How to Monitor SAP Hana with OpenTelemetry

SAP Hana monitoring support is now available in the open source OpenTelemetry collector. You can check out the OpenTelemetry repo here! You can utilize this receiver in conjunction with any OTel collector: including the OpenTelemetry Collector and observIQ’s distribution of the collector.

Below are quick instructions for setting up observIQ’s OpenTelemetry distribution, and shipping SAP Hana telemetry to a popular backend: Google Cloud Ops. You can find out more on observIQ’s GitHub page: https://github.com/observIQ/observiq-otel-collector

What signals matter?

SAP Hana is a column-oriented relational database management system. It functions in-memory, so memory metrics are often important. Some specific metrics that users find valuable are:

Memory
- Memory metrics offer information on current memory usage, minimum and maximum usage, and how memory is used between processes.

Backups
- The age of the latest backup. This is important to monitor in case of an error or crash.
Replication Backlog
- Monitor the size of the replication backlog in the cluster.

All of the above categories can be gathered with the SAP Hana receiver – so let’s get started.

Before you begin

If you don’t already have an OpenTelemetry collector built with the latest SAP Hana receiver installed, you’ll need to do that first. We suggest using the observIQ OpenTelemetry Collector distro that includes the SAP Hana receiver (and many others) and is simple to install with our one-line installer.

Configuring the SAP Hana receiver

Navigate to your OpenTelemetry configuration file. If you’re using the observIQ Collector, you’ll find it in one of the following locations:

/opt/observiq-otel-collector/config.yaml (Linux)
C:\Program Files\observIQ OpenTelemetry Collector\config.yaml (Windows)

For the observIQ OpenTelemetry Collector, edit the configuration file to include the SAP Hana receiver as shown below:

receivers:
  saphana:
    endpoint: "localhost:33015"
    collection_interval: 60s
    metrics:
      saphana.cpu.used:
        enabled: false

Set up a destination for exporting the metrics as shown below. You can check the configuration for your preferred destination from OpenTelemetry’s documentation here.

exporters: 
  googlecloud:
    metric:
      resource_filters:
        - prefix: saphana

Set up the pipeline:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:
      - saphana
      exporters:
      - googlecloud

If you’re using the Google Ops Agent instead, you can find the relevant config file here.

Viewing the metrics collected

If you followed the steps detailed above, the following SAP Hana metrics will now be delivered to your preferred destination.

Metric	Description
saphana.connection.count	The number of current connections.
saphana.cpu.used	Total CPU time spent.
saphana.alert.count	Number of current alerts.
saphana.uptime	The uptime of the database.
saphana.replication.backlog.time	The current replication backlog.
saphana.replication.backlog.size	The current replication backlog size.
saphana.replication.average_time	The average amount of time consumed replicating a log.
saphana.backup.latest	The age of the latest backup by start time.
saphana.transaction.count	The number of transactions.
saphana.transaction.blocked	The number of transactions waiting for a lock.
saphana.license.expiration.time	The amount of time remaining before license expiration.
saphana.license.limit	The allowed product usage as specified by the license (for example, main memory).
saphana.license.peak	The peak product usage value during last 13 months, measured periodically.
saphana.instance.memory.current	The size of the memory pool for all SAP HANA processes.
saphana.instance.memory.used.peak	The peak memory from the memory pool used by SAP HANA processes since the instance started (this is a sample-based value).
saphana.instance.code_size	The instance code size, including shared libraries of SAP HANA processes.
saphana.instance.memory.shared.allocated	The shared memory size of SAP HANA processes.
saphana.host.memory.current	The amount of physical memory on the host.
saphana.host.swap.current	The amount of swap space on the host.
saphana.column.memory.used	The memory used in all columns.
saphana.row_store.memory.used	The used memory for all row tables.
saphana.component.memory.used	The memory used in components.
saphana.schema.memory.used.current	The memory size for all tables in schema.
saphana.schema.memory.used.max	The estimated maximum memory consumption for all fully loaded tables in schema (data for open transactions is not included).
saphana.schema.record.count	The number of records for all tables in schema.
saphana.schema.record.compressed.count	The number of entries in main during the last optimize compression run for all tables in schema.
saphana.schema.operation.count	The number of operations done on all tables in schema.
saphana.service.count	The number of services in a given status.
saphana.service.thread.count	The number of service threads in a given status.
saphana.service.memory.used	The used memory from the operating system perspective.
saphana.service.code_size	The service code size, including shared libraries.
saphana.service.stack_size	The service stack size.
saphana.service.memory.heap.current:	The size of the heap portion of the memory pool.
saphana.service.memory.shared.current	The size of the shared portion of the memory pool.
saphana.service.memory.compactors.allocated	The part of the memory pool that can potentially (if unpinned) be freed during a memory shortage.
saphana.service.memory.compactors.freeable	The memory that can be freed during a memory shortage.
saphana.service.memory.limit	The configured maximum memory pool size.
saphana.service.memory.effective_limit	The effective maximum memory pool size, calculated considering the pool sizes of other processes.
saphana.disk.size.current:	The disk size.
saphana.volume.operation.count	The number of operations executed.
saphana.volume.operation.size	The size of operations executed.
saphana.volume.operation.time	The time spent executing operations.
saphana.network.request.count	The number of active and pending service requests.
saphana.network.request.finished.count	The number of service requests that have completed.
saphana.network.request.average_time	The average response time calculated over recent requests

observIQ’s distribution of the OpenTelemetry collector is a game-changer for companies looking to implement OpenTelemetry standards. The single line installer, seamlessly integrated receivers, exporter, and processor pool make working with this collector simple. Follow this space to keep up with all our future posts and simplified configurations for various sources. For questions, requests, and suggestions, reach out to our support team at support@observIQ.com.

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