What is SAP Early Watch Alert

Introduction

                 Anything in this World requires General/Critical maintenance to increase the survival. I will take two Classic examples here, to make you more clear about What I am going to talk about in this blog. One is Human body and another one is Vehicle. Both require regular Check-ups/Maintenance to have long life. Similarly, all our SAP Systems require regular Check-Ups and General/Critical Maintenance to keep them lively. You will find interesting sections below which could be produced by EWA. I am gong to show only very important sections but not everything. Let’s jump into EWA now.

• An SAP EWA can be produced by SOLMAN, which is nothing but Solution Manager
• It can be generated on Weekly basis to keep an eye on whole Production System status
• I am using the same terms which SAP uses in the report and you could find explanations for some of them in brackets
• I am highlighting Column headers and imagine your configuration details in those tables to make sense
• My intention is to show you What all parameters(Column Headers) will SAP EWA consider
  
• There will be multiple sections describing about your Hardware details
• Report starts with all Hardware and Software information precisely for BASIS administrators (as well as for BW guys for Knowledge sake)
• Lower part of the report is for BI Developers/Support Guys which talks about Largest Aggregates etc.,
  

Your report heading would be like Early Watch Alert – BI_SYSTEM_LANDSCAPE

It gives a complete high level overview of your BW system with ratings on various parameters

Service Summary

Performance Indicators for Production BW (System Name)

Landscape

1) Products and Components in current Landscape

Product

Main Instances (ABAP or Java based)

Databases

2) Servers in current Landscape

SAP Application Servers (If you have multiple servers, those will be listed down below)

DB Servers

Components

3) Hardware Configuration

Host Overview

ST-PI and ST-A/PI Plug-Ins. This will indicate you to update to the latest levels.

Software Configuration For your Production System

Support Package Maintenance – ABAP.

This info can be found in your BW System via System–>Status, except Latest Available Patch Level Info. Below table indicates us to update to latest Patches.

Support Package Maintenance – JAVA

Database – Maintenance Phases

Similar table for your Operating System also.

SAP Kernel Release. You can find this via System–>Status

They indicate you to update to latest Support Package Stack for your Kernel Release, if required.

Overview System (your SID)

General

This analysis basically shows the workload during the peak working hours (9-11, 13) and is based on the hourly averages.

CPU

If the average CPU load exceeds 75%, temporary CPU bottlenecks are likely to occur. An average CPU load of more than 90% is a strong indicator of a CPU bottleneck.

Memory

If your hardware cannot handle the maximum memory consumption, this causes a memory bottleneck in your SAP system that can impair performance.

Workload Overview (Your SID)

• Workload By Users
• Workload By Task Types Eg: RFC, HTTP(S)

Th above information will be given in fantastic graphical presentation by SAP.You can make out good sense out of them.

BW Checks for (Your SID)

BW – KPIs : Some BW KPIs exceed their reference values. This indicates either that there are critical problems or that performance, data volumes, or administration can be optimized.

This indicates all Zero calls Aggregates can be deleted.

Program Errors (ABAP Dumps)

This section shows the ABAP Dumps(ST22) which have occurred in the last week. They will suggest us to monitor on a regular basis and we should determine the possible causes asap. Eg : CX_SY_OPEN_SQL_DB

Users with Critical Authorizations

This section suggests us to review all our Authorization Roles and Profiles on a regular basis. for additional info SAP Note : 863362

Missing Indexes

This section indicates us to have an eye on whether Primary indexes are exists on the tables in database. Because, missing indexes can lead to severe performance issues.

Data Distribution

Largest InfoCubes : We should make sure we do Compression on a regular basis.

Largest Aggregates : Large Aggregates high run times for Roll ups and Attribute Change runs. So we should check them periodically and modify them at least on quarterly basis.

Analysis of InfoProviders : This table basically shows the Counts

DSO Objects : This table basically shows the Counts

InfoCube Design of Dimensions : You can check this by running SAP_INFOCUBE_DESIGNS in SE38

Aggregates Overview : We can take a call to delete unused Aggregates by observing this table

Aggregates to be considered for deletion (Most important Section to take a quick action)

DTP Error Handling : You can deactivate error stack if you don’t expect errors often. It’s better to use “No Update No Reporting” option.

BW Statistics

All your BI Admin Cockpit information will be provided in detailed tabular presentation about OLAP Times, Run time etc., Many tables will be there for every aspect which I cannot show you in this blog, as it is already too big now 😉

Conclusion

“SAP Early Watch Alert” gives us a complete picture of our BW System in all aspects. This is a fantastic service gives by SAP to keep us alert before any damage happens to the system. I have tried to show you almost all important things in this blog.