Display and Control Work Processes

Use
Work processes do the majority of the processing of the SAP System. They execute dialog steps in user transactions, updates, lock administration, etc. You can also find the term Work Process in the glossary. You can display the current status of the work processes on the application ser er where you are logged on !y choosing Monitor System monitoring Process overview or Transaction sm50 You must refresh the display to get updated information. The information on this screen is descri!ed in the following section. The Process overview is intended primarily for information"gathering. #or example, you can monitor processes to determine if the num!er of work processes in your system is ade$uate, to gather information for trou!le"shooting, or for tuning.

Integration
%y choosing Monitor System monitoring Servers, this displays the o er iew of the SAP application ser ers. &ere, you can further display the work process o er iew for a particular ser er in the SAP System !y clicking on the desired ser er name. 'f system load is low and you are displaying the Process overview, you notice that your re$uests seem to !e processed in only one work process. The dispatcher is trying to use one work process for as many dialog steps for one user as possi!le. This a oids ha ing to reload the roll area for the user.

Features
The Process Overview displays the following information( No( The internal ') num!er of a process. *sed to identify messages that !elong to a work process in the system log Typ( Type of work process( DIA( Work process for executing dialog steps in user transactions UPD( *pdate process for making *+ ,time"critical- data!ase changes UP2( *pdate process for executing *. ,not time"critical- data!ase changes ENQ( #or locking or releasing SAP lock o!jects BTC( #or processing !ackground jo!s SPO( #or spool formatting processes

Pid Process ') of the work process ,on the operating systemSt!t"s /urrent status of the work process Possi!le statuses are( Running ,executing a re$uest#!iting ,idle and waiting for work$o%d ,held for a single user$o%d is not an a!normal state, !ut a work process can only ser e a single user. 'f too many processes are in &o%d status, then system performance suffers. You can use the 'e!son column to identify &o%ds that can !e released. Ended ,a!orted with 'est!rt set to No-

'e!sn 'f a work process is in &o%d status, the reason is displayed. Typical reasons are( )e!ugging, /P'/ acti ity, locks, updates, 0*' ,system waits for response from the SAP0*' front"end program, for example, for a remote function call ,1#/--. You may also see P1'2 ,P1'2ate use- as a reason for holding a work process. P1'2 indicates that a work process is reser ed for a single user for memory management use. The work process has exceeded the limit of the SAP memory that is used !y other processes. The process is held as long as the current user re$uires local memory. #or more information, see Pri ate 3emory in the documentation on SAP 3emory 3anagement. 'f a certain percentage of work processes are in P1'2 status, the P1'2 transactions are automatically ended when the user is not acti e in the transaction for a set period of time. You can set this time span in the SAP system profile.

St!rt 'ndicates whether the process should !e automatically restarted if a process ends prematurely. You can change the restart status of a process !y choosing Process 'est!rt !(ter error )es*No. 4ormally, lea e 'est!rt set to )es. 'f a work process a!orts during its startup, the system automatically sets 'est!rt to No. This measure protects against endless attempts to restart a process if a data!ase system is not a aila!le, or another serious pro!lem is affecting the system. After correcting the pro!lem, you can change 'est!rt to )es so that the system starts the work processes.

Err 'ndicates how many times a work process has a!orted Sem 'ndicates the num!er of the semaphore for which a work process is waiting. 4ormally, this field should !e empty. 'f one or more semaphore num!ers fre$uently appears, e aluate the performance of your system using the Performance 3onitor.

CPU /umulati e /P* time since the start of a work process. The time units are seconds and hundredths of seconds.

/alculating /P* time is onerous. Therefore, you must re$uest this information using the CPU function. Time 'ndicates the elapsed time used !y a work process for the dialog step that it is currently processing 'eport A%AP program or report that is currently !eing executed C%+ /lient for the session that is currently !eing executed User *ser whose re$uest is currently !eing processed Action Action that is !eing executed !y the current program. The actions displayed are recorded !y the SAP Performance 3onitor. The Performance 3onitor must !e acti e ,SAP profile parameter stat/level = 1 ,default-- for actions or data!ase ta!le accesses to !e displayed. T!,%e 'f the data!ase is !eing accessed, this column shows the name of the ta!le !eing accessed.

The menu offers the following functions( /ontrol and check processes ,menu option Process/ontrol A%AP program ,menu option Program53ode6dit processes ,3enu 7ption 8ist-oto You can display detailed information a!out the process, or user information on the rele ant user, or go !ack to the pre ious screen ,corresponds to the green arrow-.

To manage users, use the User Overview , )isplay and manage user sessions-. 'n the Process 7 er iew, you cannot !e sure that a user session you want to cancel or delete is still acti e in the work process that you ha e chosen. You could unintentionally affect another user9s session.

Dispatcher/Taskhandler (BC-CST-DP
A process that processes a particular SAP re$uest. To process SAP re$uests from se eral front ends, an SAP application ser er has a dispatcher, which collects the re$uests and forwards them to work processes for execution. There are the following types of work process( )ialog

#or executing dialog programs *pdate

#or asynchronous data!ase updates %ackground ,!atch-

#or executing !ackground jo!s

6n$ueue

#or executing lock operations Spool

#or print formatting Work processes can !e assigned to dedicated application ser ers. 'n the ser ice o er iew ,S3:+-, you can see which work process types are pro ided !y the indi idual ser ers.

Work Process
De!inition
An SAP application ser er has to process SAP re$uests from multiple front ends. The application ser er has the use of a dispatcher, which gathers the re$uests and transfers them for processing to the "ork processes. The work processes then execute the desired re$uests ,for example, an A%AP program-.

Use
&ere are the following types of work processes(

Work Process Type )ialog *pdate

Use 6xecutes dialog programs ,A%APAsynchronous data!ase changes ,is controlled !y a /733'T W71; statement in a dialog work process6xecutes time"dependent or e ent"controlled !ackground jo!s 6xecutes locking operations ,if SAP transactions ha e to synchroni<e themsel esPrint formatting ,to printer, file or data!ase-

%ackground 6n$ueue

Spool

Se eral dialog work processes usually run on one application ser er. There are usually only one or two other types of work processes. #or more information, see Setting *p Work Process )istri!ution in the //3S )ocumentation.

Structure

A work process consists of a screen processor, the A%AP interpreter, the data!ase interface and the task handler that calls these programs.

Integration
The dispatcher is the central process of the application ser er. After it has !een started, it generates the work process. You can configure the num!er different types of work processes that run on an application ser er ,see Setting *p Work Process )istri!ution-.

#irtual $ddress Space o! a Work Process

With =."!it systems, > 0% of memory can theoretically !e addressed? depending on the operating system, there are approximately . 0% of irtual address space a aila!le to a process. This consists of a text and a data segment, a dynamically extendi!le heap and a dynamically extendi!le stack. The heap increases in si<e from the !ottom and the stack increases from the top? this ena!les the entire irtual address space to !e used. With an SAP work process, there are special areas reser ed on the heap whose si<e can !e set using a profile parameter. These are( 1oll area SAP paging area Pri ate memory

The largest reser ed area is located !etween the heap and stack( of the SAP 6xtended 3emory.