FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide -...

FlexFrame® Orchestrator

Version 1.2A

FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide

Edition December 2015 Document Version 1.0

.

Fujitsu Limited

© Copyright Fujitsu Technology Solutions 2015

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3 < FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide>

Content

FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide ........................................................................... 1

1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Target Group ..................................................................................................... 9 1.2 Notational Conventions ..................................................................................... 9 1.3 Document History ............................................................................................ 10 1.4 Related Documents ......................................................................................... 11 1.5 Naming Information ......................................................................................... 11

2 Architecture ................................................................................................... 13 2.1 Component FA Application Agent ................................................................... 15 2.2 Component FA Frame Agent........................................................................... 18 2.3 Component FA Domain Manager .................................................................... 19 2.4 Component FA WebGui .................................................................................. 20 2.4.1 Subcomponent FA WebGui Reporting ............................................................ 20 2.5 Component FA Repository .............................................................................. 20 2.6 Component dependencies .............................................................................. 20

3 Configuration the FA Accounting ................................................................ 22 3.1 FlexFrame Agents configuration Parameters .................................................. 22 3.2 Parameters for the File System Utilization....................................................... 24 3.2.1 File System Utilization ..................................................................................... 25 3.2.2 Directory Utilization ......................................................................................... 26 3.2.3 Activation of Configuration Entries .................................................................. 26 3.3 FlexFrame Domain Manager ........................................................................... 30 3.3.1 Common Parameters of the FA Domain Manager .......................................... 30 3.3.2 Database Connection ...................................................................................... 36 3.3.3 Configuration of the locations for collet files .................................................... 37 3.4 Accounting Configuration ................................................................................ 37 3.4.1 powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] Value and Hyperthreading ............................. 37 3.4.2 Release Information for SAP Systems ............................................................ 39 3.4.3 Pricing Information .......................................................................................... 40 3.5 Profile Configuration ........................................................................................ 41 3.5.1 Profile Assignment .......................................................................................... 42 3.5.2 Profile configuration for Nodes, Service, Filesystems and Directories or Files. 43 3.5.3 Profile for File System Monitoring .................................................................... 44 3.5.4 Profile for Directory Monitoring ........................................................................ 45

4 Functionality FlexFrame Agents Accounting ............................................. 47 4.1 Performance Management .............................................................................. 47 4.1.1 CPU Performance Management Nodes based ............................................... 49

Contents

FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide 4

4.1.2 CPU Performance Management Service based .............................................. 50 4.1.3 Memory Management Node based ................................................................. 51 4.1.4 Memory Management Service based .............................................................. 51 4.1.5 Network IO Node based .................................................................................. 52 4.2 Capacity Management ..................................................................................... 52 4.2.1 CPU Capacity Management Nodes based ...................................................... 53 4.2.2 CPU Capacity Management Service group per Node based ........................... 53 4.2.3 CPU Capacity Management SID based........................................................... 54 4.2.4 Filespace capacity Management ..................................................................... 54 4.3 Accounting ....................................................................................................... 57 4.3.1 Accounting of the compute power SAPS based Accounting............................ 59 4.3.2 Accounting SAPS Seconds based Accounting ................................................ 60 4.3.3 Accounting of the File System utilization ......................................................... 60 4.3.4 Billing ............................................................................................................... 61 4.4 Service Level Profile ........................................................................................ 64 4.4.1 Performance Profile, Capacity Profile, Accounting Profile ............................... 64 4.4.2 Profile for Filesystem or File Space monitoring ............................................... 64 4.5 Domain Manager for Performance and File System Collections ..................... 67 4.5.1 Data collection ................................................................................................. 67 4.5.2 Data retentiontime and compression ............................................................... 68 4.5.3 FA Domain Manager Workflow Management .................................................. 69 4.5.4 FA Domain Manager Watchdog Selfmonitoring ............................................... 70

5 Usage FA WebGui for Performance and Capacity management ............... 71 5.1 FlexFrame Agents Suite Visualization and Reporting ...................................... 71 5.2 Node and service based views ........................................................................ 73 5.3 Navigation ........................................................................................................ 74 5.4 Filessystem, Directory or File based views ...................................................... 75 5.5 Activation of accounting levels (aggregation) in WebGUI ................................ 76

6 Restrictions, and limitations ......................................................................... 78 6.1 Limitations of accuracy in Hyperthreading, or Simultaneous Multithreading

environments .................................................................................................................... 79 6.1.1 Hypervisor mode on or off ............................................................................... 80 6.2 Accounting for virtual servers .......................................................................... 81 6.2.1 SAPS calculation for a virtual server ............................................................... 81 6.2.2 Accounting for overprovisioned virtual servers ................................................ 81 6.3 Accounting for powermanaged servers ........................................................... 81

7 FlexFrame Troubleshooting ......................................................................... 85 7.1 Trouble shooting Accounting ........................................................................... 85 7.2 Incident Diagnosis ....................................................................................... 85 7.2.1 Logfile Debug levels ........................................................................................ 85

Contents

5 FlexFrame Agents: Accounting Guide

8 Abbreviations ................................................................................................ 87

9 Glossary ......................................................................................................... 90

10 Index ............................................................................................................... 96


1 Introduction

This document is an additional document to the FlexFrame Agents Installation and Ad-

ministration Guide. This manual describes the functional concepts of the FlexFrame ac-

counting option,limitations and restrictions.

he FlexFrame Agents Accounting is based on the same components that are used for the

FA High availability and autonomy functionality. The FA Domain Manager and the FA

Accounting Repository are components which are only used for the FlexFrame Agents

Accounting option for further processing and storing of the performance, capacity and

accounting data. So installation, configuration and migration of the FlexFrame Agents

component is described in the FlexFrame Agents Installation and Administration Guide.

The focus of this document is the accounting functionality and usage scenarios of the

FlexFrame Agents accounting option.

The FlexFrame Agents Accounting is based on the following components:

FA AppAgent

FA FrameAgent

FA CtrlAgent

FA WebGui /FA WebGui Reporting Option

FA Domain Manager incl. FA Accounting Repository

FA Messenger

All this components are part of the standard installation, migration and activation process

described in the FlexFrame Agents Installation and Administration Guide.

Introduction


Introduction


1.1 Target Group

This documentation is intended to support users of FlexFrame Agents Accounting option.

1.2 Notational Conventions

The following conventions are used in this manual:

Additional information that should be observed.

Warning that must be observed.

fixed font Names of paths, files, commands, and system output.

<fixed font> Names of variables.

fixed font User input in command examples

(if applicable using <> with variables)

Introduction


1.3 Document History

Document Version Changes Date

1.0 First Edition for FlexFrame Orchestrator

1.2A

2015-10-30

1.0 Update for FlexFrame Orchestrator

1.2A

2015-12-04

Introduction


1.4 Related Documents

FlexFrame® – Administration and Operation

FlexFrame® – HW Characteristics Quickguides

FlexFrame® – Installation and Configuration LVM 2.1 Standard Edition

FlexFrame® – Installation Guide for SAP Solutions

FlexFrame® – Installation of a FlexFrame Environment

FlexFrame® – Management Tool

FlexFrame®

– Agents Installation and Administration

FlexFrame®

– Messenger Concept and Usage

FlexFrame®

– LogAgent Concept and Usage

FlexFrame®

– Installation of a FlexFrame Environment

FlexFrame® – Network Design and Configuration Guide

FlexFrame® – Security Guide

FlexFrame® – Technical White Paper

FlexFrame® – Upgrading FlexFrame Orchestrator 1.0 or 1.1A to 1.2A

ServerView Documentation

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Documentation

1.5 Naming Information

PRIMEFLEX for SAP Landscapes enables simplified, fast and secure implementation

and operation of SAP applications and databases. The infrastructure solution is designed,

delivered and supported as one product and supplemented by a broad services portfolio.

The integrated FlexFrame Orchestrator software offers consistent and standardized ad-

ministration of infrastructure, databases and applications.


2 Architecture

The figure below shows an overview of the FlexFrameAgents Accounting architecture

and the associated FlexFrame Agents Suite components:

Architecture


FlexFrame AppAgents and FlexFrame FrameAgents have the possibility of collecting

performance data about CPU, Memory and filesystem usage based on a node or service

specific perspective and generate cyclically defined value tuples with them. The result

tuples are frame-, pool-, group-, node-, system- and service-specific. The result of every

cycle is stored in a collection file. Collection files are temporary data containers for stor-

ing the raw data. A collection file enables the storing of data from several report cycles.

The collection files themselves are organised in a ring buffer which enables the ascer-

tainment of the number and size of the collection files in a sizing process.

The following picture shows the configuration with external FA Domain Manager and an

external FA Accounting Repository. The operation of these components outside the Flex-

Frame environment is often used in customer landscapes.

The FA Domain Manager gathers the processed metering data captured by the applica-

tion agents. It validates the incoming collection data files and correlate it against perfor-

Architecture


mance profiles to produce alarms and sends the messages to a defined message service

for example FA Messenger and writes the accounting data to a declared target: data-

base.

The alarming functionality of the FA Domain Manager allows you to set alarms based on

threshold evaluation for a tuple of metering values. An alarm can be set on a single me-

ter. For example, you may want to trigger an alarm when the memory consumption

reaches 70% on a given instance if the instance has been up for more than 10 min.

These thresholds are configured in the form of profiles by the FA WebGui.

If the thresholds are exceeded the FA Domain Manager send a trap to the FA Messenger

where the alarm conditions and an action to take are specified.

The monitoring with performance profiles is shown in the following picture.

2.1 Component FA Application Agent

The FA Application Agents gather information about CPU, memory and filesystem usage

per detection cycle and is located on each FlexFrame Application Node. The data gath-

ered from the application agents contains a huge amount of data in a raw format stored in

so called collection files, or collets. The collection files have FA suite specific data format

in which the data is stored in a multirowtype csv format.

Architecture


The FlexFrame Agents produce performance and accounting collets in the

“/opt/myAMC/vFF/vFF_<poolname>/data/FA/performance” directory of every pool. There

are some types of collets

Node collets with the name pattern

Perf_Node~<node_name>.prf.<number>.col which respectively

contains cpu, memory and network interface data of one node

File system collets with the name pattern

Perf_FsUtil_FrameNode~<frame_name>.prf.<number>.col which

contains file system data of any monitored file systemDirectory collets with the

name pattern Perf_DirUtil_Pool~<node_name>.prf.<number>.col

which contains directory data of any monitored directory

Collections per service group with the name pattern

Perf_Group~<node_name>.prf.<number>.col

Collections per service with the name pattern

Perf_Service~<SrvType>~<SID>~<ID>.prf.<number>.col

The number and size of the collections produced by the FlexFrame Agents can be ad-

justed. In the standard adjustment there are in each case 10 collections per service or

node installed. This results in a ring buffer of data automatically reorganized by the

agents. For the sizing it is possible to calculate the required storage size through the

number of nodes and the size of the report cycle.

The parameters of the FA DomainManager and of the backup routine have to be config-

ured in a way that the raw data can be safely processed before being overwritten by the

FlexFrame Agents. That means if the ring buffer has a capacity of 30 days, the FA Do-

main Manager can pause several days and there is no loss of data.

A set of collets is produced every collet cycle.

The count of collets of one collet set depends on the countamount of nodes.

A set contains:

- One node collet per node

- One service collet per accounted service

- One group collet per node

- If activated: One file system collet per monitoring instance

- If activated: One directory collet per monitoring instance

Because in each cycle a data record is written, the size of each collet depends on the

quotient between collet cycle and report cycle.

If we know the base colletsize per collettype and we know the typical growth per report-

cycle we can calculate the required storage size for the ringbuffer.

