A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems
Contents
1. D010 103 9 45 910 103 9135 H 3 ERP Applications i Low Server to Client Throughput Non Responsive Server TCP Too Many Retransmissions TCP Slow Segment Recovery ow Wy TCP Triple Duplicate ACK Evert Sumay Ereiten Node Dota Entries am Apdex Task Ended Frustrated User Apdex Task Ended Tolerating User Cient Server Low Client to Server Throughput Client Server Low Server to Client Throughput A Client Server Non Responsive Server Client Server Slow Server Response Time TCP Slow Acknowledgement TCP Sinw Seament Renovery 10 15 0 87 100 68 012 18 768 10 2w 0 50 124 100 378 10 024 10 2w 0 00 82 61 390 21 370 10 7 1 00 66 47 508 14 881 10 8 0 85 392 284 720 22 362 2 1 OONO coooooo Figure 8 OmniPeek showing problems with SAP flows above and listing Expert diagnoses of problems below In the example above OmniPeek shows highlighted network events that indicate that the SAP Application Server is having difficulty accessing the SAP Database also known as SAP Content Server By right clicking on an individual flow listed under these servers a network engineer can inspect the actual payload of the affected traffic using OmniPeek s Visual Expert www wildpackets com A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications OmniPeek Flow SAP Content Server 1090 SAP Dispatcher 4386 GET ContentServ2. And if an application s performance is unacceptable how can you quickly determine the root cause WildPackets Inc 1340 Treat Blvd Suite 500 Walnut Creek CA 94597 925 937 3200 www wildpackets com A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Measuring End User Experience with the Apdex Standard ssesscscsssssscsesnsssccesssesseseenssessesssesseseenssesseensesseseensseesecanseeeseaneeesseansesees 3 ITaltrero Ted atoyp al alo p e E E A O treumera terrier rete eeertnt cre Terre 3 APGOX ANG SAP E E E A A E A 4 Introduction to SAP R 3 and mySAP for Network ACMinistrators sissies 4 Anatomy Of a SAP TranSaCtiOMissscsssssesaszvsisveveissiscseassvouescassiveozessuvesssssisciensshuserdgnsusstoessausessduasbuteceshassstsiansotoosshanssdsannavoashttasdechinnsvorssteustss 5 Measuring SAP Application Performance and Generating Apdex SCOLES ssssssssccsssessccssssesecssssecsessseesecssnsecsesnsseseesnneeesessnneeees 6 Requirements for a Network Troubleshooting Solution for SAP sssssssssssesssssssecsessseseessssecsessnsecsessssseesessnsesesssnseeesessnseesesaes 6 The WildPackets OmmiPeek Product Family sscssissssssasissssscesnssavvesniseaccconssdusesssusivetsaszsseesisanesetonssbussvasabecsounssbucovisibectevtivoacavinaveasituaiieaned 6 Measuring SAP Application Performance With OmniPeek sssesscccsssessesesseseccessseseceesnsseccesssssscsesnsseesessuseseseonessesessussecseaneseesseaneesees 8
3. Apdex Values the Physical Point of Measurement and Troubleshooting sscsssssccsessssssescssesessnsecssuesessuecessueccsneeessneeeesneeessnsees 10 Monitoring SAP Servers on an Enterprise Network Monitoring SAP Services Hosted OmtsSitesssissassscvsissssccsssassovisissasesscssnssivesbnussssdsnessoesssnnvosddsasesssesbanvedsunavassstbanvodsateassasessnaseiseinousinstnns Monitoring Service between the Application Server and the Database sssssecsessssessssssssessssnsesssssnssessesssneseseensnesesess 11 Network Reporting for SAP Application S ss sssesssssssisssssonebsvsssccassasessnsvessascasaassonntooiaaitcaaateinnivaiaaddevaahsonnbphiaiiiaseastonsveaacanasseonenioniiainieaiantiens 14 Advantages of the OmniPeek Apdex Solution Compared to Other Performance Management Solutions s0 14 FOCUS ON USE Siae aE EAE A OEE E O NRANG 15 Ready for Broad Use on Any Enterprise Network sissesssccsovssssoceossssecssossseienvusssecssnascesasssssseesbuasceisssssbesessuascdensqssesasosasosiersquseensese 15 Support for Drill Down Investigations A Watchtul Eyed uring Configuration CHANGES ssvasccsssssssasssssvsssscsasssstessvecssscasscsatessuasssssasscabnsivcsossansepebessvuessstanscivassiseanatenveniians 15 Minimal Impact on Devices and the Network Itself sssssssssssesssscssessseesssesessessesessessseceseesnesesseesssssseesseessessueeseesneeseessseseesees 15 Individual and Customer Specific EnhaNceMeNts scsssssesssecsssessseesseessscs
