Page tree
Skip to end of metadata
Go to start of metadata

This page will be introducing the troubleshooting guide and analysis tools when network performance is not optimal.
However network issue regarding to hardware/port/router/switch configurations are beyond the scope of support. Customer needs to consult their IT/Network team or vendor on further.

Typical Network Performance issue

    The network performance should be diagnosed when the following symptoms occur.

    Be aware these are only typical symptoms, are NOT a definitive indication of a network performance issue.

    • High Roll-wait/GUI time showed in workload statistics(ST03/STAD)
    • High response time in LAN check by ping
    • High response time when performing RFC calls
    • Communication issue between SAP instance and Database instance

    Network issues generally focus on problems with transmitting large data volumes or the speed at which the data is communicated. This can occur due to the following:

    •  Hardware issues

    This can be wide ranging and can involve port issues (where the cable is connected), a router error (connects different networks), or a switch error (connects different devices). 

    • Poorly sized infrastructure

    A network typically consists of multiple switches, routers and cables. For high volumes of data, the cables need to have available “bandwidth” to efficiently transfer the data. For example, a cable with a bandwidth of 1Mb/s (known as Ethernet) will allow less data transfer than a 100Mb/s cable (known as fast Ethernet).

Useful tools to identify network issues
NIPING

    The NIPING Program can be used to diagnose the network or measure network metrics between any two machines running SAP software, for example between:

    •Frontend PC and application server

    •Two application servers, perhaps belonging to different SAP systems

    •Application server and database server or live cache server

    •RFC server or client programs and application server

    For self guided troubleshooting, please try our Guided Answer for Network analysis.

    The NIPING result can be used to measure throughput and roundtrip time and perform stability test for LAN or WAN used. Detailed information can be found in following SAP note.

    • SAP Note 500235 - Network Diagnosis with NIPING

    Example commands;

    For demonstration purposes the following example gives commands for a long LAN stability test;

    On the client (source) side: niping -c -H your target server name here -B 10 -L 4000 -P -D 900
    On the server (target side): niping -s -I 0 (the last character is zero, not the letter O)

    So in the above case you have defined the client (-c) and server (-s) commands and the duration of the NIPING trace (4000 loops with a delay of 900ms between each loop which will last for approximately 1 hour).

    Example output;

    The results from the output will be as follows;

    ------- times -----
    avg    4.695 ms
    max    36.867 ms
    min    0.658 ms
    tr  12479.766 kB/s
    av2     1.178 ms
    tr2 49729.472 kB/s

    The important values here are av2 and tr2.
    av2: This will test your latency between machines, also known as round trip time. For a typical setup, a value of 0.7ms or less is considered a good value although this can vary. If this value is higher, this may suggest communication delay issues between your systems.
    tr2: The average throughput will display the real data volume capability of your system connnections (as opposed to bandwidth which is ideal data volume allowance). For example, if you have a 1GB connection and you are only getting throughput values of 100Mbps, this could suggest an performance issue where high data transfers occur.

    Please see more about NIPING output results here;

    SAP Note 1100926 - FAQ: Network Performance 

     

     

Httpwatch

    HttpWatch is a third-party browser plugin which can be used to trace the HTTP/HTTPS traffic between the browser and server triggered by each action you take within a web application. It can be downloaded via http://www.httpwatch.com/download/.
    This tool can be used to capture trace file for scenarios which having performance issue and get *.hwl files for further analysis.

    • 1697063 - HttpWatch - Performance Analysis

    • 1558903 - How To Trace a Portal Scenario Using HttpWatch

    Sometimes, the root cause can be either Network, ABAP or a combination of both. In these cases it is recommended that you perfrom an ST12 trace along with a HTTP watch to determine where the issue is. This is noted here:

    • 2424394 - Using HTTP trace and ST12 trace to diagnose slow response in customer portal
SAP GUI

    The SAP GUI gets installed on the client side, typically within Windows. This allows access to the SAP system through the front end client side and also assists with storing user preferences and logon details.

    This communication between the SAP GUI and the backend SAP system can be the source of network related issues and slowness. Firstly, it is recommended that you have the latest version of SAP GUI installed on your desktop. See:
    66971 - Supported SAP GUI platforms
    1053737 - Expected release dates for SAP GUI for Windows
    147519 - Maintenance strategy / deadlines for SAP GUI for Windows / SAP GUI for Java

    Next to ensuring your GUI is within recommendations, a GUI performance trace should be performed to determine if the issue is on the GUI side or the Network side: 851012 - SAP GUI Performance trace

    A performance issue will sometimes occur on the GUI side when the user preferences allow for population of the menu with large amounts of information. This can be checked by trying the "low speed" connection setting within the GUI: 161053 - Using SAP GUI in WAN

Other helpful tools
    Windows tools
    • TRACERT (WINDOWS) / TRACEROUTE (UNIX)
      Useful for: Displaying the path and transit delays between source and destination on a network.

    • NETSTAT
      Useful for: Viewing active TCP/UDP connections in real time.

    • NSLOOKUP
      Useful for: Resolving domain names to IP addresses

    • IPCONFIG (WINDOWS)
      Useful for: Showing available connections on your Client side

    Other tools
    • Wireshark
      Useful for: Packet and network analysis on the OS side.
Graphing Niping output with RSORASTT

The RSORASTT tool can be used to graph NIPING outputs with the import option.

The tool can be found here; 1299493 - Loadable SAP Support Monitors

In oder to graph your NIPING output, you need to run a "Long LAN stability test" where your Latency will be docuemented for a minimum of 1 hour. This can then be imported into RSORASTT tool. This is very helpful for visualizing your Network latency over a long period of time.

Steps to graph NIPING results;

  1. Collect Long LAN stability results
  2. Save as plain text file
  3. Open plain text file and use "select all" option
  4. Copy and past output
  5. In RSORASTT, choose "import clipboard" option
  6. Name your server   

Sample output;

 

 

Related SAP Notes
    • 203924 - SAP WAN Network settings

    • 578118 - Long response times on the SAP GUI

    • 161053 - Using SAP GUI in WAN
    • 545136 - FAQ: Test tools for RFC connection

    • 1139596 - SAP GUI: Connection to partner 'sapserver:sapdp00' broken

    • 2443079 - Network performance analysis - LAN check by PING (OS01)

    • 1227116 - Creating network traces
    • 1969914 - Packet scanning tutorial using wireshark
    • 1370469 - How to perform a TCP trace with Wireshark