Version B.08.70 Edition 2 - August 2004
This document provides an overview of the changes made to the HP OpenView Operations for Windows (OVO for Windows) Smart Plug-in for SAP (SPI for SAP) for the Software Version B.08.70 - Edition 2. It contains important information not included in the product manuals or online help.
In This Version
Installation Notes
Software and Hardware Requirements
Installation Problems
Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds
Patches and Fixes in This Version
Documentation Errata and Corrections
Verified Environments
Software Availability in Native Languages
Online Documentation and Support
The Smart Plug-in for SAP comes with the following features:
The SPI for SAP now only supports OV Reporter Version A.03.50, using Crystal Report Templates, version 8.
Release B.08.70 is the first version of the SPI for SAP to provide transports for SAP versions over 4.5x that include SPI-for-SAP functionality in the SAP name space "/HPOV/"
Monitor the status of SAP on remote systems
See the "Changes and Modifications..." section in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide for more information.
See the "Changes and Modifications..." section in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide for more information.
See the "Changes and Modifications..." section in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide for more information.
See the "Changes and Modifications..." section in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide for more information.
The SPI for SAP uses a host-mapping feature to monitor SAP R/3 in high-availability clusters. The host-mapping feature requires additional patches for OVO for Windows components, for example; the OVO for Windows Agent and the ConfigFile Policy Type.
For more information about the host-mapping feature, see the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
Installation requirements, as well as instructions for installing the SPI for SAP for OVO for Windows, are documented in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide provided in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. The document file is included on the August 2004 HP OpenView Smart Plug-ins for OVO for Windows CD set in the following location:
Disk 1\Documentation\SPI Guides\1033\SAP_Config.pdf
Before starting the installation of the SPI for SAP, make sure you read through the "Installation Requirements" section of the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide. If you are upgrading from a previous version of the SPI for SAP, you will also need to look at the "Changes and Modifications" section.
After installation of the software bits, SPI for SAP documents are available in the following location on the OVO for Windows Management Server:
%OvInstallDir%\NLS\1033\Manuals\SAP_*.pdf
For more information about the localised versions of the SPI for SAP, see Software Availability in Native Languages.
For a list of the current SAP R/3 transport numbers, see the following file on the OVO for Windows Management Server after you have successfully installed the SPI for SAP software:
%OvInstallDir%\Packages\SAPTransports\readme
Unlike this version (B.08.70 Edition 2) of the SPI for SAP, version B.08.70 (Edition 1) was released
via ftp as a stand-alone .msi package. This means that installation and migration instructions differ
according to which version of the SPI for SAP is currently installed.
The Common Installer of the August 2004 HP OpenView Smart Plug-ins for OVO for Windows CD set is not able to perform an automatic upgrade of the SPI for SAP Console Package. Please refer to the CD Release Notes on CD1 for more information. You will find this document in the following location:
\Documentation\SPI_CD_ReleaseNotes.html
To install the SPI for SAP B.08.70 Edition 2, you need to use the instructions below in combination with the information in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide. For example, you will need to use the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide to help you check system pre-requisites and, in addition, verify the installation of the SPI for SAP software was successful. Once you have used the instructions below to install the SPI for SAP on the OVO for Windows Management Server, you will also need to use the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide to help you through the process of configuring the SPI for SAP to monitor your environment.
Even if you do not plan to install and use one of the Smart Plug-ins that are available on CD1 of the August 2004 HP OpenView Smart Plug-ins for OVO for Windows CD set, you still need to use CD1 to install or upgrade a number of common SPI components that are required by the SPI for SAP.
autorun.vbs
script. Follow the on-screen instructions until the Product
Selection dialogue appears. Note that in order to start the installation or upgrade of
the common SPI components, you need to select at least one of the
products listed in the Product Selection dialogue, for example; "CORE SPIs".
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation from CD1
.msi files, you still have to go through
the first step in the process described in New Installation of the SPI for SAP B.08.70 Edition 2. This step is necessary to ensure that you install the latest
versions of required, common SPI components such as the ConfigFile Policy Type on the new system. However, there is no need to
upgrade the SPI for SAP itself.%OvInstallDir%\SPI-Share\Sap_spi\[global|local]\Template
The contents of this directory are overwritten during the course of the new installation.
autorun.vbs
script. Follow the on-screen instructions until the Product
Selection dialogue appears. Note that in order to start the upgrade of
the common SPI components, you need to select at least one of the
products listed in the Product Selection dialogue, for example; "CORE SPIs".