4. a A Guide to Troubleshooting WildPackets User Satisfaction Problems with Illuminate Your Network i SAP Applications Is It the Application or the Network If you re a network engineer in an organization that runs SAP you re probably familiar with the challenge of troubleshooting SAP networking problems A typical scenario goes like this End users of a SAP application complain about poor application performance The SAP BASIS Administrator and Database Administrator report that the SAP applications themselves are performing correctly They suggest that the real problem lies with the network They ask you to troubleshoot the problem But is the network really the problem How can you tell Without in depth SAP expertise and tools how can you accurately diagnose a SAP application performance problem This problem isn t confined to SAP applications Whether the application is SAP Oracle VoIP or some other type of application it s often difficult to determine whether the application or the network is ultimately responsible for poor quality of service Even seemingly straightforward metrics such as server response times can be deceptive In the context of user tasks and application transactions a slow server may not turn out to be the critical factor affecting a user s experience So if you cannot rely on simple metrics like server response times how can you accurately measure how well an application is performing for its users
5. be a satisfactory average load time plus or minus some fractions of a second depending on the actual application OmniPeek allows you to specify a satisfactory load time as a threshold By Apdex convention the tolerating time is 4 times the satisfactory threshold Thus if our target satisfactory threshold is 1 5 seconds then 4x 1 5 or 6 seconds will be set as the tolerating threshold and anything greater than 6 seconds or abandoned altogether is considered frustrating Apdex is a statistical measurement Several samples are required for accurate interpretation of the Apdex index As packets are captured and analyzed the OmniPeek console displays and updates both the Apdex index and the number of available samples in real time Additionally previously captured traces can also be loaded for detailed post analysis for troubleshooting The computed index and number of samples are represented in the Expert Application window in the columns labelled Apdex and Apdex Sample Count respectively Samples are tallied and fed into a formula to produce the Apdex value S am Flows analyzed E Flows recycled 5 Events detected MNF 9 Packets dropped o Tj 116 16 928 3 108 244 735 182 385 688 00 06 41 967 1141 lt 3300 4k F 370 256 00 06 23 811 10 9 1 00 44 24 232 4 555 19 43 0 83 152 116 738 00 01 13 101 vu 43 083 152 116 738 00 01 13 101 1 038 42 o 14 0 70 374 213 578 00 08 23 811 0 1 00 38 17 020 0
6. data and comparison tables available through OmniPeek Historical information is available for the required amount of time Statistics can either be saved as HTML reports or used to create long term trending information which is also very useful to answer Network Re Design Questions or as the beginning point for comprehensive Root Cause Analysis A Reports Microsoft Internet Explorer Recent Hourly User Applications Distribution OmniEngine Enterprise User Applications Distribution from paca 08 30 to 09 30 on 2007 01 11 matlic Capture 1 recent summary 40 0K W hourly 350K Broadcast Traffic 30 0K Class Utilization g 250K Error Distribution 200K D ip Group Protocols Distribution 150K Network Protocols Distribution 100K Network Utilization 50K Packet Size Distribution 00 Service Applications Distribution 08 30 08 45 09 00 09 15 Top Applications S Business Warehouse Content Repository Access S ERP Applications Top Nodes eu Appecations Distribution User Applications Distribution from weekly 08 30 to 09 30 on 2007 01 11 eat monthly e yearly 30 0M ee y zi Figure 10 Example of OmniReporting Service for Bandwidth usage of specific Applications If someone complains about intermittent problems or a performance problem that occurred last weeks it s possible to use these reports or the network forensics features of the platform to go back in time to identify characterize and
7. performance The Apdex index and supporting data provided by OmniPeek is invaluable on a daily basis as we monitor networks servers applications and users Apdex Values the Physical Point of Measurement and Troubleshooting Monitoring SAP Servers on an Enterprise Network TCP IP SAP Web Database Application Server pr Server OmiiEngine SAP GUI Figure 6 Monitoring a SAP Server on an Enterprise Network In order for OmniPeek to calculate an Apdex score for an application it needs to capture the full duplex traffic of a communication flow If the flow is captured in front of a client in a switched network the resulting Apdex score will reflect the quality of service being delivered just to that client A better location for the capture is in front of the SAP Application Server itself so that the platform can generate Apdex scores for all the clients communicating with the SAP server WildPackets recommends installing an OmniEngine on the network in front of the SAP Application Server Capturing traffic here the OmniEngine can track individual scores for each client as well as an aggregate score for the server overall Incidentally WildPackets recommends not installing an OmniEngine on the SAP Application Server itself since the OmniEngine s own processing requires some computing resources and may compromise the performance of the server being monitored www wildpackets com 10 A Guide to Troubleshooting Us