Architecture


The files are human readable but not realy usable in this format because of the multi-

typerow format and the count of data stored in such a file. The collet files store one or

more reportcycle per data type such as node or service or service group. Service groups

are described in a later chapter .

Every node has an own collet file. The collet files are stored in a circular buffer.

Count of services per node * report cycles per day = count of service records per day

Count of groups per node * count of report cycles per day = count of group records per

dayCount of network interfaces per node * count of report cycles per day = count of net-

work interface records per day

Report cycles per day = count of node records per day

Count of filesystems, directories and files configured for Filespace Accounting * count of

report cycles per day = count of Filespace Accounting records per day.

Count of service record + count of group records + count of network interface records +

count of node records + count of Filespace Accounting * 30kb per record = growth of

accounting database per day.

For every table can be defined a retention time to limit the table growth. In addition the

compression functionality which is decribed in the special FA Domain Manager chapters

helps to reduce the size of the FA Accounting repository.

The results of every reportcycle are stored in node or service based colletfiles. The

colletcycle defines the count of reportcycles results stored in one colletfile. If the colletfile

cycle is greater than the reportcycle the count of colletfiles is reduced, but the time to

Architecture


monitor or report the results of reportcycle depends on the colletcycle. The dependency

between reportcycle and colletcycle is shown in the next picture.

2.2 Component FA Frame Agent

The FA Frame Agent is located on the FlexFrame Control Node. The FA Frame Agent is

able to do tasks like the FA Application Agent on the application nodes. Actually the FA

Frame Agent has the task to collect the data of filesystem utilization and datagrowth in a

filesystem. In fact this is also possible to capture the file system and directory data with

the FA Application Agents. But due to the fact that there are more than one application

node the task is done multiple.

The advantage of doing this with the FA Frame Agent is to save up a lot of redundant

work.

Architecture


The file systems and directories that have to be monitored can be configured in the my-

AMC_FA_Checks.xml file by the FA WebGui.

2.3 Component FA Domain Manager

The FA Domain Manager is a central component of the FlexFrame Agents Accountin-

goptionand is located on the FlexFrame Control Node.The FA Domain Manager has the

task to take the data collection stored in the so called collet file from the pool specific

input directories to calculate the performance and accounting data and to store the meter-

ing values in the FA Repository.

A second task is to correlate the metering data against performance profiles which define

high water marks to produce snmp based traps with warning or critical level. In standard

installations no profiles are active.

Architecture


2.4 Component FA WebGui

The FA WebGui is the component to visualize the data in node or system specific graph

views. The FA WebGui has views to visualize the node based or service based perfor-

mance, and accounting data in stacked and non stacked views. The tree panel and the

system and node panel of the standard FA WebGui are used to make the selection of the

presented data. The FA WebGui can be used as applet or Java Web Start application

started from a Webbrowser, or as standalone installation. The FA WebGui as applet and

Java Web Start application have the advantage that they can be used from client systems

which can connect to the webserver on the FlexFrame control node without installation

effort. The FA WebGui as standalone application needs installation on the client system.

The FA WebGui standalone application (FA Viewer) can integrate the reporting function-

ality.

2.4.1 Subcomponent FA WebGui Reporting

The FA WebGui reporting component is integrated into the FA WebGui for standalone

installation. The FA WebGui standalone installation is a separate rpm package of the FA

Suite. The reporting is based on the crystal report Viewer technology from SAP The use

of the report viewing component in the applet version of the FA WebGui is not possible.

2.5 Component FA Repository

The FA repository is relational database with configuration and datatables to store the

performance, capacity and accounting data.The FA repository is based on Postgre SQL

database. The connection to the database is ODBC or JDBC based.

2.6 Component dependencies

The FA Application Agents and the FA Frame Agent produce the raw data in so called

collet files. Thesefiles are stored per pool in a ring buffer. The operation is therefore inde-

pendent from the FA Domain Manager, the FA Repository and the FA WebGui. In stand-

ard FlexFrame installations the ringbuffer is configured to store the collet files for 30 days.

That means the raw data collets are available for 30 days in the FlexFrame infrastructure.

In the rare cases that the collet version has changed because the data is expanded the

FA Domain Manager must be compatible with the FA Application Agents and the FA

Frame Agent. But normally this is guaranteed by the FlexFrame installation.

Architecture


But due to its backward compatibility the FA Domain Manager is able to process older

collet formats.

The FA Domain Manager must be compatible to the FA Repository structure and the FA

WebGui compatible to FA Repository structure.

To visualize the performance capacity data a FlexFrame infrastructure with livelists from

the FlexFrame Agents is necessary to have the view of pools, nodes, system and in-

stances.

Configuration the FA Accounting


3 Configuration the FA Accounting

The FlexFrame Agents accounting option uses configuration parameters on the FA Appli-

cation Agent side pool specific, on the FA Frame Agent relevant for the complete Flex-

Frame and for the FA Domain Manager. In the following chapters the paramerters and

their configuration is described.

3.1 FlexFrame Agents configuration Parameters

The FA Accounting Reportcycle is defined in the Autonomy Checks and Performace

dialog for every Pool

Detection cycle Cycle for new values from the OS System

PerfdataReportCycleTime : Reportcycle for Performance Rawdata

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_FSCycleTime : Reportcycle for Performance Rawdata

Perfdata_SpaceUitl_DirCycleTime : Reportcycle for Performance Rawdata

The collet size is fixed with 1, that means every reportcycle is stored in one collet file. The

parameter to change this is not available in the FA configuration Gui.

The FlexFrame Agents Accounting options use functionality of the FA Application Agents

and the FA Frame Agents to produce performance, capacity and accounting raw data.

The FA Application Agents have a pool specific configuration file on the shared file sys-

tem.



/opt/myAMC/vFF/vFF_<Pool>/config/*

The FF Frame Agent uses the same type of config files, but the FA Frame Agent is in-

stalled local on the Control Nodes. Therefore the config files are located in the local

filesystem of both Control Nodes.

Local file system: /opt/local/myAMC/vFF/vFF_<Pool>/config/*

The main tasks of the FA Frame agent is monitoring of the FlexFrame Filesystems.

The FA Accounting Reportcycle is defined in the Autonomy Checks and Performace

dialog for every Pool

PerfdataReportCycleTime (myAMC_FA.xml)The report cycle specifies the cycle of

creating a performance and accounting value, which is written to the collet. Typical

values are 60 (1 minute), 600 (10 minutes) or 3600 (one hour).

The default value of this parameter is 60. The value should be a multiple of CheckCycleTime which default value is 10 (in seconds).

max_colletcount_performance_files (myAMC_FA_AppAgent_spec.xml)

Specifies the maximum size of the collet file ring buffer. That means the count of col-

lets that are stored which have the same collet type and the same data type before

being rewritten.

max_filesize_performance_files (myAMC_FA_AppAgent_spec.xml)

Maximum size of the collet file ring buffer performance files. This parameter serves to

limit the size of the files.

collet_switch_start_performance_files (myAMC_FA_AppAgent_spec.xml)

Spezifies the trigger time when new collet files will be written.

Example: 2006-01-01 00:00:00 (only hour, minute and seconds will be considered).

In this case the collet files will be written at midnight. That’s also the default value.

collet_switch_cycle_performance_files (myAMC_FA_AppAgent_spec.xml)

Specifies the cycle time in seconds how often the collets will be written. The default

value is 86400 which is one time a day.

By combining collet_switch_start_performance_files and

collet_switch_cycle_performance_files, it is possible to specify that, starting at



0:00, new collets are written every 3600 seconds, i.e. every hour. In this case the value of

collet_switch_cycle_performance_files must be 3600.

3.2 Parameters for the File System Utilization

The parameters for the file and directory system utilization can be configured for FA

Frame Agents or for the FA Application Agent. The attribute xy defines the source to

produce the performance values.

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_FSCycleTime (myAMC_FA.xml)

This parameter specifies how often (in seconds) the filesystem utilization is checked.

Typical values are 1800 or 3600. The value should be a multiple of CheckCycleTime.

Perfdata_SpaceUitl_DirCycleTime (myAMC_FA.xml)

This parameter specifies how often (in seconds) the directory utilization is checked.

Typical values are 3600. The value should be a multiple of CheckCycleTime.

FSUtilScriptFilePath (myAMC_FA.xml)

Specifies the path to the FsUtil scripts.

Script file names are myAMC.DetGetDirData.sh, myAMC.DetGetFSData.sh.

Performance files Perf_FsUtil~<hostname>.prf.

Line-Identifier in this file is FSUTIL.

The monitored directories and file systems will be pool specific configured in the configu-

ration file myAMC_FA_Checks.xml in the directory

/opt/myAMC/vFF/vFF_<poolname>/config. The configuration consists of tem-

plates, depending on the actual conditions to be activated.

The configuration file for monitoring the filesystem utilization or the directory utilization

uses a common structure and a specific structure. For every Filesystem or directory to

monitor you have to define an entry in the ConfigSection like “TrapTargets with the follow-

ing ConfigEntries :



Active

Indicates whether this entry is currently active or not. In case of inactive the complete

entry is ignored.

Name

Symbolic display name

The symbolic name can be freely assigned with a maximum lenth of 50 characters

and no special characters.

Group

Group name for logical grouping, that allows group based aggregation. The group

name can be freely assigned with a maximum length of 50 characters and no special

characters.

ContextObject

Reference object. Possible values are Frame, Pool, Group, Node, System, or

Service.

FrameActivationPattern

Wildcard pattern for frame-specific activation

PoolActivationPattern

Wildcard patern for pool specific activation.

GroupActivationPattern

Wildcard Pattern for group specific activation.

NodeActivationPattern

Wildcard pattern for node specific activation

SystemActivationPattern

Wildcard pattern for system specific activation

ServiceTypeActivationPattern

Wildcard pattern for service specific activation

InstNumActivationPattern

Wildcard pattern for instance specific activation

The values in the reference object define the aggregation type of the data.

3.2.1 File System Utilization

In addition to the common values there are some attributes to define the parameters for

file system utilization.

Configuration set to monitor a file system (ConfigSection, like TrapTargets)

/myAMC.FA/FilesystemUtilization.



(ConfigEntries):

FilesystemNamePattern

Wildcard pattern to identify the file system.

If this value is missing or empty, this pattern is always true. This parameter can be

definied with placeholder like $(name).

MountPointPattern

Wildcard pattern to select certain files using mount points.

If this value is missing or empty this value is always true. This parameter can be de-

finied with placeholder like $(name).

MaxUtilization

Thresholding (maximum utilization in percent) to trigger utilization events. The value

0 disables this threshold monitoring.

MaxGrowthRate

Threshold for maximum growth rate in percent per second. to trigger a trap as re-

sponse to large growth rates. The value 0 disables this threshold

3.2.2 Directory Utilization

Every directory to monitor needs a config entry with following values (ConfigSection,

like TrapTargets) below the key /myAMC.FA/DirectoryUtilization.

In addition to the standard values (ConfigEntries) :

Paths

Absolute path of the directory being monitored.

This parameter can include placeholder in the form $(name).

3.2.3 Activation of Configuration Entries

The directory and file system monitoring is based on a reference object. A reference

object can be of the type Frame, Pool, Group, Node, System or Service.

The activation depends on the entry in the config files and dynamic values from the

agent.

