Configuring centralized monitoring in SOLMAN 71.

Today faced issues as i try to configure SOLMAN centralized system monitoring.

I am getting no CCMSPING ...headache!!! important transactions im using include RZ21, RZ20 , LMDB ,checking SAPOSCOL ,at OS level and settings in the SOLMAN_WORKCENTER

Ongoing work stay tuned!......

SAP SRM slowness in creating a shopping cart "Error 500 connection timed out"

What a start to the week! so there was planned user testing scheduled for this week on the new SRM SAP systems specifically MDM catalog and shopping cart but as it gets in IT things aint working when they should be !!!

After numerous checks I focused on checking the backend system. Important note is that most issues faced on SAP portal systems are actually resolved in the backend system if the portal configuration is done right. So check your RFC connections between the portal and backend systems.

Also in the portal Netweaver Admin link , enable caching. After fixing some RFC's and enabling the web page caching in the portal the process became lightening fast!

SAP ROUTER not connecting to SAP OSS! :-( worry not :-)

So this week the SAP Router RFC connection to the SAP OSS just stopped working. Simple tests in transaction SM59 were failing with error code -25 connection refused.

Having just finished a datacenter move and cutover a week ago the initial troubleshooting that took 3 days! was anything from network connection changes, firewall problems to even thinking SAP have blocked the SAP router details.

Further digging on the server hosting the SAP Router ( Windows Server 2012 R2) led to discovering that the SAP router license had expired!

I will give credit where it is due as the solution and step by step procedure to renew your SAP Router license can be found on

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/Basis/How+to+renew+the+SAP+Router+license

Created by Gagan Deep Kaushal, last modified by Tejasav.Kalra on May 04, 2012

Fantastic post guys!!

Delayed sending of emails from a SAP system

You can configure the SAP system to send and receive emails using transaction SCOT.

I will not go into the details of how to configure inbound and outbound emails in SCOT but rather will address one common problem ...emails taking 1HR to be sent and to reach the recipient!!! 

I doubt if by any measure 1HR can be considered an OK duration. I have seen numerous blogs and discussions with so many suggestions on how to change the frequency of the SAP job responsible for triggering the sending of emails but the solution that actually works is one!

Check the system time zone and application server time zone ( the host machine time zone at OS level) in any transaction goto SYSTEM tab then STATUS . Ensure the time is the same for the two.

If not confirm the time zone of the host machine and to change time zone setting in SAP use transaction STZAC ...just make sure the SAP application and host machine time zones are the same! thats the trick! :-) 

Dealing with Printer Spool issues

The SAP spool administration transaction SPAD (full administration option) gives many options of creating new output devices/spool services and administering already existing ones. In transaction SPAD you have the configuration, Administration and Go-To tabs under which there are many useful options. 
Figures from trxn SPAD

With transaction SP01 you can monitor the whole spool request queue or check specific printer spools and check for any warnings or errors.

Process Overview

Sometimes you receive complaints from users on slow system performance. A good place to check on which processes (reports) are being run by which users, how much CPU time and the status of the work process is in transaction SM50 or SM66 ( if you have more than one SAP instance running on the same application server).

Here you get a good overview and if you notice anything unusual i.e a Dialogue work process a very high runtime or in RED then you can contact the indicated user and ask them to either run the report in the background or at off peak hours.

At times the user may be unaware that the report is still indicated as running yet he/she even logged out of the system (for many reasons this may happen!) . In this case you can go to transaction SM04 , search for the user name then highlight the user --> click on sessions TAB then on the new pop up select the session number and click on end session button OR highlight the username --> select USER tab at the screen top --> then Log off user --> system wide

Next time we will delve deeper into the SM04 transaction :-)

JSMON the "secret tool" :-)

I had previously touched on troubleshooting the system when it is not possible to do so via the SAP GUI. That was in the case of the ABAP engine.

In the same case but this time for a JAVA system i.e Employee Self Service/Manager Self service , Supplier Relationship management portal or any other portal system , there is a very helpful tool that not many admins are aware of cal JSMON.

For systems running on UNIX you will need to grep the SAP java process by using either ps -ef | grep sap or s -ef | grep java as <sid>adm user.Then identify the process with this path
pf=/usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/profile/<SID>_J00_<system name> . Once you find the path , then type the command jsmon followed by the path above ...i.e >jsmon pf=/usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/profile/<SID>_J00_<system name>

the image below shows what you should get. Thereafter you can execute a couple of commands which all need to start with jsmon e.g and most important is >jsmon view

This gives you information on the instance state and a good place to start is to check if all processes are running. If the system is down it may show "some processes running or run mode "invalid license"  , for the former error you may try to restart the SAP JAVA instance and for the latter you need to check the license validity in the SAP Portal NWA, you may need to apply a new license if it has expired.