8. that presents detailed expert analysis and graphs of network traffic and provides an interface for working with agents The agents which are called OmniEngines run on either Windows or Linux platforms and capture traffic for local analysis which is presented in real time through the OmniPeek console OmniEngines access the traffic on your network either through a SPAN mirror port on a switch or via a physical network tap OmniEngines can capture and monitor traffic from Ethernet full duplex Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 802 11 wireless segments This is a summary of agents and console OmniPeek also includes other optional components such as wireless sensors and plug ins Like the mySAP Platform OmniPeek processes and delivers all its information in real time And like mySAP the product is very extensible In fact OmniPeek has its own community of developers using open APIs scripting language and decoders to develop new plug ins and decodes that extend or customize the functionality of the platform For more information about this community please visit the Web site of the WildPackets Developer Network wpdn wildpackets com Unlike competing performance monitoring tools OmniPeek gains its information independently by passively collecting data from your network and analyzing it over the entire seven OSI Layers every bit of every packet is analyzed This is sometimes referred to as deep packet inspection www wil
9. troubleshoot the problem www wildpackets com 14 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Advantages of the OmniPeek Apdex Solution Compared to Other Performance Management Solutions Every enterprise network is swimming with metrics available via logs router statistics SNMP information server performance monitoring CPU disk I O etc and so on What are the advantages of the OmniPeek Apdex solution over these other metrics Focus on Users The Apdex metric measures the most important thing of all the service that end users are receiving Other lower level metrics such as server response time may suggest that users are or are not receiving a high quality of service Often it s too difficult to tell Server response time might be slow yet not affecting users Or it might be fast but users are suffering because of some other performance problem By focusing on the quality of service that end users are receiving OmniPeek keeps troubleshooting and configuration management focused on the end goal Ready for Broad Use on Any Enterprise Network OmniPeek provides out of the box measurement of what s really affecting users without requiring network engineers to spend hours or days configuring the software for a particular application Apdex can be used to measure the quality of service for SAP and for many other applications on your network Support for Drill Down Investigations When appli
10. 0 05 24 462 0 027 7 o 1 1 00 86 65 374 24 216 0 045 25 0 1 00 38 21 528 34 264 0 034 9 v 1 0 25 82 42 650 00 02 32 573 0 625 24 oe 1 0 625 24 Apdex Task Ended Frustrated User o 1 0 625 24 Apdex Task Ended Tolerating User oe 1 0 625 24 Slow Server Response Time o 8 0 625 24 o 2 1707 235 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 oO 1137 gt 3300 EET Evert ing Node Deas Entries bess sen tf Apdex Task Ended Frustrated User pdex Task Ended Tolerating Use Busy Network or Server Low Client to Server Throughput 76 82 4 5 2 Figure 5 OmniPeek shows an Application Performance Index for each individual Communication Flow as well as the total The screenshot above displays Apdex Values for Enterprise Resource Planning ERP Applications in general as well as conversation flows from the SAP Application Server to the individual clients By clicking on the Expert Event a network engineer can display all the flows affected by that event www wildpackets com 9 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications The Apdex formula is simple but unique Unlike other performance metrics it provides a uniform index that represents the satisfaction level and productivity of humans with your SAP applications OmniPeek does all the hard work in gathering the measurements necessary to produce the Apdex index and to generate individual Expert event notifications that help pinpoint the cause of poor application