Parameter name Activation depends on Example

AgentTypeActivationPattern Agent type

(“myAMC.AppAgent”, “my-

AMC.FrameAgent”)

*Agent*

FrameActivationPattern Frame name

(allways local)

Local

PoolActivationPattern Pool name MyPool*



Parameter name Activation depends on Example

GroupActivationPattern Group name GR_Lin*

NodeActivationPattern Node name bx*

SystemActivationPattern SID P*

ServiceTypeActivationPattern Service type, possible values

are: SRV_DBORA,

SRV_DB2,SRV_SAPSYBASE,

SRV_DBSAP, SRV_CI,

SRV_PAI, SRV_APP,

SRV_J, SRV_JC,

SRV_HANA,

SRV_HANA_REP,

SRV_HANA_MN, SRV_SCS,

SRV_ERS, SRV_WEBDISP,

SRV_WILY, SRV_ASCS,

SRV_TRX,

SRV_SAPSYB_IQ,SRV_CMS,

SRV_SMD, SRV_SMD73,

SRV_BOE4

SRV_DB*

InstNumActivationPattern Instance number

to definie a special instance

02

For every config entry the FlexFrame AppAgent or FlexFrame FrameAgent checks

together with the dynamical information Framename, Poolname, Groupname,

Nodename, Servicename if there is a match with a config entry. So managed and

monitored sets of objects are dynamicaly defined.

Reference objects Frame, Pool, Group, Node

Frame, pool, group or node specific rules to monitor file system utilization.

Reference object: Service.

The Service type ist the activator for a rule, for example monitor only spezial files if

their is an db service on the node.

Reference object System

The system name is activator for a rule

Examples:

AppAgent

Active Services: dbo46 (ora), dbp52 (sapdb), app02p52, cip55

Reference object: Group

Active: false

The entry is ignored because active is false.



AppAgent


Reference object: Pool

Active: true

ServiceTypeActivationPattern: SRV_DBORA

other ActivationPatterns: empty or „*“

The FF AppAgent activates a rule for the defined pool, but only for DB services.

AppAgent


Reference objekt: System

Active: true

SystemActivationPattern: P*


The FF AppAgent activates a rule for SAP SIDs which match with P*.

FrameAgent

Active Pools: Cust_1, pool2, Cust_3

Reference objekt: Pool

Active: true

FrameActivationPattern: A00*

PoolActivationPattern: Cust_*


The FF FrameAgent activates a monitoring rule for the pools Cust_1 and Cust_3,

but only if the name of the frames correlates with the FrameActivationPattern

3.2.3.1 Replacing of Placeholders

The configuration section allows for some parameters the use of placeholders. The

placeholders are resolved from the FlexFrame AppAgent or FlexFrame FrameAgent. If a

placeholder is not resolved, an empty string is used.

The following placeholder are available:

${framename} (currently always Local)

Example: Local, A00001

${poolname}

Example: Cust_3, pool1

${groupname}

Example: GR_Linux

${nodename}

Example: tombx2, sno1aplp2



${systemname}

Example: P46, ABC

${servicetype} Example: SRV_APP, SRV_CI, SRV_DBORA, SRV_DBSAP, SRV_SCS, ...

${servicedisplaytype}

Example: app, ci, db, scs, ...

${instnum}

The instance number will only be resolved if it is valid (>=0). The number is always used

as double digit.

Example: 7 07

-1 “”

42 42

3.2.3.2 Wildcard Patterns

Wildcard patterns allow comparison wtih variable texts. Unknown elements can be se-

lected by the wildcard “*” and “?”.

“*” stands for an unlimited quantity of any character that may be present or not.

“?” stands for a single character

Example:

*.doc

matches with abc.doc, .doc and aabbccdd.doc , but not with abcdoc,

abc.doc2 or abc.xdoc

app??O46

matches with app1O46, app02O46, appO46 but not with app123O46, ciO46 or

ap02O46

app??P*

matches with app1P52, app02P5, appPPP but not with app123O46, app1O52, or

ap02O46



3.3 FlexFrame Domain Manager

FlexFrame DomainManager is a component of the FlexFrame Performance and Account-

ing Solution.The FA Domain Manager has his own configuration files in the

/opt/myAMC/FA_DomainManager/config directory.

FlexFrame DomainManager processing measuring data which are collected from Flex-

Frame Agents and Collectors as ASCII-Files (called Collet-Files).

Reading of Collet-Files

Profil control, generation of alerts

Storage in database

3.3.1 Common Parameters of the FA Domain Manager

The DomainManager needs the config file DomainManager.xml in the directory

/opt/myAMC/FA_DomainManager/config/.

The same file is under /opt/myAMC/FA_DomainManager/system which should not be

changed. The values of both files will be merged. If attributes are in both files but with

different values than the values of from the config directory wins.

LogLevel

This value specifies the granularity (minimum severity) of the

written log file data.

Possible values are

-1=Off, 1=Critical, 2=Error, 3=Warning, 4=Normal, 5=Info,

6=Babble, 7=Debug.

ReaderRefreshTime

Cycletime in seconds to look for new collets (default: 60).

TraceSQL

Activate loging for SQL commands, attention addional load and growth of logfile size.

The default value is Off

LogToScreen

default: false (show FA Domain Manager Logmessages on the Display, and write it

not to the logfiles

MaxLogFileSize

default: 4096 (Defines the logfile size in kb before reorganization

ConfigReInitTime

default: 3600 (reinit the FA Domain Manager Configuration



ConfigReInitForce

default: false (reinits the FA Domain Manager after ConfigReInitTime, equal if there

are changes or not

MaxSlaViolationWriteBackTime

default: 60 (if Profilling is active, timecycle to make the violations persistent in the da-

tabase

ProfilingEnabled

default: false (activate, or deactivate the correlation with the profiles, to reduce the

resource consumption of the FA Domain Manager the default is off. Resourcecon-

sumption depends on the count of different profiles)

ReaderIdleLiveTime

default: 300 (Livetime for unused Readerthreads)

ReaderPreferTime

default: 1800 (the reader prefer the host collets for the defined timedifferenz, before

reading service based collets.Helps to built the internal cache for the host based per-

formance data in environments with hyperthreading, this is relevant to calculate the

service based values. )

ReaderReaderColletCount

default: 2 (Defines the count of collets per Read processed at the same time, togeth-

er with the Buffer count this value influence the memory consumption of the FA Do-

main Manager)

ReaderReaderBufferCount

default: 2 (Defines the count of Buffer to handle collection files, the Buffer count influ-

ence the memory consumption of the FA Domain Manager)

ReaderRefreshTime

default: 60 (Livetime for unused Readerthreads)

WorkCycleTime

default: 1 (Processing cycle time for all worker threads, to monitor the process time of

the worker threads sequence)

DBReaderCount

default: 1 (Count of Reader Threats, to control and manage the resource consump-

tion of the FA Domain Manager.

DBWriterCount

default: 1 (Count of Writer Threats, to control and manage the resource consumption

of the FA Domain Manager.

UseTimeExtensionForReadyCollets

default: false (if true, appends a timestamp extension to failed files, that means the



files are not overwritten with the next generation of files with the same colletnumber.

If this parameter is set to true the filespace growth have to be monitored)

UseTimeExtensionForErrorCollets

default: false (if true, appends a timestamp extension to failed files, that means the

files are not overwritten with the next generation of files with the same colletnumber.

If this parameter is set to true the filespace growth have to be monitored)

MaxCacheRowsPerDay

default: 20000 (Size of the cache for the host based accounting data to calculate the

service based Performance values in case of hyperthreading.The value defines the

count of cached rows, higher cache is more memory consumption for the FA Domain

Manager, but higher performance to calculate the service based accounting data.

Configuration of the Pathes to the collection files

The config section Data Input defines the path to find the perferomance collection

files from the FA Application Agents to process with the FA Domain Manager.The

config section Data Input can have serveral sections to define different locations to

find collection files. In standard environments there is a config section named “shared

pools”to define the generic pool pathes for every pool in a FlexFrame environment

The section Local pools defines the path to the local pool FlexFrame whre the FA

Frame Agent stores the collection files.

Every defined section has the following parameters to define the pathes to find and pro-

cess the collection files.

Base Directory

default: /opt/myAMC/vFF f (defines the root path to all pools in a FlexFrame envi-

ronment

SubDirectory

default:vFF_* (defines the pattern to identify the subdirectories for every pool)

ColletDirectory

default: data/FA/performance (defines the subpath to the colletfiles per pool. The

complet path is BaseDirectory + Poolname + SubDirectory)

WorkDirectory

default: data/FA/performance/work (defines the subdirectory for the FA Domain Man-

ager to persist the collection files in process

ReadyDirectory

default: data/FA/performance/ready (defines the subdirectory for the FA Domain

Manager to persist the collection files, where processing was ok,and Data stored in

the accounting database.



ErrorDirectory

default: data/FA/performance/error (defines the subdirectory for the FA Domain Man-

ager to persist the collection files, where processing failed, Data not stored in the ac-

counting database.

AdjustMetaData

default: false Specifies whether meta data such as the pool name is adjusted to the environment. Example: Collets from pool "default" are stored in a pool directory "My-Pool", and AdjustMetaData is true: all data records will be adjusted to the pool name "MyPool".

Configsection Cleanup defines the parameters to define the cycles for the FA Domain

Manager to reorganize the tables to manage the growth of file space.

CleanUpCycleTime

Time in seconds how often aggregation and deleting too old data is done

The default value is 86400 (1 time a day)

TriggerTime

This value modulo CleanUpCycleTime defines on which time aggregation and delet-

ing too old data is done

Timebase is greenwich meantime

The default value is 1170425394 (a few minutes after 14 o clock if CleanUp-

CycleTime value is 86400)

- KeepTime

Count of time in seconds to store the unaggregated performance data in the

following tables:ACC_SRV_GRP

- ACC_SRV

- ACC_HOST_OTHER

- ACC_HOST_NET

- ACC_DIRUTIL_FRAME

- ACC_DIRUTIL_POOL

- ACC_DIRUTIL_GROUP

- ACC_DIRUTIL_HOST

- ACC_DIRUTIL_SYSTEM



- ACC_DIRUTIL_SRV

- ACC_FSUTIL_FRAME

- ACC_FSUTIL_POOL

- ACC_FSUTIL_GROUP

- ACC_FSUTIL_HOST

- ACC_FSUTIL_SYSTEM

- ACC_FSUTIL_SRV

Performance records with a timestamp older than KeepTime are deleted

The default value is: 7776000 (90*86400 or 90 days)

KeepTimeL1Count of time in seconds to store the performance data of aggregation level

1 in the following tables:

- ACC_SRV_GRP_LEVEL1

- ACC_SRV_LEVEL1

- ACC_HOST_OTHER_LEVEL1

- ACC_HOST_NET_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_FRAME_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_POOL_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_GROUP_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_HOST_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_SYSTEM_LEVEL1

- ACC_DIRUTIL_SRV_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_FRAME_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_POOL_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_GROUP_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_HOST_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_SYSTEM_LEVEL1

- ACC_FSUTIL_SRV_LEVEL1

Performance records with a timestamp older than KeepTimeL1 are deleted

The default value is: 31536000 (365*86400 round about 1 year)



KeepTimeL2

Count of time in seconds to store the performance data of aggregation level 2 in the

following tables:

- ACC_SRV_GRP_LEVEL2

- ACC_SRV_LEVEL2

- ACC_HOST_OTHER_LEVEL2

- ACC_HOST_NET_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_FRAME_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_POOL_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_GROUP_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_HOST_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_SYSTEM_LEVEL2

- ACC_DIRUTIL_SRV_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_FRAME_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_POOL_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_GROUP_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_HOST_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_SYSTEM_LEVEL2

- ACC_FSUTIL_SRV_LEVEL2

Performance records with a timestamp older than KeepTimeL2 are deleted

The default value is: 126144000 (4*365*86400 round about 4 years)

AggregationL1

Timearea in seconds of which the unaggregated data is com-

pressed and stored as 1 dataset to the level 1 tables.

This value should be a multiple of the report cycle of FA ap-

plication agent

The default value is 3600 (1 hour)

AggregationL2

Timearea in seconds of which the aggregation level 1 data is

compressed and stored as 1 dataset to the level 2 tables.

