For support and monitoring, Google Cloud provides the Agent for SAP, for SAP workloads running on Compute Engine VM instances and Bare Metal Solution servers.
As mandated by SAP, to get support from SAP and to enable SAP to meet its service-level agreements (SLAs), you must install Google Cloud's Agent for SAP on all Compute Engine VM instances and Bare Metal Solution servers that run any SAP system. For more information on the support prerequisites, see SAP Note 2456406 - SAP on Google Cloud Platform: Support Prerequisites .
Version 2 of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is the successor of Google Cloud's monitoring agent for SAP NetWeaver version 2 and the monitoring agent for SAP HANA version 2. Therefore, in addition to the mandatory collection of SAP Host Agent metrics, on Linux, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP includes optional features such as collection of Process Monitoring metrics, Workload Manager evaluation metrics, and SAP HANA monitoring metrics. You can opt in to these features that enable products and services such as Workload Manager for your SAP workloads.For SAP systems running on a Bare Metal Solution server, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is required when you run SAP NetWeaver connected to any of the following databases:
- SAP HANA
- SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE)
- SAP MaxDB
- IBM Db2
You install Google Cloud's Agent for SAP on the host alongside the SAP system. For instructions about how to install and configure the agent, validate your installation, and verify that the agent is running as expected, see:
- Install and configure the agent on a Compute Engine VM instance
- Install and configure the agent on a Bare Metal Solution server
If you use the following RHEL or SLES "for SAP" OS images that Google Cloud provides, then Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is packaged with the OS images:
- RHEL: all "for SAP" images
- SLES: SLES 15 SP4 for SAP and later versions
Supported features
Version 2 of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP supports the following features:
- SAP Host Agent metrics collection
- Process Monitoring metrics collection
- Workload Manager evaluation metrics collection
- SAP HANA monitoring metrics collection
SAP Host Agent metrics collection
The SAP Host Agent metrics collection is enabled by default. Google Cloud's Agent for SAP collects and sends all the required information that SAP mandates to the SAP Host Agent, including metrics about the following:
- CPUs, for example, CPU utilization.
- Persistent disk storage, for example, disk throughput and latency.
- Memory, for example, memory consumption.
- Networks, for example, network bandwidth.
- Configuration, including information about the host machine and its environment.
The metrics collected by Google Cloud's Agent for SAP are determined by SAP. For a description of metrics that the agent collects, see SAP Note 2469354 - Key Monitoring Metrics for SAP on IaaS Infrastructure .
Process Monitoring metrics collection
On Linux, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP can collect Process Monitoring metrics for your SAP applications and their runtime states. This is an optional feature that you can enable after installing Google Cloud's Agent for SAP.
The information collected in the Process Monitoring metrics helps you troubleshoot the issues related to your SAP system. In case of issues, with the help of Process Monitoring metrics, Cloud Customer Care can help you reach a resolution more efficiently. The data collected using Process Monitoring metrics provide observability for your SAP HANA high-availability cluster configurations.
Overall, Process Monitoring metrics are fast-changing metrics. For more information about this feature, see Process monitoring using Google Cloud's Agent for SAP.
Workload Manager evaluation metrics collection
On Linux, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP can collect Workload Manager evaluation metrics that enable the Workload Manager services for your SAP workloads. This is an optional feature that you can enable after installing Google Cloud's Agent for SAP.
The information collected in the Workload Manager evaluation metrics help you check the configuration and settings of your SAP applications, databases, and high-availability configurations.
Workload Manager evaluation metrics are slow-changing metrics that are collected every 5 minutes by default.
For more information about this feature, see Workload Manager evaluation using Google Cloud's Agent for SAP.
SAP HANA monitoring metrics collection
On Linux, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP can collect metrics from your SAP HANA instances and send them to Cloud Monitoring. This optional feature of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is the successor to using Google Cloud's monitoring agent for SAP HANA version 2.
The SAP HANA monitoring metrics provide you visibility into the performance, availability, and health of your SAP HANA instances and the underlying infrastructure. The following are examples on how you can use these metrics:
- You can use the memory utilization related metrics for capacity planning, or to help manage memory-based SAP HANA licensing.
- By co-relating the SAP HANA monitoring metrics with the Compute Engine metrics, you can identify usage and performance trends.
- By defining custom queries that collect custom metrics, you can gain deeper insights about your SAP HANA instances.
