongside the classic UI

Native Solution Manager support

  • Native out of the box support for Solution Manager

  • Show the relationship between Solution Manager and each SAP system (2 way links)

  • Six new out of the box checks:

    • SM_SolmanSetup - Checks setup of Solution Manager system

    • SM_LMDBConsistency - Checks consistency of Solution Manager LMDB

    • ServiceDataCCN - Checks connection of ABAP systems to Solution Manager

    • DigitalNotesCompliancy - Checks if ABAP System is configured correctly to download digital notes

    • RTCCTool - Performs SAP system service readiness check (RTCCTOOL)

    • TMS_Status - Performs various TMS-related tests and extracts transport route information

Avantra Add ins

  • Collections of content that accelerate your time to value for specific scenarios e.g. security and hardening

  • Available to Enterprise Edition customers through the Avantra Support Portal

  • Launching with 21.11.0:

    • Avantra on Avantra

      The “Focus on Avantra” Add in will allow you to Monitor & Manage your Avantra AIOps Platform from within Avantra, including DB, Security, and integration layers. It is designed to bring confidence that your Avantra platform is running smoothly and forewarn you of issues.

    • SuSE Hardening

      The “SuSE Hardening” add in will allow you to compare your in-use OS settings within SuSE installations with recommendations from the published SuSE Hardening Guide. It is designed to highlight common hardening parameters that should be set within your SuSE install base and ensure rogue settings are identified and changed early.

ServiceNow Service Graph Connector

  • Native support within Avantra and also within ServiceNow as part of a ServiceNow certified co-innovation

  • Simple and no-code setup and configuration

  • Avantra has influenced the ServiceNow CMDB council to introduce SAP data structures e.g. SAP Notes

  • No need for discovery via MID server

Advanced business logic within notifications

  • Design and deploy business logic within the notification engine

  • Logic is designed using Javascript with significant flexibility

  • Facilitates a memory of previously incident data for updates and more

  • High level of flexibility to adopt to 3rd party interface or API

  • Examples available in our new API documentation

BPMN 2.0 workflow automation engine

  • Separate automation code and data by using variables

  • Designed based on customer feedback from the existing automation engine

  • Avantra will deliver SAP Automation templates within this engine for Enterprise subscription customers

  • Existing automations continue to work on previous engine

Auto server registration & system discovery

  • Automatic self-registration from deployed agents to simplify and speed up new systems

    ./agent-21.11.0.bin -- --masterhost=your-master-host --custid=123

  • Detected SAP instances and SAP systems are now automatically discovered by the agent and created within the Avantra system

  • Avantra administrators confirm automatically created systems individually or in a bulk action

Multi-level monitoring support

  • SAP Systems can now be monitored even without credentials and transport

  • Deliver value-add insights from the very start

  • Monitoring level visible in list and detail views

  • Mode is adjusted automatically based on level of visibility into the system

Native VMware integration

  • VMware is now natively integrated similar to cloud hyperscalers

  • Metadata retrieval and visibility

  • End to end start-/stop automation

  • Direct link to vSphere vCenter Server

  • Multi-customer, multi-tenant

Developer productivity enhancements

  • Significantly improved code to test to deploy timeframes (minutes to seconds)

  • New test function to return JavaScript based custom check results instantly

  • New simplified API for interacting with remote web services

  • Improved and simplified API for calling SAP function modules

  • All new streamlined API documentation with comprehensive example code

Connect support for PostgreSQL & MySQL

  • New native support for popular open source databases PostgreSQL and MySQL

  • Designed for customers to enhance and deploy their own observation requirements with ease

  • More out of the box checks for PostgreSQL planned for 2022

  • PostgreSQL support used for Avantra self monitoring on Linux (in Avantra Enterprise add in)

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Important Notes

  • If upgrading from a version earlier than 20.11, please read the release notes for each version for any additional guidance.

  • Java 8 is recommended for all installations now since it has a longer support period and there are a few known issues with using Java 11. Java 12 or higher is not supported yet.

  • For the upgrade of the transports, see Procedure: Import Transport Request.

See also Supported Platforms.

Upgrading to 21.11

To upgrade to 21.11 is simple as it can be applied like any patch, it is typically less than a few minutes to upgrade an Avantra server.

If upgrading Agents from 20.11 or earlier, due to new dependencies, please follow the upgrade order documented in Upgrade Notes which is different from previous major version upgrades.

Previous agent releases (20.11 & 20.5) are compatible with Avantra server 21.11.

The 21.11.0 Agent requires a minimum version for the installed transport. Please see 21.11 Upgrade Path for the latest advice.

Java Runtime Environment 8 is the recommended version to use with Avantra Server and Avantra Agents.

See also the Upgrade Notes.