This value should be a multiple of AggregationL1



The default value is 14400 (4 hours)

SliceL1

Aggregation data block timerange in seconds of compressing un-

aggregated data to aggregation level 1

The value should be a multiple of AggregationL1

The default value is 21600 (6 hours)

SliceL2

Aggregation data block timerange in seconds of compressing da-

ta from aggregation level 1 to aggregation level 2

The value should be a multiple of AggregationL2

The default value is 86400 (1 day)

AggAgeL1

Count of time in seconds after that the unaggregated data will

aggregated and stored to the level 1 tables.

This value should be more than 2 days (172800) less than Keep-

Time

The default value is 0 (aggregation off)

AggAgeL2

Count of time in seconds after that the data from aggregation

level 1 tables is aggregated and stored in the level 2 tables

This value should be more than 2 days (172800) less than Keep-

TimeL1

The default value is 0 (aggregation off)

3.3.2 Database Connection

The parameters for the database connection are in the same config file:

DatabaseDSN

ODBC database name (DSN), the same as in the file /etc/odbc.ini

(default: AMC_PERF).



DatabaseUser

Database user name (default: myAMC).

DatabasePassword

(default: FlexFrame).

DBReconnectCycleTime

(default: 60). Time to reconnect to the database, after lose of connection

3.3.3 Configuration of the locations for collet files

The pool specific directories to find new collet files have to configured.

3.4 Accounting Configuration

The additional values for the billing have to be configured with the FlexFrame ConfigGUI.

The GUI is started with the script /opt/myAMC/FA_ConfigGui/configgui.sh.

3.4.1 powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] Value and Hyperthread-ing

The FF DomainManager uses an application node’s computing capacity (measured in

powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] based on SAP Release 4.7 32bit) und Hyperthreading

state to calculate used compute time for each service. The powervalue [SAPS-equivalent]

value and Hyperthreading state are automatically detected by FF AppAgent and reported

to FF DomainManager via the performance collet.

These values can be overridden. Additionally, the powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] value

can be converted to other SAP releases.

Pool and host names allow the use of wildcards (“*”) to specify a group of nodes with a

single configuration entry.



3.4.2 Release Information for SAP Systems

The calculation of performance data for SAP systems depends on the SAP release ver-

sion.

Since the information of release in the collection is not included, this can be individually

configured for each system here. The system-specific configuration can be made for

every SID or for all SIDs or e.g. for productive SIDs with use of wildcards like “*” or “P*”.

Together with powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] value per release the powervalue [SAPS-

equivalent] base can be changed.



3.4.3 Pricing Information

The FA accounting option allows you to configure price information per SAPS. The pric-

ing dialog in the configuration Gui allows to define price records. Every record represents

one record in the pricing table of FA Accounting repository.

The pricing dialog has the following configuration parameter :

Active Pricing rule is active or not

Priority If serveral pricing rules fit one accounting data set, the Pricing

with the highest priority is used to calculate the price infor-

mation.

e.g. If we have one rule for all day of the week with priority 10,

a second rule for Saturday and Sunday with priority 9, that

means on Saturday and Sunday two rules fit to a service, and

than the priority define which one is used.

ContractId Name of the contract

System Name Pattern Pattern for the system name

Service Type Pattern Pattern for the service type

Day type defines the Type of day: day, weekend, …

Date From Timerange to apply the rule. Day of record date.

Date To Timerange to apply the rule. Day of record date.

Time from Timerange to apply the rule.

Time to Timerange to apply the rule.

Service Rule Name of the rule for reporting and overview

Accounting Rule Name of the rule for reporting and overview

Accounting price price per SAPS

Accounting unit Euro, Dollars …



3.5 Profile Configuration

The FlexFrame Agents Accounting have configuration dialogs to configure profiles to

monitor CPU, SAPS, Memory, Filespace and network related performance values. Every

value can be monitored against a green yellow change, or state change from normal to

warning, and watermark for yellow -> red to create a critical alarm.

The profile configuration consist of serveral configuration dialogs to configure the different

types of profiles

The following pictures show the different types of profiles in the subtree profiles of the FA

ConfigGui.

DirUtilProfiles

FSUtilProfiles

NodeMemoryProfiles

NoteNetworkProfiles

ProcessGroupsProfiles

ServiceGroupsProfiles

ServiceProfiles

ProfileAssignments

Each dialog defines the profile values for defined monitoring area, e.g. Service Monitor-

ing, or node and memory specific profile values. Every configuration dialog has buttons to

create add a profile, or edit a profile or to delete a profile.



3.5.1 Profile Assignment

The profile assignment is the main dialog to create a new profile. The Application ID, the

profile type, the profile name and the profile class are attributes to manage a set of differ-

ent profiles, so that it is easy to change the profiles for special situations where different

profile values have to be used. The profile name is the attribute which joins the profile

definition to the different types of profiles.

The attributes Frame, Pool, Group, System and the following attributes have the task to

define the objects in the FlexFrame landscape to apply the profile. Every attribute can be

activated or deactivated with the check mark.



3.5.2 Profile configuration for Nodes, Service, Filesystems and Directories or Files.

Every profile configuration dialog has the same look and feel. The attributes to configure

a watermark value from green to yellow (normal to warning) and warning to critical can be

activated with the checkmark. With the buttons Add, Copy, Delete new profiles can be

created or deleted.

The following picture shows the dialog to configure a service profile.



3.5.3 Profile for File System Monitoring

The thresholds for the file system monitoring are configured with this dialog. The profile

for the monitoring of the performance values is set with the FlexFrame ConfigGUI. The

GUI is started with the script /opt/myAMC/FA_ConfigGui/configgui.sh.



3.5.4 Profile for Directory Monitoring

The dialog for the directory thresholds is configured with this dialog.


4 Functionality FlexFrame Agents Ac-counting

4.1 Performance Management

Performance Management means the monitoring of CPU consumption per node, service,

service group or SID. The performance and accounting option measures several perfor-

mance values. For all measured values there is a minimum, average, maximum and total

value. This data is supplied in absolute as well as relative form. The performance option

enables monitoring and evaluation of the server and services over a longer period of

time. For every node the following data are available as a minimal, average and maxi-

mum value:

load of SAP-, database- or generic services

other services

Machine idle

Service Groups per node

Services are combined to form groups through specific criteria. This enables the group-

aggregated evaluation of the recorded data.The collected data is aggregated per report

cycle and is created for every node. By default the following groups exist:

SAP SAP services

DB Database services (DB2, Oracle, SAP MaxDB and Sybase)

IDLE Share (proportion) of the free CPU capacity and memory values

FA This service group is a special one. It contains only the values of the FA

Application Agent processes.

OTHER Sum of all processes not belonging to a defined group

CPU Time

CPU %

SAPS

Memory

Network utilisation

Filesystem size, utilisation and

growth rate

Functionality FlexFrame Agents Accounting


The free capacity is summarized as Min, MAX, AVG idle value per reportcycle. The idle

values per pool and frame are worthful for capacity management. For every group and

every reportcycle there is stored a MIN, MAX, AVG and SUM value in hostgroup

datatable.

The FA WebGui has views to show the performance values stored in the datatables of

the FA repository.The performance views can be started from the tree view, with a con-

text sensitive pull down menu the available views can be started.



4.1.1 CPU Performance Management Nodes based

For every node the CPU consumption in seconds, the CPU utilization in %, the Max

SAPS consumption and the memory usage is shown in the graph fields.The timerange

can be changed dynamically. The node performance graph is stacked or non stacked in

dependency of the hierarchy of the selected object in the tree.



4.1.2 CPU Performance Management Service based

In addition to the node based performance values there are performance values for each

monitored service.This allows to show the resource consumption per SAP instance, or as

stacked graph per SID.



4.1.3 Memory Management Node based

The memory consumption is calculated per node. The memory is reported from the OS

view.

If you ask Linux about used memory the answer is nearly 100% in most cases. The rea-

son is that Linux takes unused memory and use it for caches and buffers.

But these caches and buffers can be reduced if applications require memory.

Free memory with the meaning of the FA Accounting is:

Total memory – used memory – memory for buffers and caches

4.1.4 Memory Management Service based

In addition the memory consumption is calculated per service. The OS system can not

differentiate between used memory for shared libs and own libs or shared memory. So

the calculated value of the sum of all services is higher than the physical available

memory.

The FlexFrame Agents calculate for every detection cycle a ratio between physical

memory and used memory from the services to adaped the service based memory con-

sumption to the physical available memory.



Sum Memory Hardware / Sum Memory of all Services = Memory correction factor

Service based Memory from OS System * Memory correction factor = Service based

Memory. Actual there is no difference between service types.

4.1.5 Network IO Node based

The FlexFrame Agents detects the following values for any network interface per node:

- received Bytes

- received Packets

- received Errors

- received Dropped

- received Fifo

- received Frame

- received Compressed

- received Multicast

- send Bytes

- send Packets

- send Errors

- send Dropped

- send Fifo

- send Collisions

- send Carrier

- send Compressed

4.2 Capacity Management

The Capacity Management functionality helps to support the planing process in the data-

center. Capacity Management helps to understand the influence of the performance im-

pact of new releases, or the change of resource consumption with the use of new or

changed functionality in the application services. Capacity Management and Performance

analysis can use the same value base. The functionality helps to recognize changes in

the ressource consumption over different time periods.It helps to optimize the powercon-

sumption in the datacenter and to balance the workload. Capacaity Management adress-

es the view to the ressource consumption of defined parts of the datacenter to plan the

future workload in the datacenter and to plan the server capacity needed for planed

changes or new type of application services in the existing datacenter. The capacity



management functionality helps to identiy bottlenecks and free headroom which can be

used for other tasks

4.2.1 CPU Capacity Management Nodes based

For every node the CPU consumption and the SAPS consumption is calculated for ervery

report cycle. In addition the memory consumption is shown in the same node based per-

formance view. The view can be changed with the effort of some mouse clickes to differ-

ent timeranges.

In a view in WebGUI will be shown the overview of CPU, SAPS and Memory consump-

tion of the FlexFrame environment. With a click in the selected object in the tree that be

changed to the resource consumption of a FlexFrame pool or group or a differente

timerange.

4.2.2 CPU Capacity Management Service group per Node based

In addtion to the node based analysis a node service group analysis is available. Pre

defined groups are SAP, DB, Other and FA . This calculation allows to get very easy the

overview how many load is generated by SAP related services, database related service

or non SAP and non Database load. In addition the FA related load shows the footprint of

the FlexFrame Agents to make the high availability, autonomy and Accounting functionali-

ty on a application server.

The hostgroup based workload differentiates the workload to the following predefined

groups. The hostgroup based values a very helpful for all tasks of capacity management

for the datacenter.

SAP

DB,

FA

Other

Idle

For every group and every reportcycle there is stored a MIN, MAX, AVG and SUM value

in hostgroup datatable.



4.2.3 CPU Capacity Management SID based

SID based capacity management shows the ressource consumption of all instances be-

longing to the same SID. This helps to caluclate the changes resource consumption over

time, or after release changes to plan the future workload.

4.2.4 Filespace capacity Management

FA AppAgents and FA FrameAgents are able to determine the data for the file system

utilization. A parameter file defines, which file systems and directories are monitored.

Additional detector components for the supervision of file systems and directories.

1. File system detector

2. Directory detector

The file system detector can supervise file systems or mount points and supplies the

existing and employed capacity of a file system. A file system corresponds to a mount

point in a Linux system.



The directory detector enables the monitoring of individual files or directories. The direc-

tory detector ascertains the absolute quantity.

Absolute storage space z

Total capacity of the file system

Usage of file system and directory

Usage %

The delta to the last cycle kb%delta and additionally as value per second

The resource consumption or the footprint of the directory detector is distinctly higher

then the file system detector consumption. Therefore the directory detector can only be

used for individual directories and should not be configurated for all directories.

