Myths and Mysteries about OutSide Discovery Process in Solution Manager 7.1
Introduction
Myths and Mysteries about OutSide Discovery Process: Some time before, We stuck with the big trouble in solution manager managed system configuration for Cluster host recognition in LMDB, I raised SAP Ticket, posted SCN Thread and connected @sapsupport, all the way we tried to fix the issue before Go live, since its highly impact our major productive RCA data collection.
After long struggle finally we fixed the issue, of course before go live ???? .
The major cause for this kind of problem is the outside discovery process, Hence through this document I would like to share some of my findings about host details update on LMDB by out side discovery.
Why Outside discovery
From Wolf Hengevoss’s blogs, we can understand the purpose of LMDB. He clearly mentioned that LMDB is needed for solman to support all the third party systems and future innovation areas like HANA, cloud and mobile.
Similarly another interesting thing is Outside discovery process, usual SMD agents is not enough to get all the information from your managed system, Hence SAP introduced Outside discovery process. This process automatically discover, collect and send the RAW TECHNICAL DATA from managed system to solution manager system. Raw Technical data can be anything which is not stored inside SAP systems tables.
It collects all host information, database type information and more over it also helps to collect the information about installed .NET Framework services like (MicroSoft Internet Information Services 6.0, MS IIS 7.0, MS IIS 7.5 and SharePoint by Microsoft 2010, SharePoint by Microsoft 2013).
How it works
Here is the real tricky, we may get lots of error regarding outside discovery, because the way it deals and collects the data from your managed system.
Outside discovery actually resides inside SMD agent one of the agelet named as DCC, (agelet archive: sap.com~tc~smd~agent~application~e2edcc.ear), we can view on Agent frame work -> agent configuration.
e2edcc.enabled = true indicates outside discovery enabled.
Basically it collects the host related information from the SAP Host Agents, once it is collected the data and stored into the smd aglet, later it sends to Solman system via P4 connection Push function.
If the parameter not set ( by default, its true) or SMD agent not able to connect to Host agent, you get error on outside discover process, you cant monitor OS related information.
Connect SMD agent and Host Agent
I was not even thought of it, there is a connection between SMD agent and Host agent. But truth is we are setting trusted connection between these two services, below are the the important things, where most of us miss during configuration,
- Out side discovery only recognize the SAP Host agent of version 7.20 Patch Level above 54. So it is always better to patch the host agent along with SMD agent, refer sap note 1365123.
- Outside discovery send the data to SMD agent only trusted connection between sap host agent and smd agent enabled. We dont have any hint for this step in managed system configuration, but it is one of the mandatory task, the details can be found here,
https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/SMSETUP/Establish+trusted+connection
- Another very interesting thing is, Though outside discovery sends all the host,db, MS IIS information to Solution manager using normal PUSH function, Host discovery is the main master process, db and MS IIS are child process inside Host discovery, hence if HOST not able to discover, you wont get the details of DB and MS IIS ???? .
- This is the main reason for our RCA prerequisite in Solman_Setup -> managed system configuration -> step 2 failing. If you ends red mark in this step, you cant move further, moreover none of your RCA functions with respect to DB, OS would work.
Importance of FQDN
Below are some of my findings about FQDN and its necessity in LMDB.
- If FQDN missing or wrongly maintained you cant create the RFC for managed system via managed system setup
- More over this FQDN useful to collect other RCA specific information,ex : host type, version.
- Other usecases like, if you have any 3rd party service desk tool running, the connection between external tools and solman works perfect, only FQDN maintained, else you cant view the incidents created in other tools for solman.
- Solman can read the managed system profile, if the FQDN maintained correctly.
- FQDN also supplied automatically by outside discovery process, If FQDN missing, could be many reason.
- please use the guides like, Troubleshoot Missing FQDN, and the SAP Notes 1830735 – Schedule a Push Job for Outside discovery issues like missing FQDN to fix.
LMDB Host editor – Host Configuration
While finding the fix, we almost look into all the possible places to fix the error, LMDB host editor is the most significant one we missed. We usually go to technical system configuration in solman_Setup, and usually ignore Host configuration, But this is also a mandatory to get the RCA and other monitoring features to work.
Landscape browser
Landscape browser is the wonderful place to troubleshoot any error on related to LMDB managed system config. Hence as soon as you find any red mark in managed system setup, step 2 prerequisite check, with the error related to host, go to Landscape browser and get the detail error message, You can get the landscape browser under, RCA Workcenter -> left panel -> Landscape browser -> host -> select the host.
Check the host status green and its connected to agent by checking the agent status green.
SAP Diagnostics agent support tool
If you sure that there is no error in the host, after that also you ends with red mark in managed system configuration, you can use this tool for further troubleshooting.
Agent framework -> agent admin -> Advanced settings
This tool with the tag used only for sap support, normal users dont have access to this link, try with solman_Admin user, you can access this link.
Here you can check whether the Java bean collector which used to send the info from smd to solman registered properly or not.
More Details available in the troubleshooting guide.
Miscellaneous
Most of the cases, you can fix the issue by correcting FQDN profile parameter,enabling trusted connection and running LMDB host editor steps.
In rare case, you go for adjusting DCC parameters as stated in the guide by enabling force push of the host name and IP address. But this leads to other problem like network issue, so we are not supposed to enable until unless really in need.
And other 20+ trouble shooting methods and other useful information available in the SAP Note 1611483 – SolutionManager7.1 – Outside Discovery common error messages.
New NetWeaver Information at SAP.com
Very Helpfull