|
|
|
 |
||
 |
 |
|
|
|
||
May 3, 1999
ERP analysis application
Luminate monitors critical apps
THE BOTTOM LINE
Luminate ServiceDesk for SAP R/3 2.02
Summary: This application monitoring and analyzing tool empowers help desk and other IT personnel to effectively handle SAP R/3 calls. By receiving on-demand SAP R/3 performance data via a standard Web browser, front-line IT staff can quickly assess a business user's R/3 problems and take action.
Business Case: If R/3 runs your business, the stakes are high when critical users are experiencing problems. Using ServiceDesk is a win-win proposition, resulting in a more effective help desk and more satisfied and productive business-user community -- while also providing a quick return-on-investment.
Cost: Ranges from $15,000 or more depending on size of SAP R/3 implementations. The costs associated with lost user productivity and the drain on IT staff to manually troubleshoot R/3 problems outweigh the expenditure for this solution.
Pros:
+ Short learning period
+ Addresses both technical and business perspectives
+ End-to-end analysis
+ Browser-based, dynamic interface
+ InexpensiveCons:
- Missing ad hoc query capability
- Limited export capability
- Windows-based administration
- Does not support other enterprise resource planning systems
- No integration with help desk systems
Platforms: Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3) Supports SAP R/3 on all available platforms
Luminate Software, Redwood City, Calif.; (888) 463-6586 (toll-free); www.luminate.com
By Laura Wonnacott, InfoWorld Test Center
Help desks are not just about answering the phones, logging problems, and passing along information -- they are the lifeline of the business, with a charter to keep the organization and its critical business processes up and running, supporting everything from common desktop applications to business-critical applications. Yet unfortunately many IT shops have failed to arm help desk personnel with the necessary tools to do their jobs well.
Luminate's ServiceDesk for SAP R/3 2.02 provides the tools and information for help desk personnel to troubleshoot and isolate SAP R/3-related problems quickly -- an area in which the need for better monitoring tools is most evident.
Just as you would never expect a general practitioner without the right resources to diagnose ailments that require a specialist, you should never expect front-line help desk personnel without tools to gather pertinent information to identify or forward problems beyond their scope.
ServiceDesk delivers technical data on SAP R/3 environments with an easy-to-understand business perspective -- enabling front-line support engineers to either solve problems quickly or promptly pass them on to the appropriate IT expert or group.
However, one caveat is that it does not deliver that data directly into your help desk system: You will need to manually enter Luminate information into a trouble ticket. Also note that ServiceDesk only supports SAP R/3 at this time, so it is not for companies running their business on Oracle, Baan, PeopleSoft, or another enterprise resource planning, or ERP, solution.
Unique monitoringYet when compared with other tools that monitor SAP R/3 environments specifically, most provide only a device- or network-centric view. Solutions from Tivoli and Computer Associates are prime examples. Closer competitors to ServiceDesk include offerings from Envive or Candle, but these tools focus more on service levels.
The closest competitor to ServiceDesk is SAP's own Computing Center Management System (CCMS). CCMS is a powerful tool, but mining through it to find relevant information quickly is next to impossible -- and definitely not a task for those buried in work on the front line. When it comes to equipping front-line support staff with informative and easy-to-use tools for troubleshooting R/3 performance, ServiceDesk fits the bill.
It goes without saying that most SAP R/3 implementations are complex, but tools for monitoring and analyzing those environments should not be. Although help desk staff will not have trouble using the front-end interface, installing and configuring ServiceDesk does require that you understand your R/3 environment quite well. Most likely, the Basis group -- responsible for the management of both the technical and operational components of R/3 applications -- will be the best-equipped and most comfortable installing ServiceDesk.
Luminate also provides an on-site system engineer at an additional cost. If your R/3 environment is complex, I recommend the support option because the company can assist with the pre-installation planning. It is critical that you get this phase correct in order to ensure a smooth implementation.
Improved implementationUnlike earlier versions of products in the Luminate suite, ServiceDesk is significantly easier to implement because it no longer requires a tedious installation and configuration process using Oracle's Web Application Server. Luminate's suite of products now relies on a much simpler and more straightforward Web server -- Apache 1.34. This single change to Luminate's architecture significantly decreased the time required to get it up and running. I installed Luminate's solution on a dual Pentium II 350-MHz Windows NT 4.0 with SP3 server with 512MB of RAM and 12GB of storage.
