Enhancements

General

Components Without Updates

There are components included in this release that were not updated. The following components report a version where they were last changed:

  • SDK Manager - version 22.8.0

  • C++ SDK legacy - version 21.7.4-283
  • C++ SDK latest - version 22.7.2-515 

Components With Different Versions

There are AppDynamics components included in this release where the version does not match with the ABAP Agent components version. The following components report a version that is used in this release:

  • C++ SDK legacy - version 21.7.4-283
  • C++ SDK latest - version 22.7.2-515 

New HTTP SDK Compatibility Version

Due to recent C++ SDK changes in the oldest supported GLIBC and windows C++ runtime library versions, ABAP Agent now ships with two types of HTTP SDK:

  • HTTP SDK latest - includes the newest C++ SDK version and contains all features. Requires GLIBC version 2.17 or newer (on Linux) or Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2019 or newer (on Windows).
  • HTTP SDK legacy - includes the last C++ SDK version (21.7.4-283) that was compatible with older C++ runtime versions. Does not support call graphs and any features that were added to C++ SDK after the 21.7.4 release (for example, analytics segment limits override parameters, etc.).

If the C++ libraries on supported SAP application servers cannot be upgraded, HTTP SDK can be installed on a remote Linux gateway system with a sufficient GLIBC version as a workaround. See Installing HTTP SDK Manually.

Please refer to individual readme.txt files for more details.

ABAP Agent

SAP-253 (ASM-805): Remove ReuseLibrary Dependencies from ABAP Agent

As of this release, ABAP Agent is completely independent from SNP ReuseLibrary components. SNP CrystalBridge® Monitoring still has some dependencies, but because of development done in SAP-212, deployment of the latest ABAP Agent versions will be much more flexible on systems where customers already use different software bundles published by SNP or Datavard that rely on SNP ReuseLibrary or SNP CrystalBridge® Monitoring.

SAP-254 (ASM-1079): Measure Ping Times of all Connection Checks

The status check screen accessed via SAP t-code /DVD/APPD_STATUS now displays ping times in the form of green / yellow / red / error icons. Hover over the icon to see the actual ping time. When Debug Mode is active, the icon and ping time are shown directly.

Red ping times can indicate network or target server (i.e. controller, event service, remote HTTP SDK, etc.) issues that can be responsible for general agent performance degradation. This measurement can help with root cause analysis and aim customer teams at the correct infrastructure component affected by network related performance degradation.  

SAP-256 (ASM-788): Support Analytics Strings Longer Than 255 Characters

SAP data reported to custom analytics schema string fields were previously limited to 255 characters. This limit has been increased to 1024 characters per string field.

SAP-259 (ASM-1057): Match Business Transactions Based on HTTP Request Payload

HTTP match rule logic was extended with the option to match or instrument HTTP requests based on their payload content. The logic currently supports XML and JSON based content types. You can either check for a specific element's existence or its value by defining the case-sensitive name of the XML or JSON element. The value extractor supports XPath syntax for XML payloads and XPath-like syntax for JSON payloads (specify the sequence of nested elements divided by '/' to target a specific nested element).

The current payload value extractor is currently implemented in business transaction match logic and not in business transaction splitting logic. This means that it is possible to group a specific subset of HTTP requests into a specific business transaction based on their payload, but it is not yet possible to derive the business transaction name from a payload element value.

SAP-260 (ASM-1071): OpenSSL Library Updated to Latest Release

Due to recent critical vulnerabilities detected in OpenSSL, bundled OpenSSL version 1.1.1 libraries used by remote HTTP SDK were updated to the latest version 1.1.1s.

SAP-262 (ASM-1056): Proactive HTTP SDK Restart Automation

Previously it was necessary to use Automation and Reporting and manually schedule a specific job to automate restarting of locally installed HTTP SDK instances. As of this release, the process is now fully automated and the job gets scheduled during the activation of AppDynamics integration via SAP t-code /DVD/APPD_CUST.

The restart program is streamlined and optimized to only restart HTTP SDK instances on servers that were restarted, instead of attempting to restart HTTP SDK instances on all servers of the SAP system. 

Remote HTTP SDK

This job is not relevant when remote HTTP SDK is used as it is usually unaffected by SAP server restarts. 

Monitoring

SAP-264 (ASM-1055): HANA Save Point Critical Phase Metrics Details

The existing Collector for HANA Save Point performance monitoring now collects details about the save point critical phase into a new detail table /DVD/MON_HDB_S_SP_CRIT. The new detail table is not part of AppDynamics out-of-box content and needs to be mapped to application events or custom analytics schema manually via SAP t-code /DVD/APPD_CC. See Monitoring Connector Mapping.

SAP-265 (ASM-1040, ASM-1097): Report Name and Report Type in BW Query Collector

The existing Collector for BW Query Runtimes monitoring is enhanced to collect report name, report type, and longer WHERE_CLAUSE strings.

