Track Down the Root of Performance Problems with Transaction ST05
When you have invested in hardware and software to support your business processes, you want to ensure that they are running optimally. Otherwise, you risk making your end users less efficient or seeing your IT costs rise. For these reasons, performance optimization projects will always be important. Download the DocumentPerformance & Data Management Corner
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When you have invested in hardware and soft-
ware to support your business processes, you want
to ensure that they are running optimally. Other-
wise, you risk making your end users less efficient
or seeing your IT costs rise. For these reasons,
performance optimization projects will always be
important. Tuning your software solutions will sig-
nificantly improve the return on investment (ROI)
for your IT infrastructure. Before you can tune an
application, though, you need to identify where
the issues are coming from.
For example, for SAP solutions based on the
SAP NetWeaver client-server architecture, most
of the business logic is executed by the work pro-
cess. To accomplish its tasks, the work process may
need to call external resources, especially the data-
base. Understanding the details of such requests is
crucial for tuning the performance of individual
applications. Requests to shared central resources
in particular must be limited to the absolute mini-
mum and must be optimized as much as possible.
With the Performance Trace (transaction
ST05), you can determine the origin of issues in
your applications. This transaction is a tool for
recording requests that leave or enter the work
process (these recordings are called traces) and
then displaying the trace records as a list. It also
provides extensive support for examining indi-
vidual trace records.
In this article, I will explain how to use ST05
and what to look for when analyzing the results.1
1 The example in this article uses the SQL trace (which allows
you to investigate database accesses) to demonstrate the
capabilities of ST05. Additional trace types cover access
to various buffers (most notably the table buffers) in the
application server’s shared memory, outgoing or incoming
requests using RFC or HTTP, and calls to the enqueue server.
These traces can be used in a similar way to the SQL trace.
Track Down the Root of
Performance Problems
with Transaction ST05
by Manfred Mensch, SAP AG
Recording a Trace
To access the Performance Trace, you can use
transaction code ST05 or, since it is fully inte-
grated into the ABAP Workbench, you can access
it from the workbench by following the menu
path System → Utilities → Performance Trace.
To record a trace, open the ST05 start screen
(see Figure 1 on page 60), use the check boxes
in the Select Trace Type frame to choose the
trace type(s), and choose Activate Trace to switch
the selected trace type(s) on. Once you’ve acti-
vated the trace, you can then run the applica-
tion you want to analyze on the server where
the trace was activated. When the application
is finished, choose Deactivate Trace to stop
the recording.
When running a trace, it’s important to keep a
couple of things in mind:
■ On an application server, only one user at a
time can record traces.
■ Tracing for long periods of time may lead to
incomplete traces with missing beginnings.
This is because traces are written to dedicated
files on the application server; when all trace
files are full, the oldest file is deleted and a new
file is created.
Analyzing a Trace
Once you’ve recorded your trace, the next step is
to analyze it, looking for bugs, issues, and areas
that need performance improvements.
To view a trace, choose Display Trace (refer
to Figure 1) on the server where the trace was
recorded and, in the subsequent selection screen,
specify any criteria for filtering the records to be
displayed. The standard trace display is a chrono-
logically sorted list of main records. Each record
Manfred Mensch (manfred.
mensch@sap.com) studied
physics and mathematics at
the University of Karlsruhe.
He received his Ph.D. in
environmental physics
from the University of
Heidelberg. After further
years of research in the US
and in Germany, he joined
SAP in 2000 and has been a
member of the Performance
and Scalability team since
2006. His responsibilities
include supporting his col-
leagues in SAP’s OnDemand
organization by coaching
and consulting with respect
to performance during the
design, implementation,
and maintenance phases of
their software. Currently,
Manfred is focusing on the
development of trainings and
performance analysis tools.
This article appeared in the Jul n Aug n Sep 2013 issue of
SAPinsider (http://sapinsider.wispubs.com) and appears
here with permission from the publisher, WIS Publishing.
COLUMN58 Subscribe today. Visit sapinsider.wispubs.com.
When you have invested in hardware and soft-
ware to support your business processes, you want
to ensure that they are running optimally. Other-
wise, you risk making your end users less efficient
or seeing your IT costs rise. For these reasons,
performance optimization projects will always be
important. Tuning your software solutions will sig-
nificantly improve the return on investment (ROI)
for your IT infrastructure. Before you can tune an
application, though, you need to identify where
the issues are coming from.
For example, for SAP solutions based on the
SAP NetWeaver client-server architecture, most
of the business logic is executed by the work pro-
cess. To accomplish its tasks, the work process may
need to call external resources, especially the data-
base. Understanding the details of such requests is
crucial for tuning the performance of individual
applications. Requests to shared central resources
in particular must be limited to the absolute mini-
mum and must be optimized as much as possible.
With the Performance Trace (transaction
ST05), you can determine the origin of issues in
your applications. This transaction is a tool for
recording requests that leave or enter the work
process (these recordings are called traces) and
then displaying the trace records as a list. It also
provides extensive support for examining indi-
vidual trace records.
In this article, I will explain how to use ST05
and what to look for when analyzing the results.1
1 The example in this article uses the SQL trace (which allows
you to investigate database accesses) to demonstrate the
capabilities of ST05. Additional trace types cover access
to various buffers (most notably the table buffers) in the
application server’s shared memory, outgoing or incoming
requests using RFC or HTTP, and calls to the enqueue server.
These traces can be used in a similar way to the SQL trace.
Track Down the Root of
Performance Problems
with Transaction ST05
by Manfred Mensch, SAP AG
Recording a Trace
To access the Performance Trace, you can use
transaction code ST05 or, since it is fully inte-
grated into the ABAP Workbench, you can access
it from the workbench by following the menu
path System → Utilities → Performance Trace.
To record a trace, open the ST05 start screen
(see Figure 1 on page 60), use the check boxes
in the Select Trace Type frame to choose the
trace type(s), and choose Activate Trace to switch
the selected trace type(s) on. Once you’ve acti-
vated the trace, you can then run the applica-
tion you want to analyze on the server where
the trace was activated. When the application
is finished, choose Deactivate Trace to stop
the recording.
When running a trace, it’s important to keep a
couple of things in mind:
■ On an application server, only one user at a
time can record traces.
■ Tracing for long periods of time may lead to
incomplete traces with missing beginnings.
This is because traces are written to dedicated
files on the application server; when all trace
files are full, the oldest file is deleted and a new
file is created.
Analyzing a Trace
Once you’ve recorded your trace, the next step is
to analyze it, looking for bugs, issues, and areas
that need performance improvements.
To view a trace, choose Display Trace (refer
to Figure 1) on the server where the trace was
recorded and, in the subsequent selection screen,
specify any criteria for filtering the records to be
displayed. The standard trace display is a chrono-
logically sorted list of main records. Each record
Manfred Mensch (manfred.
mensch@sap.com) studied
physics and mathematics at
the University of Karlsruhe.
He received his Ph.D. in
environmental physics
from the University of
Heidelberg. After further
years of research in the US
and in Germany, he joined
SAP in 2000 and has been a
member of the Performance
and Scalability team since
2006. His responsibilities
include supporting his col-
leagues in SAP’s OnDemand
organization by coaching
and consulting with respect
to performance during the
design, implementation,
and maintenance phases of
their software. Currently,
Manfred is focusing on the
development of trainings and
performance analysis tools.
This article appeared in the Jul n Aug n Sep 2013 issue of
SAPinsider (http://sapinsider.wispubs.com) and appears
here with permission from the publisher, WIS Publishing.