Gateway Monitoring in SAP

This article answers the following queries :

• What is SAP Gateway ?
• How to monitor SAP Gateway ?
• What is the transaction code to monitor SAP Gateway ?
• How to monitor SAP Gateway from the OS  level ?
• What are the different processes of a SAP Gateway?

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Gateway is a service which enables SAP systems and external programs to communicate with one another. Each SAP instance has a gateway.

Gateway consists of 2 processes. They are

• Gateway Read Process
• Gateway Monitor

Gateway Read Process :  Gateway read (gwrd, gwrd.exe) is the main process of the gateway system. It is started  by dispatcher of the application server and it is checked by it periodically.

Gateway Monitor : This is used to analyze and administer the SAP Gateway. If the gateway is running in an application server ABAP, you can monitor this with the gateway monitor.

Transaction code SMGW is used to monitor the gateway.

Please login to ABAP stack of SAP system and go to transaction SMGW.

A screen similar to below will appear.

It is the responsibility of basis administrator to make sure there are no errors or old requests in Gateway monitor. Please perform following checks in SMGW.

1)    Please check for red entries in the list above which indicates errors. Consider deleting them if they are no longer required.

2)    Please check the “Last Request” column and identify old requests among the list. Consider interrupting or deleting those old requests if they are no longer required.

3)    Open the log file (Goto -> Trace -> Gateway -> Display File ) and check it. In case of any errors, please troubleshoot accordingly.

Please repeat this process for each and every application server that is present in an SAP system.

For example, in the below screen, have identified a connection whose last request date is old

There are 2 things that can be done to this long running active connection. As shown in the above screenshot, either “Interrupt connection” or “Delete connection” can be done. If Interrupt connection is done, the active connection becomes interrupted and its status changes accordingly. But this connection will be visible in the listing of connections in SMGW.

If you would like to delete this connection, please proceed as shown in above screen.

i.e navigate to Goto -> Active Connection -> Deletion connection which results in below screen

Please click on Yes button in the above screen to delete this connection permenantly. After this this connection will no longer be visible in SMGW active connections.

If we check in SM21 system log, we can find out that this particular connection was terminated by the administrator at that particular time stamp.

How to monitor SAP Gateway from the OS  level ?

Gateway can also be monitored at the os level (in particular if the gateway is running in a system without AS ABAP) using program gwmon (.exe) 

How to publish logon page message in SAP ?

 This article answers the following queries:

• How to publish logon page message in SAP ?
• How to customize SAP logon page ?

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Sometimes it is required to publish some informational message at the logon page of the SAP (eg: To inform end users about the system details like SID, system refresh date, system availability, Basis support window, clients available, welcome message etc). Please follow below process to achieve the same.


Please login  to ABAP stack of SAP system and go to transaction code SE61.

A screen similar to below appears.

Please provide “ZLOGIN_SCREEN_INFO” as the data element in the above screen.Click on Change button to modify the existing login screen information. If it is not already defined, please click on create button to create one.

It results in a blank screen as shown below.

Please type in the text that you wish to be displayed in the login page of the SAP system and save. Once you log off from SAP system and check whether you are able to view the information message in the login page of the SAP system as below.

How to update SAP Splash screen?

This article answers the following queries :

·         How to update SAP Splash screen?

·         How to personalize SAP system via splash screen?

·         What is SAP Splash screen in SAP?

·         What is the Tcode used to maintain SAP splash screen?

·         Why is it required to change SAP splash screen?

·         How to upload a .gif file in SAP to update Splash screen?

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SAP Splash screen is a .gif file containing a picture which is used to personalize an SAP system.

It is often required to personalize an SAP system for informational reasons  by uploading logo (.gif file) of SAP Project name or SAP system details etc. Usually this will be done after a new SAP system installation or after a system refresh activity.

Please find below process on how to update SAP splash screen:

Execute transaction SMW0 and select “Binary data for WebRFC applications” as seen below

Click on highlighted button, which results in below screen

Click on execute button which results in below screen

Select the create button as shown above which results in below screen

In the above screen, please make sure you enter object name and its description. Please note the Object name should begin with Z to indicate this belongs to customer name range. Once these details are provided, please click on import button, which results in below screen

Please navigate and select the appropriate  .gif file (i.e. logo ) which you would like to personalize and  display. Once this is selected, it results in below screen.