11. ask takes too long to complete users become frustrated Apdex takes several samples measuring the total time required for the completion of a task It then applies a formula using a threshold based on user satisfaction levels observed in laboratory testing and produces a single metric a number between 0 and 1 that grades the quality of service an application is providing Scores between 0 94 and 1 0 are excellent Scores between 0 85 and 0 94 are good Scores between 0 70 and 0 85 are fair Scores below 0 70 are poor or unacceptable 1 Define T in seconds for the application T the application target time threshold between satisfied and tolerating users F threshold between tolerating and frustrated users is calculated F 4T 2 Real time Expert reporting group View by Application Server or User 3 Extract data set from existing measurements for viewing 4 Count the number of samples in three performance zones 5 Calculate the Apdex formula Real time Expert 6 Display Apdex results 1 00 Reporting View Frustrated 5 Satisfied Tolerating 2 Apdex Total Samples Figure 1 Calculating Apdex Scores www wildpackets com 3 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Using these scores a network administrator can tell at a glance what sort of service an application is delivering If an application s score is 0 85 or higher users are almost certainly sa
12. bleshooting solution from WildPackets The WildPackets OmniPeek Product Family The OmniPeek Product Family gives network engineers real time visibility into every part of the network simultaneously from a single interface including Gigabit 10GbE Ethernet 802 11 wireless VoIP and WAN links to remote offices Using OmniPeek s local capture capabilities centralized console distributed engines and expert analysis engineers can rapidly troubleshoot faults and fix problems restoring essential services and maximizing network uptime and user satisfaction The OmniPeek Product Family comprises OmniPeek network analyzers and consoles as well as distributed OmniEngines which analyze data at remote locations on the network With its open APIs and a growing family of plug ins OmniPeek is uniquely designed to meet the ever changing needs of network engineers responsible for wired and wireless networks and applications such as VoIP Video over IP and VoWiFi www wildpackets com 6 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Headquarters and Data Center Manufacturing Remote Field Offices Network Edge Edge OmniPeek miipliance miiEngine Desktop miiEngine Enterprise OmniPeek AP Capture Adapter CmiiVirtual Figure 3 The WildPackets OmniPeek Product Family OmniPeek is built upon an agent console concept The console is the OmniPeek network analyzer a Windows based application
13. cation performance degrades OmniPeek s Expert Analysis can rapidly diagnose the root causes whether the causes suggest diagnostics that are applicable for the network support staff expert events below the application and session layer or application events that point towards server issues that the database SAP Administrator can investigate Because so many different factors can affect SAP performance the Expert Analysis and rapid drill down capability provided by OmniPeek are invaluable for sites running SAP applications A Watchful Eye during Configuration Changes Being independent from a SAP version and the hardware SAP applications are running on OmniPeek provides an objective measurement of how applications are performing before during and after the provisioning or configuration changing of business critical applications Minimal Impact on Devices and the Network Itself Finally a performance measurement solution should neither influence the performance of the devices being monitored nor congest the network bandwidth that applications require OmniPeek has been designed to place only minimal load on the network OmniEngines analyze traffic locally so they do not need to send gigabytes of capture files to the console for analysis Instead they send only the data needed for presenting analysis results on the OmniPeek console Typically communications among OmniPeek components consume as little as 8 10 kb s on average producing negligibl