Before installing the Smart plug-in for SAP, make sure that your system meets the minimum requirements specified in "Pre-requisites" section of the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
See Installation Notes for more information about where to find the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
For more information about some corrections to the installation and removal procedures described in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide, see entries 7 and 8 in Documentation Errata and Corrections.
This section lists known problems that could not be fixed before the release of the SPI for SAP software. Click the item in the list immediately below to see a more-detailed description of the problem.
The following list decribes the known problems in more detail. For quick access to any of the detailed descriptions, click the appropriate item in the list above.
During the deployment of ConfigFile policies to Windows NT nodes, the following system-error message box appears and the action fails:
"OvCfgFile.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point __lc_collate_cp could not be located
in the dynamic link library MSVCRT.dll."
The Windows NT managed node does not have the correct version
of the Microsoft C Runtime library MSVCRT.dll installed -
MSVCRT.dll is located in the system32 directory.
Please upgrade your system by downloading and installing a
newer version of MSVCRT.dll as described in Microsoft Knowledge
Base article Q259403 at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q259403
Updating MSVCRT.dll may require a reboot. Afterwards, restart
the failed ConfigFile-policy deployment.
The SAP GUI is needed for many operator-initiated actions defined in the SPI for SAP, but it is not part of the SPI for SAP installation media.
Install the SAP GUI binary on the OVO management server. The SAP GUI binary is included on the SAP "Presentation" CD. See "Installing the SAP GUI on the OVO Management Server" in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
The SPI for SAP monitors abort with an error message and/ or a core dump if a 64-bit version of SAP R/3 is monitored.
Due to the usage of shared libraries, different binaries are necessary for monitoring 32-bit and 64-bit SAP systems on the same OS. In some cases the automatic detection of the architecture (32-bit vs. 64-bit) of the managed node does not work correctly.
The detection takes place after the initial distribution of the monitor binaries. The discovered version is stored on the managed node in the file:
/var/opt/OV/conf/hpitosap/sap_mode.cfg
/var/lpp/OV/conf/hpitosap/sap_mode.cfg
The following circumstances can cause the wrong architecture to be stored in the configuration file.
The automatic detection will not find this change because it is only executed if the configuration shown above does not exist.
You may edit the configuration file manually to show the correct architecture. After the entry has been changed, the monitors and commands must be re-distributed to the managed node.
Messages are reported more than once in certain circumstances.
The monitors r3monsap, r3monal, and r3monxmi have a certain
degree of overlap of the monitored information sources. The
different monitors are designed to operate with different
versions of the CCMS architecture. This means that message
duplication can occur if you assign more than one of the
monitors to the same SAP Instance. Please consult the HP
OpenView SMART Plug-In for SAP Administrator's
Reference to find out which monitor should be used in
conjunction with the monitored SAP R/3 version and de-assign
the other monitor.
The messages from the r3monxmi monitor might be sent with a
specific delay (in hours), or not at all. There is a problem
in the time zone handling of SAP's XMI API. The API uses the
local time of the calling user, which is the opcagent process,
to set the start and end time used in the underlying SAP
report.
This report is executed on the SAP R/3 Application server, which might have a different local time due to its time zone setting.
Ensure that the time for the opcagent processes on the managed
node and the SAP Application Server are set to the correct time
zone and are synchronized accordingly.
The number of logged in users reported by the collector is different to the number users shown in the SAP transaction SM04.
The difference is based on the fact that the collector counts the `itouser' as a fully logged-in user. Therefore some differences between the two numbers can occur.
The user can deploy a ConfigFile policy of one particular
subtype (same Application/Subgroup/File combination; e.g.
SAP-SPI/global/r3itosap.cfg) that has already been deployed to
that node with a different value/content.
Both policies appear in the node's policy inventory, but on the file-system level, the configuration file is overwritten by the 2nd deployment. The state of the system is inconsistent and the user cannot tell which policy wrote the current content of the configuration file.
On Unix managed nodes the error does not occur, but an error message is issued when the user tries to redeploy a config-file policy of the same subtype as an already existing one.
To prevent this problem, deploy only config-file policies of
unique subtypes (e.g. SAPSPI/global/r3monsap.cfg) to Windows
managed nodes.