Please click on highlighted “local object” button.

Once this activity is performed go to transaction SM30 to maintain a table SSM_CUST

Select Green check which results in below screen.

As shown above, please set new value to the START_IMAGE and save. This will prompt for a transport request as below.

Select create button and please make sure to indicate this is splash screen related  screen and do not transport this.

Now the splash screen updation settings are completed. Please log off from the SAP system and login again to view the personalized screen in the home page

How to check table size in SAP?

This article answers the following queries

• How to check table size in SAP?
• How to check view size in SAP?
• How to find out number of rows in a table in SAP?
• How to view indexes on a table in SAP?
• How to view index statistics of a table in SAP?
• How to find out on what columns indexes are built on a SAP table?
• How to find out on which date index statistics are last run for a SAP table?

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Please login to SAP system and goto transaction DB02 or DBACOCKPIT

Please navigate to Space -> Single Table  Analysis, It results in the screen similar to below screen

Please provide the Table/View name for which you would like to determine the size.

In this example, am checking the size of a table RSBERRORLOG. Please provide the table name and press enter which results in below screen

As visible in the above screenshot, from the overview tab, we can view following details:

Reserved size(KB) -  Total size of the table allocated in KB

Data size (KB) – Current data size of the table in KB

Index  size (KB) – Current size of the indexes of the table in KB

Unused size (KB) – Amount of space unused in the table in KB

Rows  - Number of rows present in the table

Please  click on indexes tab of the above screen, to view a screen similar to below screen

It displays Index names and the columns on which indexes are built, size of index and the last update statistics for the indexes

How to download SAP kernel

This article answers the following queries :

• How to download SAP kernel ?
• What is the process to be followed to download SAP kernel?
• What is the best practice for SAP kernel upgrade?

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SAP Kernel can be downloaded  from Service Market Place(SMP).

To download SAP Kernel, login to SMP and goto Software Downloads -> Software Downlad Center.  From there please navigate as below

Under Support packages and Patches, navigate to My Company’s Application Components -> My Company’s Software

Click on  "My company's software"  link to view  all the company’s software that is available as below:

From the above list, please select your software for which kernel upgrade to be done example : SAP Netweaver PI or SAP Netweaver or SAP SCM or SAP R/3 or SAP R/3 Enterprise etc)

In the below example am selecting SAP Netweaver as my software and proceeding further

In the above list, select the correct version of software for which you would like to download kernel. In this example, am selecting “SAP EHP1 FOR SAP NETWEAVER 7.0” and proceeding further.

Note : The current software version can be identified from SAP ABAP System’s menu. Please navigate to   System  -> Status. After under SAP system Data tab, by clicking  Component Version/Component details you can view the version of the software.

After selecting software, select Entry by Component link as below

It lists components as below :

Please select Application Server ABAP in that list and proceed further. It leads to below screen.

Please select the appropriate kernel from the list based on your SAP system setup like 32 / 64bit , Unicode/NonUnicode, Operating system on which your system runs :

In my case, am selecting SAP kernel 7.01 64bit Unicode and Operating system as Windows on x64 64bit.

After this click on #Database independent link as above to view below screen

Select the kernel patch which you would like to download and click on Add to Download Basket tab. This results in below screen

Next in the above screen, click on database in which your sap system is running. In my case, am selecting MS SQL server as the database and proceeding further.

                

 In the above list select the kernel patch which you would like to download and click on “Add to Download Basket”. Once you click this button, a screen similar to below will appear

Click on download basket pushbutton which displays screen as below:

In the above screen, click on the above items and save these files in your local desktop and later transfer these files into the desired server in which you would like to perform kernel upgrade.

Best practice is to download N-1 kernel patch from the Service Market Place. It means if the current kernel patch is 176 and the prior kernel patch is 150 and if you are in a lower kernel version (for ex: 124 etc), it is better to upgrade to N-1 kernel patch i.e. to 150 instead of upgrading directly to 176.  The reason for this is sometimes upgrading to latest kernel may lead to some issues like performance problems, system startup failure etc. To avoid this, it is suggested to apply N-1 kernel patch.