What’s New in SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 07 in Administration and Monitoring

The newest version of the SAP HANA cockpit, SP 16, is delivered as part of the SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 07 release and introduces new functionality in the areas of administration & monitoring, user management & security administration, and backup & recovery.  The complete list of SAP HANA cockpit SP 16 features is available in the What’s New in the SAP HANA Cockpit 2.0 section of the SAP Help Portal.

Recall that last November we also released SAP HANA cockpit SP 15 (see this blog entry) and all those features are also included in SAP HANA cockpit SP 16.  This blog entry focuses and demonstrates the key new functionality delivered in SAP HANA cockpit SP 16.  Please note that unless specified, SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 07 is required in all these features.

I’d like to acknowledge my colleague Amy Hwang who produced the demo video at the end of this post.

SAP HANA Administration and Monitoring

Enhanced Alert Filtering in the Database Directory

In previous versions of the SAP HANA cockpit, the Database Directory application displayed high and medium priority alerts.  With SAP HANA cockpit SP 16, alert monitoring in the Database Directory is enhanced by also displaying low and information alerts, allowing administrators to quickly view all available alerts for monitored databases at a single glance and without needing to navigate to the Alerts application for each database.  This enhancement improves the user experience by accelerating the monitoring workflow.

Memory Manager Details When Creating SAP HANA Full System Information Dumps

When collecting diagnostic information from the runtime environment in the form of SAP HANA Full System Information Dump (FSID) files, you now have the option to obtain specifics about the memory manager.  The resulting trace file includes those details under the section [MEMORY_MANAGER], such as values for the allocation limits, memory pools, inter process memory, and much more.  This new feature provides the equivalent functionality to collecting FSID details via the ‘hdbcons’ command line interface or the ‘ALTER SYSTEM CREATE RUNTIMEDUMP’ SQL command.

Workload Class Mapping Improvements

The new session variable “application source” is introduced to map workload classes more effectively.  In certain scenarios, using existing variables such as “application name” and “application component” may not be accurate enough to differentiate between different workloads or between different applications.  Using the statement-wise application source variable yields more granular workload mappings.  SAP HANA cockpit SP 16 enables database administrators to create a workload class mapping using the session variable “application source”.

Another improvement is the ability to invalidate a workload class mapping when a base object is removed, as opposed to deleting the workload class mapping.  If the base object is re-created, then the workload class mapping is re-validated and can be used again.  Previously, the mapping was deleted and you had to re-create it.  This improvement is useful in certain situations, such as when you create workload class mappings on SAP HANA Deployment Infrastructure (HDI) procedures and then you re-deploy HDI containers (the procedures are dropped and re-created) – you don’t want the mappings to disappear.  In the SAP HANA cockpit SP 16 Workload Classes app, a new column “Is Valid” displays the status of the mapping based on the availability of the base object.

Monitor Buffer Cache I/O Volume for SAP HANA Native Storage Extension

To assist in identifying the amount of I/O spent by the SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE) buffer cache, a new metric “I/O Read Size” is displayed in the Buffer Cache Monitor application, in both the Buffer Cache Size view and Buffer Cache History graph.  This new feature increases the accuracy of the reported buffer cache size, helps in measuring the buffer cache I/O impact on the SAP HANA system, and can be used to troubleshoot problematic NSE objects.

User Management & Security Administration

Edit Comments in Certificates and Public Keys

Starting with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 07, security administrators can edit the comments associated with certificates and public keys, thus improving the management of those assets.

In the SAP HANA cockpit’s Certificate Store application, the certificate comment is now displayed in the header section for better visibility, and a new option to edit the comment is available.

Similarly, in the SAP HANA cockpit’s Public Key Store, a new button “Change” is available in the “Comment” column.

Auditing Enhancements

When creating a new audit policy, it is now possible to select one or more user groups in the list of users to be audited by the policy.  You can include or exclude specific users in the user group for the audit policy, providing greater control of the users you want to audit when these users are part of a user group.  Note that you can select both users and user groups simultaneously for inclusion or exclusion in an audit policy, but you cannot select one type (e.g. users) for inclusion and the other type (user groups) for exclusion at the same time.  The Create Audit Policy Wizard and Auditing (edit policy) app are enhanced to allow the selection of user groups.

Create Audit Policy Wizard		Auditing (Edit Policy) Application

The list of audit policies is also updated with a new column “Audited User Groups” and helpful tooltips displaying the users and user groups that are excluded in the policy.

Another auditing enhancement is that you can now configure the audit log table to use pages/columns as loadable units, effectively leveraging SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE) in the auditing functionality.  Utilizing NSE loadable units is a cost-effective method to save memory space because older audit log entries can be kept on disk, as opposed to having them loaded into memory.  Administrators will be able to make this configuration change right from the Auditing application using the new button “Edit Load Unit”.

Examine Passport Information in Insufficient Privilege Details Application

In scenarios when you encounter an authorization error while analyzing call sequences within distributed landscapes (e.g. in an SAP S/4HANA deployment), it can be useful to see the passport information when examining the authorization error in the Insufficient Privileges Application.  A new section “Passport Information” displays the root context ID, transaction ID, connection ID, connection counter, component name, and action.  If those details are not available, you will instead see the message “There is no passport information available.”

Backup & Recovery

Retain Complete Data Backups

When generating a complete data backup, administrators can set the new option “Retained” to ensure that the backup cannot be deleted by the BACKUP CATALOG DELETE command or by the scheduled housekeeping tasks such as backup retention.  This feature enhances the data recovery process by allowing SAP HANA operators to preserve a data backup as a ‘snapshot’ of a particular point in time, without running the risk of that backup being deleted accidentally or by configured housekeeping actions.  You can select the option to retain the complete backup in the Create Backup dialog.  Note that you can only select to retain data complete backups, not differential or incremental.

In the Backup Catalog app, you’ll see a new column “Retained” displaying whether a complete data backup was generated with that option.  If you try to delete such a backup, you’ll see a message stating that you cannot perform that operation.

You can also enable/disable the current retainment setting, provided that the database user for the monitored database has the appropriate system privileges:

• For your own database, you need BACKUP ADMIN
• For a tenant backup performed via SYSTEMDB, you need DATABASE ADMIN or DATABASE BACKUP ADMIN

When looking at the details of a complete data backup, the new action button “Set to Retained” or “Set to Not Retained” is available to enable/disable this setting.

Details – Retained Complete Data Backup		Details – Not Retained Complete Data Backup

Video Demonstration

The following video demonstrates selected new functionality in the SAP HANA cockpit SP 16.

Conclusion

SAP HANA cockpit SP 16, included with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 07, continues to deliver new features for SAP HANA database administrators.  We hope that this blog entry offers you a good understand of those new features and that you can leverage them in your day-to-day operational activities.  Please visit the SAP Help Portal for more information about the SAP HANA cockpit.