Interesting is for instance the supervision of files and directories where significant

increase is possible for example logfiles or database directories.

The filesystem monitoring allows to visualize the filespace usage, utilization of a

filesystem absolute and relative, the growthrates absolute and relative.

Variable cycle times can be defined for collecting of the file system data and directory

data:

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_FSCycleTime

specifies how often (in seconds) FlexFrame Agents checks the file system utili-

zation for performance data.

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_DirCycleTime

specifies how often (in seconds) FlexFrame Agents checks the directory utiliza-

tion for performance data.



The FA Agent is able to calculate from the raw values the increase rates through consi-

deration of several cycles and to dispatch alerts as soon as these and/or the fill degree of

the file system exceed specific values.

Values for the generation of the file monitoring alerts receives the FlexFrame Agent from

the configuration file myAMC.FA-Check.xml in which limiting values for every super-

vised file system can be configurated.

This function enables for example the supervision of the availability and the capacity of

the voIFF filesystem from FlexFrame.

4.2.4.1 Monitoring Cycles

For the collection of file system data and directory data variable cycle times can be de-

fined different cycle time than for the CPU and SAPS based performance data:

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_FSCycleTime

specifies how often (in seconds) FlexFrame Agents checks the file system utilization

for performance data.

Perfdata_SpaceUtil_DirCycleTime

specifies how often (in seconds) FlexFrame Agents checks the directory utilization for

performance data.



4.3 Accounting

Accounting means the use of parts of available metering data for a defined accounting

model which can be combined with a more or less price modell to get the billing raw data

to account the resource consumption per SID per month. The production of the account-

ing data is a multistage process determining accounting data through aggregation and

analysis of the recorded raw data from the performance data described before.

The accounting data is determined on the basis of powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] values.

SAPS is the measured size used for the sizing of a physical server for the SAP operation.

SAPS values are only available within the scope of a SAP SD benchmark with defined

SAP transactions.Therefore only SAPS equivalents can be produced and calculated

during the operation. For this purpose the agents dynamically evaluate information on the

SAP version and hardware-workload data and use this to calculate the powervalue

[SAPS-equivalent] values.

Important parameters for the accounting are detection and report cycles. The detection

cycle defines the number of measurements within a report cycle. The minimum, maxi-

mum and average values are calculated on the basis of individual measurements for a

report cycle. The detection cycle therefore always corresponds to the detection cycle of

the FlexFrame Agents, which is also parametered for the autonomy function.

The following figure shows the ascertainment and calculation of values with regard to the

detection cycle and report cycle.

Time-

stamp

Host 1Backup

Host 7ASCSP22

Host 3

Host 6

Host 5

Host 4

Host 3

Host 2

Host 1

Hostname

xy

SCSP22

JCP22

JP22

APPP22

CIP22

DBP22

SAPS

%

SAPS

abs

Mem

%

Mem

Kb

CPU

%

CPU

ms

ServiceSystem

SID

Time-

stamp

Host 1Backup

Host 7ASCSP22

Host 3

Host 6

Host 5

Host 4

Host 3

Host 2

Host 1

Hostname

xy

SCSP22

JCP22

JP22

APPP22

CIP22

DBP22

SAPS

%

SAPS

abs

Mem

%

Mem

Kb

CPU

%

CPU

ms

ServiceSystem

SID

Min, Max, Avg, Totalper Report-cycle



The SAP Application Performance Standard, known as SAPS is a unit of measurement

that describes the performance of a SAP system configuration. This hardware-

independent unit is based on the SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark. It is de-

fined as :

2000 fully processed order line item per hour = 100 SAPS

SAPS sizing requires the SAPS rating of the hardware.

The results of the native SD benchmark state the number of users running on the system,

with a response time less than 1.0 second and the throughput of the system represented

in SAPS. That means the SAPS value from the SAPS table qualifies the server for this

workload.

Hyperthreading benefit is dependend on the specific workload profile of application in-

stance. The different SAP modules on their ability to take advantage of hyperthreading.

The cpu.saps aquivallent, memory or filesystem resources consumed by individuell appli-

cation instances can be the base for an accounting model, to make billing on the base of

the underlaying accounting model. A billing process can be divided into a 3 step process:

Metering

Rating

Billing

Detection cycle

Default 10 sec

Max

workload

Min

workload

Report-cycle 1 min

SAPs

t

Total work

Server capacity



To handle the requirements of performance, capacity, accounting and billing the Flex-

Frame Agents the data collection process can be manged with the following configuration

parameters

Detection cycle, cycle to get the raw data

Reporting cycle, cycle to calculate the metering data.

Collection cycle, cycle to store n report cycle in one collection file

Retention Time, cycle to define the daterange to store the data in the FA Re-

pository.

Collection cycle >= Reportcycle >= Detection cycle.

4.3.1 Accounting of the compute power SAPS based Ac-counting

The powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] calculation is based on the automatic and dynamically

determined workload ability of a node. Based on a variety of technical features such as

cache, CPU, hyperthreating etc. and the possibilities of the operating system to use these

modern servers can come to wrong assumptions concerning the workload abilities of a

node. In these cases the automatic valuation can result in defective workload calcula-

tions.

If the internal automatic ascertainment of the powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] value results

in defective values, the server specific SAPS value can be configured as described in

chapter 3. Manual Calculation of powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] Values

Detection cycle

Default 10 sec

Max

workload

Min

workload

Report-cycle 1 min

SAPs

t

Total work

Server capacity



If the maximum workload number of a server could not be correctly determined via the

FlexFrame AppAgent the workload number can be individually configured as described in

chapter 3. for each node. The workload values are then calculated using the prepared

workload data. In this way the individual particularities of the workload abilities of a node

can be taken into consideration. For this purpose, however, the workload values for each

node have to be entered manually.

4.3.2 Accounting SAPS Seconds based Accounting

The Accounting described in the chapter before is SAPS orientiert, that means is oriented

on the AVG, Max SAPS capacity for a customer or a SID. The FA Accounting provide in

addition a SAPS work oriented metering values. That means every used timetick is calcu-

lated as used SAPS seconds and summarized for every reportcycle. The SAPS workunits

are not available in the FA WebGui but are stored together with each reportcycle in FA

Accounting repository.

4.3.2.1 Accounting SAPS workunits node based

For every Reportcycle the SAPS workunits are available per SAP Instance and therefor

per SID. The difference to the SAPS based Accounting is that every value is part of the

Accounting.

4.3.2.2 Accounting SAPS SID und Service based

For every Reportcycle the SAPS workunits are available per SAP Instance and therefor

per SID. The difference to the SAPS based Accounting is that every value is part of the

Accounting.

4.3.2.3 Accounting SAPS workunits Service group based

For every Reportcycle the SAPS workunits are available per consumed from SAP In-

stances, SAP DB instances , Other and IDLE. Workunits SAP Instance and therefore per

SID. The difference to the SAPS based Accounting is that every value is part of the Ac-

counting.

4.3.3 Accounting of the File System utilization

The fill degree of file systems on local servers and also on storage systems (NAS and

SAN) can be supervised through the file space accounting system. On reaching a specific

percentual threshold this system will generate a report.



The tasks of the file space management are on the one hand the monotoring which ena-

bles the alerting and reacting in due time if not enough file space is at disposal and on the

other hand the processing of the file system data to the accounting and to the evaluation

for the storage capacity planning.

The collecting and processing of the data can be done frame-, node- and system- or

service-specific. The parameter sets and rule sets for the file system utilization allow very

granular definition in which cycles and for which file system or file the storage consump-

tion and the increase will be ascertained.

4.3.4 Billing

Using another calculation stage, chargeable workload units can be calculated from the

powervalue [SAPS-equivalent]-based accounting data. For the calculation, a range of

parameters enabling differentiated pricing of the workload used can be set.

In the default mode, all systems and services are charged at the same value every time.

With the help of the FA WebGui configuration dialogs, the pricing can be determined

through additional configuration settings.

Therefore the following statements are necessary:

Service contract no.

System ID

ServiceID

Date range

Day type, e.g. weekday, holiday, weekend

Time of day, e.g. daytime, nighttime operation.



The configuration of differente prices per time type, or SID type allows a lot billing models

The following picture shows the configuration dialog.

The information to rate the consumed SAPS for different Systems, instance types or time

types can be configured with the FA Configuration Gui in the Accounting/princing dialog.

The ContractID is an attribute to differentiate between serveral price models.A rating rule

can be active or inactive The attributes service rule and accounting rule can be used to

structure a set of rating rules, or create grouped reports of the defined rating rules. The

time parameters define which rating rule have to be used. The FA domain manager

process all available rating to rules, if for a service fit several rating rules the rule with

highest priority is taken to calculate the price per saps. If we have a rule for daily and a

rule for weekend, for raw data product on the weekend we have 2 rating rules to calulate

CPU/ SAPs Values

0,15€

0,20€

0,30€

0,15€

0,25 €

Accounting

Price

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Service-

levelrule

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

Service-

Contract

Standard

Standard

Standard

Standard

Standard

Accounting

rule

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006DBP23

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006otherP23

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006allQ22

P22

P22

System

ID

all

all

Service

typ

00:00

00:00

from

Time

24:00

24:00

to

Time

weekend01.01.210001.01.1900

workday01.01.210001.01.1900

UnitdayTypetoDatefromDate

0,15€

0,20€

0,30€

0,15€

0,25 €

Accounting

Price

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Sapsrule

Service-

levelrule

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

SC_12345

Service-

Contract

Standard

Standard

Standard

Standard

Standard

Accounting

rule

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006DBP23

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006otherP23

24:0000:00daily01.01.210001.01.2006allQ22

P22

P22

System

ID

all

all

Service

typ

00:00

00:00

from

Time

24:00

24:00

to

Time

weekend01.01.210001.01.1900

workday01.01.210001.01.1900

UnitdayTypetoDatefromDate

Aggregationcycle

AccountingcycleAccountingreport



the price for the consumed SAPS. Normally the weekend rule is higher priored, that

means we have a daily price per SAPS which can be easily changed on weekends with

the second higher priored rating rule. If two or more rating rules with the same priority fit,

than the first one in the sort criteria of the FA Domain Manager is used to caculate the

price information..



4.4 Service Level Profile

The FA Agent Suite offers the possibility of generating the production of events e.g. on

transgression of a defined limiting value. Parametricable events are directly evaluated

and dispatched by the FlexFrame Agents.In contrary profiles are evaluated by the domain

manager during processing of the performance-, capacity- and accounting collections,

generated on transgression of adjusted levels of belonging events and dispatched as

SNMP trap.

4.4.1 Performance Profile, Capacity Profile, Accounting Pro-file

Profiles in which limiting values for the CPU consumption and powervalue [SAPS-

equivalent] consumption can be defined, are defined for the performance data and ac-

counting data of the FlexFrame Agents. On transgression of the limiting values a SNMP

trap is generated.The definition of the profiles follows with the standard FA ConfigGui.

Performanceprofile

Capacityprofile

Accountingprofile

The profiles can be defined on service level, system level and node level. The user can

individually decide which profiles exist. A profile can apply to all systems, nodes and

services or pool-, system-, service-, group- or node-specific, depending on the hierachical

level of the profile.

The evaluation of the performance, capacity and accounting profiles ensures through the

FA domain manager.

4.4.2 Profile for Filesystem or File Space monitoring

The fill degree of file systems on local servers and also on storage systems (NAS and

SAN) can be supervised through the file space accounting system. On reaching a specific

percentual threshold this system will generate a report.

The tasks of the file space management are on the one hand the monotoring which ena-

bles the alerting and reacting in due time if not enough file space is at disposal and on the

other hand the processing of the file system data to the accounting and to the evaluation

for the storage capacity planning.