To get your system back to a consistent state if this problem occurred, undeploy all ConfigFile policy subtypes (e.g. Application/Subgroup/Filename), and redeploy the correct ones.
Monitors of type snapshot send duplicate messages to the message browser and the overall performance of the SPI for SAP is very slow.
Please check to see if you have entered a managed node twice in
any of the configuration files, e.g. once using its short host
name (sapsystem) and once using its fully qualified name
(sapsystem.domain.company.com). If there are two entries, the
monitor binaries will open two connections to the SAP R/3
system for each monitor call, thus consuming more resources and
sending messages twice.
Each system must be configured only once in the configuration files, preferably with its fully qualified name.
The SPI for SAP monitors take a very long time to obtain information from the SAP R/3 system.
Check how often you use the CP (Contains Pattern) option in your configuration files. The CP option consumes both time and system resources. You should try as much as possible to replace the CP option with an EQ operation. If this is not feasible, try to avoid using a fully unqualified CP, for example; CP*. Instead, try whenever possible to qualify the CP option with a pattern, for example; CP MY_JOB*.
If started on the command line, the SPI for SAP monitors
do not always work and issue libC.a-related runtime errors. For
example;
# ./r3moncol
exec(): 0509-036 Cannot load program ./r3moncol because of the
following errors:
0509-150 Dependent module /usr/lib/libC.a (ansi_64.o) could
not be loaded.
0509-152 Member ansi_64.o is not found in archive On managed nodes running AIX 4.3.3 (64bit) you need to update
your C++ runtime library to the latest patch level. You need a
patch level of at least level 5.0.0.0 to be able to run the SPI
for SAP monitors. Please check your patch level using the
"lslpp -l" command and the appropriate file set containing your
libC.a library, for example:
lslpp -l xlC.aix43.rte
Which should produce output similar to the following:
Fileset Level State Description
------------------------------------------------------------
Path: /usr/lib/objrepos
xlC.aix43.rte 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C Set ++ Runtime AIX 4.3The operator initiated actions that let SAP operators take context-sensitive actions based on incoming messages are not available in this version of the OVO for Windows SPI for SAP B.08.70 due to technical differences in the management platforms OVO Unix and OVO Windows.
There is no solution currently available.
If you launch SPI for SAP tools on a remote-console system, in some cases you get popup windows telling you that the system is unable to locate certain dll's in the specified path, for example:
"OvR3SelGui.exe - Unable To Locate DLL
The dynamic link library opcapi.dll could not be found in the
specified path C:\...
For the tools in the SPI for SAP group to work correctly on a remote console system, you need to deploy an OVO agent to the remote console.
Some SPI for SAP reports are missing or are empty, and "ERROR 534" messages appear in the OV Reporter status pane.
There are two possible solutions to this problem:
When configured to use data in an Oracle database, the OV Reporter either does not generate any Service Reports, or the reports that are generated are empty. Even though some reports are either missing or empty, no error messages appear in the OV Reporter status pane.
Make sure that you are using a supported version of the Oracle ODBC driver. The SPI for SAP performance integration has been tested (and works correctly) with the following versions of the Oracle ODBC drivers:
The new SPI for SAP performance monitors, DOCSTAT and WLSUM_PERF, do not collect any data.
In order to get useful data from the SAP performance component, you have to schedule the SAP report RSCOLL00 to run once an hour on your SAP R/3 System. For more information about how to schedule standard reports or jobs in a SAP component, see the SAP OSS note 16083.
On SAP systems running MS Windows, Application Servers are
not discovered if the SAP installation directory does not end
in "\exe\run".
Use the environment variable SAPOPC_SAPPROFILEDIR to set the correct SAP installation directory explicitly on such systems.
The ITS logs become very large over time, which has an impact on System performance. This is because the SPI for SAP switches on tracing inside SAP in order to get access to some performance data.
The following ITS trace and logs files should be periodically checked and, if necessary, removed or backed up:
<SAP_ITS_Install_Dir>\SAP\ITS\2.0\<INSTANCE_NAME>\traces<SAP_ITS_Install_Dir>\SAP\ITS\2.0\<INSTANCE_NAME>\logProblems occur when you are trying to use the ITS monitor in an environment where a firewall is present.
See the description in the SPI for SAP white paper about the SAP ITS integration, which you can find in the following location on the OVO management server after you have successfully installed the SPI for SAP:
%ProgramFiles%\HP OpenView\NLS\1033\Manuals\sapspi_ITS_Firewall_WhitePaper.pdfNote that on Japanese systems the Japanese NLS-subdirectory is not 1033: it is 1041.
