Discovering and managing database performance issues by using the Performance Dashboard

The IBM® BPM system relies heavily on database queries. The more the system is used, the more the database gets populated with artifacts, for example, process instances and tasks, and the longer it takes for queries to return results. You can identify potential performance issues caused by large numbers of artifacts by viewing real-time and historical artifact counts in the Performance Dashboard. To help you manage these issues, the dashboard provides housekeeping tips for each artifact type. If the artifact is associated with a snapshot, you can generate the corresponding wsadmin commands to remove the snapshot from the database. For offline analysis, you can export the data in the dashboard to a spreadsheet.

Before you begin

To view the dashboard, you must be member of the PerformanceAdmins team. For more information, see IBM Business Process Manager roles.
To include database configuration and meta information in exported data, you must have the following database access rights:
- DB2: select privilege on the DBCFG administrative view, SYSCAT.TABLES catalog view, and SYSCAT.INDEXES catalog view.
- Oracle: SELECT permission on the V$SYSTEM_PARAMETER view
- SQL Server
  - The VIEW DATABASE STATE permission
  - Select permission on the following system catalog views: sys.configurations, sys.stats, sys.tables, sys.objects, sys.schemas, sys.index_columns, sys.indexes, sys.sysindexes, sys.dm_db_partition_stats
  - Permission to view metadata for all BPM tables and BPM indexes

About this task

The dashboard provides a snapshot of the counts for the following artifact types. In addition, historical data is available for process instances and tasks.

Process instances: Current counts for each of the process instance states. The historical data shows the daily counts for started and completed processes. If process instances were deleted from the database, these instances are not reflected in the historical data.
Tasks: Current counts for each of the task states. The historical data shows the daily counts for received and closed tasks. If tasks were deleted from the database, these tasks are not reflected in the historical data.
Groups: Counts for groups by type and the 10 largest groups.
Snapshots: Counts for key performance indicators, such as named process application snapshots without active process instances, unnamed process application snapshots, and orphaned toolkit snapshots. Snapshot data includes system snapshots; do not delete these snapshots.
Other: Counts for various other artifacts, such as users, environment variables values, and Event Manager tasks on hold.
It also includes data about the Process Portal index, such as the number of updated indexes and the index table rows that you can clean up. For more information, see Cleaning up index tables.

The dashboard also checks your database configuration settings and the artifacts in the database against best practice performance constraints. If a constraint is violated, a warning is displayed in the dashboard.

Procedure

Log in to the Process Admin Console.
In the Server Admin area of the console, click Performance > Performance Dashboard.
Load data into the dashboard.
For performances reasons, when you open the dashboard, it does not contain any data. To display the artifact types and a snapshot of their counts, click Load Data. None of the data is automatically refreshed during the session. To load an updated database snapshot, click Refresh.
1. View housekeeping tips.
  Housekeeping tips are provided for all artifact types. If you cannot use the generated wsadmin commands to delete the snapshot associated with an artifact, follow the links for alternative methods for purging the artifacts.
2. Generate wsadmin commands.
  For artifacts that are associated with a snapshot, you can generate the wsadmin commands to delete the snapshot from the database. Separate commands are generated for Process Center and Process Server.
  Note: You cannot run the commands directly from the Performance Dashboard. Instead, copy the generated commands and run them in the wsadmin scripting client.
3. Export data to a .csv file or to a Microsoft Excel file.
  The file contains all the data that is shown in the dashboard. Historical data for the last 100 days is also included. If you have database access rights, the spreadsheet also includes database meta information, such as when the statistics were last gathered for the BPM tables, and general database configuration parameters.