14. dpackets com 7 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications OmniPeek SAP pkt S Blar 3 Log Expert Hierarchy B SAP Database Server B SAP Application Server 10 103 4 189 10 103 12 255 10 103 8 127 Yj 10 103 13 125 uf 10 103 65 33 i 10 103 8 246 Summary 10 103 8 124 10 103 5 89 10 103 9 2 10 103 103 101 10 103 6 21 10 103 4 13 10 103 9 100 10 103 1 125 10 103 9 45 10 103 73 112 10 103 1 134 10 103 9 95 10 103 8 187 10 103 1 118 10 103 8 157 10 103 8 122 10 103 9 80 10 103 13 67 10 103 8 207 10 103 4 147 10 103 93 31 10 103 73 111 10 103 73 22 10 103 103 156 10 103 1 39 10 103 8 215 10 103 14 6 10 103 8 243 10 103 8 123 10 103 9 135 10 103 73 27 10 103 8 159 10 103 8 176 10 103 8 222 10 103 8 236 10 103 4 173 10 103 4 88 10 103 73 119 10 103 6 28 10 103 97 46 10 103 13 78 10 103 9 167 10 103 9 150 10 103 10 10 mMarimumNodes Absolute Percent 75 mM Traffic Types gt M Unicast M Multicast M Broadcast Node Ranking Highest Node Statistic Total Packets Traffic Direction Sent and Received a z Summay Showing up to 75 of all nodes with the highest total packets sent and received Protocols E Ethernet Type 2 EHP M TCP _ Business Warehouse Content Repository Access ERP Applications Printing Services SAP Messaging RIK j o
15. e effect on the network www wildpackets com 15 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Individual and Customer Specific Enhancements In addition to monitoring application performance and quality of service OmniPeek can also monitor important factors such as server availability The platform s Expert Analysis detects and flags Non Responsive Server conditions Since clients are continually sending Syn s to servers watching for this Expert Event can alert network engineers to a SAP server that is no longer responsive Of course network engineers can monitor other business critical applications this way as well Integrating OmniPeek with Other Monitoring Solutions Since it isan open and extensible monitoring solution OmniPeek can be enhanced with SAP Application specific plug ins and integrated into other frameworks like CA s Spectrum BMC s Patrol or combined with SAP s own monitoring solution CCMS just to name a few examples For examples of extensions to the OmniPeek Product Family visit the WildPackets Developer Network Web site at wpdn wildpackets com To learn more about custom integration projects please contact your WildPackets representative or write to our Custom Engineering Group at ceg wildpackets com Learn More Email info wildpackets com Telephone 1 925 937 3200 WildPackets Inc 1340 Treat Blvd Suite 500 Walnut Creek CA 94597 925 937 3200 www w
16. er ContentServer d1l infogpVersion 0046econtRep ZCSETAS P42T cdocld 3F 3A1C45AAEFPD64 4BSADD9FB128115C8saccessMode r authId cl 3DC11l expiration 20061130163238ssecKey MIIB1LOQYJKoZIhvcNAQcCoIIBhjCCAYICAQExCZAJBgUrDgMCGgUAMAsSGCSqG 2FQORCKuU43cuTIXGVTQ8zo rj DLIDCBpgYF Kw4DAhswg ZwCQQEi 9Vy 1I pGpgBwpby 66sV16jIHOJkoJI 2Fb1RDbeogY2I 2BS69a9S2BImlAFQENS2BttGqA3jvs 2FOAfI9BZFtmF psDwniOlAhUBONzq3BaLZ3Vj2dGBBSHPZhSeBa0COHs Zv4pNumfHRNhm1 bKKITDgPOrDDnG7FS1g1FhTAFVcelt lt 2FdFaH8 jkigzaJDkFI 2Buv5 OyGPyt GPYmekEMDAUAhUAy7 9ZDbC7ADSS OhEG6LO4SmLSROCOCFQEY1gtz46PRE 2B2WyEvac87FIKlyFlg 3D 3D HTTP 1 0 Host 10 103 1 55 1090 Content Length 0 User Agent SAPHTTP HTTP 1 1 500 Internal Server Error Server Microsoft IIs 5 0 Date Thu 30 Nov 2006 14 32 47 GMT Content Type text plain Content Length 110 X ErrorDescription CreateDir E SAPCSD42 ZCSETASP42T The system cannot find the path specified X ContentServer contentServer 10 103 1 55 contentServerPort 1090 pVersion 0046 id SAP HTTP Content Server 500 Internal Server Error CreateDir E SAPCSD42 ZCSETASP42T The system cannot find the path specified Figure 9 The OmniPeek Packet Visualizer reveals the source of the problem As this payload shows a process is trying to create a new directory on the SAP Content Server and the server is responding with an error message saying it cannot find the specified path Now it s up to the SAP Application Administrato
17. er Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Monitoring SAP Services Hosted Off site User Network Core Switch Firewall SAP Server Farm miiEngine Figure 7 Monitoring SAP Performance of Off Site Hosted Servers If an organization is accessing SAP services through an off site managed service the OmniEngine should be placed between the core switch and the firewall so the engine can capture all the flows between the SAP server farm and the SAP user community working on the enterprise network By inserting a TAP a Test Access Point which duplicates network traffic down to the bit level after the core switch before the firewall router and configuring the TAP and OmniEngine based on the servers and ports carrying SAP traffic network engineers can monitor the quality of service provided by the off site SAP server farm Similar results can be obtained by deploying an OmniEngine in front of the server farm itself This latter option may be attractive to service providers who want to take advantage of Apdex to monitor the quality of service their SAP applications are delivering www wildpackets com II A Guide to Trou bleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Packets received 8 516 IM CUTE ET CH Packets filtered 8 516 Timid Acce Flows analyzed ar Flows recycled QoBusiness Warehouse GhQeosaP Application Server Be10 103 6 21 D010 103 8 222 9010 103 8236
