Creating Unspecific Cluster System

If you want to set up technical monitoring or business process monitoring for a non-SAP system, you need to create the technical system in Landscape Management Database (LMDB) first. If your 3rd party system has an SLD data supplier, it is rather easy, as the technical system can be registered in SLD automatically via the corresponding data supplier and from there its landscape information will be promoted to LMDB. In most cases, your 3rd party system does not support SLD data suppliers. In this case, you have to create the system manually in LMDB to be able to activate the monitoring, e.g. generic Http Ping or custom metrics from Wily Introscope. If you want to use the non-SAP system for business process monitoring, some additional steps have to be performed. This page describes how to create non-SAP systems in LMDB and make them usable for Technical Monitoring. The actual setup of the non-SAP monitoring is described in other guides depending on the metrics and the scenario you want to apply.

Prerequisites

To be able to perform monitoring, it is necessary to install a Diagnostics Agent and SAP Host Agent on the host of the 3rd party system.

Please refer to Diagnostics Agent installation guide under https://support.sap.com/sltoolset → System Provisioning → Installation Option of Software Provisioning Manager → Installation Guides – Standalone Engines and Clients → Diagnostics Agent  → download the guide that matches your operating system. SAP Host Agent is usually installed automatically together with the Diagnostics Agent.

Required Steps

Run transaction LMDB, switch to the tab Technical Systems and select “Unspecific Cluster System” from the drop-down field. Enter the SID and click the button Create to generate the 3rd party system in LMDB.

 

A wizard opens that helps you to create the technical system. Make sure the system type is correct and click Next.

In the step 2, enter the name for your system and select the technology type. If none of the mentioned technology types fits, select “Others”. You don't need to fill in the hostname here. It will not be considered in the system context anyway.

Usually, non-SAP products of unspecific technical systems are not available in the SAP CR content and there are no diagnostics-relevant registered product instances. Thus, it is also necessary to maintain the product instance information, which can either be manually maintained under menu Software -> tab Product instance in the LMDB screen of the corresponding system later or by setting the flag Add Standard Product Instance in this step. Once the flag is set, the product instance Standard Custom Instance of the product version Solution Manager Standard Custom Product 1.0 is marked as installed on the technical system and the product instance is marked as diagnostics-relevant. Afterwards, click Next to go to step 3 - Define Extended SID.

 

In the step 3, check your entries and specify the Extended SID. If the Extended SID is already given in the very beginning, please review the information and click Next to proceed.

In the step 4 - Confirmation, verify the entered system information and press the button Save to persist the changes. As a consequence, the system with the given Extended SID will be stored in LMDB. Subsequently, a new wizard will show up, which takes you through the further definition of the system.

At first you have to enter the installation path for the 3rd party system. This is necessary to successfully perform the managed system setup later.

After specifying the installation path, click Next to jump to the next input screen (Do not use the navigation tree at the left side).

 

Since the Add Standard Product Instance flag was set before, there is currently nothing to maintain under the menu Software.

In the next step, if your 3rd party system has an underlying database you can maintain it here. But this is not a mandatory entry.

Click Next to move to the menu Technical Instance. Press the button Add to enter the instance information. Here you also have to add the 3rd party host. However, if you have already installed Diagnostics Agent and SAP Host Agent, the host information should be reported to SLD and LMDB automatically.

Do not forget to enter the installation path of the instance. This is also necessary for successfully performing the Managed System Configuration later on.

Click the button Next to proceed to the menu Host. Here you see all the hosts utilized by the system and you can enter detailed information for each host such as FQDN and IP address. Nevertheless, since the host information can be discovered and supplied by Diagnostics Agent and SAP Host Agent automatically, it is not mandatory to maintain it manually.

 

Now the 3rd party system information is well maintained in LMDB. In order to enable technical monitoring, it is also required to run Managed System Configuration for the 3rd party system under transaction SOLMAN_SETUP → Managed System Configuration. Please refer to the Managed System Configuration guide for details.

Custom Parameters

One of the main foundations to the template concept with SAP Solution Manager is the use of parameters that can be filled with  managed object specific values during the template activation. This way you can use the same template for several managed objects which increases transparency and decreases maintenance effort. For standard managed object types, several parameters are available during monitoring activation. So you don't have to worry about different system numbers or ports for your ABAP instances, because these are  available as parameters and will be set to the correct value during monitoring activation. For unspecific cluster systems it is difficult to  deliver  a  standard  set  of  parameters,  because  they  are  too  various. With SAP Solution Manager 7.1 SP12 we addressed this issue by introducing custom parameters for unspecific cluster systems. This section describes how to create these parameters and how to use them in an unspecific cluster system.

Create Custom Technology Type

Create Technology Type

The first step is to create a custom technology type. A technology type describes the architecture of an unspecific cluster system. Depending on the technology type parameter on system and instance level are available.

Call transaction SM30 and display the view V_LMDB_FIXVALMAP.

In this view you have to add two entries. SAP_UNSPECIFICCLUSTERSYSTEM is for the system level of the 3rd party system and SAP_UNSPECIFICAPPLICATIONSYSTEM is for the instance level.

Add two new entries:

 

Save your entries.

Assign parameters

In the next step we create the parameters we need for the non-SAP system and assign them to our technology type.

Go to transaction SM34 and display the view cluster VC_LMDB_ADD_ATTR.

Now you have to create the attribute you need. For each attribute you have to decide on which managed object type it is usable. For an unspecific cluster system only Technical System and Technical Instance make sense.

Create a new entry for each parameter that you need. You can assign one parameter to more than one managed object type. Please note that the attribute key has to start with Z to be in customer namespace.

 

In the example, we created one port for system and one for instance and a host parameter, which can be set on both.

 

Now we have to assign these parameters to the previously created technology type.

Select a parameter from the list and navigate to “Restriction by Tech. Types” by double-clicking it in the tree structure.

 

Add new entries. For the host parameter you have to add “Technical Instance” and “Technical System”.

 

For the ports we only need to add the respective entity (Technical Instance for the instance port and Technical System for the system port).

Create unspecific cluster system

The next step is to create an unspecific cluster system for our technology type and maintain it in LMDB. During the maintenance in LMDB you will also maintain the new parameters. The procedure is as described above.

In step 2, make sure to select the correct Technology Type and flag Add Standard Product Instance.

 

Once the cluster system is created, you can add the custom parameters on the attributes tab in the system overview in the LMDB.

In order to add instances, navigate to the view Technical Instances in the left-hand navigation tree.

In case you have installed a Diagnostics Agent for the host and the host is available in LMDB, you can use the Diagnostics Agent installed on the host to ping the instance. To do this, create an instance and use the host it is installed on for the value host during the instance creation. Afterwards maintain the custom instance parameters on the Attributes tab of the instance.