Process Overview Display

he Process overview provides a snapshot of the current state of the work processes in an application server. You must refresh the display to get updated information. Information in the display includes the following:

• No.: The internal ID number of a process. Used to identify messages that pertain to a work process in the system log.

• Ty.: The type of work process:

• DIA work process for executing dialog steps in user transactions
• UPD update process for executing U1 (time-critical) database changes
• UP2 update process for executing U2 (non-critical) database changes
• ENQ for setting and releasing locks on R/3 lock objects
• BTC for executing background jobs
• SPO for spool formatting processes

• PID: Process ID of the work process.

• Status: The current state of the work process. Possible statuses include:

• Running (executing a request).
• Waiting (idle and waiting for work)
• Hold (held for a single user)

HOLD is not an abnormal state, but a work process that is in HOLD is restricted to serving a single user.
If too many processes are in HOLD, then system performance suffers. You can then use the Cause field to identify HOLDs that perhaps can be released.

• Killed (aborted with Restart set to No).

• Cause: If a work process is in HOLD status, displays the reason for the HOLD. Typical reasons include the following: debugging; CPIC activity; enqueue (lock) activity; update activity; GUI (wait for response from the SAPGUI front-end program, for example, when waiting for a remote function call (RFC) to the front end).

You may also see PRIV (PRIVate use) as a reason for holding a work process. PRIV indicates that a work process is reserved for a single user for purposes of memory management.
If you are using the new memory management system (active by default as of Release 3.0A), then the work process has exceeded its R/3 shared memory limit. The process is held as long as the current user requires process-local memory.
If the new memory management is not active, then the work process is executing code that uses the new ABAP/4 data types that were introduced with Release 3.0. In either case, too many work processes in PRIV mode degrade performance.
See Memory Management in the R/3 online system administration documentation for more information.
If more than a certain percentage of work processes are in PRIV hold state, then PRIV transactions are automatically terminated if the user is not active in the transaction for a set period of time. These threshholds can be set in the R/3 system profile.

• Start: Indicates whether the process should be automatically restarted in the event of an abnormal termination. You can toggle the restart status of a process with the Restart On/Off function. Normally, you should leaveRestart set to Yes.

The system automatically sets Restart to No in the event that a work process aborts during its start up. This measure protects against endless attempts to restart when the database system is not available or some other fundamental problem is affecting the system. After correcting the problem, you can change Restart to Yes to have the system start the work processes.

• Err: Indicates how many times a work process has aborted.

• Sem: Indicates the number of the semaphore on which a work process is waiting.

Normally, this field should remain empty. If one or more semaphore numbers frequently appears, you should evaluate the performance of your system with the performance monitor.

• CPU: Cumulative CPU time used by a work process since it was started. The time units are seconds and hundredths of seconds.

Calculating CPU time is expensive, so you must explicitly request this information with the CPU function.

• Time: Indicates the elapsed clock time used by a work process for the dialog step that it is currently processing.

A large figure may indicate that a user has locked a work process for debugging. You may wish to remind the user to end the debugging session as quickly as possible so that other users can use the work process.

• Program : The ABAP/4 program or report that is currently executing.

• Client: The client of the session that is currently executing.

• User: The user whose request is currently being processed.

• Action: The action that is being performed by the program that is running. The actions that are displayed are those that are recorded by the R/3 performance monitor. The performance monitor must be active (R/3 profile parameter stat/level = 1 (default)) for actions or Table accesses to be displayed.

• Table: If the database is being accessed, then this column contains the name of the table that is being accessed.