Solution extensions are software offerings that form part of the application life cycle management (ALM) solution sold and supported by SAP. Solution extensions are designed to rapidly and independently deploy and also provide a fast ROI and a low overall TCO. SAP identified CA Wily Introscope (simply referred to as Wily in this article) as a key solution extension for IT optimization. You can use Wily as part of an industry best practice offering to address your key pain points in an expedited manner, resulting in cost savings and a positive ROI.

I will provide a guide to help you accelerate the benefits of Wily in an SAP NetWeaver landscape using SAP Solution Manager. Basis administrators, capacity planners, and ABAP programmers can use this quick guide to decrease support costs by reducing:

• Application performance delays
• Unplanned downtime
• Application-associated help desk calls
• The mean time-to-resolution for application errors

What Is CA Wily Introscope?

Most SAP NetWeaver landscapes are complex and made up of several individual components. Wily, a product by CA Technologies, is part of their enterprise application performance management (APM) solution that allows you to monitor the complexities of this landscape by providing detailed information about the health and availability of the extended landscape at a glance.

Monitoring an SAP extended landscape is complex because of the mixture of technologies involved coupled with a layered architecture of application servers, back-end systems, Web servers, and third-party non-SAP applications (Figure 1). The CA Technologies APM solution is a collection of technologies centered around Wily, which provides end-to-end transaction visibility and diagnostic capabilities across your landscape — without affecting performance.

Figure 1

Wily technology across a complex technology stack

Wily is part of your standard SAP support license, so you have already paid for the Right to View (RTV) version. SAP Active Global Support uses your local Wily when it delivers remote safeguarding services such as go-live checks and technical integration checks. SAP front-line support staff often asks for remote access to your Wily or requests Wily logs and reports to speed up problem resolution when SAP users report an issue on the SAP Service Marketplace.

In addition, Wily gives your support staff the best chance of solving a problem locally without any delays waiting for problem resolution via the SAP Service Marketplace. Wily also gives support staff reaction time before a system slowdown or failure. This reaction time gives the staff a chance to repair a problem and avoid the frustration of dissatisfied users and management staff. Wily can also analyze performance trends, isolate bottlenecks, and obtain information that helps you make architectural improvements to your SAP NetWeaver landscape.

The prevention of system failure and fast problem resolution you get by using Wily can potentially save you thousands of dollars in unprocessed orders and legal procedures. You can use Wily to create a performance baseline for local developments, thereby improving the quality of unit testing and reducing the incidence of poorly performing Z code in production.

The Wily Landscape

Figure 2 illustrates a typical Wily architecture.

Figure 2

Typical Wily architecture

The Wily agents collect performance data from the managed (i.e., satellite) systems and report metrics to the Wily Enterprise Manager (EM). The EM is the engine that:

• Processes the metrics received from SAP Solution Manager agents
• Saves Wily data to the SmartStor external database store for future analysis
• Generates alerts and actions for notifications based on specified thresholds (SAP Enhanced Diagnostics is required for this)
• Presents SmartStor data to the workstation in the form of dashboards, investigator, reports, and traces

In a large SAP NetWeaver landscape, Wily supports a clustered EM architecture to improve performance and provide a highly available infrastructure for application monitoring. This is achieved by installing several EM instances and assigning the role of Manager of Managers (MoM) in EM. There is no additional license cost for a Wily MoM deployment. (A detailed explanation of establishing an MoM setup is beyond the scope of this article.) Another EM scaling option is to install several isolated EMs, a viable option for distributed locations.

All historical application data is stored in the SmartStor database. This data is periodically aged to prevent excessive overhead. To conserve disk space, SmartStor stores data in three tiers at different levels of aggregation depending on the age of the data:

• Tier 1 is the youngest data, traditionally used for incident analysis and problem diagnostics
• Tier 2 is configured for lower access frequency, traditionally used for reporting purposes
• Tier 3 is configured for lowest access frequency, traditionally used for capacity planning purposes 

Get Started with Wily

The first step for using Wily is to install an EM and activate the appropriate SAP reporting agents. This process is covered in “A Guide to End-to-End Root Cause Analysis” by Labinot Bytyqi.

Once the EM is installed, download the Wily user interface from the SAP Service Marketplace at https://service.sap.com/swdc > Download > Support Packages and Patches > Entry by Application Group > SAP Technology Components > SAP SOLUTION MANAGER > SAP SOLUTION MANAGER 7.0 EHP 1 > Entry by Component > Support user Frontend GUIs > WILY INTROSCOPE WORKSTATION 8 (Figure 3).

