Performance Statistics

The Performance Statistics Report is the key to managing your Sterling B2B Integrator performance.

Before you can generate or view a performance statistics report, you must turn on performance statistics. For more information about how to turn it on, refer to the topic Turning On and Turning Off Performance Statistics. You can turn on and turn off performance statistics as many times as you want to. When performance statistics is turned off, the statistics are simply discarded, and when performance statistics is turned on, the current report resumes the process of collecting statistics. If you do not generate a report before you turn on performance statistics, the default report is generated automatically, and collects the performance statistics.

Run the Performance Statistics Report to obtain benchmarks directly after you perform each of these tasks:

Install Sterling B2B Integrator.
Tune Sterling B2B Integrator using the information provided in the topic Manual Performance Tuning.
Complete manual tuning, if any, to the install_dir/properties/noapp.properties file and related extension files (*.ext).
Make improvements to your business processes, if necessary, including changing the persistence levels.

After you receive your initial benchmark Performance Statistics Report, generate a new report every few weeks or at least once a month to have a snapshot of the way your Sterling B2B Integrator is performing in relation to your benchmarks.

If you note variances between your benchmarks and your current report, you can use the information in the report to troubleshoot and resolve issues before they cause performance delays. The most current report is always at the top of the View Report list. After you close a report, no further data can be added to the report. Every time you generate a new report, the new report becomes the current report.

Viewing a Performance Statistics Report

To view a Performance Statistics Report:

From the Administration menu, select Operations > System > Performance > Statistics.
In the Performance Statistics Report Manager page, under View Report, select a name from the list, and click Go!.

Reading a Performance Statistics Report

Performance Statistics Report provides you with information that can help you maintain your Sterling B2B Integrator system, and reduce performance issues before they become problems. Performance Statistics Report helps you identify and analyze bottlenecks in your business processes and the time taken for the completion of each activity.

The report displays business process statistics and system statistics since the time the report was generated first. If a new report is generated, it does not contain historical statistics, only the statistics collected after it was generated the previous time.

Performance Statistics Report consists of the following sections:

Business Process Statistics
Internal System Statistics

Business Process Statistics

The following figure displays the Business Process Statistics section of a Performance Statistics Report:

The following table describes the columns in the Business Process Statistics section:

Note: Business process statistics are more varied than what is described in the Description column of the following table.

