The following is a list of the most important performance analysis transactions and brief explanation of their purpose.
ST02: SAP Memory Configuration monitor checks the SAP Buffers and SAP Memory areas for problems such as swapping. It is a snapshot about the utilization of SAP shared buffers. High water marks of utilization for example extended, roll, paging and heap memory can be obtained from the SAP memory configuration monitor
ST03N: General performance statistics such as response time. This workload monitor can show response times daily/weekly/monthly and is the primary tool for checking dialog/background/update/spool/rfc response times.
ST04 or DBACOCKPIT: A snapshot of databuffer/cache quality, SQL cache catalog/pin ratio. For further detailed analysis click button ‘Detail Analysis Menu’
ST06/ST06N/OS07: The Operating System Monitor is used as a snapshot of CPU utilization, RAM, Swap space. For further detailed analysis click button ‘Detail Analysis Menu’.
SM66/SM50 : The main tool used for monitoring current system activity via the Global and application server Work Process Overview
ST22: Store for ABAP Dumps such as – For example the following would be critical dumps beginning with TSV_TNEW -DBIF_RSQL_SQL_ERROR – DBIF_RSQL_INVALID_SQL_ERROR – SYSTEM_NO_ROLL – SYSTEM_ROLL_IN_ERROR – TABLE_HASH_NO_MEMORY – STORAGE_HASH_NO_MEMORY – STORAGE_PARAMETERS_WRONG_SET – SAPSQL_ARRAY_INSERT_DUPREC
SM21: Typical messages like : – Printer problems – Signal 11 – Short dumps – Time-outs – Matchcode problems – Aborted postings – ORA errors
SM04: Active Users and number of modes of same. Also check memory, page, roll, priv usage via goto->memory
AL08: The number of active users can be obtained from the Global User Monitor SARFC: An overview of server resources and under column description whether there is a problem
AL11: List of SAP directories
DB01: Is a snapshot about exclusive wait situations using the Database Lock Monitor
DB02: Check database growth, freespace in tablespaces, critical objects, extents of tables and indexes
DB12: Check backup/restore situation
DB16: On Oracle check for search for messages with the “SEVERITY” type “E” (error) that occurred in the last 4 weeks
DB24: Check administration tasks such as backup/recovery, archive frequency, administration tasks Report
/SDF/MON: The tool allows for the collection of data on CPU Utilization ,Memory Management, Database Performance, WorkProcess Utilization, Workload, STAD, RFC etc. The information linked with each o f the above areas is stored in the database for further usage. The data can be collected for predefined periods of time and for a set frequency of seconds STAD: Used to check response time of programs/transactions and provides various levels of detail which can be tailored.
ST14: The ST14 application monitor is mainly used during SAP Going Live session. Analysis batch jobs collect performance-relevant key figures such as document statistics and customizing settings, the analysis results can be viewed as a tree and downloaded to a service session.
ST05: ST05 traces every action of a user on a server. SQL trace needs to be switched off and the writes trace files into the local file-system and overwrites them circularly.
ST12: combines ABAP and performance (SQL) trace into one transaction, with major functional enhancements especially for the ABAP trace part. In a joint switch on/off with the performance trace, ST12 allows to activate the ABAP trace for another user. See Note 755977. ST12 can also be used for tracing workprocess, program/transaction or a user. At a click of a button you can view the SQL and ABAP trace information.
Other useful transactions that can be used depending on circumstances: SM58 SM59,SMQ1 SMQ2 SMGW SDCCN SM37 SM51 RZ04 RZ10 RZ20 SE16 SE12 TU02 DB03 SMQS DB21 SMQR SM13
In the event that you cannot get a satisfactory performance for a transaction/program try searching for SAP notes using the keywords performance and the name of the transaction causing problems to see if anything exists to help on Service Market place.
Discuss with your developers/programmers if performance improvements are possible. For performance problems caused by customer programs SAP offers SAP Customer Program Optimization.
If still not sure about the resolution of issue, You can also open a message on SV-BO component for SAP.