This topic applies only to the IBM Business Automation Workflow Advanced configuration.

Cross-component trace

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SOA applications tend to be large and complex, and are typically composed of other applications. The most time spent in troubleshooting an SOA application is often in narrowing the problem to a particular area. This is where cross-component trace is one of your most useful tools.

The Server Logs view displays standard server console and log records. However, if you enable cross-component tracing, the Server Logs view also displays invocation records that contain the invocation data that was passed between the components in your application. The invocation records are displayed in hierarchical format in the Server Logs view, which enables you to more easily understand the relationships that exist between the records. When you enable cross-component tracing, the Server Logs view becomes an even more powerful tool for problem determination. Typically, the process of using the Server Logs view for problem determination begins when you encounter problems when testing your application using the integration test client or another tool.

To turn on cross-component trace:
  1. Start the administrative console on a running server by right-clicking the server and from the menu select Run administrative console.
  2. Log on to the console, expand Troubleshooting and click Cross-Component Trace. Select your server. For the Configuration values, select Enable with data snapshot as this collects the most data, which is the recommended setting for tracing.
  3. Save the configuration.
  4. Log out of the administrative console and restart your server so the changes take effect.
To produce the cross-component trace, re-run your test.
To view the cross-component trace, open the Server Logs view selecting Window > Show View > Server Logs from menu bar. In the Server Logs view, you could display the traces either from a live server console or from a trace file. To display the trace, select Load from Server Log Directory and trace.log from the log directory.
Supplemental information
You can filter the log message to locate the invocation event by selecting Invocation Types > with only Server State and Error Contents
Supplemental information
By expanding the invocation event, you can analyze the path or call stack of the test message and quickly identify the failing application.
Supplemental information

The Server Logs view provides powerful filtering and searching capabilities to help you locate useful information from a large number of log records. Detailed information about working with server console and log records in the Server Logs view is found in the Integration Designer topic FUsing the Server Logs view for problem determination.

Note that turning on the cross component trace has a performance impact on the server. When the tracing is completed, you can turn off the cross component trace via the administrative console.