Statistic Name	Description
Business Process Statistics
Name	Name of a business process, followed by numbered rows pertaining in the individual activities in the business process. The number of each row indicates the corresponding step in the business process. For example, in the preceding figure, the business process CIIDeenveloper includes two activities: --> 1 DeenveloperCII --> 2 DecisionEngineService
Min (ms)	Minimum time (in milliseconds) it took for a business process or activity to complete. If there are multiple invocations, this is the lowest minimum time taken for all the invocations. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the CIIDeenvelope business process took 19183 ms to complete, while the Deenveloping step (1 DeenveloperCII) took a minimum time of 18474 ms. Both these are the lowest statistics; there were two invocations of the business process. Use this statistic to track business processes or activities that begin to slow down. If you notice this statistic increasing over your benchmark value, it may be indicative of a performance issue. If you see an occasional variance for a business process or activity, it does not necessarily indicate a performance issue. If, however, you notice a continuous variance between production statistics and your benchmarks, you probably have a real issue that should be addressed. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic A Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution. For more information about improving business process execution time, refer to the topic Symptoms and Causes of Poor Business Process Execution Time.
Max (ms)	Maximum time (in milliseconds) it took for a business process or activity took to complete. If there are multiple invocations, this is the highest maximum time taken for all the invocations. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the CIIDeenvelope business process took 19275 ms to complete, while the Deenveloping step (1 DeenveloperCII) took a maximum time of 18672 ms. Both these are the highest statistics; there were two invocations of the business process. Use this statistic to track business processes or activities that begin to slow down during processing. If you notice this statistic increasing over your benchmark value, it may be indicative of a performance issue. If you see an occasional variance for a business or activity, it does not indicate a performance issue. If, however, you notice a continuous variance between production statistics and your benchmarks, you must resolve the issue. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic A Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution. For more information about improving business process execution time, refer to the topic Symptoms and Causes of Poor Business Process Execution Time.
Average (ms)	Average processing time taken for a business process or service to be completed. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the CIIDeenvelope business process took an average of 19229.0 ms to complete, while the Deenveloping step (1 DeenveloperCII) took an average time of 18573.0 ms. Both these are the average statistics; there were two invocations of the business process. Use this statistic to track the overall averages of business processes or activities that begin to slow down during processing. If you notice this statistic increasing over your benchmark value, it may be indicative of a performance issue. If you see an occasional variance for a business or activity, it does not necessarily indicate a performance issue. If, however, you notice a continuous variance between production statistics and your benchmarks, you probably have a real issue that should be addressed. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic A Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution. For more information about improving business process execution time, refer to the topic Symptoms and Causes of Poor Business Process Execution Time.
Invocations	Number of times the business process or service was invoked since the report was generated first. The number of invocations should be the same for both the business process and each activity in the business process, unless you have a business process that loops several times. In such a situation, you can set the number of invocations lower than the number of activities in the business process. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the CIIDeenvelope business process had two invocations, and the Deenveloping step (1 DeenveloperCII) had two invocations. Use this statistic to determine if the number of business processes expected are running, and if all the activities in the business processes are running. If you see a variance between the business process invocation number and the activity number, this may indicate that a business process has an error, and is in a waiting, interrupted, or halted state. You can also use this statistic to determine the processing load on your system during different processing periods, such as peak and nonpeak processing hours.
Total (ms)	Total time for (in milliseconds) a business process or service has taken to process since the time you last generated the report. This is the sum of total time taken for the completion of all the business processes. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the CIIDeenvelope business process took 38458 ms to process since the report was last generated and the Deenveloping step (1 DeenveloperCII) took a total of 37146 ms. Use this statistic to see if the total processing time for a business process or activity is increasing substantially over the number of invocations. If this number does increase over the number of invocations, it indicates that the processing time is longer. If the processing time is longer than your benchmark, you must resolve the issue. Note: Because statistics are accumulated from the beginning of monitoring until its end, you might have to turn monitoring on and off and collect the statistics at regular intervals. This allows you to monitor performance at certain times during processing. A change in the total work a business process performs during the intervals might indicate a problem, but only if the demand for that business process is constant throughout the measurement period. For more information about improving business process execution time, refer to the topic Understanding Business Process.
Pre-Service (ms)	Total time taken by the business process engine to complete activities before a business process or service is run. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the DeenvelopeCII activity took 37146 ms for preservice activities. Every time an activity is run, Sterling B2B Integrator must complete system service invocations before running the activity. Use this statistic to see if the system services are taking a long time to run before a business process is run. If you see a variance between the report time and the benchmark time, this may indicate that there is a database, operating system, or some other system issue that must be resolved. For more information about operating system issues, refer to your vendor's documentation. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic A Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution.
Post-Service (ms)	Total time taken by the business process engine to complete activities after the business process or service is run. For example, in the figure preceding this table, it can be seen that the DecisionEngineService activity took 100 ms for postservice activities. Every time an activity runs, Sterling B2B Integrator completes some persistence of information to the database. This persistence takes time to complete, and the postservice time includes this persistence time. Use this statistic to see if the system services are taking a long time to run after a business process is run. If you see a variance between the report time and the benchmark time, this may indicate that there is a database, operating system, or some other system issue that must be resolved. For more information about operating system issues, refer to your vendor's documentation. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic A Slow System: Symptoms, Causes, and Resolution.

Internal System Statistics

The Internal System Statistics section of the Performance Statistics Report includes a lot of information that you can use to monitor your Sterling B2B Integrator system and ensure that it meets the benchmarks that you have established.

The following figure displays the Internal System Statistics section of a Performance Statistics Report:

The following table describes the columns in the Internal System Statistics section:

Statistic Name	Description
Internal System Statistics
Name	Name of the system activity, including the following: Persist a Business Process Step to the Database Persist a Document to the Database Assign from an XPath Statement Acquire a Database Connection Execute an XPath Statement Put a Business Process on the Queue
Min (ms)	Minimum time (in milliseconds) the system activity took to complete. If there are multiple invocations, this is the lowest time for all the invocations. For example, in the figure preceding this table, the Persist a Document to the Database activity took 9 ms to complete. This is the shortest time of the nine invocations of the activity.
Max (ms)	Maximum time (in milliseconds) the system activity took to complete. If there are multiple invocations, this is the highest time for all the invocations. For example, in the figure preceding this table, the Persist a Document to the Database activity took 212 ms to complete. This is the longest time of the nine invocations of the activity.
Average (ms)	Average processing time taken for the system activity to complete. This is the average time for all invocations. For example, in the figure preceding this table, the Persist a Document to the Database activity took an average of 111 ms to complete. This is the average processing time taken by the nine invocations of the activity.
Invocations	Number of times the system activity was invoked since you last generated the report. For example, in the figure preceding this table, the Persist a Document to the Database activity was invoked nine times.
Total (ms)	Total time (in milliseconds) the system activity has taken to process since the report generation began. This is the sum total time of all the system activity completion times. For example, in the figure preceding this table, the Persist a Document to the Database activity took a total of 1003 ms to complete.