  • Report names are automatically extracted from preexisting SAP database table fields.
  • Report types are derived from user-defined mappings. A new input table allows users to define mapping rules to map queries to report types. If the input table is empty, no report type is reported.
  • The WHERE_CLAUSE field is adjusted to store strings up to 1024 characters.

SAP-269 (ASM-960): Monitoring of Disk or Folder Space Utilization

A new Collector for Disk Folder Space Utilization monitoring is added. This collector is not part of AppDynamics out-of-box content yet, because it relies on custom KPI definitions. In order to use this collector, define a custom KPI using this example and then map the custom KPI to custom metrics using Monitoring Connector Mapping.

Resolved Issues and Improvements

ABAP Agent

  • ASM-998: Analytics adapters now correctly resolve INT8 ABAP fields to Int type instead of string type schema fields.
  • ASM-1044: Metric formulas are adjusted in several dashboards to render more reliable values in case metric reporting fails.
  • ASM-1046: Connection checks for remotely monitored systems now work consistently for all scenarios.
  • ASM-1058: Proactive SQL trace setting is now automatically hidden if the system uses HANA DB as the feature is replaced by HANA expensive statements.
  • ASM-1060: ABAP Agent no longer truncates longer business transaction data collector values due to URL encoding.
  • ASM-1061: HANA expensive statements used in Top 5 SQL statements functionality now correctly resolve variables also for AGGREGATED_EXECUTION operations.
  • ASM-1065: ABAP trace used to construct call graphs for GUI transaction business transactions no longer gets deleted before the completion of a very long-running SAPGUI action. The auto clean-up period is increased from 5 minutes to 1 hour.
  • ASM-1066: GUI transaction data collectors do not get initialized twice when both GUI and BTC match rule types are defined. Each area now initializes its own data collector instances only once.
  • ASM-1091: A warning message is now displayed when a user attempts to automatically generate match rules in a productive SAP system as this feature is not intended for production environments.
  • ASM-1093: A harmonized ABAP Agent job log file is now collected by log download functionality. The file contains detailed info about all scheduled and executed jobs that belong to ABAP Agent.
  • ASM-1094: Missing PSE certificate or invalid STRUCT client identity no longer generates a runtime error when SAP t-code /DVD/APPD_STATUS is accessed on newer SAP releases.
  • ASM-1109: ABAP Agent now accepts incomplete ST05 SQL traces when processing Top 5 SQL statements.
  • ASM-1110: Directory traversal prevention check no longer issues incorrect error messages when the HTTP SDK installation path ends with '/' or '\' character.

Monitoring

  • ASM-1047: The documentation page for authorization roles is updated with info about custom authorization roles - link.
  • ASM-1053: New page with instructions on how to suppress HANA expensive statements for specific users - link.
  • ASM-1002, ASM-1090: An issue with line wrapping in the SQL wizard is resolved.
  • ASM-1008: SQL wizard now replaces placeholders with dummy values for the 'Test SQL' button to work correctly.
  • ASM-1034: SQL statement validation logic is extended.
  • ASM-1070: The wizard now sets the harmonized schema group name correctly when using AppDynamics integration functionality.
  • ASM-1098: Database table column names longer than 30 characters are now automatically shortened in order to be processable by ABAP code.  
  • ASM-886: SAP BOBJ system definition screen is enhanced to make it more user-friendly - link.
  • ASM-887: Extended logging is added to the JMX connector for SAP BO monitoring - link.
  • ASM-1036: Two null instance access bugs are resolved in the JMX connector for SAP BO monitoring.
  • ASM-897: Monitoring of HANA stand-by nodes no longer generates false error messages.
  • ASM-1011: HANA memory usage collector is extended with new KPIs and detail table - link.
  • ASM-1026: The IP address of the remote HANA (and Oracle) database is resolved when adding the remote system (database) definition for monitoring - link, link.
  • ASM-1039: HANA table size collector is extended with new thresholds, parameters, and a new detail table - link.
  • ASM-1051: HANA DB-specific metrics are no longer reported under application servers that are also marked as DB servers.
  • ASM-1062: Descriptions of several HANA KPIs are updated.

Other Areas

  • ASM-956, ASM-1063: Repeated messages issued by monitoring collectors can now be aggregated or suppressed - link, link.
  • ASM-1005: Logic in STAD monitoring collectors is adjusted so that only one of the two collectors needs to be executed by APD monitoring jobs - link.
  • ASM-1023: Application servers are automatically excluded from the scope of monitoring while in the passive state. The servers are automatically monitored when switched to active state - link, link. 
  • ASM-1033: Resolved issue in upgrade checks that lead to deletion of 2 enqueue service v1 monitoring KPI.
  • ASM-1049: Number range collectors no longer fail due to the conversion overflow issue in speed calculation logic.
  • ASM-1054: Right-click menu of the system tree under monitoring cockpit now allows to stop / start all monitoring jobs at once - link.

JCo Extension

  • ASM-1107: Webservice exit call handler now handles dynamic object casting scenarios correctly.