Statistic definition in the ruleset

The observed file systems, registers and files can be staticly defined with the configura-

tion dialog described in chapter 3. cycle.



Dynamic definition in the ruleset

The ascertainment of the file systems, directories and file data can also be achieved in

dependency to systems and/or specific service types. The generation of the file system

utilization data ensues only if the defined system or a specific service type actually runs

on a node. The FA AppAgents ascertain through the dynamic triggering.

The ressource requirements and time requirements for the ascertainment vary depending

on the size and the number of the monitored file systems, directories and the number of

files. To ensure the use of the functionality in very big SAN-based or NAS-based storage

infrastructures a convenient and adapted configuration of the rules and cycles for collect-

ing and processing of the file system data and file data is necessary. For that the Flex-

Frame Agents offer the configuration of two different cycles for collecting of the data and

a file system detector which ascertains resource savingly only the consumptions on file

system level and does not execute file-based evaluations.

Another aspect is the visibility of the file systems and directories from the view of one or

more Application Nodes. It is recommended to collect this information with the FA

FrameAgent which will be installed on the Control Node and which is able to execute this

task centrally for a whole frame.

As soon as a file-based or directory-based supervision or accounting is expected, the

configurated rules have to be fitted to size and number of the storage systems. Because

this functions produce a footprint on the underlaying storage system for every file or di-

rectory which have to be monitored per detectioncycle. The directory detector and file

detector is a dependent detector, i.e. it requieres information of the file systems to super-

vise the values for individually defined directories or files.

With that the register detector is able to work from the view of the Application Nodes or

from the view of the Control Nodes. If used on the Application Node generic information

from the services can be used to ascertain the directories, i.e. this function is better suited

for the use of the directory monitored. With that the monitored directories can be generi-

cally derived from the service information. Thereby e.q. data directories and log directo-

ries of a data bank can be generically dynamically ascertained.

File systems and directories normally are not in a 1:1 relation to nodes and services. A

file system e.q. may be used by all nodes of a pool, directories on the other hand are only

available in dependency to specific services. The architecture of the FA file utilization

management offers therefore the possibility to specifically ascertain the data on frame,

node or service.

The FlexFrame Agents takes over the data for every cycle from the detector and com-

presses the results to a report cycle. The results are written in a collection file for every

report cycle. The collection files develop service-, node-, pool- and frame-specific.

Service-specific or node-specific information can only be generated by FA AppAgents.

During the collection of the data on the Control Node frame-specific storage data can be

collected.



For the administration of the storage consumption information, collections of variable

types are written:

Exampes:

Perf_FSUtil_Node

The collection develops for every node and contains a record with correspond-

ing timestamp of the report cycle to the report cycle for every file system to be

supervised.

Perf_DirUtil_Service

The collection develops for an SID service and contains a record with corre-

sponding timestamp of the report cycle to the report cycle for every directory or

file to be supervised.

Perf_FSUtil_Frame

The collection develops for every node and contains a record with correspond-

ing timestamp of the report cycle to the report cycle for every file system to be

supervised.



4.5 Domain Manager for Performance and File System Collections

4.5.1 Data collection

The domain manager cyclically processes the collection files for the performance, capaci-

ty, accounting and file utilization management. The FA domain manager is used on the

Control Node

To that purpose the FlexFrame Agents generate so called file system file collections and

accoun-ting collections each in the data directory of a pool. The following types are dis-

tinguished:

Collections for every node with the name pattern

Perf_Node~<node_name>.prf.<number>.col

Collections for every servicegroup with the name pattern

Perf_Group~<node_name>.prf.<number>.col

Collections for every service with the name pattern Perf_Service~<SrvType>~<SID>~<ID>.prf.<number>.col

Collections for the file system supervision

Perf_FsUtil_Frame~< frame_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_FsUtil_Pool~<pool_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_FsUtil_Group~<group_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_FsUtil_Node~<node_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_FsUtil_System~<SID>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_FsUtil_Service~<SrvType>~<SID>~<ID>.prg.<number>.col

Collections for the directory and file monitoring Perf_DirUtil_Frame~< frame_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_DirUtil_Pool~<pool_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_DirUtil_Group~<group_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_DirUtil_Node~<node_name>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_DirUtil_System~<SID>.prg.<number>.col

Perf_DirUtil_Service~<SrvType>~<SID>~<ID>.prg.<number>.col

Number and size of the collections generated by the FlexFrameAgents can be adjusted.

The standard setup enables the generating of 10 collections each per service or node.

With that a ringbuffer of data which can be automatically reorganized by the agents de-

velops. For the sizing required storage size can be calculated from the number of the

nodes and the size of the report cycle.



The parameter of the performance manager and the backup routine have to be adjusted

in such a way that the raw data can be securely further processed bevor being super-

scribed again by the agents.

4.5.2 Data retentiontime and compression

The FA Domain manager also monitors the retention time of the individual data in the

database. After expiration of the retention time the FA Domain Manager automatically

deletes older data sets from the database.

The FA DomainManager can also compress data cyclically. From the minute values, e.g.

be used for online monitoring, which can lead to very large amounts of data very quickly,

is cyclically generated a compression stage (e.g. hourly values). The amount of data is

reduced by a factor of 60. From the minimum, maximum and average values based on

minutes, the corresponding values are calculated on an hourly basis. For this compres-

sion not the collets, but the data from the repository are required. The erase cycles and

compression cycles can be configured independently of each other. Prerequisite for a

higher compression level is, of course, that the deletion of the data needed for the com-

pression will be done at a later time.

The retention time of the tables are monitored with the parameter CleanupCycleTime in

the FA DomainManager.xml file.For every performance and accounting table the parame-

ter KeepTime defines the time to hold the data in the base tables.

The retention times can be configured with the dialog Domain manager data times de-

scribed in chapter 3. For every table of the FA repository with stores performance, ca-

pacity or accounting data a table individuell keeptime can be configured. Together with

the ClearCycletime and the Triggertime this acitivities can be placed on defined

timeranges. This time and resource intensive activities can be done for example every

day after midnight.



4.5.2.1 Data compression

The FA Domain Manager is able to compress performance and accounting data from the

base level 0 to Level 1 and Level 2 cyclically.

For example, if the reportcycle for the base level is 1 Min. and the compression time for

level 1 is 10 Minutes, the FA domain Manager takes the values from the base table and

calculates for every 10 minutes the AVG value. The 10 Max SAPS values in the base

table are calculated to 1 AVG, Max, Min SAPS value for every 10 minutes. If level 2 is

one hour, the FA Domain Manager calculates from the level 1 values the level 2 values.

The base level is used for online performance monitoring, and the compressed levels can

be used for example for capacity management or accounting.The count of recordsets in

the tables is reduced from level 0 to level 2. So it is possible to store the data for a longer

time period with less requirements on the size of the storage.

The erase cycles and compression cycles can be configured independently of each other.

Prerequisite for a higher compression level is, of course, that the deletion of the data

needed for the compression will be done at a later time.

4.5.3 FA Domain Manager Workflow Management

4.5.3.1 FA Domain Manager Data Flow Collets Management

The FA Domain Manager uses a defined workflow to operate the performance raw data in the data collets. To persist the processing steps of the raw collect file every step has own directory to the collection files. A collet file is a Ascii file with the performance data in a special csv format.A collet contains on top the description of the data below. A colletfile can have changes from version to version. Normally newer FA Domain Manager version can read older collection file types.

Collection file input directory

Collection file work directory

Collection file ready directory

Collection file error directory

Collection file retry directory

The FlexFrameAgents or transfer script puts the collection files with the raw data into Input directory of the FA Domain manager. The FA Domain Manger makes with every request to the input directory a sort to all files per filetyp node or service oriented collec-tion files.First all node based collection files are processed and than the service based. To built the hypervisor factor the load on the node is the base to calculate the hypervisor



factor. After successful operation the collection file is stored in the ready directo-ry.Otherwise in the error directory. If the hypervisor values have to be calculated and the node based data for the reportcycle are not in the cache and not in the FA repository the collection file is stored in the retry directory.

Every raw data collection file can be recalculated several times. That means if we put in the raw collection files again in the input directory the FA Domain collector recalculates the accounting values with the actual parameter settings and overwrites the values in FA repository.The FA Domain Manager has one or serveral input directories to store the performance and accounting collets. The complete operation of all raw data and the abil-ity to verify the base data against the caculate data is necessary for revision tasks.

All processed collection files are signed from the FA Domain Manager with the following attributes to the raw file name.

#@processed-by-manager=<managerid>

#@processed-on-host=<hostname>

#@processed-at-timestamp=<unixtime>

#@processed-with-result=|success|error|partial|skipped|...}

#@processed-record-count=<number of records>

#@processed-checksum-md5=<md5 checksum>

Before a FileReader of the FA Domain Manager starts to read a collection file it is moved to the work directory. After successful operation and confirmation of the FA Repository the collection file is moved to the ready directory, or in other cases to the retry directory or to the error directory.

The input directory is a ring buffer for every node nodegroup or service.

4.5.4 FA Domain Manager Watchdog Selfmonitoring

The FA Domain Manager has watchdog for selfmonitoring. In case of detected errors the watchdog is able to restart the FA Domain Manager automatically. Colletfiles and Direc-tory Structure.

Usage FA WebGui for Performance and Capacity management


5 Usage FA WebGui for Performance and Capacity management

5.1 FlexFrame Agents Suite Visualization and Re-porting

The FlexFrame Agents WebGui is the component for the visualization of the availability

and performance data. The FA WebGUI is an applet to be used in a webbrowser. The

FA WebGui (FA Viewer) is a stand-alone application, which can run on any Linux or Win-

dows PC. The two components are necessary because both concepts add their own

advantages. The applet component can be used on every PC with connection to the

FlexFrameAgents Suite server component without any installation steps, but applets have

some restrictions. An applet can not use the reporting functionality.

The architecture is shown in the following picture.

The FA WebGui has views to show the performance values stored in the datatables of

the FA repository.The performance views can be started from the tree view, with a con-

text sensitive pull down menu the available views can be started.



The available views in the context sensitive pull down menu depends on the selected

object in the tree.If a service is selected only service related views are available.



5.2 Node and service based views

The resource consumption per node can be visualized per node, group, pool or for a

FlexFrame. The views stacks the graphs if there are values from several nodes available

in the selected hierarchy level. Every view allows to drill in a graph field to show only the

selected graph field.

The resource consumption per service can be visualized per service, or per SID.The

example in the following view shows the performance for a SID with two instances.



5.3 Navigation

Every performance view has a navigation bar that enables you to analyze different time

ranges through all performance values:

The fields “From” and “To” specify the currently selected timerange. They can be

changed as well by manually entering a valid date or by selecting a part of the date and

pressing the buttons next to each field.

The buttons and can be used to scroll within the performance values. The span

between start and end time will stay constant this way, the range will only be shifted one

span into the past or future.

fast-forwards toward the most recent performance values. The refresh button

updates the performance values in the current time range. If the update will take to much

time, it can be interrupted with .

Auto refresh can be enabled to automatically look for the most recent performance values

during each update cycle. With the drop-down-menue on the refresh cycle can be

adjusted or turned off.

A manual refresh with is necessary whenever start date or end date has been

changed.



The plug-in consists of a graphical display in which the performance or accounting values

are shown in the form of graphs. The temporal view domain can be freely chosen and is

only limited through the data timespans stored in the repository.

The repository to retrieve data from can be selected by the datasource button. It al-

lows direct connection to an accounting database or to get the data from a WebGui

servlet.

