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Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah

Daily workout of an BASIS Admin to ensure system availability & integrity ….

Hello BASISians,

We as BASIS people, it’s our major responsibility to look after our SAP severs and keep maximum up-time to ensure 99.9999 % productivity of respective organisations. Apart from SAP server up-time, it’s also crucial to make sure that server performance throughput is per expectation of business users as it plays an important role in running an organisation. I guess almost all BASIS people receives the first call in case any alien behavior occurs in SAP servers 😆 and we also face the same with  our own imagined / framed  solution for the time being and later on after putting lots of efforts  into search engine and various logs, we finally get the solution. As we know very well that SAP is versatile and we can never  say that I have X many years of experience & I know everything in X module since on every new day new enhancements & developments  comes and most of the existed scenarios get changed . Whatever it is , but as pro-active action we all need to ensure ourselves that we find the issue before any end user complains.

So, follow below mentioned basic daily activities :-

1. Check whether all the SAP servers are up & running or not . In case of ABAP servers (ECC, BI, PI etc.), check directly through GUI and for JAVA server (EP, PI, CRISP etc.) check the generic URL http:<FQDN of SPA server>:<port> .

2. Check all the below transactions aka reports in each of crucial ABAP servers :-

RZ20: It’s a quick way to get all the alerts in one place (You can get more details in Monitoring your SAP NetWeaver Componentshttps://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/monitoring link) . More likely you can monitor the spool space . (RZ20 > SAP CCMS Monitor Templates > Spool System > System Wide > Spool > SpoolNumbers > UsedNumbers )

SM50: Check whether any background process is taking long time

SM37: Check whether any scheduled periodic job got failed

ST22: Check if any recursive dump is coming is system and analyse as per available logs.

SM21: If any user complains that his/her user ID is locked due number of wrong attempts , but he didn’t do the same , so through SM21, you can find the intruder’s terminal name.

ST06: Check file system usage, CPU utilization etc. various leading performance parameters .

DB02: Check the database usage , percentage of free space etc.

SE38: Execute ‘FP_TEST_IA_01’ & ‘FP_TEST_00’ to check whether ADS is working or not.

ST03N: To check the system workload, any kind of business transaction analysis and also to compare the loads per instances in a load balancing system.

ST02: You can check memory related findings like SAP memory, NTAB buffer, table buffer etc. . In addition to that you can also synchronize buffer in respective  instances.

SM13: To check whether any updates failed.

SM12: To check if there is any pending locks

SMQ1 & SMQ2 : To check outbound and inbound queue as well as well as number of available entries in respective queues.

SMLG: To check the status of available instance in a logon group.

Db01: To check for any database lock entry.

DBACOCKPIT: Most of the things are can covered in this transaction like table-space monitoring , Lock wait , Log Space etc.

DB12 & DB13: To check the status of backups & redo log files and to schedule backup calendar.

3. Check the DR servers log sequence . If any mismatch appears, apply the missing logs manually.

4. Apart from testing NWA URL  of all JAVA systems , do the following additional checks :-

Check if any object level locks existed for an user, if requires delete the lock to release the object for further use.

Check whether all JCO connections (used) are working or not.

In case of ESS/MSS , check whether CONNECTOR, WAS, ITS connections are working or not.

5. Finally check the EWA report for any patching , applying security notes or any further steps to running SAP smoothly.

6. You can take the help of OS team to create alert if SAP services get turned off in server,so that immediate action can be taken. For example in windows system if SAP<SID>_<instance number> service gets stopped, it will send SMS or mail to inform the administrator to take immediate action.

7. In all the new net-weaver systems, to OS Collector service can be started with with following two windows services , so make sure that both are running to get current system statistics :-

  • SAPHostControl
  • SAPHostExec

I hope , it would somehow help BASIS Admin to tackle most of the common issues. At the end, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Thusjanthan Kubendranathan , Akshay Gupta, Heinz Kappan, Amit Shedge, Sabari Ragavenda and none other than Juan Reyes for your obliging inputs, based on which I have re-framed this document by adding some missing crucial points.

Regards,

Nilutpal.

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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Pretty Good list. I would also add to the list:

      DBACOCKPIT (instead of db02). This transaction allows to view the planning calendar for backup schedules (db13), backup log overview (db14), the performance monitor (db50/st04), table indexes (db02) and more.

      Also sm51 to see the instances across the landscape to make sure all processes across the landscape are running optimally.