The OVO/W service tree shows multiple subtrees for a virtual SAP instance inside a cluster, even though the new "Host- Mapping" feature is used to virtualize the cluster instance. A subtree is shown for each physical node of the cluster.
In the current release, there is no solution to this problem.
No statistical records are provided by the SPI for SAP performance monitors.
You need to ensure that you have written the r3perfstat.cfg
settings into the SAP System after adding all login information
into the r3itosap.cfg file. To write the new configuration you
have saved in the r3itosap.cfg file to the SAP System, select
the appropriate SAP system in the navigation pane and launch
the ".Write STAT Rec Config" tool, which you can find in the
"SAP R/3 Admin" tools group.
When r3sd runs on a machine hosting both a Central Instance
and an Application Server, both of which belong to the same
SID, it displays the service-discovery information twice.
On the managed node where the problem occurs, use the environment variable SAPOPC_SAPPROFILEDIR to define the list of profile directories. Make sure that you include only one instance of the profile directory, for example; either the local path (including the drive letter) or the UNC notation.
If the service-discovery tool, r3sd, is running under the
system account and the SAP installation directory is
specified in UNC syntax, for example; "\\server...", SAP
instances are not discovered for managed nodes running MS
Windows, and the R3-Info tool completes its run but does not
produce any output.
Either specify a local path to the SAP installation using the environment variable SAPOPC_SAPPROFILEDIR (only possible on SAP central instances), or configure the OVO agent to run under a different user account to enable it to access network paths using the UNC notation.
Information entered in the "Host-Mapping" section of the file
r3itosap.cfg is deleted from the file after deployment to
managed nodes. In addition, messages from the virtual hostname
specified in the "Host-Mapping" section of the r3itosap.cfg
file appear in the OVO for Windows Console as if they have come
from the physical node in the cluster.
OVO for Windows patches are required for the following two components: the OVO agent and the ConfigFile policy type. At the time of writing, the patch status is as follows:
| Agent Platform | Patch Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
| AIX | OVOW_00127 | Planned |
| HP-UX 11 (PA-RISC) | OVOW_00118 | Released |
| MS Windows | OVOW_00056 | Released |
| Solaris | OVOW_00128 | Planned |
None of the r3moncol Alert-collectors monitors and neither
r3monxmi nor r3monal (if the XAL interface is enabled) is
able to log on to SAP when using the SAP user ITOUSER with
the user role /HPOV/SAPSPI_MONITORING.
A changed SPI for SAP transport file with a fixed user role is available from HP support.
In the mean time, you should either assign the role "SAP_BC_BASIS_ADMIN" to the user ITOUSER, or, alternatively, use the transaction /su02 to generate the profile "ZSPIRFC" and assign the following objects to it:
After you activate the new profile, assign it to the SPI for SAP user ITOUSER. Note that this assignment is in addition to the S_XMI_ALL profile for the Syslog monitor.
The TemSe monitor calls a non-existant function module which causes a runtime error and creates an ABAP dump inside the SAP System.
A changed SPI for SAP transport file with a modified TemSe Monitor is available from HP support.
The SPI for SAP’s CCMS monitor, r3monal, does not send any messages to the message browser when tracing is disabled. Instead, the following message arrives after the monitor starts indicating that the monitor failed:
Script for monitor 'r3monal' failed. Error message: 'sh: 9107 Memory fault(coredump)'
Modified r3monal binaries are available from HP support.
In the mean time, you should enable tracing for the r3monal
monitor by including the following entry in the r3monal
monitor-configuration file:
TraceLevel =ALL =1
You will have to distribute the changes to the SAP servers and make sure that you update any local configurations, too. Note that the contents of the trace file are overwritten each time the monitor runs.
Use the "Save as Template" option to ensure that all future copies of the modified policy include the new information, and make sure you "update to latest" any configuration-file policies you created, which are based on the modified policy.
When using r3itocus to configure the r3itosap.cfg file on
an OVO Management Server running on Sun Solaris, a routine
is started to encrypt the SAP user passwords in the
r3itosap.cfg file. The encryption process uses the program
r3ovodec and fails with SIGSEGV.
A modified r3ovodec binary for Sun Solaris is available from HP support.
This section provides information about patches and fixes that have been produced to address problems with current or previous versions of the SPI for SAP software.