The GUI uses a powerful cache algorithm to optimize the display, which minimizes the

waste of resources and optimizes the response time for the data request. The cache is

provided with a “limit” count that can be changed through the options menu, Each

data request will load at most this number of entries from the database to prevent overly

long or large requests. If the entry limit doesn’t suffice to load all data in the chosen time

range, further data can be loaded with the button. The performance plug-in shows the

CPU and memory values for a chosen service, in each case in individual graphs. Every

graph shows minimum, average and maximum values.

5.4 Filessystem, Directory or File based views

The filespace in a filesystem, directory or for a file can be viewed with the filesystem

realated or directory related views. The views show the absolute space consumption and

the relative space consumption and the growthrates per reportcycle as shown in the fol-

lowing picture.



5.5 Activation of accounting levels (aggregation) in WebGUI

To see the different aggregation levels in FA_WebGUI this functionality has to be activat-

ed in FA_WebGUI on server and client side.

On server side this is done in configuration file /opt/myAMC/config/FA_WebGui.conf. In this file the parameter accountingLevels has to bet set to level of aggregation which

are configured in FA_DomainManager(3.3.1). Valid values for the parameter are 0,1 and

2. After the value was changed, the tomcat has to be restartet.

On client side this value has to be configured depending on the used GUI type.

For Applet this has to be configured in the index.html file. This can be found in /opt/myAMC/FA_WebGui91. In this file the parameter has to be extended for the parame-ter accountingLevels:’NUMBER OF LEVELS’. var parameters = {//jnlp_href: 'FlexFrameViewer.jnlp',--> /////////////////////////////////////////////////// // user changable paramaters // set to 'yes' to enable context menues allowContextMenues:'no', accountingLevels:'2' // change to enable auto-login

//user: 'MYUSER', //password: 'MYPASSWD', /////////////////////////////////////////////////// //image: 'myAMC_logo.jpg', boxbgcolor: 'white', boxborder: 'false', centerimage: 'true' } ;

For the console GUI which is started with the script

/opt/myAMC/FA_WebGui91/webgui.sh directly on the CN, the property is set like for the

server.



For a application GUI installed beside CN this has to be configured in the configuration

file location.properties, which has to be exist in the GUI subdirectory /locations/NAME OF LOCATION/. The parameter is same like for the server accountingLevels=NUMBER

OF LEVELS.

If the new JNDIViewer (Java Web Start) is used, the parameter has to be set on CN in

the file /opt/myAMC/FA_WebGui91/FlexFrame.properties. Again this parameter has the name accountingLevels=NUMBER OF LEVELS

Restrictions, and limitations


6 Restrictions, and limitations

The accuracy of the metering values for node or services based resource consumption

have restrictions and limitations together with optimizations techniques used to optimize

the power consumption or to optimize performance or to virtualize servers.

The server technology used in a datacenter to save energy and to optimize the workload

lead to changes in the underlying technology with new CPU generations, new virtualiza-

tion techniques. The CPU consumption values provided from the OS System are influ-

enced from the underlaying hardware, hyperthreading and virtualization technology or the

combination of the different technologies which can influence the interpretation or the

accuracy of the measured metering values.

The following picture shows CPU and virtualization technique in correlation to the influ-

ence of the Max SAPS value rated with the SAP SD benchmark.

The FlexFrameAgents accounting option is restricted to servers with a static Max SAPS

capacity. Single core, Multi core and Multi core with hyperthreading and fixed sized virtual

server have a static SAPS capacity over time. This is necessary because the calculation

of SAPS consumption per node or per service is based on the count of CPU timeticks

and the CPU efficiency per timetick. Overprovisioning of virtual servers, powermanaged

functionality are techniques to modulate the provided SAPS capacity in microseconds in

dependency of the workload. This functionality leads to timeticks which vary in the effi-



ciency and capacity per timetick and therefore to a wrong calculation of the accounting

values. In addition we have limitations in accuracy of the measurement in hyperthreaded

environments because the metering values from the OS systems are influenced in de-

pendency of load situations and optimization technique of the underlying hyperthreading

technology in the different versions of used Multi Core CPU technology.

6.1 Limitations of accuracy in Hyperthreading, or Simultaneous Multithreading environments

Hyperthreading is a technologie from the CPU provider, with hyperthreading a physical

core of a CPU has a virtual layer on top with two logical siblings. The microcode of the

CPU than optimizes the CPU ressources to the two siblings. The result may increase in

workload or SAPS power.The increase in workload depends on the special workload

characteristic of an application instance and the CPU type.

We have limitations in accuracy of the measurement in hyperthreaded environments

because the metering values from the OS systems are influenced in dependency of load

situations and optimization technique of the underlying hyperthreading technology in

different versions of used Multi Core CPU technology.

That means for example, if we have 4 cores, 8 threads would run an on the 4 real cores,

they would show up 8 times usage or 800 % if we use the linux top command. But on the

real side, that would be 4 cores sharing their power on 8 threads, every thread can only

use a part of the total CPU power per core.

Example 1:

A first instance of a program running on a core without hyperthreading mode will do X

operations per second. If we activate hyperthreading and add a second instance of the

program on the same core, program 1 will do x1 operations and program 2 will do x2

operations. The result is x1 < X and x2 < X, but x1 + x2 > X. In practice the hyperthread-

ing throuphput x1 + x2 may be between 10 and 30% higher then X.

In real environments the throughut depends on the ability of the application instances to

use the available siblings on the cores and the balancing between the cores.

Example 2:

if we have a 4 core, 8 threads server and a load of 4 application instances and every

application instance is only able to to use one thread only 4 of the 8 threads are busy.

The throughput differs to the same situation when every application instance is able to

use two threads. The metering can not monitor which thread of a service runs on which

part of the CPU with more or less hyperthreading efficiency. The metering takes the av-



erage load per reportscycle as base to calculate the hyperthreading efficiency factor for

the complete reportcycle.

Example 3:

If we have a server with one CPU and one core and two siblings. One database instance

has a workload of 10 %, the second has workload of 60% on the second sibling. In total

we have workload of 70% in that case for the server. To calculate the SAPS consumpu-

tion we have to calculate the SAPS value with the hyperthreading load of 70%.

The following picture shows further details of metering in hyperthreaded environments.

The service based resource consumption is normaly not balanced over all siblings of a

hardware as shown in the picture below. That means a hyperthreading factor depends on

the load of the two siblings of a core. In real installations it is not posible to measure

which part of a service run on which sibling or core of the available CPUs.

Every detection cycle have a average load of all siblings. In dependcy of the report cycle the average of all detection cycle is the base for the calculation of the hyperthreading factor. This is a limitation in the accuracy of the metering values in hyperthreaded envi-ronments.

6.1.1 Hypervisor mode on or off

The hyperthreading mode is an optional feature of the servers per default this feature is

normally activated, but the hyperthreading mode can be off or on.The FlexFrameAgents

can dectect this status automatically but the Max SAPS power value differs between the

hyperthreadind and non hyperthreading mode. The saps calculation depends on the

SAPS capacity value in the SAPS table used to identify the static SAPS capacity of a

physical server. This benchmark value can be based on hyperthreading mode or non

hyperthreading mode. The SAPS table has only one value per servertype and normaly



the Max SAPS value measured in a hyperthreaded environment. This means SAPS value

of the server type in the saps table and the real operation mode can differ in real installa-

tions and configurations. If the mode to evaluate the Max SAPS value from the SAPS

table differs from the used operation mode of the server there is a wrong relation to the

Max SAPS capacity.

The limitation is to know that if the Max SAPS value from the SAPS table differes from

the used operation mode. The Max SAPS value have to be configured manuell as de-

scribed in chapter 3.

6.2 Accounting for virtual servers

For virtual servers the SAPS capacity for every virtual server must be configured manual-

ly, because the SAPS table fits not for virtual servers.If the virtual server changes from

one hypervisor to an other hypervisor with a different SAPS capacity, the SAPS capacity

of the virtual server have to be proved.

The SAPS table can provide virtual machine SAPS and can assist in this task. For sup-

port please contact your SAP presales consultant.

6.2.1 SAPS calculation for a virtual server

SAPS Hypervisor / count of cores * cores virtual server * virtualization factor

The virtualization factor is datacenter dependent and is typically in the range of 0,8 to 1,0

This formula is used for the approximate determination of virtual servers and was experi-

mentally determined.

6.2.2 Accounting for overprovisioned virtual servers

Overprovisionied means there is more virtual server capacity configured than physical is

available.Oververprovisioning is not supported with FlexFrame Orchestrator V1.2.

6.3 Accounting for powermanaged servers

Fujitsu Servers and SLES Linux OS system provide feartures to optimize the power con-sumption. Power is saved if the CPUs work with lower frequencies and voltage level in dependency of the workload on the server. An other part is the management of idle states to bring the CPU in a work mode with lower power consumption. All this features have the effect that the provided SAPS capacity of the server changes dynamically.



That means the server can change his workload power with every timetick, with strong

influence on the calculated metering values.

The following picture shows a situation with differente frequencies per core:

Every detection cycle has an average load of all siblings. In dependcy of the report cycle

the average of all detection cycles is the base for the calculation of the hyperthreading

factor. In combination with the powermanagement mode we have some siblings which

work with a lower cycle frequency than other siblings. But the OS based metering values

per service can not differentiate these effects. The following example shows this prob-

lems and the effect to a underlaying accounting model.

Example : A server with 32000 SAPS with little workload reduces the frequency on all

cores to the half to reduce the power consumption. The server then works with a SAPS

capacity of 16000 SAPS. If the server has 32000 SAPS with full speed on every core.

That means that the capacity is reduced to the half of the value found in the SAPS table.

If this server has a load of 25 % the SAPS consumption for this detectioncycle is 4000

SAPS. The agents take this dynamical changes of the core frequency not in considera-

tion and calculates a value of 8000 SAPS. If in the next detection cycle the workload

growth up and the frequency of the core increases again to the normal value with a load

of again 25% we have 8000 SAPS. If we have a reporting cycle of 1 minute and the work-

load in the other 4 detection cycle of the reporting cycle is lower than 25% the MaxSAPS

value of the reporting cycle is 8000 SAPS, the AVG SAPS value is wrong and the MIN

SAPS value is wrong too.



If the workload for all detection cycles of the reporting cycle is lower than 25% as de-

scribed in the example we calculate the MAX SAPS value with 8000 SAPS, but the real

MAX SAPS consumption was only 4000 SAPS.

But if the base for the accounting model is “give me the average of the top 100 MAX

SAPS values of every reporting cycle”:

If we have a reporting cycle of one hour and a detection cycle of 10 sec. we have 30 days

multiplied by 24 MAX SAPS values per month results in 720 MAX SAPS values per

month.

Weekends, Nights and the report cycle with reduced power consumption work mode

have no influence to the average of the top 100 MAX SAPS values. If the Avg. MAX

SAPS value is higher than 60 % for example, because on higher loads the server works

not with reduced frequencies. If the Avg MAX SAPS top 100 value of the month is lower

than 50% of the MAX SAPS workload of the server it is not clear if we have used 8000

SAPS to 16000 SAPS or 4000 SAPS to 8000 SAPS or 4000 SAPS to 16000 SAPS.


7 FlexFrame Troubleshooting

7.1 Trouble shooting Accounting

The FlexFrame Agents offer a large number of diagnostic options for detecting and diag-

nosing problems on the FlexFrame Agents themselves or other components.

Problems concerning FlexFrame Agents Accounting option can be assigned to one of the

following categories:

7.2 Incident Diagnosis

7.2.1 Logfile Debug levels

The FA Domain Manager logs the activities in a logfile located in:

/opt/myAMC/FA_DomainManager/log.

The maximum logfile size can be configured by the parameter MaxLogFileSize. If this

size is reached the log file is automatically be renamed with the extension „old“. The

existing logfile with the extension „old“ is deletet before.

