Terms and Definitions

The following terms and their definitions are extracted from SAP notes.

SAP measures time as starting when the request from the front-end system reaches the server. Time ends when the final data package is sent from the server. During the transaction, several communication steps might occur between the server and the front-end system. These are called round trips.

During a round trip, the server transfers data for the controls to the front-end system. The user context is rolled out. The time to do these two tasks is roll-wait time. The time line for every round trip is measured on the server in GUI time. The influence of network performance and front-end system performance on the SAP response time can be defined with the help of GUI time.

The difference between the first time measurement (how SAP measures time) and the second time measurement (SAP response time) is included as front-end network time. In other words, it is the total network time for the first and the final communication steps between the front-end system and the server. The front-end network time is not included in the GUI time.

DBRequestTime (database request time) is the time that it takes to process logical database requests (calls to the SAP database interface).

Response time is the total time used on the server, including database request time.

The response time of a dialog step is the time that it takes from the request of the dialog to the application dispatcher to when the work is actually processed. The response time consists of single values such as:

All dialog steps that are initiated directly by the front-end user are evaluated. Automatic ABAP functions or dialog steps of the SAPSYS user are not relevant.

The response time value, which measures overall system performance, is reported to transaction RZ20. This transaction is executed every five minutes. The length of the run time to report the response time depends on the number of users logged on and the number of dialog steps.