Workload Overview
Definition
The workload overview displays data about the workload that is written by the SAP kernel and displayed with the workload monitor (transaction ST03). The workload overview provides system administrators with various detailed information about the most important workload data, such as the CPU time, the number of database changes, the response times, and so on.
Structure
You can display the workload overview for all task types (Dialog, Background, RFC, ALE, and Update), or only for one particular task type. The system displays the following data:
In the case of
the HTTP task type, the workload is, by default,
not displayed broken down by applications or pages (URLs). Instead, SAPMHTTP
is used as a dummy name. If you require a relevant breakdown, choose the
following path in the navigation bar: 
Collector and Performance DB
→ 
Workload Collector → 
Parameters, and choose the desired radio button in the
Created
Profiles group box.
Information |
Explanation |
Average CPU time |
Average time that a work process uses the CPU; during a dialog step, the CPU of the application server is used for processing (loading, generating, processing database requests, ABAP processing, and so on). The CPU time is determined by the operating system. At the end of a transaction step, the SAP work process queries the CPU time from the operating system. The CPU time is therefore not an additive component of the response time, unlike the wait time, roll in time, load time, and database time. |
Average response time |
Average time between the time at which a dialog process sends a request to a dispatcher work process, and the time at which the dialog is complete and the data is transferred to the presentation layer. The response time does not include the time for transferring the data from the SAP front end to the application server. Networks with bad performance can therefore have larger subjective response times. The transfer time is included in the GUI time and the front end network time. |
Average wait time |
Average time an unprocessed dialog step waits in the dispatcher queue for a free work process. Under normal circumstances, the dispatcher work process should pass a dialog step immediately after receiving the request from the dialog step. In this situation, the average wait time should be only a few milliseconds. If the application server or the entire system is under a heavy load, this can lead to traffic jams in the dispatcher wait queue. |
Average Load and Generation Time |
Average time required to load and generate objects such as ABAP source code and screen information from the database |
DB Calls |
Number of parsed accesses to the database |
DB Access |
Number of logical ABAP accesses to data in the database; these accesses are made through the SAP database interface and are parsed into individual database calls. The ratio of database calls to database accesses is important. If the access to information in a table is buffered in the SAP buffers, no database calls to the database server are required. The ratio of calls/accesses therefore gives a good indication about the efficiency of the table buffering. A good ratio would be 1:10. |
GUI Time |
Response time between the dispatcher and the GUI during the roundtrips (roundtrips are communication steps between the SAP system and the front end during a transaction step) |
Roll ins |
Number of rolled-in user contexts |
Roll outs |
Number of rolled-out user contexts. |
Roll In Time |
Processing time for the rolling in of user contexts |
Roll Out Time |
Processing time for the rolling out of user contexts |
Roll Wait Time |
Wait time in the roll area. If synchronous RFCs are called, the work process performs a roll out and waits for the end of the RFC in the roll area. The RFC server programs can wait for other RFCs to be sent to them in the roll area. |
Average Time per Logical Database Call |
Average response time for all commands sent to the database system (in milliseconds). The time depends on the CPU capacity of the database server, the network, the buffering, and on the input/output capabilities of the database server. The access times for buffered tables are far faster and are not considered here. |
You can restrict the display to a particular task type. The task type depends on the task of the associated application process and is an identifying element of every statistics record. There are the following task types:
Task Type |
Explanation |
AUTOABAP |
Automatically-processed report (for example, for monitoring tools) |
B.INPUT |
Transaction step in batch input mode; it is processed by the dialog work process (update dialogs generated in batch input are always processed synchronously, they belong to the UPDATE task type). |
BACKGROUND |
Transaction step that was started by a background processing work process. |
BUFFER SYNC |
A synchronization of the local table buffers regularly requested by the SAP system (the time interval is controlled by the profile parameter rdisp/bufreftime). |
DIALOG |
Usually a transaction step started online by a user (for example, editor dialogs or manual postings). |
RFC |
Remote Function Call in the ABAP system; it is processed by the dialog work process |
CPIC |
Other communication using the CPIC interface; it is processed by the dialog work process |
SPOOL |
Transaction step of a spool work process |
UPDATE |
Transaction step of the SAP update task; it is automatically started by the dispatcher on a host with an active update process (update processes are usually installed on the database host) |
UPDATE2 |
V2 update |
ALE |
IDoc processing; it is processed by the dialog work process |
LCOM |
The Fast RFC (fRFC or LCOM-RFC) is a very fast form of data transfer that uses a shared memory pipeline. It is only used in internal communication between ABAP and Java in the SAP Web AS. |
HTTP, HTTPS, NNTP, SMTP, FTP |
Requests from the ICM that are based on the corresponding Internet protocols |
ENQUEUE |
Enqueue handler |
DIALOG(-)GUI |
Dialog without GUI |
EXT.PLUGIN |
The statistical evaluations of these task types are only relevant for internal SAP purposes. |
The task types therefore correspond to the work process types – with the exception of the task types RFC, CPIC, ALE, AUTOABAP, and BUFFER SYNC, which simply represent specific applications in the dialog work process. TOTAL is the total across all task types.
Background Information
The response time is usually split into wait time plus execution time. The SAP response time consists of the following components:
Response time = wait time + execution time
where: execution time =
Generation time during the run
+ Load time
for programs, screens, and graphical user interfaces
+ Roll times for rolling in the work data
+ ABAP processing time
+ Database time
+ Enqueue time for logical SAP lock processes
+ CPIC/RFC time
+ Roll wait time (excluding task types RFC/CPIC/ALE).
The CPU time is not an additive component of the response time, but rather the total of the CPU time used by the individual components. The CPU time is therefore additional, separate information about the response time.
Workload Monitor
start page