The granularity of the logfile can be changed with the following debug levels in the con-

figuration file “DomainManager.xml of the FA Domain Manager.

Debuglevel :

-1: Off

1: Critical

2: Error

3: Warning

4: Normal

5: Info

6: Babble

7: Debug


8 Abbreviations

ABAP Advanced Business Application Programming

ACI Adaptive Computing Infrastructure

ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

APM Advanced Power Management

APOLC Advanced Planner & Optimizer Life Cache

CCU Console Connection Unit

cDOT Clustered Data ONTAP

CIFS Common Internet File System

DART Data Access in Real Time

DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DIT Domain Information Tree

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

ESF Enhanced System Facility

EULA End User License Agreement

FAA FlexFrame Autonomous Agent

FC Fiber Channel

FTP File Transfer Protocol

IP Internet Protocol

IPMP IP Multipathing

KVM Kernel based virtual machine

LAN Local Area Network

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

LUN Logical Unit Number

LVM Landscape Virtualization Management

SAP system for monitoring and controlling SAP landscapes.

MAC Media Access Control

MINRA Minimal Read Ahead

NAS Network Attached Storage

Abbreviations


NDMP Network Data Management Protocol

NFS Network File System

NIC Network Interface Card

NVRAM Non-Volatile Random Access Memory

OBP Open Boot Prom

OLTP On-Line Transaction Processing

ONTAP Open Network Technology for Appliance Products

OSS Open Source Software

POST Power-On Self Test

PFS Production File System (on Celerra)

PW PRIMEPOWER

PXE Preboot Execution Environment

PY PRIMERGY

QA Quality Assurance

QS Quality of Service

RAID Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks

RARP Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

RDBMS Relational Database Management System

RHEL Red Hat Enterprise Linux

RSB Remote Service Board

SCS System Console Software

SAN Storage Area Network

SAP BW SAP Business Warehouse

SAPGUI SAP Graphical User Interface

SAPOSS SAP Online System Service

SAPS powervalue [SAPS-equivalent] based on SAP Release 4.7 32bit)

SID System Identifier

SLD System Landscape Directory

SLES SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Abbreviations


SMB Server Message Block

SMC System Management Console

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol

SPOC Single Point Of Control

TELNET Telecommunications Network

TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol

UDP User Datagram Protocol

UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply

VLAN Virtual Local Area Network

VTOC Virtual Table Of Contents

WAN Wide Area Network

WAS Web Application Server

WAFL Write Anywhere File Layout

XSCF Extended System Control Facility

Glossary


9 Glossary

Advanced Business Application Programming

Proprietary programming language of SAP.

Advanced Power Management

Advanced Power Management defines a layer between the hardware and the operat-

ing system that effectively shields the programmer from hardware details.

Application Agent

A software program for monitoring and managing applications.

Application Node

A host for applications (e.g. SAP instances db, ci, agate, wgate, app etc.). This

definition includes Application Servers as well as Database Servers.

Automounter

The automounter is an NFS utility that automatically mounts directories on an NFS

client as they are needed, and unmounts them when they are no longer needed.

Autonomous Agent

Central system management and high availability software component of FlexFrame.

Blade

A special form factor for computer nodes.

BladeRunner

The working title for the solution part of SAP for FlexFrame.

BOOTPARAM

Boot time parameters of the kernel.

BRBACKUP

SAP backup and restore tools.

Client LAN

Virtual network segment within FlexFrame, used for client-server traffic.

Common Internet File System

A protocol for the sharing of file systems (same as SMB).

Computing Node

From the SAP ACI perspective: A host that is used for applications.

Control Agent

A software program for monitoring and managing nodes within FlexFrame.

Control LAN

Virtual network segment within FlexFrame, used for system management traffic.

Glossary


Control Node

A physical computer system, controlling and monitoring the entire FlexFrame land-

scape and running shared services in the rack (dhcp, tftp, ldap etc.).

Control Station

A Control Node in an SAP ACI environment.

DART

Operating system of Celerra data movers (Data Access in Real Time).

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DHCP is a protocol for assigning dynamic IP addresses to devices on a network.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server

A DHCP server provides configuration parameters specific to the DHCP client host,

required by the host to participate on the Internet.

Enterprise Resource Planning

Enterprise Resource Planning systems are management information systems that in-

tegrate and automate many of the business practices associated with the operations

or production aspects of a company.

Ethernet

A Local Area Network which supports data transfer rates of 10 megabits per second.

Fiber Channel

Fiber Channel is a serial computer bus intended for connecting high-speed storage

devices to computers.

Filer

Network attached storage for file systems of NetApp.

FlexFrame

FlexFrame is a Fujitsu solution and means a radically new architecture for SAP envi-

ronments. It exploits the latest business-critical computing technology deliver major

cost savings for SAP customers. FlexFrame is a joint project in which the main part-

ners are SAP, Network Appliance, Intel and Fujitsu.

FlexFrame® for SAP

®

The name of the Fujitsu solution FlexFrame® for the versions until FF4S V5.3A.

FlexFrame internal LAN Switch

Cisco network switches which are integral part of the FlexFrame for SAP hardware

configuration and which are automatically configured by the FlexFrame for SAP soft-

ware.

FlexFrame® Orchestrator

This is the advancement of the Fujitsu solution FlexFrame® and means a new ap-

proach to offer enhanced functionality and features step by step and become more

and more independent from certain hardware and software components.

Glossary


Gigabit Ethernet

A Local Area Network which supports data transfer rates of 1 gigabit (1,000 mega-

bits) per second.

Host name

The name of a node (assigned to an interface) that is resolved to a unique IP ad-

dress. One node can have multiple host names (cf. node name).

In SAP environments host names are currently limited to 13 alphanumeric characters

including the hyphen (“ - “). The first character must be a letter. In the SAP environ-

ment host names are case-sensitive.

Image

In the FlexFrame documentation, “Image” is used as a synonym for “Hard Disk Im-

age”.

Internet Protocol Address

A unique number used by computers to refer to each other when sending information

through networks using the Internet Protocol.

Landscape Virtualization Management (LVM)

SAP system for monitoring and controlling SAP landscapes

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

Protocol for accessing on-line directory services.

Local Area Network

A computer network that spans a relatively small area. Most LANs are confined to a

single building or group of buildings. However, one LAN can be connected to other

LANs over any distance via telephone lines and radio waves. A system of LANs con-

nected in this way is called a Wide Area Network (WAN).

Local host name

The name of the node (physical computer); it can be displayed and set using the

command /bin/hostname.

Logical Unit Number

An address for a single (SCSI) disk drive.

MAC address

Device identifier number of a Network Interface Card. In full: "media access control

address".

MaxDB

A relational database system from mySQL (formerly ADABAS and SAPDB).

Media Access Control address

An identifier for network devices, usually unique. The MAC address is stored physi-

cally on the device.

Glossary


NAS system

Network Attached Storage of any vendor (in our context NetApp Filer).

NDMPcopy

NDMPcopy transfers data between Filers using the Network Data Management Pro-

tocol (NDMP).

Netboot

A boot procedure for computers where the operating system is provided via a net-

work instead of local disks.

Netweaver

SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation of SAP solutions.

Network Appliance Filer

See “Filer”.

Network Attached Storage

A data storage device that is connected via a network to one or multiple computers.

Network File System

A network protocol for network-based storage access.

Network Interface Card

A hardware device that allows computer communication via networks.

Node

A physical computer system controlled by an OS.

Node name

The name of a physical node as returned by the command uname -n. Each node

name within a FlexFrame environment must be unique.

Non-Volatile Random Access Memory

A type of memory that retains its contents when the power is turned off.

On-Line Transaction Processing

Transaction processing via computer networks.

OpenLDAP

An Open Source LDAP Service Implementation.

Open Network Technology for Appliance Products

The operating system of Network Appliance Filers.

Open Source Software

Software that is distributed free of charge under an open source license, such as the

GNU Public License.

Oracle RAC

A cluster database by Oracle Corporation.

Glossary


Physical host

Name of a physical computer system (node).

Power-On Self Test

Part of a computer's boot process; automatic testing of diverse hardware compo-

nents.

Preboot Execution Environment

An environment that allows a computer to boot from a network resource without hav-

ing a local operating system installed.

PRIMEPOWER

Fujitsu's SPARC-based server product line.

PRIMERGY

Fujitsu's i386-based server product line.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Linux distribution by Red Hat, Inc., targeting business customers.

Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

A protocol allowing resolution of an IP address corresponding to a MAC address.

SAP Service

In FlexFrame: SAP Service and DB Services.

SAP service script

An administration script for starting and stopping an SAP application on a virtual host.

SAP Solution Manager

Service portal for the implementation, operation and optimization of an SAP solution.

SAPLogon

Front-end software for SAPGUI.

SAPRouter

Router for SAP services like SAPGUI or SAPTELNET.

SavVol

A Celerra volume to which SnapSure copies original point-in-time data blocks from

the PFS before the blocks are altered by a PFS transaction.

Server

A physical host (hardware), same as node.

Service

A software program providing functions to clients.

Service type

The type of an application or service (db, ci, app, agate, wgate etc.).

Glossary


Single Point of Control

In FlexFrame: One user interface to control a whole FlexFrame environment.

Storage LAN

A virtual LAN segment within a FlexFrame environment, carrying the traffic to NAS

systems.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

A Linux distribution by Novell, specializing in server installations.

Telecommunications Network

A terminal emulation program for TCP/IP networks such as the Internet.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol

A simple form of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). TFTP uses the User Datagram

Protocol (UDP) and provides no security features. It is often used by servers to boot

diskless workstations, X-terminals, and routers.

TFTP server

A simple FTP implementation.

Virtual host

The name of the virtual host on which an application runs; it is assigned to a physical

node when an application is started.

Virtual Local Area Network

A VLAN is a logically segmented network mapped over physical hardware according

to the IEEE 802.1q standard.

Virtualization

Virtualization means the separation of hardware and processes. In a virtualized envi-

ronment (FlexFrame), a process can be moved between hardware nodes while stay-

ing transparent to the user and application.


10 Index

Accounting 57

Billing 61

File System utilization 60

SAPS based 59

SAPS Seconds 60

Architecture 13

Capacity Management 52

CPU Nodes based 53

CPU Service group per Node based

53

CPU SID based 54

Filespace 54

Componen

FA WebGui 20

Component

FA Application Agent 15

FA Domain Manager 19

FA Frame Agent 18

FA Repository 20

Configuration

Accounting 37

Activation of Configuration Entries 26

Directory Utilization 26

Domain Manager 30

FA Accounting 22

File System Utilization 24, 25

FlexFrame Agents 22

Profile 41

Database Connection 36

Domain Manager

Workflow Management

Domain Manager 67

Data collection 67

Data retentiontime and compression

68

external FA Domain Manager 14

FA WebGui

Filessystem, Directory or File based

views 75, 77

Navigation 74

Node and service based views 73

Visualization and Reporting 71

FA WebGui for Performance and

Capacity management 71

FlexFrame Agents Accounting 7

FlexFrameAgents Accounting 13

Memory Management

Node based 51

Service based 51

Network IO Node based 52

Performance Management 47

CPU Nodes based 49

CPU Service based 50

powervalue 37, 59

Pricing 40

Profile 41

Index


Assignment 42

configuration for Nodes, Service,

Filesystems and Directories or Files

43

Directory Monitoring 45

File System Monitoring 44

related documents 11

Release Information for SAP Systems

39

Restrictions 78

accuracy in Hyperthreading, or

Simultaneous Multithreading 79

powermanaged servers 81

virtual servers 81

SAP Application Performance Standard

58

SAPS 58

SAPS seconds 60

SAPS 37, 39

SAPS-equivalent 39

SAPS-equivalent 37

Service Level Profile 64

Troubleshooting 85

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