SAP BusinessObjects 4.

0 Monitoring Configuration Part(1)

Dear Folks,
Just wanted to share some of the groundwork I did with BusinessObjects
monitoring.BusinessObjects monitoring application helps administrators to identify if an
application is functioning normally and response times are as expected.It also allows them to
Check the performance of each server
View the recent failures on the dashboard screen
Check system availability and response time
Analyze peak load and peak period for the CMS

Frequently used terms in monitoring

Dashboard

The Dashboard page provides a centralized view for the system administrator to monitor the
performance of all servers. It provides real-time information on the system KPIs, recent alerts, watches,
and corresponding graphs based on the watch state.
Metrics
Metrics are foundation of the monitoring engine. A metric in its simplest definition is something to be
measured. There are bunches and bunches of them predefined in the system such as CPUs, CPU
Utilization for the last 15 minutes, Total Memory, Number of Deadlocked Jobs.
Probes
Probes monitor different services and simulate the different functionalities of SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise components. By scheduling probes to run at specified intervals, the system administrator
can track the availability and performance of key services provided by SAP BusinessObjects BI platform
Watch
Watches provide real-time status and historical trends of servers and workflows within the SAP
BusinessObjects BI platform environment. Users can associate thresholds and alerts to a watch. You
can create a watch using data from probes, servers or Derived Metrics.
Alert
An alert is a notification generated by the monitoring application, when a user-defined threshold value
set for different metrics applied to a watch is breached. You can choose to receive alerts either through
Email or view on the "Dashboard" page.

Below are all some of the probes and metrics that are utilized for
monitoring in our environment.
List of probes
Probe Name

Probe Description

Schedule
plan

CMS DB
Connection
CMS Ping
CMS Logon Logoff
Info View Probe
Crystal Reports
Service
Interactive
Analysis
Start Stop Servers

This probe tests the availability of the repository database

This probe sends an empty query to the CMS and check for its
response.
This probe tests the availability of the CMS and the ability of users to
log on to the system through client applications.
This probe will log in to the BI Launch Pad using an account and
authentication type you specify.
This probe will run a Crystal report using page and Cache Servers or
RAS and track how long it takes to refresh it.
This probe will run a Web Intelligence report and track how long it
takes to refresh it.
It will stop and start all of your servers.

Every 30
mins
Every 30
mins
Every 30
mins
Every 30
mins
Every 30
mins
Every 30
mins
Weekly

List of Metrics (Shortlisted based on applicability)

Core

Servers
Metrics

Centr
al
Mana
geme
nt
Serve
r

Inpu
t
File
Rep
osit
ory

Out
put
File
Rep
osit
ory

Con
nec
tio
n
Ser
ver

Crystal
Cryst
al
Crystal
Repor
Report
ts
s
Cache
Proces
Serve
sing
r
Server

Health
State

Server
Running
State

Server
Enabled
State

X
X

X
X

X
X

X
X

Busy
Server
Threads
Disk
Size

WebI
Ada
ptiv
e
Job
Ser
ver

Adap
tive
Proce
ssing
Serve
r

Web
Intellig
ence
Proces
sing
Server

Dashboard
Dash
boar
Dashb
ds
oards
Cach
Proce
e
ssing
Serv
Serve
er
r

X
X

X
X

X
X

X
X

X
X

S
c
h
e
d
ul
e
fr
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s
3
0

m
in
s
CPU
Usage
Percent
age last
15
minutes
CPU
Usage
Percent
age last
5
minutes
Total
Disk
Space in
Root
Director
y (GB)
Free
Disk
Space in
Root
Director
y (GB)

3
0
m
in
s

3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s

CPU
Usage
(%)

Virtual
memory
size
(MB)

X
X - represents the applicability.

3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s
3
0
m
in
s

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Monitoring Configuration Part(2)

Hi All,
This is the continuation of my previous blog SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Monitoring Configuration SAP
BusinessObjects 4.0 Monitoring Configuration - Part(1)

Schedule monitoring probes from the CMC

1.
2.

Log on to the Central Management Console. http://Server:8080/BOE/CMC

Go to Monitoring > Probes
3. Select the CMS Logon Logof probe and click on Schedule

4. When the Schedule options appear, set the probe to run every 3 minutes from the current time to
24 hours later. We want the CMS Logon Logoff probe
to run every 3 minutes. Go to the Schedule section and set it to run every 3 minutes for the
next 24 hours

5. Select the InfoView probe and set it to run every 5 minutes for the next 24 hours.
6. You should now see 2 probes set as scheduled from the Probes dashboard.

7. If the Infoview probe shows a failure, it is probably because the username/password it is using is
not correct.
Right-click on the probe and select Properties

Edit the username/password, Click Save and Close. Right-click on the probe and select

o
Run Now.

Click the refresh icon, next to the Enable Auto-Refresh button.

If you wish the probe screen to automatically update, select the Enable Auto-Refresh

o
button.

Creating a watch
The CMS probe is now scheduled and you want to base a watch on it so it generates an alert if the
Logon Logoff action takes longer than 200 milliseconds.
1.

Go to Monitoring > Watchlist

2. Click on New and define a name, description for your new watch as showed in the
screenshot. Set the number of states to Two (OK, Danger) and
check the 2 options Show on
Dashboard.

3. Click on Next
Browse the available metrics and select Probes > BI40SIA.CMSLogonLogoff > execution

o
time.
o

On the right panel, set the Danger operator to >= and value to 200 (or choose a
value that appears just above the current average so that you get some alerts)

4. Click on Next. Leave the settings to default: alert notifications will be sent every time the
threshold is reached and notifications
will be sent to the Administrator or to any user.

5. Click on Save to save this new watch.

Alert notification
We will get the notification when the threshold is reached. To see the alerts when your CMS probe
has been running for a few hours
you may have sent alerts to the Administrator. If required we can cascade the alerts to e-mail
recepients as well.
1.
2.

Log on to BI Launch Pad

From the Home Page, notice the new Alerts from the Alerts module if you have alerts you will
see something similar to this.

3. Click on one of the alerts to view the details

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Monitoring Configuration Part(3)

So far we setup monitoring application, probes and metrics analysis, creation
of watches and finally the alert configuration. In this blog we are going to see

the monitoring database configuration.The real-time monitoring process goes

as below
1.

Go to Monitoring > Probes

2. Select one of the probes you scheduled earlier, for instance CMS Logon
Logof

3. From the bottom right graph, select the time window during which the
probe has been running

If required we can use the time slider to select a different time window and
zoom in and out. Now its time to analyze the captured monitoring data over
a period of time. As a prerequisite for this we need to enable the monitoring
database and set its properties according to the requirement.
To Configuring Monitoring database
1. Go to CMC > Applications > Monitoring Application > Properties

2. Enable Monitoring Application option has to be enabled and choose the

trending database option

For monitoring database selection we have two options. We can either select
the default Derby database or we can use our existing auditing database
itself to hold the monitoring tables.
Default Derby database selection

Default Audit database selection

Once the monitoring database is enables we need to create Monitoring

Universe and set of reports to do the historical reporting on monitoring.
Let us see those activities in the upcoming blog. Hope this is interesting.