      I would also add in su53 in there to check for any unsuccessful authorization checks.

      Thusjanthan Kubendranathan

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Thusjanthan ,

      Appreciate your input for all BASIS people..

      I guess SU53 will not help that much as it's not possible to check missing authorization for all users and also without interacting with each end user. In addition to that due to audit purpose & auth. matrix, we can't assign random missing rights as per SU53. Yes, of-course, it will help to assign rights for some intermediate users used in various administration.

      Regards,

      Nilutpal.

      Author's profile photo Shahin Mikayilov
      Shahin Mikayilov

      To check unsuccessful authorizations the easy way to use SM20 -  security audit logs, instead of SU53

      Author's profile photo Akshay Gupta
      Akshay Gupta

      Hi Nilutpal,

      Good one and very put together.

      This is indeed our bread n butter, and we need to do the workout 😆

      Appreciate your efforts.

      -Akshay.

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Hey, thanks Akshay !!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Nilutpal,

      Very great full to read this as a revision on BASIS.

      Regards,

      Omkar

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Nilutpal,

      Good one..

      I would like to add some more transactions for daily monitoring.

      SM13- Check whether any updates failed

      SM12- Check if there is any logn pending locks

      SMLG- Check the logon load balancing.

      Regards,

      Heinz

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good one,

      Adding some of the transaction:

      SM66:--workprocess overview..Here you will see all the process running  and you can get a brief idea if servers are loaded or not

      Db01: Check for Locks wait

      DBACOCKPIT: Most of the thing you can covered in this transaction,Tablespace monitoring,Lock wait,Log Space

      OS07N: You will the details of this Operating system,CPU load,Memory,file system

      Thanks & Regards

      Amit

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good collection of T-Code for monitoring day today activities.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Very Informative...Many Thanks.

      Best Regards,

      Naresh K.

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks to you Naresh !!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Informative.

      One more t-code from my end:

      DB12 - To check the status of backups & redo log files

      Author's profile photo Himanshu sharma
      Himanshu sharma

      Hi,

      Very thoughtfully put together.

      Just to add on:-

      Monitoring queues is also a very important part.

      Therefore adding  SMQ1,SMQ2 AND SM58.

      Regards,

      Himanshu

      Author's profile photo Juan Reyes
      Juan Reyes

      Not bad but is quite a basic list... funny enough you talk about performance and ST03n and ST02 are not listed on your suggestions.

      Also, Checking for Update issues is very important so SM13 is not to be forgotten and I will put RZ20 up the list as its a quick way to get your alerts in one place.

      Regards, Juan

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Juan,

      Thanks for your helpful add ons.. Sorry for missing such important T-Codes 🙁 .

      Regards,

      Nilutpal.

      Author's profile photo Chris Kernaghan
      Chris Kernaghan

      Juan,

      To be honest is there not the capability to make a snapshot report like this from within Solution Manager. I am a massive believer in doing this type of activity, it enables an administrator to get a feel for the rhythm of a system and it's performance but it does take a significant amount of time

      Perhaps we should ping Jansi Rani Murugesan or Tony de Thomasis, they would know better than I would

      Chris

      Author's profile photo Juan Reyes
      Juan Reyes

      Absolutely, You can use Central System Administration Check to set a tasks list in Solman. There is even a template

      Regards, Juan

      Author's profile photo Chris Kernaghan
      Chris Kernaghan

      Does it do automatic collection? I remember the templates which you can use but it was a manual process in SolMan 7

      Chris

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi all,

      Nice article.

      I would add:

      1) SM04 to check for user activity as well as user consuming considerable amount of memory (by sorting the list by 'megabyte' column).

      2) SMGW to check for the active gateway connections

      regards,

      Suraj

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      You may also add SOST and SCOT  T-code in daily checklist to check the email/fax status

      Regards,

      Casmito

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Nilutpal,

      Good document for maintaining sap basis monitoring checking list...

      I would like to add one more t-code here STAD, which i execute daily to get the details of which users has executed what t-codes and reports handly for future purpose. I Know it will take some load on PRD servers when we execute.

      It really helped me to come out of one issue, as ST03N will maintain only certain level data.

      Any comments and suggestion are very much appreciate on STAD.

      Regards,

      Muzamil

      Author's profile photo Sadik Iqbal Siddiqui
      Sadik Iqbal Siddiqui

      Hi

      i will add nmon and topas for unix and windows task manager .

