Monitoring SAP BW Accelerator

BW Accelerator Monitor: Central Point of Access to the Monitoring Functions

BW Accelerator Monitor provides a central point of access to the monitoring and administration functions in BW Accelerator Monitor (transaction RSDDBIAMON2). This transaction provides an overview of the current status and a detailed technical overview of the hardware, the BWA services, all existing Trace files and the BWA indexes.

BW Accelerator Monitor displays the results of the consistency checks. These checks are run on BW Accelerator periodically. If errors occur, the system automatically proposes corresponding measures or actions. These actions are BW Accelerator repair functions.

Note

In BW Accelerator Monitor, it is not possible to maintain the indexes at the logical level of BW Accelerator InfoProviders. To do this, you need to use BW Accelerator index maintenance (see Indexing BW Data in SAP BW Accelerator).

Caution

Queries work with the accelerator component of BW Accelerator, and BW Accelerator Monitor works with the alert server. The accelerator components and the alert server are independent services in BW Accelerator. Queries can therefore run without errors while BW Accelerator Monitor displays an error in the alert server.

Note

To refresh the monitor, choose Refresh BWA Log and Actions . The system displays the current results of the BW Accelerator checks again and makes new proposals for actions.

The various options in the Goto menu in BW Accelerator Monitor allow you to access all relevant transactions and administration tools in BW Accelerator.

Choose Goto Analysis of BW Objects Analysis and Repair of BW Objects (transaction RSRV).
Choose Goto BWA Index Maintenance Maintenance of Aggregates/BWA Index (transaction RSDDV).
Choose Goto TREX Administration Tool (transaction TREXADMIN).
Choose Goto Consistency Checks BW Accelerator Data Consistency Check Center (transaction TREXADMIN).

Prerequisites

You need authorization for authorization object BIA_ZA.

Regular Monitoring Tasks

You should check the following information on a regular basis

Task	Procedure	Description
Check the results of the BW Accelerator consistency checks	Under BWA Check Results, select the Summary, Current Results and History tabs.	On the Summary and Current Results tabs, the system displays the results of the most recent consistency checks. For most checks, the user can display an explanatory long text by choosing , and explanatory long text and check for any details by choosing . On the History tab, the system displays the results of previous BW Accelerator consistency checks so that you can track developments or changes in the results. The system displays general information about each check: the date and time at which the check was started, and the check set within which the check was started.
Check Workload of BWA Host with the BWA Load Monitor	Choose Switch On BWA Load Monitor or choose BW Accelerator Switch On BWA Load Monitor .	The BWA load monitor checks the workload on the working memory and the CPU workload, response times and the number of queries and requests currently being processed by the BWA host. The BWA load monitor is displayed in a separate window that updates automatically. In this window, you can see the following BW Accelerator key figures: Host: BW Accelerator host and port Memory Process: Memory usage of TREX server process Total Memory: Memory usage of all processes Available Memory: Available Memory CPU of All Processes: CPU usage of all processes CPU Process: CPU usage of TREX server processes Response Time: Average response time of the last queries Requests: Requests per second Requests: Number of external requests Request including internal: Number of internal and external requests Active Requests: Number of active requests Hanging Requests: Number of hanging requests You can only start one load monitor. Since the load monitor is started in a new window, it uses a new session. Make sure that a session is available before activating the load monitor. For technical reasons, the load monitor window stays open. If it is covered by another window, you can view it by pressing `ALT+TAB`. You can either carry on working with this window or delete it. You can only close down the load monitor using BW Accelerator Monitor however. Once the load monitor has been started, the function of the pushbutton changes to Switch Off BWA Load Monitor. Once you have stopped the load monitor, the system resets the session to the start view.

Task

Procedure

Description

Check the results of the BW Accelerator consistency checks

Under BWA Check Results, select the Summary, Current Results and History tabs.

On the Summary and Current Results tabs, the system displays the results of the most recent consistency checks. For most checks, the user can display an explanatory long text by choosing Display Long Text , and explanatory long text and check for any details by choosing Details available .

On the History tab, the system displays the results of previous BW Accelerator consistency checks so that you can track developments or changes in the results. The system displays general information about each check: the date and time at which the check was started, and the check set within which the check was started.

Check Workload of BWA Host with the BWA Load Monitor

Choose Switch On BWA Load Monitor or choose Start of the navigation path BW Accelerator Next navigation step Switch On BWA Load Monitor End of the navigation path .

The BWA load monitor checks the workload on the working memory and the CPU workload, response times and the number of queries and requests currently being processed by the BWA host. The BWA load monitor is displayed in a separate window that updates automatically.

In this window, you can see the following BW Accelerator key figures:

Host: BW Accelerator host and port

Memory Process: Memory usage of TREX server process

Total Memory: Memory usage of all processes

Available Memory:

Available Memory

CPU of All Processes: CPU usage of all processes

CPU Process: CPU usage of TREX server processes

Response Time: Average response time of the last queries

Requests: Requests per second Requests: Number of external requests

Request including internal: Number of internal and external requests

Active Requests: Number of active requests

Hanging Requests: Number of hanging requests

You can only start one load monitor.

Since the load monitor is started in a new window, it uses a new session.

Make sure that a session is available before activating the load monitor. For technical reasons, the load monitor window stays open. If it is covered by another window, you can view it by pressing ALT+TAB. You can either carry on working with this window or delete it.

You can only close down the load monitor using BW Accelerator Monitor however. Once the load monitor has been started, the function of the pushbutton changes to Switch Off BWA Load Monitor. Once you have stopped the load monitor, the system resets the session to the start view.

