The Monitoring Architecture: Concept 

Purpose

The R/3 alert monitor is based on an innovative new monitoring architecture that was introduced with Release 4.0. This section describes the main parts of the monitoring architecture and how they work together.

The Monitoring Architecture.

Here is how the monitoring architecture and the alert monitor work:

Collection methods: These are programs that gather information on different parts of the R/3 System and its environment. They then register this information with the monitoring infrastructure.

The monitoring architecture comes ready to use with collection methods for all of the most important components of your R/3 System and environment. When you start the alert monitor, you will see that collection methods are already active for reporting on all of the following:

There is nothing that you have to do to prepare or activate the monitoring architecture. All collection methods in your system are started automatically when the system starts or as they are needed.

Monitoring architecture: Collection methods pass their information to the monitoring architecture. The monitoring architecture provides an infrastructure for gathering and managing system information.

The infrastructure concept means that collection methods are independent of the monitoring architecture. Collection methods "plug into" the monitoring architecture and use its services for displaying and managing system information. But collection methods are not programmed directly into the monitoring architecture.

Collection methods are independent of the monitoring architecture, and so can be easily added or modified. The monitoring architecture offers ABAP and C interfaces which any R/3 or external programmer can use to create a collection method.

Monitoring objects and attributes: Collection methods report their information with respect to one or more monitoring objects (as shown by the arrows in the illustration). A monitoring object represents something in the R/3 System or its environment that should be monitored. A monitoring attribute represents one type of information that is to be reported on a monitoring object.

Example: Monitoring objects include the CPU in your host system, the database, and R/3 services, such as background processing. Monitoring attributes for a CPU object might include the five-minute average CPU load and the CPU utilization.

Monitoring objects and their attributes are displayed to you in the alert monitor. In the alert monitor, objects and their attributes are called nodes or monitoring tree elements (MTEs).

Monitoring objects are created by collection methods. All the objects that you can currently monitor in your R/3 System are automatically available when you start the alert monitor.

Data consumers: This is the layer of the monitoring architecture for displaying alerts and status data. Data consumers are supplied with the information that collection methods pass to the monitoring architecture. SAP delivers a standard "data consumer" (the alert monitor) with your R/3 System. SAP also provides other, more specialized monitors that use the data provided by the monitoring architecture.

The data consumer layer (the alert monitor) is your workplace for displaying the current state of your system and responding to alerts that are triggered by warnings or problems. The alert monitor displays its information and alerts to you in a hierarchical monitoring tree. See also a schematic view of the monitoring tree.

If a collection method reports a problem, then the monitoring architecture triggers an alert. This is also visible to you in the alert monitor. For example, if the CPU's five-minute load average is too high, then the alert monitor triggers a "yellow" (warning) or "red" (problem) alert. The color-coding in the alert monitor lets you see an alert fast. And the alert monitor can then provide you with detailed information on the alert as well as access to a method for analyzing the alert.

The alert monitor also provides the management methods that you need to monitor the system. You can adjust alert thresholds. You can also add or customize auto-reaction and analysis methods. Auto-rection methods respond automatically when an alert is triggered. An analysis method lets you investigate the cause of an alert without leaving the alert monitor.

The monitoring architecture also offers an interface so that external "data consumers" (external programs) can receive the monitoring architecture's information.