Technical Articles

Abhyudaya Arya

February 16, 2022 7 minute read

Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions

1.Introduction

In this Article we will discuss about the Monitoring Service “Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions” delivered by Microsoft and how we can take benefit from this service.

Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions is an Azure-native monitoring product for customers, running their SAP landscapes on Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Large Instances. With Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions, we can collect telemetry data from Azure infrastructure and databases in one central location and visually the telemetry data

With Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions (AMS), customers can add a new provider type “SAP NetWeaver”, this provider type enables “SAP on Azure” customers to monitor SAP NetWeaver components and processes on Azure estate in Azure portal. The solution also allows for easy creation of custom visualizations and custom alerting, this new provider type ships with default visualizations that can either be used out of the box or extended to meet your requirements.

As part of configuring the provider, customers need to provide the hostname (Central, Primary and/or Secondary Application server) of SAP system and its corresponding Instance number, Subdomain and the System ID (SID).

How SAP NW Telemetry is captured

By leveraging SAP Control Web service interface:

The SAP start service runs on every computer where an instance of an SAP system is started.
It is implemented as a service(sapstartsrv.exe) on Windows, and as a daemon(sapstartsrv) on UNIX.
The SAP start service provides the following functions for monitoring SAP systems, instances, and processes.
These services are provided on SAPControl SOAP Web Service, and used by SAP monitoring tools.

SAPStartsrv binds at port(s):

HTTP port 5<xx>13 or HTTPS port 5<xx>14, where <xx> is the number of the instance.
The webservice interface can be implemented via the WSDL interface definition , and this can be obtained from the below WSDL
- https://<host>:<port>?/wsdl

2. ARCHITECTURE OVERVIEW

The following diagram explains about the collection of telemetry by Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions from SAP HANA database. The architecture is agnostic to whether SAP HANA is deployed on Azure Virtual Machines or Azure Large Instances.

3.Support and Solution Overview

Infrastructure

Azure Virtual Machine
Azure Large Instance

Databases

SAP HANA Database
- Version
  - HANA 1.0 SPS 12 Rev. 120 or higher
  - HANA 2.0 SPS03 or higher
- Topology
  - Single node (scale-up) and multi-node (scale-out)
  - Single database container (HANA 1.0 SPS 12) and multiple database containers (HANA 1.0 SPS 12 or HANA 2.0)
  - Auto host failover (n+1) and HSR
- Microsoft SQL Server
  - Version
    - SQL Server 2012 SP4 or higher
  - Topology
    - Default or named standalone instances in a virtual machine
    - Clustered instances or instances in an AlwaysOn configuration when either using the virtual name of the clustered resource or the AlwaysOn listener name. Currently no cluster or AlwaysOn specific metrics are collected
    - Azure SQL Database (PAAS) is currently not supported

Application

SAP NetWeaver
- Version
  - SAP NetWeaver 7.0 or higher
- Configurations
  - ABAP
  - JAVA
  - Dual-Stack SAP NetWeaver Application Server

Data Collection

Data collection in Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions depends on the providers that are configured. The following data is being collected

SAP NetWeaver

SAP system and application server availability including instance process availability of Dispatcher, ICM, Gateway, Message Server, Enqueue Server, IGS Watchdog
Work process utilization statistics and trends
Enqueue Lock statistics and trends
Queue Utilization statistics and trends

SAP HANA Database

CPU, memory, disk, and network utilization
HANA System Replication (HSR)
HANA backup
HANA host status
Index server and Name server roles

Linux Operating System

CPU utilization, fork’s count, running and blocked processes.
Memory utilization and distribution among utilized, cached, buffered.
Swap utilization, Paging, and swap rate.
Filesystems utilization, Number of bytes read and written per block device.
Read/write latency per block device.
Ongoing I/O count, Persistent memory read/write bytes.
Network packets in/out, Network bytes in/out

Pacemaker High Availability Cluster

Node, resource, and SBD device status
Pacemaker location constraints
Quorum votes and ring status

Microsoft SQL Server

CPU, memory, disk utilization
Hostname, SQL Instance name, SAP System ID
Batch Requests, Compilations, and page Life Expectancy over time
Top 10 most expensive SQL statements over time
Top 12 largest table in the SAP system
Problems recorded in the SQL Server Error log
Blocking processes and SQL Wait Statistics over time

Regions

As Azure released it for public preview, this service will be available in East US 2, West US 2, East US and West Europe

4. DEPLOYMENT AND CONFIGRUATION

Configuring Azure Monitors

Go to Search for Azure Monitors for SAP Solutions

Click on New

Fill up all the requested details and Next

We can add the providers later, hence click on Next

Specify the Tags, if any and click Next

Review the settings and click on Review + Create

This will be initializing the deployment and wait for the deployment to complete successfully.

Now we can see the deployed Azure Monitors for SAP Solutions deployed

5. Adding Providers

A provider contains the connection information for the corresponding component and helps to collect telemetry data from that component. One Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions resource can be configured with multiple providers of the same provider type or multiple providers of multiple provider types.

We can choose to configure different provider types to enable data collection from corresponding component in their SAP landscape.

Provider type: SAP NetWeaver

We can configure one or more providers of provider type SAP NetWeaver to enable data collection from SAP NetWeaver. NetWeaver provider leverages the existing SAPControl webservice interface to retrieve the appropriate telemetry information.

For the current release, below are the standard out-of-box SOAP web methods invoked by Azure Monitor.

Web Method	ABAP	JAVA	Metrics
GetSystemInstanceList	X	X	Instance Availability, Message Server, Gateway, ICM, ABAP Availability
GetProcessList	X	X	If instance List is RED, we can get what Process causing that server to be RED
GetQueueStatistics	X	X	Queue Statistics (DIA/BATCH/UPD)
ABAPGetWPTable	X	–	Work Process Utilization
EnqGetStatistics	X	X	Locks

To add provider, we need to go to Provider and then click on Add

Fill out the requested details: –

Input the hostname of the SAP system and Subdomain (if applicable)
Enter the Instance number corresponding to the hostname entered
Enter the System ID (SID)

Wait for the provider to get successful connection to the system

Provider Type : SAP HANA

We can configure one or more providers of provider type SAP HANA to enable data collection from SAP HANA database. The SAP HANA provider connects to the SAP HANA database over SQL port, pulls telemetry data from the database, and pushes it to the Log Analytics workspace in the subscription. The SAP HANA provider collects data every 1 minute from the SAP HANA database.

To add provider, we need to go to Providers in deployed Azure Monitor resource and click on Add

Select Type as SAP HANA and further details will be asked

Input the Private IP/hostname for the HANA server.
Input the name of the Database tenant you want to use. We can choose any tenant however, we are using SYSTEMDB here as it enables a wider array of monitoring areas.
Input the SQL port number associated with your HANA database

Now click on Create

Wait for the connection to be Successful

6. Monitoring of SAP Systems Using Azure Monitors

Workbooks provide a flexible canvas for data analysis and the creation of rich visual reports within the Azure portal. They allow you to tap into multiple data sources from across Azure and combine them into unified interactive experiences.

SAP HANA

For checking the Workbook for SAP HANA, we can select SAP HANA under the Monitoring TAB and then select the Monitored SAP HANA instances which we need to display