Spool Processes Test

This test reports measures pertaining to the different request processing groups. For classification of the output requests, we recommend that you assign both the spool servers and the output devices to different classes. By having different spool servers that process different types (and priorities) of requests you can avoid, or at least control, mutual obstruction of output requests. The Processing Groups MTE contains the possible processing groups:

MTE	Description	Notes
ProcessingGroup Adm	Spool administration tasks	Examples: Activation of delayed requests Deletion of obsolete requests Rerouting of requests in the case of server failure
ProcessingGroup Reg	Normal requests	Normal requests are requests to devices that are assigned to a spool server
ProcessingGroup Fro	Requests for front end output devices	Front end output devices are defined by the user at operating system level. In the SAP ABAP system, there must be only one output device with the access method F (front end) which sends output requests to the user’s standard printer.
ProcessingGroup Vol	Requests classified as mass printing	Mass printing means very large requests. Assign these requests to a separate spool server, to avoid the obstruction of other output requests.
ProcessingGroup Pro	Requests classified as production printing	Assign the output requests that are required for trouble free productive operation to the production printing processing group.
ProcessingGroup Dsk	Requests classified as desktop printing	Assign printers at one’s workspace to the desktop printing processing group. As they are often not available, they could obstruct other tasks. Do not use this group for routine operations.
ProcessingGroup Tst	Requests classified as test printing	Assign output devices which are a new device type or for which configuration is being tested to the test printing processing group.

In the table above, the term MTE stands for a Monitoring Tree Element. According to the SAP monitoring architecture, every SAP component/sub-system requiring monitoring, such as the buffer system, the dialog system, background processing etc., is termed as a Monitor. Each of these Monitors and their respective attributes are organized in the form of a tree-structure known as the monitoring tree, where the Monitor itself will be the pivotal node, and its key attributes the sub-nodes. Each of these attributes is otherwise referred to as a monitoring tree element (MTE).

Figure 1 depicts the tree-structure of the Spool System Monitor. From this figure it can be inferred that the monitor, Spool System, is the primary node of the monitoring tree. One of the sub-nodes of this monitor is Processing Groups. This sub-node and each of the nodes within (i.e., the individual processing groups and their attributes) will therefore become individual MTEs of the Spool System Monitor. The eG agent executing the SpoolProcessTest extracts the values of the key attributes of each of the processing groups.

Figure 1 : The Spool System Monitor

This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence : Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick SAP ABAP as the desired Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose the test from the disabled tests list, and click on the < button to move the test to the ENABLED TESTS list. Finally, click the Update button.

Target of the test : A SAP ABAP instance

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every processing group on a SAP ABAP instance.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	Host name of the server for which the test is to be configured.
PortNo	Enter the port to which the specified host listens.
ClientName	Specify the ID of the client system as what the eG agent will be connecting to the SAP ABAP instance. To know how to determine the client ID to use, follow the instructions provided in Determining the Client ID/Name for the eG Agent to Connect to the SAP ABAP Instance.
SAPUser	Typically, to connect to a SAP ABAP instance and run tests, the eG agent requires the permissions of a SAP user who has been assigned with certain authorization objects. Ideally, you will have to create a new user role on the SAP ABAP instance for this purpose, associate the above-mentioned authorization objects with that role, and assign the new role to an existing SAP user. The procedure for the same has been provided in Creating a New User Role for Monitoring and Assigning it to a SAP User. Once the new role is assigned to a SAP user, specify the name of this user against SAPUser.
Password	The password of the specified SAPUser.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it here.
SysNo	An indicator of the TCP/IP port at which the SAP server listens. For example, for a server that listens at port 3200, the SysNo will be ‘00’. Similarly, if the SAP server port is 3201, the SysNo will have to be specified as ‘01’. Therefore, in the SysNo text box specify the system number of the SAP server with which the specified client communicates. To know the system number for the ABAP server being monitored, follow the procedure detailed in Identifying the SAP Router String and System Number.
Router	If the SAP client with the specified ClientName exists in a network external to the SAP server, then a router will be used to enable the server-client communication. In such a case, specify the router string of the router in the Router text box. If both the client and the server exist in the same network, then specify ‘none’ against the Router text box. To know what is the SAP Router string for the ABAP server being monitored, follow the procedure detailed in Identifying the SAP Router String and System Number.
InstanceName	This is set to none by default. This implies that the eG agent automatically discovers the instance name at run time.
Timeout	Indicate the duration (in seconds) for which this test should wait for a response from the SAP ABAP instance. By default, this is set to 120 seconds.
JCO Version	The eG agent uses the SAP JCO library to connect to the SAP ABAP system and pull out metrics. To enable the eG agent to make this connection and query the metrics, you need to specify the version of the SAP JCO library that the agent needs to use. For instance, to instruct the eG agent to use JCO v2.1.19, it would suffice if you specify the ‘major version number’ alone against JCO Version – in the case of this example, this will be 2.x. Note that if you have downloaded the SAP JCO CONNECTOR files for SAP JCO version 3 from the SAP market place (as instructed by Downloading the SAP JCO Connector files Required for Monitoring ), then the JCO Version configuration should be 3.x.
IsPassive	If the value chosen is Yes, then the server under consideration is a passive server in a SAP ABAP INSTANCE cluster. No alerts will be generated if the server is not running. Measures will be reported as “Not applicable” by the agent if the server is not up.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit
Group work processes	The number of group spool work processes.	Number
Group jobs	The number of group spool requests.	Number
Group pages	Peak usage achieved in the recent period for stack memory.	Number