Part 3: Capturing System Performance using HTTP Watch and Chrome Developer Tools
In Part 1, we stepped through optimum browser settings for Chrome, IE and Firefox, Part 2 gave some tips and suggestions to improve Home page and Fiori Launchpad loading times and in the last blog of this series, we explain how SAP uses developer tools such as HTTP Watch, Network Trace and Chrome Developer Tools to help us analyse performance in your S/4HC System.
What information is required if reporting a possible Performance issue to SAP?
If you experience an issue with Performance, SAP will ask you to provide the following information in order to help us analyse potential issues, as well as capture a trace of the issue with one of the available tools and attach to an incident opened on XX-S4C-OPR-INC.
- Advise SAP if issue is related to specific role or users (provide SAP the CB user to test)
- Is the issue seen constantly or at intermittent times?
- Add any error screens which may occur?
- Advise which tiles/apps are affected and/or time-frame or timestamp
Tip: For any incident reported to SAP where analysis is required to reproduce issue in your system environment, please provide the CB (Cloud Business User) of affected end-user, as with this we can check the role assignment and model comparable authorizations (you can find this in the app: Maintain Business Users)
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Capturing Performance Trace by HTTP Watch
The KBA 2456424: How to Capture Performance in Fiori Launchpad using HTTP Watch includes an overview of using this simple tool to capture performance in your browser environment.
HTTP watch is a free 3rd party tool which can be downloaded from: https://www.httpwatch.com/download/
As the KBA points out, first execute the steps without the recording active in order to fill the browser cache and then capture a second time for duration of User Interaction Step and save the final result as .HWL extension file – you should also append the URL sap-statistics=true in order to capture additional information for SAP.
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What will the HTTP Watch Trace show you?
- The collected HTTP trace works with a waterfall principle and helps us to understand during each component load with each user interaction step (UIS), view of the Browser cache used and the available network quality.
- If there is a long server response > the numbers are provided by “sap-statistics” in http response header.
- In the header of the trace, this will show you you the user, browser version, timestamp (useful for SAP support to also analyse traces in transactions such as STAD or dumps in ST22 in the backend)
Each error has a different meaning, so for example a 400 error means bad portal request, plus each step has either a GET or POST method.
(GET retrieves data from a specified URL and POST sends data and usually secure data, refresh will usually generate a warning on IE for a POST step if refreshed)
More Info: The full list of HTTP Watch status and warnings can be found here and explanation of POST and GET here as well as detailed help built into the tool for each step.
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So HTTP Watch looks great…. but my organisation has security restrictions around using it.. what other tools could I use?
Chrome has its only built in Developer Tool for tracing if your organisation does not permit download of 3rd party software. Built in Help options are also included along the way for Chrome developer tool.
In Chrome > Settings > More Tools >
Select Network View and a subsequent window opens up > select Network and now this will start recording next network activity
As with HTTP watch, start the User Interaction Step (UIS) first without recording to fill the browser cache and then start recording (ensuring the URL is appended with sap-statistics=true to capture additional information.
The UIS should be queued to immediately start the capture – stop the recording when complete and save as a .HAR file.
IMPORTANT: Chrome developer tools always starts recording of activity directly from opened window, if you want to capture an APP starting up, then enable the Auto-Open feature in Developer tools settings.
As with HTTP watch traces, contextual information is gathered which highlights any latency, authorization errors, component or other relevant points for SAP to determine if any issue.
More info: Understanding Chrome Developer Network Traces
Conclusion:
This 3 part blog has stepped through optimum browser settings and how to enable fastest loading in your S/4HC system, plus explained how SAP uses HTTP watch and network browser traces.
With these insights, this should give you a good understanding on how performance is managed in S/4HC Public Cloud environment!
Related Notes:
2456424: How to Capture Performance in Fiori Launchpad using HTTP Watch
2240690: Front-End Network Sizing Bandwidth Sizing for SAP Fiori’s and SAP S/4HANA
1612245: Front-end Browser requirements for Browser Based SAP-UI