Figure 3

SAP Service Marketplace software download center

You can initiate the Wily user interface from the SAP Solution Manager Root Cause Analysis work center (Figure 4) or natively by executing the Wily user interface directly from your desktop (shown later in this article under “The Wily User Interface”).

Figure 4

Root Cause Analysis work center

The online status of the EM is shown in the Introscope Starter screen (Figure 5). The green traffic light indicates the EM is functional. Any other color indicates an error or warning with the EM.

Figure 5

Introscope Starter screen

After you install the Wily user interface, log on with the default credentials shown in Table 1 to access the Wily EM.

Table 1

Wily user names and passwords

The Wily User Interface

Wily supports the following user interface accesses to application monitoring data:

• Workstation
• WebStart workstation
• WebView
• Command Line workstation

Workstation

Workstation is the standard means of viewing metrics. It is normally installed on a local hard drive for fast loading time. It provides access to all the available visual Wily features (Figure 6).

Figure 6

The Workstation view

WebStart Workstation

WebStart Workstation is an alternate means of viewing metrics. This is the same program as the workstation, but it is run from a USB key (or something similar) without any installation on local hard drives (Figure 7). This option requires Java Virtual Machine (JVM) version 1.5 or higher and is a useful option for companies with strict desktop security policies. You can also run the Java-based version of the WebStart Workstation client by using the default URL https://emhost:8081/workstation.

Figure 7

WebStart Workstation from a USB device

WebView

WebView is a browser-based means of viewing metrics (Figure 8). It provides read-only access to Wily features, so you cannot use it to edit monitoring logic. The WebView does not fully support the transaction tracer feature of Wily. Note that this access method requires the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. Silverlight enables WebView to display vector shapes, text, and embedded raster graphics. The default URL to initiate the WebView is https://emhost:8081/webview.

Command Line Workstation

You can use the Wily Command Line workstation to administer the Wily EM from the operating system or export SmartStor metrics to CSV or XML format. This non-graphical user interface to Wily is useful for running batch scripts and most maintenance tasks. All Command Line workstation commands are executed from the /usr/sap/ccms/WilyIntroscope/lib directory using the command prompt on the EM server.

I provide a subset of the most commonly used Command Line workstation commands in Table 2. You can find the complete list of commands in the Introscope Workstation Guide.

Table 2

Useful Command Line workstation commands

CA Wily Introscope Features

The main Wily features can be broken down into four main categories:

• Investigator: used to select performance metric details on demand
• Traces: used to perform on-the-fly traces of metrics
• Console or dashboards: used to select logically grouped metrics
• Reports: used to create on-demand reports for selected metrics

Wily Investigator

You use the Wily Investigator to view individual metric data. You can filter metrics, use search criteria, and export data to an external CSV file. The Investigator view is divided into three main panes (Figure 9):

• Investigator tree: provides a tree hierarchy view of domains and metrics
• Viewer pane: provides live or historical data for the selected metric
• Settings pane: provides a logical grouping of metrics to treat as a single element

Figure 9

Investigator main screen with three panes

The Overview tab consists of a combination graph for the node selected, along with a summary of component runtime information, response times, errors, and stalls (Figure 10). Note that a node is a logically related collection of Wily performance metrics. From the SuperDomain node level overview, most selected nodes offer additional tabs.

Figure 10

The Overview tab view

The next tab is the General tab (Figure 11). Select this tab to view the combined line graph of overlayed metrics from the selected node. Use the check boxes in the bottom pane to include or mask data points from your line graph.

Figure 11

The General tab view

Select the Traces tab to see the historical trace data that has accumulated in the SmartStor database (Figure 12). You can use the time slider to change the time focus or zoom in on any desired time period. You can use this display to drill down into the trace or to sort by call time, for example.

Figure 12

The Traces tab view

Select the Errors tab to view all errors that have occurred for the node (Figure 13). Results are presented in a single table. Click a row to jump to the associated stack view showing details about the errors. In this example, the referring URL is the cause of the error.

Figure 13

The Errors tab view

Select the Search tab to search for all metrics matching your input text or regular expressions (Figure 14). Results are presented in a single table. Double-click a row to jump to the appropriate node in the Investigator tree. A single click from the table displays the associated graph in the bottom pane.

Figure 14

The Search tab view

Select the Metric Count tab to see the total number of individual metrics grouped by a branch (Figure 15).

Figure 15

The Metric Count tab view

Wily Transaction Tracer

SAP Solution Manager agents capture several traces per hour (by default, every 15 seconds). You can view these traces using the Historical Viewer in the Investigator or capture a new trace according to your requirements.

To get to the Transaction Tracer View, follow menu path Workstation > New Transaction Trace session or press Ctrl-3. This view allows you to isolate individual problematic transactions and instantly identify which components are causing performance degradation (Figure 16). All monitored transactions are stored in the SmartStor database for future analysis.