- In Cloud Monitoring, you can create dashboards to visualize the SAP HANA monitoring metrics and set up alerts based on metric thresholds.
SAP HANA monitoring metrics are slow-changing metrics that, once enabled, are collected every 5 minutes by default.
For more information about this feature, see Monitoring SAP HANA using Google Cloud's Agent for SAP.
Pricing
Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is free to install and run. However, you are responsible for the charges that result from reading and writing data to Cloud Monitoring.
For the metrics collected by the agent, Monitoring charges according to the following:
- Monitoring API read calls that exceed the free monthly API allotment.
- Metrics measured by bytes ingested, when the ingested metric data exceeds the free monthly metric allotment.
In Monitoring, ingestion refers to the process of writing time series to Monitoring. Each time series includes some number of data points; those data points are the basis for ingestion charges. For the pricing information, see Monitoring Pricing.
For information about the general concepts in Monitoring, see Metrics, time series, and resources.
Monthly cost estimates
This section illustrates how to estimate monthly costs for collecting metric data for metrics charged by API read calls and bytes ingested.
The examples in this section are for Monitoring pricing as of December, 2022. These examples are intended to illustrate calculations; for comprehensive estimates, use the Pricing Calculator.
The following table summarizes monthly cost estimates for some required and optional features of the agent. For the detailed steps for cost estimation, see SAP Host Agent metrics, Process Monitoring metrics, and Workload Manager evaluation metrics.
| Feature | Type | Number of VM instances | Cost ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAP Host Agent metrics collection | Required | 100 | $209 |
| Process Monitoring metrics collection | Optional | 100 | $564.81 |
| Workload Manager evaluation metrics collection | Optional | 500 | $4.41 |
| SAP HANA monitoring metrics collection | Optional | 500 | $280.30 |
Pricing example for metrics charged by API read calls
The following example illustrates how to get an estimate of costs for collecting metric data for metrics charged by API read calls, such as SAP Host Agent metrics.
SAP Host Agent metrics
Consider a scenario where you have some number of Compute Engine VM instances that make some number of API read calls each month. The variables in the scenario include the following:
- The rate at which a VM instance makes API read calls.
- The number of Compute Engine VM instances.
For this cost estimation, consider there are roughly 43,800 minutes in a month.
60 * 730 hours (365 days / 12 months * 24 hours)
Assume a VM instance makes API read calls at the rate of 5 calls per minute.
For one VM instance, total API read calls at the rate of 5 calls per minute for one month: 219,000 (43,800 * 5)
Consider that you have 100 VM instances.
- Total number of API read calls per month: 21,900,000
(219,000 * 100)
- Number of API read calls per month after free allotment: 20,900,000
(21,900,000 - 1,000,000 = 20,900,000)
- Approximate cost per month for 100 VM instances: $209
(20,900,000 / 1000) * 0.01
| No. of reads | Rate ($/1000 reads) | Cost ($) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free allotment/month | 1,000,000 | 0.00 | $0.00 |
| Chargeable | 20,900,000 | 0.01 | $209 |
| Total | 21,900,000 | $209 |
Pricing example for metrics charged by bytes ingested
The following examples illustrate how to get a cost estimate for collecting metric data for the metrics charged by bytes ingested, such as Process Monitoring metrics, Workload Manager evaluation metrics, and SAP HANA monitoring metrics.
Process Monitoring metrics
Consider a scenario where you have some number of Compute Engine VM instances that are writing data from some number of metrics each month. The variables in the scenario include the following:
- The rate at which the metric data is written.
- The number of metrics.
- The number of Compute Engine VM instances.
For this cost estimation, consider that there are roughly 15 Process Monitoring metrics being collected, of which 11 are slow-changing metrics and 4 are fast-changing metrics. Also, consider that there are roughly 43,800 minutes in a month.
60 * 730 hours (365 days / 12 months * 24 hours)
For one fast-changing metric, writing data at the rate of 1 data point per 5 seconds, that is, 12 data points per minute for one month:
For one slow-changing metric, writing data at the rate of 1 data point per 30 seconds, that is, 2 data points per minute for one month:
- Total fast-changing metrics data points is: 525,600 (43,800 minutes * 12 data points)
- Total slow-changing metrics data points is: 87,600 (43,800 minutes * 2 data points)
- Total volume ingested for fast-changing metrics is:
- 4,204,800 bytes (525,600 data points * 8 bytes)
- This is 4.01000977 MiB (4,204,800 bytes / 1,048,576 bytes/MiB)
- Total volume ingested for slow-changing metrics is:
- 7,00,800 bytes (87,600 data points * 8 bytes)
- This is 0.66833496 MiB (7,00,800 / 1,048,576 bytes/MiB)
Consider that you have 100 VM instances, each writing 15 metrics.