Regular Checks

You should run the following checks on a regular basis

Task	Procedure	Description
Check BWA Availability.	Press BWA Connection Availability or choose BWA Checks Availability from the menu.	The RFC availability check checks the availability of the connection to BW Accelerator. The result of the check is displayed under BWA Action Logs. If there is no connection to BW Accelerator, the system can take appropriate measures.
Check the general BWA settings with the BWA System Check.	Press System Check, or choose Checks System Check from the menu.	The BWA system check evaluates the general settings in BW Accelerator and provides a detailed status report of the hardware providers and the name, the processor type and the memory size, the operating system, the number of files, the usage and performance, the system settings, the network performance, the RFC connection and the availability of the BW application server. You can find out more about the messages displayed here in BW Accelerator System Check in the BWA documentation. A test then performs a number of basic tasks on the BWA server and checks the availability of the basic server functions. The following steps are executed: Two indexes are created with dummy data (TABLE1 and TABLE2) A logical index is created that describes the JOIN between TABLE1 and TABLE2 on each first column (CUBE) Two queries are executed on the logical index (a BWA index) The results of the queries are checked for accuracy The indexes are deleted
Check Central BWA Functions with the Alert Server.	Choose Springen TREX Administration Tool from the menu and select the Alert tab.	The alert server performs regular checks on the central BWA functions and can provide system status information by e-mail if errors or incorrect configuration are detected. The Overview, Current and History tabs display the system details for the alert server status. You can find out more about the alert service messages and the relevant actions in Messages and Activities for Alert Server Checks in the BWA documentation. Note We recommend using the TREX administration tool, as it offers greater functionality than the trace recording offered under the Performance Trace menu in TREX.
Check BWA with CCMS.		To find out more about monitoring BWA with CCMS, see SAP Note 970771 BI Accelerator Monitor Messages to CCMS. (You need a user for SAP Service Marketplace to do this).

Actions for BW Accelerator

BWA Check Results

On the Current Results tab page, BW Accelerator proposes actions for check results (alert server checks) with status or.

BWA Actions Screen Area

Under Execute Actions, BW Accelerator Monitor offers the main actions for repairing problems in BW Accelerator. If these are actions that can be executed from the BW system, you can execute them directly by choosing Execute .

Example

Examples of actions that users have to perform in BW Accelerator: Actions concerning the BW Accelerator trace files, like checking the size of the trace files.

The system supports direct execution of the following actions:

Action	Description
Restart host	This action restarts the BW Accelerator hardware.
Restart BWA server	This action restarts all the BW Accelerator servers and services. This includes the name server and index server.
Restart BWA index server	This action only restarts the index server. (The name servers are not restarted.)
Reorganize BWA landscape	If a check discovers inconsistencies in the indexes, you can use this action to delete and rebuild all the BW Accelerator indexes. Note If you want to connect a new BWA landscape to your system, you can also use the following function to delete all data on BWA: In the menu, choose BW Accelerator Maintenance Functions Delete All Data from BW Accelerator. Note that this deletes all data on BWA, irrespective of whether there are indexes to BW data or other data from other sources.
Rebuild BWA indexes	If the BW Accelerator server landscape is unevenly distributed, this action redistributes the loaded indexes to the BW Accelerator servers.

Note

The Restart Host, Restart BWA Server, and Restart BWA Index Server actions are hierarchically related: If the host is restarted, the server is automatically restarted so that this action no longer has to be started explicitly. The Restart BWA Server action includes a restart of the BWA index server for example. As soon as a higher-level option is selected, the system therefore automatically sets the indicator for the lower-level selection boxes and deactivates them for the selection.

The log display under BWA Action Messages shows information about the processes in BW Accelerator Monitor.

Example

If the system reads status information (gets check results), it writes this to the log. Status Information Read from BWA.

Each message has a status (, , ). You can also display the explanatory long text (if one has been created) by choosing .

The Detail Level is usually rule 1, unless the messages are structured hierarchically.

To refresh the log display, choose Refresh Messages , or choose Start of the navigation path Action Log Next navigation step Refresh Log End of the navigation path .

To delete the messages in the log, press Delete Messages , or choose Start of the navigation path Action Log Next navigation step Delete Log End of the navigation path .

Fallback if an error occurs with the connection to the BWA server

If the BW Accelerator server is no longer available due to a communication problem, you can activate a fallback solution. To do this, you have to enter at least one e-mail address in table RSDDTREXEMAIL. The BW system records the time of the error in table RSDDTREXHPAFAIL and sends the relevant information to the e-mail address entered in table RSDDTREXEMAIL.

The recipient of the e-mail should trigger measures to remove the cause of the problem and delete the entry in table RSDDTREXHPAFAIL. Once the entry has been deleted, queries automatically start reading from the BW accelerator server again rather than the database.

For 30 minutes after the BW Accelerator server goes down, or until the entry in table RSDDTREXHPAFAIL has been deleted, the system directs all query requests for an InfoCube with a BW Accelerator index to the database. The system tries to use aggregates for this InfoCube, if they are available.

After 30 minutes, if the problem is not resolved or if the time stamp entry has not been deleted or changed, the system directs query requests to the BW Accelerator server again. If the problem persists, the system writes a new time stamp and redirects queries to the database again for the next 30 minutes.

As soon as BW Accelerator is available again, the system automatically sends all queries to the BW Accelerator index for the relevant InfoCube.

If you want to be informed by CCMS instead of (or as well as) by e-mail, you can maintain the global system parameter QUERY_ERROR_ALERT. To do this, choose Start of the navigation path BW Accelerator Next navigation step Index Settings Change Global Parameters End of the navigation path on the SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator Monitor screen (transaction RSDDBIAMON2). The Maintain BWA Index Parameters screen appears. More information: Tab: System Settings.