Figure 16

The Transaction Tracer view

The Transaction Trace table in Figure 17 allows you to further analyze trace details. By default, the trace starts in the Summary View, which displays the summary information for each component of the selected transaction. By selecting an entry from the trace table, you can sort the table and check the summary view for the most expensive part of the response time. Double-clicking the appropriate record in the Summary View takes you directly to the closest node in the Investigator View.

Figure 17

The Summary View

The Trace View displays each component of a traced transaction in block view (Figure 18). The largest block represents the largest component of a transaction in milliseconds and is displayed at the top of the trace stack. Each component in the block trace forms a graphic commonly referred to as the upside-down cake, with the most expensive part represented by the top layer. As you navigate down the cake, the less expensive layers are revealed.

Figure 18

The Trace View

The Tree View displays a traffic light hierarchical view of the transaction components (Figure 19). Red represents a total duration of greater than 25%, yellow represents a total duration of greater than 10%, and green represents a total duration of less than 10%. The color-coded traffic light representation is designed to lay blame directly on the most expensive part of the traced transaction. In the example in Figure 19, the Adobe EJB process was responsible for more than 30% of the total transaction run time.

Figure 19

Tree View

The Plain Table Viewer displays all parts of a traced transaction (Figure 20). The table in the bottom pane is designed so you can sort or search it using wildcards for further analysis.

Figure 20

Plain Table Viewer

You can see the Historical Query view by pressing Ctrl-Q from the Transaction Tracer view. This screen allows you to create a search query across the SmartStor database (Figure 21). You can use sophisticated wildcards and Boolean logic to combine search terms. Some useful search expressions include (ms), Response, Concurrent Invocations, Errors, and Stall.

Figure 21

Historical Query Viewer

The Wily Dashboards

SAP has created three pages of dashboards for about 30 SAP NetWeaver usage types. By filtering relevant data into individual dashboards, SAP aims to provide a more meaningful collection of related information. Each individual dashboard is made up of Triage, Overview, and Help-Browser screens (Figure 22).

Figure 22

The dashboard view

The Triage dashboard shows the most common metrics for the SAP NetWeaver usage type to be monitored (Figure 23). In this example, SAP considers the Portal Dispatcher Servlet, HTTP Sessions, iView response time, and Portal Request response time to be critical for monitoring the SAP NetWeaver Portal usage type.

Figure 23

The Triage dashboard view

The Overview dashboard shows a set of traffic lights indicating the quality of the metric or application for which the agent is reporting metrics (Figure 24). A red light indicates a problem that needs immediate attention. A yellow light indicates that an attempt to use the application is likely to result in an unsatisfactory outcome. A green light indicates that the application is functioning properly. Finally, a white (or missing) light indicates that no data is available. The Wily Baseliner calculates the heuristics based on the amount of historical data available since the last start of the SAP Solution Manager agent process.

Figure 24

The Overview dashboard

The Help browser shows a context-sensitive set of help screens via your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser (Figure 25). These HTML help screens are installed on the Wily EM server as part of the installation process. I have found various inconsistencies with Internet Explorer version 8 that you can overcome by running it in compatibility mode to set it back to version 7 (see Tools > Compatibility View Settings in Internet Explorer). You can see SAP Note 1435190 (SAP Client plug-in) for further details. I have had no errors with Mozilla Firefox version 3.6.8.

Figure 25

The Wily help browser

Wily Reports

On the basis of what you see in the dashboards, you may wish to generate a Wily report. There are four SAP-supplied report templates for creating performance reports covering the dates and agents of your choice:

• SAP J2EE overview
• SAP OS overview
• Top JDBC statements
• Top iViews and components

To demonstrate typical Wily reporting capabilities, I selected the J2EE overview report as an example of a Wily report showing the most important Java metrics over your selected time frame (Figure 26).

Figure 26

A typical Wily report

You can choose several report formats to save your report in, including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, HTML, RTF, CSV, and text.

The Wily Roadmap

As your organization grows in the ALM space, you may want to upgrade the RTV version of Wily to the SAP Extended Diagnostics application by CA Wily and look into the benefits of business process monitoring across the entire landscape using the Wily Customer Experience Manager (CEM).

The simple Wily landscape shown in Figure 2 can be scaled out and improved to a mission-critical APM deployment. Introducing a Wily CEM appliance and connecting it to the most appropriate network fabric switch provides all the necessary metrics to begin using the CEM console (Figure 27). Over time, the performance of the Wily APM solution becomes critical and you may need to scale out the solution by clustering the Wily EM infrastructure and introducing an MoM-based landscape. This scale-out process can be performed gradually and without disruption to the existing Wily EM deployment.