- Total monthly ingestion for fast-changing metrics: 1604.03908 MiB
4.01000977 MiB for one fast-changing metric * 1500 (100 VM instances * 4 metrics)
- Total monthly ingestion for slow-changing metrics: 735.168456 MiB
0.66833496 MiB for one slow-changing metric * 1500 (100 VM instances * 11 metrics)
- Total monthly ingestion: 2339.207536 MiB
Total monthly ingestion for fast-changing metrics + Total monthly ingestion for slow-changing metrics
- Approximate cost per month for 100 VM instances: $564.81
(2339.207536 - 150) * 0.258
| MiB ingested | Rate ($/MiB) | Cost ($) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free allotment/month | 150 | 0.00 | $0.00 |
| Chargeable | 2189.207536 | 0.258 | $564.81 |
| Total | 2339.207536 | $564.81 |
Workload Manager evaluation metrics
Consider a scenario where you have some number of Compute Engine VM instances that are writing data from some number of metrics each month. The variables in the scenario include the following:
- The rate at which the metric data is written.
- The number of metrics.
- The number of Compute Engine VM instances.
For this cost estimation, consider there are roughly 43,800 minutes in a month.
60 * 730 hours (365 days / 12 months * 24 hours)
For one metric, writing data at the rate of 1 data point per 300 seconds, that is, 0.2 data points per minute for one month:
- Total data points is: 8,760 (43,800 minutes * 0.2 data points)
- Total volume ingested is:
- 70,080 bytes (8,760 data points * 8 bytes)
- This is 0.0668335 MiB (70,080 bytes / 1,048,576 bytes/MiB)
Consider that you have 500 VM instances, each writing 5 metrics.
- Total monthly ingestion: 167.08375 MiB
0.0668335 MiB for one metric * 2,500 (500 VM instances * 5 metrics)
- Approximate cost per month for 500 VM instances: $4.41
(167.08375 - 150) * 0.258
| MiB ingested | Rate ($/MiB) | Cost ($) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free allotment/month | 150 | 0.00 | $0.00 |
| Chargeable | 17.08375 | 0.258 | $4.41 |
| Total | 167.08375 | $4.41 |
SAP HANA monitoring metrics
Consider a scenario where you have some number of Compute Engine VM instances that are writing data from querying SAP HANA databases each month. The variables in the scenario include the following:
- The rate at which the metric data is written.
- The number of queries.
- The number of metrics collected for each query.
- The number of Compute Engine VM instances deployed.
- The number of SAP HANA database deployments per VM instance.
By default, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP has 12 built-in queries as part of its SAP HANA monitoring feature. The agent runs these queries once every 300 seconds (the default sample interval) on each SAP HANA database instance. These 12 queries generate a total of 37 metrics. Assume that each VM instance hosts only one SAP HANA database. Therefore, each VM writes a total of 37 metrics every 300 seconds.
For this cost estimation, consider that there are roughly 43,800 minutes in a month.
60 * 730 hours (365 days / 12 months * 24 hours)
For one metric, writing data at the rate of 1 data point per 300 seconds, that is, 0.2 data points per minute for one month:
- Total data points is: 8,760 (43,800 minutes * 0.2 data points)
- Total volume ingested is:
- 70,080 bytes (8,760 data points * 8 bytes)
- This is 0.0668335 MiB (70,080 bytes / 1,048,576 bytes/MiB)
Consider that you have 500 VM instances, each writing 37 metrics.
- Total monthly ingestion: 1236.419678 MiB
0.0668335 MiB for one metric * 18,500 (500 VM instances * 37 metrics)
- Approximate cost per month 500 VM instances: $280.30
(1236.419678 - 150) * 0.258
| MiB ingested | Rate ($/MiB) | Cost ($) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free allotment/month | 150 | 0.00 | $0.00 |
| Chargeable | 1,086.419678 | 0.258 | $280.30 |
| Total | 1,236.419678 | $280.30 |
Resources consumed by the agent
To help you evaluate the resources that Google Cloud's Agent for SAP consumes, this section shows sample usages of the agent and the resources that they consumed in Google Cloud's test system with the following specifications:
- Machine type:
n2-highmem-64 - Type of persistent storage disk attached to the VM: SSD Persistent Disk (
pd-ssd) - SAP systems running on the VM instance: One instance of SAP HANA and two instances of SAP NetWeaver.
