Configuring the WebSphere Applications agent
Configuring the WebSphere® Applications agent mainly involves configuring the data collector, which is a component of the agent.
Procedure
- Make sure that the user ID that is to configure the WebSphere Applications agent and the user ID that installed the application server have the appropriate user privileges required by the agent. For instructions, see Checking user access requirements.
- (Agent coexistence environment only) Make sure that the WebSphere Applications agent and ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications are using different port numbers.
Configure the agent again to change the port, if necessary. Any available port number can be
used.
- For information about how to configure the WebSphere Applications agent, see Configuring WebSphere Applications agent.
- For information about how to configure the ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications, see ITCAM for Application Diagnostics or ITCAM for Applications documentation.
- (Agent coexistence environment only) Make sure that the WebSphere Applications agent data collector version 7.3.0.11.0 or later is installed. The data collector version 7.3.0.11.0 is available with Performance Management 8.1.3.
- If the data collector of ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications, which is installed in the old IBM Tivoli Monitoring infrastructure, exists in your environment,
uninstall it. If you do not remove it before you configure the WebSphere Applications agent data collector, the configuration might fail and you can find messages in the configuration log that indicates you have the older version of ITCAM components configured.Reminder: the WebSphere Applications agent data collector uses the Java Byte Code manipulation to collect data. If you have any other data collectors that use the same way to collect data, evaluate whether it is necessary to remove these data collectors, because they might conflict with the WebSphere Applications agent data collector.
- Configure the data collector.
- In a pure Performance Management environment,
which means only WebSphere Applications agent is installed,
you must complete some basic configuration of the data collector before the agent can monitor WebSphere Application Server. Basic configuration process
includes setting the application server home directory, selecting the application server profile or
instance to monitor, and providing an administrator user name and password for the WebSphere Application Server administrative console. For instructions,
see Configuring the data collector for WebSphere Applications agent.
After the data collector is configured to monitor application server instances, you might need to reconfigure it if you want to change the basic configuration settings. You might also want to configure monitoring for WebSphere Portal Server instances. In these cases, use the advanced configuration and reconfiguration utilities for extra configuration options. For detailed information, see Configuring and reconfiguring the data collector with the advanced utilities.
- In an agent coexistence environment, which means both WebSphere Applications agent and ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications are installed, you configure and use
one data collector for both versions of agents. You must use the provided configuration utility to
configure the data collector.
- To configure the data collector interactively, see Configuring the data collector for agent coexistence environment.
- To configure the data collector silently, see Configuring or reconfiguring the data collector in silent mode.
- To monitor WebSphere Application Server Liberty running inside a Docker container, you must create a configuration file and use the docker run command to configure the data collector before the Liberty profile can be started. For instructions, see Monitoring WebSphere Application Server Liberty inside a Docker container.
- In a pure Performance Management environment,
which means only WebSphere Applications agent is installed,
you must complete some basic configuration of the data collector before the agent can monitor WebSphere Application Server. Basic configuration process
includes setting the application server home directory, selecting the application server profile or
instance to monitor, and providing an administrator user name and password for the WebSphere Application Server administrative console. For instructions,
see Configuring the data collector for WebSphere Applications agent.
- Data collector configuration and behavior is also controlled by several properties files. These properties files provide you more monitoring settings. You can edit the properties file directly to configure the data collector. For the introduction of these properties files and various monitoring options available, see Configuring the data collector with various configuration files.
- To view performance data in the operational monitoring dashboards, you must enable the Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) on the WebSphere Application Server with WebSphere administrative console, and optionally set the PMI level. For instructions, see Configuring the PMI.
- After transaction tracking or diagnostic data collection is enabled in the data collector, use the Agent Configuration page to dynamically enable or disable the data collection. For instructions, see Dynamically configuring data collection on Agent Configuration page.
- To monitor application servers that are running in a dynamic cluster, you must manually create the data collector configuration files and then update the server instance template with WebSphere administrative console. For instructions, see Manually configuring the data collector to monitor dynamic cluster servers.
- Checking user access requirements
The WebSphere Applications agent has some user access requirements for the user ID that is to configure the data collector. - Configuring the data collector for WebSphere Applications agent
The WebSphere Applications agent starts automatically after installation, but you must manually configure the data collector, which is a component of the agent, to monitor application server instances. - Configuring and reconfiguring the data collector with the advanced utilities
To set additional configuration options, you can use the advanced configuration utilities (interactive or silent) to configure the data collector instead of the standard utility. You can also use advanced utilities to reconfigure the data collector when it is already configured. Also, you need to use the advanced configuration utility to configure monitoring for WebSphere Portal Server instances. - Configuring WebSphere Applications agent
In the agent coexistence environment, the data collector is shared by both WebSphere Applications agent and ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications. Both agents must use different ports to listen to the requests from the data collector. You must configure the agent to change the port, if necessary. - Configuring the data collector for agent coexistence environment
If you have both the WebSphere Applications agent and ITCAM Agent for WebSphere Applications in your environment, you can configure only one data collector for both agents. - Reconfiguring the data collector if you change the offering type on Performance Management server
If you change the IBM® Performance Management offering type on the Performance Management server, you must uninstall the previous WebSphere Applications agent and install the new agent from the agent package of the new offering type. Alternatively, you can manually reconfigure the data collector for the capabilities to be available in the new offering. - Monitoring WebSphere Application Server Liberty inside a Docker container
To monitor a Liberty profile inside a Docker container, you must use the docker run command with a few options to configure the data collector before the WebSphere Application Server Liberty can be started. - Configuring the PMI
To view performance data in the operational monitoring dashboards, the Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) on the WebSphere Application Server must be configured to gather performance data. - Configuring the data collector with various configuration files
You can modify data collector configuration files to change additional monitoring settings. - Customizing the request thresholds
Some of the requests might not have enough information if the default thresholds are high. You can customize the request thresholds so that more requests or request context data can be captured by the data collector. - Dynamically configuring data collection on Agent Configuration page
After you enable the support for transaction tracking or diagnostic data collection in the data collector, use the Agent Configuration page to dynamically enable or disable the data collection. - Manually configuring the data collector to monitor dynamic cluster servers
You can configure the data collector to monitor application server instances in a dynamic cluster by adding some data collector configuration parameters to the server template that was used to create the dynamic cluster server instances. This is an alternative method to configure dynamic cluster server instances to creating the server templates specific for the WebSphere Applications agent. - Manually configure the data collector
If you cannot use the provided configuration utility to configure the data collector of WebSphere Applications agent, you can manually configure the data collector by creating two settings files and then manually adding settings in the WebSphere Administrative Console. The runtime directory is created automatically when the data collector is started for the application server instance. - Restoring the application server configuration from a backup
If you configured a stand-alone application server instance for data collection either manually or with the configuration or migration utility and the application server fails to start, you must restore the application server configuration from a backup. If you did not create a backup, contact IBM Support.