Section 6 of 10

System Monitoring

A daily checklist, what the main monitoring transactions show, and how to design alerts people will actually act on.

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Monitoring exists to catch problems before they affect the business โ€” ideally at the point of early warning rather than failure.

The daily checklist

What to check each morning
CodeWhat it showsA problem means
SM51InstancesA server is down
SM50 / SM66Work processesLong runners or process exhaustion
SM21System logSystem-level errors
ST22Short dumpsPrograms terminating
SM37Job resultsBatch failures
SM13Update errorsDocuments users believe were saved
SM12Lock entriesStale locks blocking work
SP01Spool requestsPrint failures or spool overflow
DB02Database spaceTablespace running out
SM58Failed tRFCInterface failures

Work processes

Process states
StateMeaningConcern
WaitingIdle; normalโ€”
RunningProcessingInvestigate if it persists
StoppedWaiting on somethingCheck the reason
PRIVHolding private memoryUnavailable to other users

Locks

Logs and dumps

First steps when dumps appear
StepCheck
1Is the same dump repeating?
2Is it concentrated on one user or program?
3Did anything change at that time โ€” a transport, a patch?
4For timeouts or memory errors, check system resources
5Search SAP Notes for a known issue

Automating monitoring

ToolContent
CCMS (RZ20)Alert monitor with thresholds
SAP Solution ManagerMonitoring across systems
SAP Focused RunLarge landscape monitoring
External toolsIntegration with Zabbix, Nagios and similar

๐Ÿ“– Unfamiliar term? Look it up in the SAP glossary.

Check your understanding

Test what you just read.

Quiz 1

Which transaction code monitors work process status?

Quiz 2

Which work process type handles interactive user operations?

Quiz 3

Which transaction code is used to view the System Log?

Quiz 4

The Enqueue work process handles database lock management.

Quiz 5

Which transaction code is used for workload analysis?

Quiz 6

SM66 can display work processes across all instances in a single view.