Note that the information in the following table is indicative and that the resources consumed by your agent instances can vary.
| Example 1 | Example 2 | Example 3 | Example 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VM runtime | 24 hours | 24 hours | 24 hours | 24 hours |
| Is SAP Host Agent metrics collection enabled? | Yes | Yes | No* | No* |
| Is Process Monitoring metrics collection enabled? | Yes, at the default interval of 5 seconds | Yes, at the default interval of 5 seconds | No | No |
| Is Workload Manager evaluation metrics collection enabled? | Yes, at the default interval of 300 seconds | Yes, at the default interval of 300 seconds | Yes, at the default interval of 300 seconds | No |
| Is SAP HANA monitoring metrics collection enabled? | Yes | No | No | Yes, at the default interval of 300 seconds |
| CPU usage | Less than 520 milliseconds per minute of a vCPU. This stays constant even as more vCPUs are added. | Less than 500 milliseconds per minute of a vCPU. This stays constant even as more vCPUs are added. | Less than 30 milliseconds per minute of a vCPU. This stays constant even as more vCPUs are added. | Less than 20 milliseconds per minute of a vCPU core. This stays constant even as more vCPUs are added. |
| Memory usage | Less than 40 MB | Less than 50 MB | Less than 40 MB | Less than 29 MB |
| Disk writes | Less than 70 KB per minute† | Less than 70 KB per minute† | Less than 6 KB per minute† | Less than 5 KB per minute† |
| Disk reads | Zero | Zero | Zero | Zero |
| Network usage (steady state) | Less than 2 MB per minute | Less than 2 MB per minute | Less than 600 bytes per minute | Less than 1 MB per minute |
* SAP Host Agent metrics collection is disabled only to test the consumption of resources. You must not disable the collection of SAP Host Agent metrics because it is mandated by SAP.
† Agent logs set at the INFO level.
Supported operating systems
Google Cloud's Agent for SAP supports all operating systems that are supported by SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA. For details, see the list of supported operating systems for SAP NetWeaver and list of supported operating systems for SAP HANA.
Authentication and access
Google Cloud's Agent for SAP requires an Identity and Access Management (IAM) service account for authentication with Google Cloud and for permission to access Google Cloud resources.
IAM roles that are assigned to the service account determine which Google Cloud resources the agent has permission to interact with.
Unless you use an existing or default service account, you need to create the service account in your Google Cloud project and assign one or more roles to the service account.
Specify a service account
If the agent is running on a Compute Engine VM instance, then the agent uses the service account of the host VM by default. The host VM service account is usually a service account with limited roles that you or one of your colleagues create, but it can instead be the Compute Engine default service account, which has broad permissions by default.
If the agent is running on a Bare Metal Solution server, you need to create a service account with a JSON service account key. For information, see Set up a service account.
For more information about service accounts, roles, and permissions, see:
- Creating and managing service accounts
- Compute Engine Access control overview
- Monitoring IAM overview
Required IAM roles
Whether you use a new, existing, or default service account, the service account must include roles that grant the required permissions to the agent.
For collecting SAP Host Agent metrics on VM instances, the predefined
IAM role
Compute Viewer (roles/compute.viewer)
grants permission to get and
list Compute Engine resources, without being able to read the data
stored on them. And, the predefined IAM role Monitoring Viewer (roles/monitoring.viewer)
grants permission
to view Monitoring data.
For collecting SAP Host Agent metrics on a Bare Metal Solution server, the agent does not access the Google Cloud APIs, so does not require an IAM service account or permissions.
For collecting the Process Monitoring metrics, Workload Manager
evaluation metrics, or the SAP HANA monitoring metrics,
in addition to the Compute Viewer (roles/compute.viewer)
and Monitoring Viewer (roles/monitoring.viewer)
roles, the predefined IAM role Monitoring Metric Writer(roles/monitoring.metricWriter)
grants permission to write metrics to Monitoring.
If you use Secret Manager to store credentials such as the
password for the SAP HANA database user, then for collecting the Process
Monitoring metrics for SAP HANA, or the SAP HANA monitoring metrics, you need
the role
Secret Manager Secret Accessor (roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor).
