Monitoring Agent for mySAP data collection

Answer

This TechNote provides information about data collection for each Monitoring Agent for mySAP attribute group. The tables contain the following information about how the monitoring agent collects data:

ABAP Function Module
Each attribute group gathers data from the SAP system through an ABAP function module supplied by the Monitoring Agent for mySAP. The name of that function module is provided here.

Data characteristics: Applies to
The monitoring Agent for mySAP collects data from single application servers (SAP instances) in an SAP system and from the SAP system as a whole. This field indicates whether an attribute group returns SAP instance data or SAP system data.

Data characteristics: Type
In an SAP environment, some attributes are available as snapshot data and others are computed over a given time span. All attribute groups that contain the sample_interval_end attribute are capable of returning data over a given time span.

By default, the situations provided by the agent request data for the time span that matches the situation sampling interval.

By default, the workspaces provided by the Monitoring Agent for mySAP request data for the default time span. The default time span is defined per attribute group, and has been chosen so the agent does not put a significant load on the SAP system as it gathers the data. To change the default time span, use the /IBMMON/ITM_PERIOD transaction (see the “Maintain default sample periods” section of the IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Applications: mySAP Agent User’s Guide.).

Data characteristics: Collected
In general, the Monitoring Agent for mySAP gathers data upon request to satisfy a workspace refresh (Tivoli Enterprise Portal), situation sampling of attributes (SIT), or historical data collection (HDC). All attributes in the attribute groups that make up a workspace or situation are gathered at that time. This field indicates which of the three kinds of data collection are supported for a particular attribute group.

Data caching:
The Monitoring Agent for mySAP uses caching in certain circumstances. The two types of data caching used by the monitoring agent are caching in the agent process and caching in the SAP system.

The R/3 Alerts attribute group caches a list of alerts in the agent process memory. The attributes for this group are collected every nnn seconds, and cached. They are not collected on demand. The default value of nnn is 180 seconds, and can be modified in /IBMMON/ITM_PERIOD (see the “Maintain default sample periods” section of the IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Applications: mySAP Agent User’s Guide.)

Within the ABAP function modules, the result data set is always retained in memory in the SAP system. This data is re-used for subsequent data collection requests for situations (not for Tivoli Enterprise Portal requests or HDC requests) if the data collection request is within ten wall clock seconds of the previous data collection request (of any kind including SIT, Tivoli Enterprise Portal, or HDC) and the following conditions are met:
The new time span is within the cached data time span (applies to time span data only).
The new instance is in the cached data (applies to instance specific data only).
The new aggregation level is the same as the cached data aggregation level (applies to transaction performance only).

Data collection: Mechanism
The ABAP function modules provided by the monitoring agent use various sources to gather their data including function modules supplied by SAP, SAP programs, SAP files, or internal tables. This field specifies how data is gathered for a particular attribute group.

Data collection: Speed/Expense
This field indicates how expensive in terms of time and resources the data collection is. The values range from fast and cheap to very slow and very expensive.

Data collection: Data volume
Almost all attributes groups return multiple rows for each data collection. This field provides some idea of the amount of data returned for each data collection.

Associated SAP transactions
This field lists the SAP transactions that display data corresponding to the data that is returned by the particular attribute group.