18. ervers but for every individual application there is a single central management point that handles all the communication flows from the SAP GUI or the mySAP Web portal This single point or gateway will prove useful when it comes to capturing full duplex traffic and examining average Application Response Times which in turn is the basis for Performance Monitoring www wildpackets com 5 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Measuring SAP Application Performance and Generating Apdex Scores Requirements for a Network Troubleshooting Solution for SAP We ve seen that Apdex provides a meaningful metric for assessing how network and application conditions are contributing to an end user s experience We ve also examined the structure of SAP transactions in order to find a focal point for collecting data for monitoring and troubleshooting SAP application performance Ideally network administrators would be able to monitor Apdex scores to look for problem flows from specific applications Then once a problematic flow is discovered network administrators need a way to troubleshoot that flow As always it would be nice not to have to change tools in this process Network administrators should be able to easily navigate between Apdex scores and expert diagnoses and packet details of the traffic contributing to these scores All of these capabilities are available in OmniPeek an enterprise class network trou
19. ied view of the architecture of a typical SAP environment consisting of a Presentation Server a SAP Application Server and a Database Server www wildpackets com 4 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications SAP Web Application Server Work Process TCP IP Dispatcher Work Process Database TCP IP Server Work Process The workflow of a SAP transaction is a multi step process involving a tiered hierarchy of servers and control points The Figure 2 A High Level View of a SAP Environment Anatomy of a SAP Transaction workflow is as follows The user enters input through the SAP GUI or a Web browser The input may be either information to be written into a database or a request for information or a calculation The input goes over the network via TCP IP to the SAP Application Server and is handled by the SAP Dispatcher a software component that functions as a central control unit within a SAP Process Within each SAP Application Server there is a single SAP Dispatcher which handles all user requests as well as requests from other SAP Applications Servers The Dispatcher assigns requests to different Work Processes Each Work Process opens an individual dialog to the required database Responses from the Work Process return by the same path through the Dispatcher of the SAP Application Server and back to the user Most generic SAP implementations have numerous application s
20. ildpackets com www wildpackets com 16
21. m i Keine Ersch tteruna festaestellt Festolatte ist in Betrieb Figure 4 The OmniPeek Peer Map provides a graphical representation of traffic of the network OmniPeek is able to calculate the actual Application Response Time ART when it captures traffic from a TCP IP Flow Rather than measure only the TCP ACK response time like many others do OmniPeek measures the actual transaction time for a GET request an SQL query a file open and so forth How can OmniPeek measure and monitor the performance and availability of your SAP Services Measuring SAP Application Performance with OmniPeek Browser based applications such as SAP applications may involve multiple flows not just flows between the front end and the back end application and database servers but also parallel flows within the client application itself From click to completion is considered to be an end user task These task times which provide the basis for Apdex scores fall into three performance zones or levels of satisfaction for a task defined by Apdex Satisfied User User can focus on a task progress is Tolerating User Frustrated User User notices slowdown productivity User is so unhappy with the poor not hindered is impaired responsiveness of the application he or she may stop work on the task www wildpackets com 8 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Typically SAP users consider one second to