The following table describes each internal system activity, and how to use the statistics to reduce the chances of a performance issue occurring:

Statistic Name	Description
Persist a Document to the Database	The length of time and the number of times a document was persisted to the database. For more information about persistence, refer to the topic Changing Persistence Levels. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Persist a Document to the Database had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 9 Max (ms) – 212 Average (ms) – 111.0 Invocations – 9 Total (ms) – 1003 The Persist a Document to the Database statistic is helpful in determining database issues and slow processing issues. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice the following: The Min (ms), Max (ms), and Average (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that the database is becoming full, or that you have a connection leak. The number of invocations are increasing. This indicates that your persistence level is set too high. The number of invocations is small and the Min (ms) and Max (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that you are persisting large documents to the database, which can be moved to the disk to save database space.
Persist a Business Process Step to the Database	The length of time and the number of times a business process step was persisted to the database. For more information about persistence, refer to the topic Changing Persistence Levels. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Persist a Business Process Step to the Database had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 5 Max (ms) – 391 Average (ms) – 59.0 Invocations – 163 Total (ms) – 9735 The Persist a Business Process Step to the Database statistic is helpful in determining database issues and slow processing issues. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice the following: The Min (ms), Max (ms), and Average (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that either the database is becoming full, or you have a connection leak. The number of invocations are increasing. This indicates that your persistence level is set too high. For more information about slow systems, refer to the topic Changing Persistence Levels. The number of invocations is small and the Min (ms) and Max (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that you are persisting large documents to the database, which can be moved to the disk to save database space.
Assign from an XPath Statement	The length of time and the number of times an assign activity was completed from an XPath statement in a business process. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Assign from an XPath Statement had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 2 Max (ms) – 43 Average (ms) – 10.0 Invocations – 29 Total (ms) – 310 The Assign from an XPath Statement statistic is helpful in determining if you have well-structured XPath statements in your business processes. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice the following: The Min (ms), Max (ms), and Average (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that the XPath statement is not written efficiently, and may slow down your process time. Write XPath statements using relative paths. For example, write PurchaseOrder/text instead of /ProcessData/PurchaseOrder/text(). In addition, do not use // at the beginning of an XPath statement, because this causes the entire process data to be traversed.
Execute an XPath Statement	The length of time and the number of times an XPath statement ran in a business process. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Assign from an XPath Statement had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 1 Max (ms) – 43 Average (ms) – 5.0 Invocations – 111 Total (ms) – 598 This statistic is helpful in determining if you have well-structured XPath statements in your business processes. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice the following: The Min (ms), Max (ms), and Average (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that the XPath statement is not written efficiently, and may slow down your process time. Write XPath statements using relative paths. For example, write PurchaseOrder/text instead of /ProcessData/PurchaseOrder/text(). In addition, do not use // at the beginning of an XPath statement, because this causes the entire process data to be traversed.
Acquire a Database Connection	The length of time and the number of times a database connection was made. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Acquire a Database Connection had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 1 Max (ms) – 4990 Average (ms) – 3.0 Invocations – 16102 Total (ms) – 57722 The Acquire a Database Connection statistic is helpful in determining whether you have database issues, resource leaks, or whether you have to increase the number of database pools. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice the following: The Min (ms), Max (ms), and Average (ms) times are increasing. This indicates that the database is quite active if it is used by other applications outside of Sterling B2B Integrator. The number of invocations are increasing. This indicates that your persistence level is set too high, causing too much data to be stored in the database, or your cache levels are not tuned correctly, causing the data to be stored and retrieved from the database instead of from the cache. The number of invocations are low and not increasing. This indicates that either you have a resource leak that is not releasing previously used database connections to be used by other threads, or you do not have enough database pools set in the Performance Tuning Utility.
Put a Business Process on the Queue	The length of time and the number of times a business process was placed in a queue. For example, in the figure preceding this table, Put a Business Process on the Queue had the following statistics: Min (ms) – 1 Max (ms) – 49 Average (ms) – 3.0 Invocations – 38 Total (ms) – 146 The Put a Business Process on the Queue statistic is helpful in determining if you are using a queue instead of your cache during processing. When you compare this information with your benchmarks, verify if you notice increasing invocation times. If yes, it indicates that you are not using your cache efficiently.