Figure 27

Wily APM landscape with CEM

SAP Extended Diagnostics for Wily

SAP Extended Diagnostics provides a more comprehensive approach to identifying bottlenecks, eliminating unplanned outages, managing service levels, optimizing resources, and lowering the costs associated with Web applications across both SAP and non-SAP software environments. You can purchase Wily SAP Extended Diagnostics licenses directly from SAP. The list of improvements over Wily RTV are as follows:

• Automated threshold alerting directly from Wily. Alerts can be sent via email or by connection to your service desk of choice.
• Integration of Wily alerts for incident detection and notification to the SAP Solution Manager Service Desk or to third-party service desk offerings
• Enables the creation of personalized Wily dashboards for grouping related metrics and improved reporting
• Metrics customization for multiple audiences (e.g., CIO dashboards and solution provider dashboards)
• Support for tracing and monitoring customized code in SAP. Wily Introscope ProbeBuilder inserts probes into the application Java classes. Probes collect performance data at runtime.
• Extended instrumentation for non-SAP application server platforms via the following managers: Wily Portal Manager for BEA WebLogic, Wily Portal Manager for IBM WebSphere, Microsoft SharePoint, CA SiteMinder, and Wily PowerPacks
• Provides visibility into the performance and availability of Oracle databases
• With ErrorDetector, detects and diagnoses the cause of serious errors (such as 404 Not Found and others) that can prevent end users from completing Web transactions
• Identifies memory leaks in your extended SAP Landscape with CA Wily Introscope LeakHunter
• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) adapter for connections to third-party service desk offerings
• Enables the creation of customer-specific Adobe PDF report templates for capacity management
• Leveraging the language of CA Wily Introscope for other non-SAP, J2EE-based applications
• Role-based user management with Microsoft Active Directory integration and support for user personalization settings
• Lightweight Directory Active Protocol (LDAP) integration enabling the query and modification of directory services over TCP/IP

SAP Extended Diagnostics allows you to combine selected SAP NetWeaver metrics from the Investigator into a single custom dashboard. The dashboard in Figure 28 shows metrics from separate SAP NetWeaver instances on a single dashboard. This is useful when monitoring the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) Accelerator, TREX instance, and the SAP NetWeaver BW system all on a single dashboard. You can refer to SAP Note 1404944 (BWA 7.2: Usage of additional monitoring tools) for tips on incorporating the SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator into Wily.

Figure 28

Typical custom-built SAP Extended Diagnostics dashboard showing SAP metrics

SAP Extended Diagnostics also allows you to combine selected non-SAP metrics from the Investigator onto a single custom dashboard. The dashboard in Figure 29 shows metrics from a BEA WebLogic front-end server combined with the BEA back-end database all on the single dashboard.

Figure 29

Typical custom-built SAP Extended Diagnostics dashboard showing non-SAP metrics

SAP Extended Diagnostics gives you the freedom to create custom dashboards to cover a complete business process from end to end — regardless of how many instances are involved.

Wily CEM

Wily CEM allows the business to understand and respond to the online experience of each end user. CEM monitors individual end user transactions in real time, enabling you to measure service level agreements (SLAs) (Figure 30). It provides a more business-centric approach to dashboards and alerts.

Figure 30

Typical custom-built Wily CEM executive dashboard

CEM monitors real user transactions against transaction SLAs by response time thresholds or error conditions (Figure 31). It captures the user name, the actual transaction response time of the transaction, and the location of the user to gain visibility into the impact of service quality delivery. The key benefit is that you can correlate the context of a user’s transaction into the back-end components within the SAP or non-SAP stack to determine the root cause of an issue.

Figure 31

CEM Incident Management SLA view

Tony de Thomasis

Tony de Thomasis has been working with SAP software since 1986. He installed the first SAP R/2 system in Australia for Mobil Oil in 1989. Tony has several years of Basis experience with large companies including National Australia Bank, Telstra, Coles Myer, BHP Billiton, and Australia Post. Tony enjoys SAP NetWeaver system and landscape design, extracting the best out of the database, operating system, disk subsystem, and server platform. He is very keen to virtualize, consolidate, and reduce downtime. Most recently, as an SAP Mentor Tony has taken on an application life cycle management thought leadership role in the SAP community. In his role as NetWeaver Practice Lead for Acclimation, Tony is passionate about deploying SAP Solution Manager as an initiative to reduce support costs, introduce proactive and innovative capability, and manage change. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/c821311.

You may contact the author at tony.dethomasis@acclimation.com.au.

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