22. r to decide what is causing the problem but in any case it s not the network This example demonstrates the way OmniPeek can help keep an SAP environment and other IT environments too performing optimally Monitoring Service between the Application Server and the Database If problems are experienced but the packets don t clearly identify the source of the problem Client Application Server Network Database immediately an additional analysis behind the SAP Application Server and the Database can become necessary OmniPeek provides unique features to combine and analyze the information from multiple segments and help to troubleshoot a Multi Tier Architecture www wildpackets com 13 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications A thorough discussion of how to detect other types of problems such as hardware shortcomings RAM allocation application programming errors expensive SQL requests and database configurations is beyond the scope of this paper WildPackets consultants are available for diagnosing network and application problems related to your SAP implementation For more information about WildPackets consulting services including the Network Health Check service please visit www wildpackets com services Network Reporting for SAP Applications Leaving deep packet analysis aside for a moment a tremendous amount of information can already be gained just by examining the statistical
23. ssessesesseessssesseesssssseesssessnessesssseessseesneseesssneseeseesnereesees 15 Integrating OmniPeek with Other Monitoring Solutions on essssssseesseessseccesssseesseessseeserssseesesessseesessnseeseeessseeeesssseesseensseeeeteas 16 www wildpackets com 2 A Guide to Troubleshooting User Satisfaction Problems with SAP Applications Measuring End User Experience with the Apdex Standard Introducing Apdex A new application performance metric Apdex was created by an industry consortium the Apdex Alliance specifically to address the challenge of analyzing application performance in meaningful terms The goal of the Apdex metric is to provide a single metric that represents the quality of service an end user is receiving from an application Unlike other low level metrics such as server response times the Apdex metric Measures performance in the context of a user doing meaningful work Bases qualitative judgements on laboratory results of end user experience to judge when users are likely to be content or frustrated Provides a single high level metric that reflects the quality of service an application is delivering based on multiple samples of tasks Apdex scores reflect user satisfaction with the performance of enterprise applications How does Apdex work Apdex measures how long it takes users to perform a task such as completing a Web transaction each task may comprise several conversations with a server or servers If a t
24. tisfied with the performance of the application Lower scores suggest there could be a problem Ultimately Apdex scores reflect the effectiveness of IT investments in contributing to business objectives If an organization successfully invests in its IT infrastructure its Apdex scores should improve Declining Apdex scores are a sign that the IT infrastructure is not serving its business goals The Apdex Technical Specification and other information are available at www apdex org the Web site of the Apdex Alliance The Apdex Standard is part of the IEEE ISTO Apdex and SAP How do Apdex scores help you troubleshoot SAP applications Because Apdex scores summarize application performance results in the context of user tasks Apdex scores provide a useful diagnostic for determining whether or not a problem exists Furthermore by measuring Apdex scores with a comprehensive network analysis platform you gain the ability to determine what network or application conditions are contributing to a poor network score You gain the ability to drill down into the technical details of a problem starting with the score itself But before we explore this rapid drill down methodology let s take a quick look at the SAP application architecture Understanding SAP transactions will help you make the most of Apdex measurements of SAP applications Introduction to SAP R 3 and mySAP for Network Administrators The following illustration shows a simplif
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