Viewing performance metrics with the Tivoli Performance Viewer

You can use the Tivoli® Performance Viewer to start and stop performance monitoring; view Performance Monitoring Infrastructure data in chart or table form as it occurs on your system; and, optionally, log the data to a file that you can later review in the same viewer.

Before you begin

Before you can view performance metrics with the Tivoli Performance Viewer, the following conditions must be true:
  • The servers that you want to monitor must be running on the node
  • The Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) is enabled
  • The service component event points that you want to monitor have been invoked at least once so that they can be selected from within the viewer.

About this task

The Tivoli Performance Viewer (TPV) is a powerful application that allows you view various details of about the performance of your server. The section entitled Monitoring performance with Tivoli Performance Viewer in the WebSphere® Application Server documentation contains details about how to use this tool for various purposes, including the resource for complete instructions on using this program. This section is limited to discussing the viewing of performance data for events specific to IBM® Business Automation Workflow.

The performance viewer enables administrators and programmers to monitor the current health of IBM Business Automation Workflow. Because the collection and viewing of data occurs on the process server, performance is affected. To minimize performance impacts, monitor only those servers whose activity you want to monitor.
Note: When viewing these statistics, do not mix counter-type statistics with duration-type statistics. Counters are cumulative, and the scales against which they are graphed can quickly grow depending on your application. Duration statistics, in contrast, tend to remain within a certain range because they represent the average amount of time that it takes your system to process each event. Consequently, the disparity between the statistics and their relative scales can cause one or the other type of statistic to appear skewed in the viewer graph.

Procedure

  • View current performance activity
    1. Click Monitoring and Tuning > Performance Viewer > Current Activity in the administrative console navigation tree.
    2. Select Server, then click the name of the server whose activity you want to monitor.
      You can alternatively select the check box for the server whose activity you want to monitor, then click Start Monitoring. To start monitoring multiple servers at the same time, select the servers then click Start Monitoring.
    3. Select Performance Modules.
    4. Select the check box next to the name of each performance module that you want to view.
      IBM Business Automation Workflow events that emit performance statistics, and that have been invoked at least once, are listed under the WBIStats.RootGroup hierarchy. Expand the tree by clicking + next to a node and shrink it by clicking - next to a node.
    5. Click View Modules.
      A chart or table providing the requested data is displayed on the page. Charts are displayed by default.

      Each module has several counters associated with it. These counters are displayed in a table underneath the data chart or table. Selected counters are displayed in the chart or table. You can add or remove counters from the chart or table by selecting or clearing the check box next to them. By default, the first three counters for each module are shown.

      You can select up to 20 counters and display them in the TPV in the Current Activity mode.

    6. Optional: To remove a module from a chart or table, clear the check box next to the module then click View Modules again.
    7. Optional: To view the data in a table, click View Table on the counter selection table.
      To toggle back to a chart, click View Graph.
    8. Optional: To view the legend for a chart, click Show Legend. To hide the legend, click Hide Legend.
    9. When you have finished monitoring the performance of your events, click Tivoli Performance Viewer, select the server you were monitoring, and click Stop Monitoring.
  • Log performance statistics

    While monitoring is active on a server, you can log the data from all the PMI counters that are currently enabled and record the results in a TPV log file. You can view the TPV log file for a particular time period multiple times, selecting different combinations of up to 20 counters each time. You have the flexibility to observe the relationships among different performance measures in the server during a particular period.

    1. Click Start Logging when viewing summary reports or performance modules.
    2. When finished, click Stop Logging.
      By default, the log files are stored in the profile_root/logs/tpv directory on the node on which the server is running. The TPV automatically compresses the log file when it finishes writing to it to conserve space. There must only be a single log file in each compressed file and it must have the same name as the compressed file.
    3. Click Monitoring and Tuning > Performance Viewer > View Logs in the administrative console navigation tree to view the logs