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Interface Channel Monitoring (ICMon) monitors the interfaces between business-critical systems, in real-time.

Interface Channel Monitoring provides the following benefits:

  • You can, for example, monitor the performance of connections between systems or define interfaces on the level of functions called in a system. These function calls may be, for example, a function module (in the case of an RFC connection) or a method called via a web service. In this way, you can monitor interfaces in detail.

  • To provide aggregate overviews, you organize the monitoring as follows:

    • Define scenarios which comprise all systems on which, for example, certain critical business scenarios depend.

    • Cluster the relevant interfaces in interface channels between the systems in your scenario, according to the type (RFC connection, Web Services, SAP Process Integration, for example). When you monitor an interface channel, you can drill down to individual interfaces.

  • To identify the interface channels according, for example, to their business relevance, you can define, in each scenario, attributes which you assign to the interfaces and interface channels. When monitoring the interfaces in real-time, you can filter by the attributes.

Typical Interface Channel Monitoring use cases are the following:

  • As a technical administrator, you set up monitoring of critical channels which are important, for example, for transferring data between systems.

  • As an application owner, you identify critical business processes, and want to monitor the corresponding technical systems and interfaces technically.

You can monitor the following connection types:

  • Remote Function Call (RFC, tRFC, qRFC, bqRFC): You can monitor, for example the response time. The interface is defined by destination and remote-enabled function module.

    In case of qRFC or bgRFC interfaces, to monitor either outbound or inbound queues, you can specify whether data is collected on the source or target system.

  • Web service (WS): You can monitor, for example, the availability or response time. The interface is defined by web service/web service method/logical port and/or web service user.

  • SAP NetWeaver Gateway service: You monitor, for example, the usage or response time of services.

  • SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (PI): You monitor, for example, how many messages were processed, and the average processing time. The interface is defined by the sender and receiver attributes of middleware components in a PI domain.

    To monitor message flows on instance level, use Message Flow Monitoring.

  • IDoc Communication: You monitor the average processing time and the number of documents failed or processed successfully To do so, specify the business partner and the message type.

  • File system: To monitor FTP-based communication, you check, for example, the availability of files in a folder and the time since it was stored. To do so, specify the host, the folder and a file name pattern.

  • Communication with systems which are not registered in the SAP Solution Manager Landscape Management Database (LMDB). You can monitor communication with unspecific managed objects, such as, for example, the following:

    • Third-party systems: specify the RFC destination of the target system

    • Virtual objects, for example sources such as groups of mobile devices or agents:

      • Mobile devices: specify the SAP Gateway Services parameters

      • Agents: specify a web service called by specified agents

Depending on the interface type and configuration, you can monitor, for example, the availability, number of exceptions or average processing time, for each interface of an interface channel. For more information about the available metrics, see Displaying an Interface Channel Monitoring Scenario.

Integration

ICMon is integrated in the E2E monitoring and alerting infrastructure, incident and notification management, and central Exception Management in SAP Solution Manager. This gives you the following options:

  • Display and access alerts in the Alert Inbox of the Technical Monitoring work center

  • Display details of exceptions in the Exception Management Cockpit

  • Generate notifications or incidents automatically, when threshold values are exceeded

Prerequisites

  • You have SAP Solution Manager 7.10 SP05 or higher.

  • You have set up System Monitoring for the technical systems involved.

  • You have identified, in cooperation, for example, with the process owners of business processes, the relevant components, systems, and function calls.

Note Note

Data collectors are available as follows:

  • RFC and Web Service Monitoring:

    • RFC and Web Service data collectors for ABAP performance metrics are available only for ABAP systems with SAP Basis 7.00 or higher.

    • Web Service data collectors for Non-ABAP performance metrics are available as of SAP Solution Manager 7.10 SP06.

    • Data collectors for ABAP Dumps, Web Service Exceptions, AppLog Exceptions are available as of ST-PI 2008_1 SP06 for managed ABAP systems with SAP Basis 6.20 or higher.

    • Data collectors for exceptions collected via the Exception Management Instrumentation Platform (EM-IPA) are available as of ST-PI 2008_1 SP06 for managed ABAP systems with SAP Basis 7.00 or higher.

  • SAP Netweaver PO: Data collectors are available for systems with SAP PI 7.00 or higher.

  • SAP NetWeaver Gateway: The managed system has SAP Basis 7.0 or higher.

  • IDoc, qRFC, bgRFC, tRFC: rfc: The managed system has

    • SAP Basis 6.20 or higher

    • Current ST-PI

End of the note.

Features

  • Setup: Define a monitoring scenario comprising interfaces grouped into interface channels. Define attributes for filtering, and threshold values for alerts.

  • Interface topology chart and dashboard: You monitor the interfaces you specified, in real-time. For RFC and web services interfaces, you can monitor performance metrics aggregated on system level, or on the level of instances, if configured.

  • You can use the Exception Management Cockpit to display details of exceptions.

  • Reporting: You can display the most important monitoring data through time – from today to the previous year – centrally. You identify potentially problematic trends early, and get an overview of the availability and performance of your scenarios.

Activities

  1. Preparation: Specify the technical requirements (systems, functions, and interfaces to be monitored, threshold values for alerting), with the persons responsible for critical business processes.

  2. Define a monitoring scenario, attributes, interface channels, interface, and threshold values for alerting. For more information, see Configuring an Interface Channel Monitoring Scenario.

  3. Monitor the interfaces in real-time, or set the time range to display long-term trends based on aggregated data. For more information, see Displaying an Interface Channel Monitoring Scenario.

  4. To display alert details and process alerts, navigate to the Alert Inbox.

  5. To create notifications or support messages, navigate to the Exception Management Cockpit.