      For OS related information.

      Thanks

      Sadiq

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sadiq,

      Thanks for your valuable inputs. Could you please elaborate more on nmon and topas usage by giving some useful links.

      Thanks,

      Nilutpal.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Nilutpal,

      Below are the additional info on nmon and topas tools.

      The nmon tool is designed for AIX and Linux performance specialists to use for monitoring and analyzing performance data. 

      http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-analyze_aix/

      The topas command reports selected statistics about the activity on the local system.

      http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds5/topas.htm

      Regards,

      Casmito

      Author's profile photo Mukesh Khamparia
      Mukesh Khamparia

      Few from My side--> Please consider 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Database Health  Check
      Check for Database Size  (Check Freespace of Database in %) DB02
      Check SQL lock DB50
      File system through OS level OS level
      Check for Red alerts (like Missing Tables and Indexes and others) DB16
      General System Health & Availability Check
      Check for ”old” locks SM12
      Check Number of users logged in AL08
      Look for any failed updates (update terminates) SM13
      Check System Log SM21
      System Status SM51
      Review the SAP Buffer performance ST02
      Review the SAP Workload ST03
      Check work processes (started from SM51) SM66
      Total ABAP dumps ST22
      Check Spool Request SP01
      Review for scheduled jobs and review job Status
      Active jobs SM37
      Failed/Canceled SM37
      File system ST06
      qRFC Monitor Outbound Queue
      Outbound Queues SMQ1
      Inbound Queues SMQ2
      IDoc Processing
      Check for failed IDocs BD87
      Transactional RFC
      Check status of tRFCs SM58
      System Status
      Check Client Overview SCC4
      Check Global System Settings SE06
      SAP Connect & Faxination SCOT/SOST
      Check Faxination sever SM59- SM59
      Author's profile photo Sadik Iqbal Siddiqui
      Sadik Iqbal Siddiqui
      Author's profile photo Mukesh Khamparia
      Mukesh Khamparia

      I have created one document which will add more profit to this thread :

      http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-46746

      Author's profile photo Eduardo Rezende
      Eduardo Rezende

      Good blog Nilutpal.

      Nice list.

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks a lot Eduardo .

      Author's profile photo William NICOL
      William NICOL

      Nice list but Is it make sense to do it manually ?

      From my side, I prefer to use MAI Template, and build an efficient monitoring.

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Hi William,

      Would you please elaborate more on MAI template ? It will surely us..

      Thanking You,

      Nilutpal.

      Author's profile photo William NICOL
      William NICOL

      Hi,

      MAI is Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure in SAP Solution Manager.

      In Work Center, SSM Provide template to implement quickly a monitoring for technical element (eg DB Oracle).

      It's why I talk about MAI Template .. because in the past we used CCMS Templates.

      At the end, the purpose of my remark is to said that Monitoring is always more efficient than manual task.

      Regards

      William

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks William.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      Good blog.

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Subhash

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Highly informative and presented in a simple style.

      Good job Nilutpal

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      i am new to basis. i am a basis trainee. can you please give me some tips ?

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      You can use tcode ssaa to get list of all required t codes.

      Asad

      Author's profile photo ippili paparao
      ippili paparao

      How to setup of RFC & SOST alert configuration in Rz20 if rfc failed and sost getting errors.

      If any knows the answers please let me know the process to configure .

      Thanks,

      Rao.ippili

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      It was very usefull for me atleast cause i have an interview tom and like always for last minute preperation needed some good document. Thank god i found a good one. Hope it helps me tom 😀

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thank you Nilutpal!

      Very good post.

      I have made a Z report that takes some of those transaction in one page, to improve our daily check. Check it out, maybe you like it:

      Z abap report for Basis daily check | SCN

      Author's profile photo Nilutpal Sharmah
      Nilutpal Sharmah
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Richard Brehmer ... It's very useful for ORACLE database oriented systems. Anyway as you have explained with ABAP skill, it can be modified & can be used in for different databases in various organizations where solman monitoring (MAI) is not in place.

      Regards,

      Nilutpal.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Good notes for Basis Team

      Author's profile photo William NICOL
      William NICOL

      Better way is to implement a smart monitoring to avoid manual task

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Useful for new Admins in BC 🙂

      Thank you !

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thank you very much................

      Author's profile photo Asad S Zafer
      Asad S Zafer

      Nice doc.