This role grants permission to access secrets that are stored in
Secret Manager.
Access to Google Cloud APIs
Compute Engine recommends configuring your VM instances to allow full access to all Cloud APIs and using only the IAM permissions of the instance service account to restrict access to Google Cloud resources. For more information, see Create a VM that uses a user-managed service account.
If you limit access to the Cloud APIs on a VM instance, then for SAP Host Agent metrics, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP requires the following minimum Google Cloud API access scopes on the host VM instance:
- Compute Engine: Read Only
- Stackdriver Monitoring API: Read Only
For collecting the Process Monitoring metrics, Workload Manager
evaluation metrics, or the SAP HANA monitoring metrics,
the access scopes of the host VM instance must have the write access to publish
metric data to your Google Cloud projects.
When you create a new Compute Engine VM instance, it is automatically
configured with the
write access scope, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/monitoring.write.
If the agent is not running on a Compute Engine VM instance, then you need to establish connection to Google Cloud APIs. See Configuring Private Google Access for on-premises hosts for details.
Metrics in Monitoring
For Process Monitoring metrics, Workload Manager evaluation metrics, and SAP HANA monitoring metrics, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP sends the data that it retrieves from your SAP systems to Monitoring as custom metric data. To send the data, the agent uses the Monitoring API, which is enabled by default when you create a Google Cloud project.
For an overview of Monitoring, see Introduction to Monitoring.
Find the metrics data in Monitoring
The metrics data from Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is available to view as soon as Monitoring receives it. To find and visualize the collected data, you can use Metrics Explorer. For more information about finding the metrics data in Monitoring, see Google Cloud's Agent for SAP Operations guide.
For more information about visualizing the collected data in Monitoring, see:
- Using dashboards and charts
- Filter charted data
- Metrics Explorer
- Monitoring in the Google Cloud console
Dashboard definitions on GitHub
On GitHub, you can find the definitions for custom dashboards that help you visualize the metrics collected by Google Cloud's Agent for SAP in Cloud Monitoring. For more information, see:
- For visualizing the Process Monitoring metrics, see View the collected metrics.
- For visualizing the SAP HANA monitoring metrics, see View the collected metrics.
Alert notifications
To alert you when a metric reaches a threshold that you define, you can configure alert notifications in Monitoring.
For more information, see Introduction to alerting.
Automatic installation
When you use the Terraform configuration files that Google Cloud provides for automating the deployment of your Google Cloud infrastructure, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is automatically installed as part of the deployment process. This is done to satisfy the SAP mandate of collecting the SAP Host Agent metrics.
For instructions for manually installing and configuring Google Cloud's Agent for SAP, see:
- Compute Engine VM instance: Install and configure Google Cloud's Agent for SAP
- Bare Metal Solution server: Install and configure Google Cloud's Agent for SAP
Google Cloud's Agent for SAP codebase on GitHub
For security requirements of your enterprise, if required, you can review the
source code of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP. The codebase of the agent is available
in a read-only GitHub repository, google-cloud-sap-agent
under GoogleCloudPlatform/sapagent.
Support
For issues with Google Cloud infrastructure or services, contact Customer Care. You can find the contact information on the Support Overview page in the Google Cloud console. If Customer Care determines that a problem resides in your SAP systems, then you are referred to SAP Support.
For SAP product-related issues, log your support request with
SAP support.
SAP evaluates the support ticket and, if it appears to be a Google Cloud
infrastructure issue, then SAP transfers that ticket to the appropriate
Google Cloud component in its system: BC-OP-LNX-GOOGLE or
BC-OP-NT-GOOGLE.
Support requirements
Before you can receive support for SAP systems and the Google Cloud infrastructure and services that they use, you must meet the minimum support plan requirements.
For more information about the minimum support requirements for SAP on Google Cloud, see:
- Getting support for SAP on Google Cloud
- SAP Note 2456406 - SAP on Google Cloud Platform: Support Prerequisites (An SAP user account is required)
Gather diagnostic information
Before contacting Customer Care for assistance in resolving issues related to Google Cloud's Agent for SAP, we recommend that you gather all relevant diagnostic information, notably the agent's support bundle.
For more information about gathering diagnostic information for the agent, see Google Cloud's Agent for SAP diagnostic information.
What's next
- Read Google Cloud's Agent for SAP installation and configuration guides:
- Read Google Cloud's Agent for SAP operations guide
- Learn more about Monitoring