Working with the Alert Monitor

Using the Alert Monitor, you can work in SAP GUI or in the Web UI of the central SAP NetWeaver Administrator. In this section, we describe the user interface in the SAP GUI; the Web UI is self-explanatory. In the SAP GUI, you can call the Alert Monitor as follows:

1. TOOLS • CCMS • CONTROL/MONITORING • CCMS MONITOR COLLECTIONS (Transaction RZ20). The system displays the CCMS monitor collections.

2. Display the ENTIRE SYSTEM monitor of the monitor collection SAP CCMS MONITOR TEMPLATES by positioning the cursor on it and selecting START MONITOR. The monitor displays the tree in the presentation last used. The monitoring tree is a hierarchical display of the monitor objects (system components) and monitor attributes (information on types of object) in the system. The ENTIRE SYSTEM monitoring tree displays all objects and attributes presented in the expert view and objects from other views for which there are alerts. Expand the tree if the entire hierarchy is not displayed. Move the cursor in the ENTIRE SYSTEM row and select EDIT • TREE • EXPAND TREE • EXPAND SUB-TREE.

Alert propagation

Check the current status of your SAP components by displaying the current system status in your monitor. From the list of buttons, select CURRENT STATUS. (If the button does not appear in the list, this view is already displayed.) In the CURRENT STATUS view, you can see the latest performance values and status information reported to the SAP Alert Monitor. Older alerts that are still open (meaning they have not been dealt with) are not displayed in color. To view a legend of the colors and symbols used in the
SAP Alert Monitor, select EXTRAS • LEGEND. The Alert Monitor gives the highest alert [eve! in the monitoring tree. For example, if the monitoring object with the name of your SAP component is green, all components in the monitoring tree of the SAP component have green status. The SAP Alert Monitor thus has not found any problems in this component.

Refreshing display

You can set the display to refresh automatically. To do so, select EXTRAS • DISPLAY OPTIONS and then select the GENERAL tab. Within REFRESH DISPLAY, select the option YES, INTERVAL, and enter a refresh interval. The suggested value is 120 seconds or longer. If automatic refresh is not activated, the Alert Monitor displays the data that was available when the monitor was started.

Current status and open alerts

In the OPEN ALERTS view, check to see what has happened in the system recently. The color code in this view does not tell you the current status of the system; it tells which alerts are open. Open alerts are those that have not yet been analyzed. At the beginning of your workday or after lunch, you can check the OPEN ALERTS view to see what has happened in the system in your absence. The monitor records the alerts for you, even if the circumstances that triggered the alert have since improved.

Reacting to an alert

If you see yellow or red entries in the monitoring tree, there is a warning (yellow) or an error (red). First, ensure that you are in the OPEN ALERTS view. The monitor then displays how many alerts there are for each monitoring object. It also displays the most important waiting alert messages. Place the cursor over a yellow or red monitoring tree element and select DISPLAY ALERTS. The system opens the alert browser and displays the open alerts for the corresponding monitoring object. The alert browser

shows all alerts in the branch of the tree you have marked. Move the cursor farther up the monitoring tree to display a larger range of alerts. If you position the cursor on a monitoring object on the lowest level.only alerts on this monitoring object are displayed.

Methods of analysis

Each row in the alert browser gives overview information on an alert, including the message. The browser offers two further sources of information. To begin, select an alert, and then:
1. Double-click a monitoring object to start the corresponding analysis method. The analysis methods are expert tools for performance analysis (discussed in detail in other chapters).
2. Select DISPLAY DETAILS to view details of the monitoring tree element. These include the most recent values or status reports, the alert threshold values, and performance data for the latest control period (only for performance monitoring tree elements). You can represent performance data graphically by marking the corresponding row and selecting DISPLAY PERFORMANCE VALUES GRAPHICALLY.

Dealing with alerts

When you have analyzed and resolved the problem or ensured that it can safely be ignored, set the Alert to "complete." Mark the alert and select COMPLETE ALERT. The Alert Monitor deletes it from the list of open alerts.