Aggregation Framework

As of SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP02 the new Aggregation Framework for system- and self-monitoring metrics of the Monitoring & Alerting Infrastructure (MAI) is available. It replaces the old framework which is available in System Analysis Aggregation.

The Aggregation Framework offers you the following benefits:

  • You can store hourly aggregated metric values of System and Self-Monitoring for a period that exceeds the default value of 28 days.
  • You can define which metrics on which objects shall be aggregated in a very fine granularity.
  • It improves the performance for dashboard and monitoring UIs displaying aggregated data, especially when displaying longer time frames (like daily or weekly aggregates over a longer period).
  • It extracts aggregated data using the OCC Dashboard interface in a performant way.

As of SAP Focused Run 4.0 SP00 the following new features are available:

  • There are now 4 aggregation levels available (namely 5 minutes, 15 minutes, hourly, daily). Previously there was only the hourly level available. The 5- and 15-minutes options were introduced to keep the data on finer granularity and to overcome the issue of supporting the time zones with a shift in regards of UTC time (e.g., Indian time zone which has a shift of 30 minutes). The daily option is there for data which is supposed to be preserved for a long time.
  • Instead of 3 retention levels there are 5 retention levels available now, the new ones are “Very short” (default & maximum value 1 month) and “Very Long” (default & maximum value 75 month). Please note that there is still a limitation there for daily aggregates. The data is only aggregated but not yet read with SAP Focused Run 4.0 SP00. As of SAP Focused Run 4.0 FP01 it is planned to read the data also from the aggregated store, so that the data becomes visible in the application using the aggregation framework.
  • On the UI, there is some overview information available showing the total amount of the data on the respective aggregation levels. Furthermore, log messages for the aggregation job can be seen there.
  • On the view containing the aggregation variants, there is now an option available also to forecast the next aggregation run considering all variants. Previously, this was only possible for one variant level, but there was no general overview.
  • There is a view of the aggregated data available in the application which can for example be used to extract the data in an easy way to Excel. 

Within SAP Focused Run the new Aggregation Framework is used in the following apps:

Configuration

The prerequisite for configuring the Aggregation Framework is that the user has the role SAP_FRN_AAD_MOAL_REP_ALL (see New, Changed, and Obsolete Roles with SAP Focused Run 3.0 SP02).

Before starting the configuration, make sure that all MAI jobs are scheduled with default variant. To do so, execute transaction MAI_TOOLS, activate the expert mode, and in tab Administration, click Schedule all MAI jobs with default variant.

The configuration of the Aggregation Framework is done within app System Monitoring - Individual Maintenance and Assignment in the page Aggregation Framework (last page in the navigation bar on the left-hand side). 

 

It uses a variant concept. In each variant, you make the following settings:

  • Name and description of the variant.
  • How long the metric values shall be stored in hourly resolution (Retention Time). You can use the values maintained in the table below. To set the length of these times in months, select Retention Time Configuration; the default values are as follows:

Retention TimeDefault period in months Max. period in months
Very short* 11
Short324
Medium1224
Long2424
Very long*7575

* Available as of SAP Focused Run 4.0 SP00
  • The systems for which the metric values should be aggregated. You can specify the systems by name or via corresponding filter settings (e.g. all productive systems with lifecycle status Active).
  • The metrics that should be aggregated. As for systems you can specify the metrics by name or via corresponding filter settings (e.g. all availability metrics).
  • In the last step you can create a forecast showing which metrics on which objects are being collected via the variant.

 

The variant is immediately active after saving it. The aggregation is performed with a delay of 1-2 hours (e.g., when the aggregation job runs at 10.30 data from 8.00 to 9.00 of the same day will be aggregated).

For more information, see the in-app help of the Aggregation Framework.

Self-Monitoring and Self-Healing

In the Central Components of the Self-Monitoring Dashboard, two metrics are monitoring the status of the Aggregation Framework (the self-monitoring metrics are collected by job SAP_MAI_AGGR_SFM):

  • The Aggregation Status checks if the hourly aggregation is performed without any errors (job SAP_MAI_UDM_AGGR_HOURLY).
  • The Partitioning Status checks if the daily partitioning of table MAI_UDM_HOURLY is executed without any issue (job SAP_MAI_UDM_AGGR_PARTITIONING).


See the description of the metric if the rating is red. In case the aggregation fails, the next job run will perform the aggregation for missing time slots as well.

Migration from System Analysis – Configuration

The following information is only relevant for you if you have used the app System Analysis – Configuration for retention time of metrics used by OCC Dashboard and System Analysis.

Note that there is currently no migration of configuration or aggregated metric data from the System Analysisframework to the new Aggregation Framework. Therefore, configure the variants for the new framework so that no less data is aggregated than before. Use the forecast option for a review when creating the variants to find out which metrics on which objects are being collected via the variant.

System Analysis and OCC Dashboard have a logic implemented to load the data from the correct source: all data which is older than the activation of the Aggregation Framework is coming from the System Analysisframework, and all data which is newer is coming from the Aggregation Framework.

After activating the Aggregation Framework, deactivate the System Analysisframework manually. This is done by deactivating all variants in the app System Analysis – Configuration.

Known Limitations

For SAP Focused Run 3.0 FP02-FP03

The granularity for the aggregation is always on hourly level, there are no other options here. The maximum retention time in the Aggregation Framework is 24 months.

The aggregation is always done in UTC time. Since the granularity is always hourly, time zones with minute shifts compared to UTC are not supported. This is the case, for example, for the Indian time zone., which has a shift of 30 minutes. As a user in that time zone, you can use the aggregated data the applications, but single values are slightly incorrect. This is particularly relevant when displaying hourly aggregates. When displaying daily or weekly aggregates, the problem becomes significant less important. If data is required in such a time zone within a scope where raw data is available, this data will be used. That means correctness of the data is more important than performance. Therefore, the issue occurs only for data that is older than 28 days.

For SAP Focused Run 4.0 SP00

Regarding daily aggregation, it is only supported to define one time zone which is globally used for all variants, and which cannot be changed later. Furthermore, there is no support for daylight saving time. For example, if you choose German time, the data will always be aggregated in German wintertime.

As described already above, the read access to daily aggregates is not yet possible. But nevertheless, it might already make sense to define variants on the daily aggregation to use the data (much) later as this data can be stored up to 75 months.