There are no patches for the B.08.70 - Edition 2 release of the Smart Plug-in for SAP.
This section lists errors or omissions in the current SPI for SAP product documentation, which could not be corrected before this release
SPI for SAP On-line Help -> r3monpro: The Process Monitor -> Example Configuraton
The text which describes the given example refers to a Message Group "State": the name of the Message Group in the example itself is "R3_State".
The correct name of the Message Group is "R3_State".
SPI for SAP On-line Help -> The SPI for SAP Performance Monitors -> Upgrading the SAP/Performance Agent
Step 3 makes reference to "The HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Installation Guide". This book is only available with the SPI for SAP for HP OVO for UN*X: it is not available with the SPI for SAP for HP OVO for Windows.
The correct book title is "The HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide".
SPI for SAP On-line Help -> The SPI for SAP Performance Monitors -> Upgrading the SAP/Performance Agent -> Migrating the SAP/Performance Agent with the OpenView Performance Agent
Step 4 refers to "The HP OpenView ServiceNavigator Concepts and Configuration Guide". This book is only available with the HP OVO for UN*X.
The correct book title is The HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide, Page 52: "To Import the Transport Files via the Command Line"
The Note on page 53 says that SAP transport numbers for the SPI for SAP are available in two locations; firstly, in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Software README and, secondly, in a file on the OVO Management Server after installation of the SPI for SAP.
The transport numbers for the SPI for SAP are not listed in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Software README: you can find transport numbers for the SPI for SAP only in the following file after installation of the SPI for SAP software:
%OvInstallDir%\Packages\SAPTransports\readme
SPI for SAP Online Help > SPI for SAP Alert-Collector Monitors > Monitoring the TEMSE File
The information provided does not make clear that the name of the report depends on the installed version of SAP, which you want to monitor.
To run the TemSe monitor, you need to set up a job in SAP R/3 with a report whose name and path depends on the version of SAP you want to monitor, namely;
HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide, Page 57: "Setting Up an SAP User for OVO for Windows"
Step 3: User Roles refers to the authorization SAP_ALL_DISPLAY (4.6C and higher). There is also a typo in the user role: /HPOV/_SAPSPI_MONITORING. the
The user role SAP_ALL_DISPLAY is no longer required and should not be used in this step. The underscore "_" in the user role /HPOV/_SAPSPI_MONITORING is not required. The correct spelling is: /HPOV/SAPSPI_MONITORING
HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide, Page 44: "Installing the SPI for SAP software"
The method described to remove the software using the standard MS Windows tool Add/Remove Programs does not work.
Use the steps described in Installation Notes and Installed Files.
HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide, Page 151: "Removing the SPI for SAP from the OVO for Windows Management Server"
For some versions of OVO for Windows, the software-removal functionality provided with the standard MS Windows tool Add/Remove Programs is not activated.
Use the OV Common installer tool (Install Shield Wizard"), which you use to install the SPI for SAP. When you have completed this step, you can continue with steps 2-5 of the procedure described in "Removing the SPI for SAP from the OVO for Windows Management Server" on page 151 of the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
For information about the platforms, operating systems, and product versions which the Smart Plug-in for SAP supports, see the "Installation Requirements" section in the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for SAP Configuration Guide.
In addition to the English-language version of the SPI for SAP, version B.08.70 - Edition 2 of the SPI for SAP will also be available for the following environments within 90 days of the release date for the English-version:
The Japanese-language version B.08.70 - Edition 2 of the SPI for SAP provides the following localized elements:
Japanese versions of the SPI for SAP documents are available in the following location on the OVO for Windows Management Server after installation of the software bits:
%OvInstallDir%\NLS\1041\Manuals\SAP_*.pdf
To activate the Japanese environment, perform the following steps during the installation process:
%ProgramFiles%\HP OpenView\Packages\SAPTransports\readme
Go to the HP OpenView eCare web site to access interactive technical support tools. The same information and tools used by HP OpenView phone support experts are now available at:
http://support.openview.hp.com
To view the status of customer requests:
http://openview.hp.com/sso/ecare/keyword
OR
To view archived release notes and other documentation:
The product manuals search window opens. It is located at:
http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv/
NOTE: To view files in PDF format (*.pdf), Adobe Acrobat Reader must be installed on your system. To download Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to the following URL:
http://www.adobe.com
All other product names are the property of their respective trademark or service mark holders and are hereby acknowledged.