SAP Cloud ALM is an out-of-box, native cloud solution which serves as the central hub for managing SAP landscapes, offering guided implementation driven by content and highly automated operations. In this blog post, I aim to delve into a very crucial capability of cloud ALM: Job and Automation Monitoring.
Through Job and Automation monitoring within SAP Cloud ALM, it is possible to monitor SAP S/4 HANA Application jobs, SAP ABAP jobs, SAP BW Process Chains, SAP Build Process Automation Jobs(or SAP Intelligent RPA jobs) and SAP Business workflow and Job scheduler service jobs in customer BTP application.
Job & Automation Monitoring guarantees uninterrupted business operations while enhancing the quality and performance of business process execution. This is achieved through:
- Monitoring the health of job executions and detecting anomalies during execution.
- Promptly alerting both business and IT users about disruptions and exceptions.
- Providing detailed insights at the job execution level to facilitate fact-based root cause analysis.
- Minimizing configuration efforts by leveraging historical execution information.
Having recently implemented Job and Automation Monitoring, I’m excited to outline its standout features that make it exceptionally useful.
1. Overview – Overview provides a summary status regarding job execution for the Managed Components. It shows the status of the latest execution of every job with regards to the Technical exceptions, Application exceptions and run time. It also displays the number of unconfirmed alerts and status events.
Clicking on a card takes us to the Monitoring view which shows the list of jobs and automations with their latest Execution status, Application Status, Start delay and runtime.
Rating rules are visible in Configuration section under Monitoring Rating Rules. Execution Status and Application Status are non-modifiable, but Start Delay and Run Time can be modified as per requirement.
Clicking on the job name allows to further drill down to the list of executions of the selected job. Additionally, clicking on the information icon provides further details and enables direct navigation to the job within the managed component by selecting the Run ID.
2. Data collection – Data collection offers a convenient feature to toggle the Collection of data for managed Objects. Within the configuration section, under Managed components, there is an option to Switch On or Off the data collection for managed components.
3. Heart Beat Status – This feature visualizes the heartbeat status of managed services. Within the configuration section, under Managed Components, users can view the heartbeat status. If there is no data collection, a red-light indicator will be displayed.
4. Alerting – Alerting in cloud ALM allows to configure alerts and notifications based on the status of job executions within the managed components. Alerts can be set up for various events, such as execution status, application status, runtime, or start delay, ensuring timely awareness and proactive management of the system.
Event Name in the alert can be adjusted to indicate the type of the alert for which event has been created.
Execution status rating for the event can also be chosen while setting up the event.
There is another recently introduced feature “At Every Occurrence”. Normally, consecutive job failures prompt just one notification until the alert is acknowledged. However, this new option allows users to receive alerts for each individual instance of job failure.
Recipients for email notifications can be maintained in Event Actions under “Send email to” section. Email IDs need to be maintained in the “Notification Management” application.
Job and automation monitoring deliver an enriched notification email:
- Subject Line: The event name is augmented with the corresponding job name.
- Content: Detailed information regarding the failed job execution is provided. Additionally, the email body contains a direct hyperlink to the alert, facilitating immediate access to the alert within Cloud ALM.
5. Integration with Business Service Management(BSM) – Within the Business Service Management application in SAP Cloud ALM for operations, we can see business services, manage assigned cloud services and technical systems, and handle associated events. To view status events such as maintenance, disruption, upgrade etc. In the homepage Overview tab, there is an option to view the status of event for the managed components. Events are maintained in Business Service Management application.
6. Analytics – The Analysis view allows users to pinpoint jobs with extended response times and highest number of exceptions. For any job it shows aggregated information on total and average run time, number of executions and number of failed executions and the resulting failure rate. By clicking on the arrow at the end of every line, we can drill down into various trend charts for the metrics.