Before building the Luminate server, I imported Luminate's ABAP/4 (Advanced Business Applications Programming) program into each SAP R/3 application and database server. The ABAP/4 programs are used to pull data from R/3 systems when Luminate's agents request information. SAP provides a standard transport mechanism for loading the ABAP/4 into the R/3 systems. I then started the Luminate setup first installing both Oracle8 and the Oracle8 patch. Lastly, I installed the Luminate server, agents, and the administrator program.
Inside the data warehouseAt the heart of Luminate's solution is a data warehouse that contains fact tables about the R/3 environment, surrounded by dimension and aggregate tables to deliver important performance-related information.
To test Luminate in our SAP R/3 environment, I created the Oracle database instance for the Luminate data warehouse first -- a 30-minute process. Next, I configured the three types of Luminate agents: location, availability, and workload. All three agents run as a background service on the Windows NT server. The location agent collects uptime and network performance information from remote sites. The workload agent collects workload statistics directly from the SAP R/3 systems. Finally, the availability agent measures the availability of the R/3 application and database server.
All the agents pump data into Luminate's data warehouse, and the Apache Web server queries the warehouse and delivers Service-Desk's reports as dynamic Web pages to IT staff. This is the critical benefit to the Luminate system: It provides an easy-to-use, Web-based interface for taking the pulse of your SAP R/3 environment.
Speedy serviceUltimately, ServiceDesk is all about delivering information when either a business user suspects a problem or when a proactive administrator is on the hunt. I tried out several "what if" scenarios through our test system, powering transactions against our SAP R/3 system using Mercury Interactive's LoadRunner for SAP R/3.
During the transaction load, I received all sorts of client calls to my fictitious help desk. On demand, I ran reports to see how I could address my users' concerns. I also ran ServiceDesk in a real R/3 production environment to evaluate its responsiveness and reporting.
In both cases, I could easily see what kind of performance issues business users were grappling with -- and the assurance that I could address their problems. Front-line support staff will definitely feel enabled because it is much easier to isolate problems.
Once I isolated a problem, it was crystal clear whether the problem could immediately be solved or passed on to a more knowledgeable source. If it requires a step up the ladder, the help desk professional will know who to contact -- the database administrators, the network administrators, the ABAP programmer, the server group, the Basis group, or data center management.
Within seconds, I was able to determine the pervasiveness of a single problem. I could tell a business user exactly what transaction he or she ran, how long it took, and even break down the transaction time into how long the request sat in queue, traveled across the network, and worked itself through the database and application server.
Useful reportingAlthough retrieving reports is a walk in the park, patience is required for the first report you request: The Java engine will be slow the very first time you load it from your browser. There are five major groups of reports: top users, top transactions, network, users, and transactions.
The two "top" reports were my favorite. Top users shows SAP user activity for those who are either most active or have the worst response time. Two graphs show response time for the application and network and the transaction volume.
Top transactions shows the highest values for network time, queue time, application and database server time, total time, or number of transactions. Although this was useful, I would like to see more visual tools, and also have the ability to drill down on those tools. I would like to see descriptions of each transaction code.
If your help desk staff contends with a significant volume of SAP R/3-related calls, and if resolution and response times are critical, then Luminate's ServiceDesk will easily and accurately deliver the information necessary to better provide front-line support operations and deliver a higher quality of service to your key business users.
ServiceDesk does not provide tools to populate trouble tickets for any system, so help desk professionals will need to move back and forth between systems. However, performance problems can expend big bucks in terms of lost user productivity and exhausted IT resources. ServiceDesk could easily pay for itself in a very short period of time by helping reduce downtime, speeding up response time, and increasing the efficiencies of IT operations.
Laura Wonnacott (laura_wonnacott@infoworld.com) is the Technical Director and the author of Test Center Rx. She has 15 years of IT experience and currently evaluates enterprise applications.
Your two cents. Tell the lab what you want to see tested.
|
HOME | NEWS | TEST
CENTER | OPINIONS | FORUMS | CAREERS
| STOCK QUOTE
InfoWorld.com is a member of IDG.net
InfoWorld.com complies with the ASME guidelines with IDG extensions For New media.
|
This is a computer-edited content for no-frames display browsers or clawlers.
To see the fully formated content, get a frames-capable browser and surf to http://archive.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/reviews/990503new_luminate202.htm