7/31/2019 A Number of Activities Are Critical at Ensuring High Availability of the SAP System

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A number of activities are critical at ensuring high availability of the SAP system. These administrative

tasks are usually performed by the SAP system administrator, who is saddled with the responsibility of

ensuring that the system is performing optimally at any point in time. Find following a brief description of

some critical administrative activities associated with the SAP system. This is the first part of this two part

posting.

1. SAP System R/3 System Status Check: Logon Test

The availability of the SAP R/3 system is a pre-requisite for using the SAP system for data processing.

Suffice to say that for you to establish connection to the SAP system at any point in time, the system must

be up and running. A simple way to ascertain this is to try and log on to the SAP system.

2. Backup Management: DB12

it is recommended that backup of the SAP system and other non-SAP (but relevant files) be carried out

daily, weekly and quarterly. There is more to configuring backup jobs or schedule them in the SAP

system. The success or failure of the backup run has to be monitored daily. Backup as it were is used to

guide against data loss, hence, the need to ensure that it is done properly so that you can recover the

system state when the need arises. When a backup run fails, you should immediately resolve the problem

and possibly perform an emergency backup. There must be no room for procrastination! Withtransaction DB12, it is possible to check backup status and status of the archive directory. Also, a

recovery report can be generated to ascertain if all backup are available to perform a restore and

recovery operations.

3. Application Servers Status Check: SM51

the application server is one of the components of the SAP system architecture. Typically, the SAP

system architecture consists of the database server, one or more application servers and one or more

presentation servers. The application servers handle the processing of business logic and used for load

balancing, hence, the need for their availability. The application server represents the runtime

environment for the business application of the SAP system. You can use transaction SM51 to display the

status of the instances of your SAP system

4. CCMS Alerts Check: RZ20

normally, thresholds for certain activities are defined in the CCMS monitor. Alerts are generated if defined

thresholds are executed. The CCMS alert monitor displays monitoring data in a tree-like structure. It is

important to review alerts on a regular basis before they degenerate into serious problems. Transaction

RZ20 allows you to centrally monitor all systems in your SAP system landscape. Using transaction RZ20,

all defined alerts can be monitored. Furthermore, the CCMS monitor provides a current status view and

open alert view which displays recent reporting data and history information respectively.

5. Work processes Status Check: SM51

Work processes are the engine room of the SAP system. A number of work processes exist in the SAP

system and they include Background, Enqueue, Spool, Update and dialog. Work processes are essential

for the effective functioning of the SAP system; hence it is important to ensure that all configured work

processes possess their correct status at any point in time. The SAP administrator should be able to

know when to add or redistribute work process based on trend analysis. Transaction SM51 provides an

overview of work processes

6. Failed Updates Monitoring: SM13

failed updates are transaction processing activities that are not committed in the database. Suffice to say

that the supposed modification to the database are not effected and does not reflect in the database. The

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SAP system administrator needs to critical review such updates. The administration data for the update

request can be used to investigate the reason why an update process terminated. In the update report

overview displayed via transaction SM13, a terminated update has the status cancelled. It is the

responsibility of the system administrator to critically examine the cause and reprocess the failed update if

need be.

7. System Log Review: SM21

the SAP system has its own system log which records events as they occur. These events are well

categorized thus aiding objective analysis. The system log contains error, warning and problem

messages. The application server records events and problems in the system log and has a log that

contains the messages output. The benefit of reviewing the system log is enormous. Serious system

issues can be averted if the system log is well analyzed on a regular basis. You can use transaction

SM21 to access the system log.

8. Jobs Monitoring: SM37/SM35

some processing activities in the SAP system have serious implication on the performance of the system.

In order to optimize resources and increase performance, some operations are performed at the

background via batch, defined or standard jobs. Background job as it were, is supposed to perform a

particular task. The SAP system administrator must review the status of jobs that have been defined in

the SAP system and consequently investigate any abnormality or failure. Transaction SM37 provides an

overview of jobs and session overview of batch input job is displayed using transaction SM35.