HTTP://FACEBOOK.COM/WEBSPHERELIBRARY

Joseph Amrith Raj

Integrated Tivoli Performance Viewer [TPV] in

WebSphere Appplication Server

This document shows how to configure and use WebSphere Performance Monitoring Infrastructure [PMI] and Integrated Tivoli Performance Viewer [TPV]

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

1

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

In general, our websphere application serving environments consists of different web servers, websphere

application server, database server and several network components. Monitoring these systems is a very

important job to make sure that your application is available at all time and monitoring also helps to tune

the performance. In WebSphere application server, the core of the monitoring infrastructure is

‘Performance Monitoring Infrastructure’ known as PMI. The performance data provided by WebSphere PMI

helps to monitor and tune the application server performance. PMI provides a comprehensive set of data that explains

the runtime and application resource behavior. For example, PMI provides database connection pool size, servlet

response time, EJB method response time, JVM garbage collection time, CPU usage, and so on. This data can be used

to understand the runtime resource utilization patterns of the thread pool, connection pool, and so on, and the

performance characteristics of the application components like servlets, JSP, and enterprise beans

PMI must be enabled, before collecting any performance data. If PMI is enabled after the server is started, the server

needs to be restarted to start the PMI. By default PMI is enabled. After the PMI is enabled, monitoring of individual

components can be enabled or disabled dynamically. There are some predefined statistic sets that can be used to

enable a set of statistics.

Statistic set Description

None All statistics are disabled.

Basic Statistics specified in J2EE 1.4, as well as top statistics like CPU usage and live HTTP sessions are enabled. This set is enabled out of the box and provides basic performance data about runtime and application components.

Extended Basic set plus key statistics from various WebSphere Application Server components like WLM, and dynamic caching are enabled. This set provides detailed performance data about various runtime and application components.

All All statistics are enabled.

Custom Enable or disable statistics selectively.

2

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Enabling PMI

To enable PMI, in the administration console

Go to Monitoring and Tuning Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) server_name general

properties under configuration tab

Select Enable Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI).

Click OK and Apply changes

Restart the application server

PMI data can be monitored and analyzed by Tivoli Performance Viewer (TPV), other Tivoli tools, your own

applications, or third party tools. TPV is a graphical viewer for PMI data that ships with WebSphere Application

Server.

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

3

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

Integrated Tivoli Performance viewer Using the TPV, you can view the current activity of System resources, WebSphere pools and customer application

performance data. You can also log the data.

Go to Monitoring and Tuning performance viewer current activity

Select a server and click on start monitoring.

Now click on that server name

A TPV console is displayed. On the left side navigation, you’ll have the following options

Option Description

Advisor Provides tuning advice based on the collected PMI data from your server

Settings Provides tuning advice based on the collected PMI data from your server

4

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Summary Reports Predefined reports that allow you to quickly analyze your server’s performance. The different reports that are available are described below:

Performance Modules List of available PMI modules on your server.

By default, the right hand side shows the servlets summery reports.

Summary reports

Servlets Displays total requests and average response time data for all of the Servlets that are currently gathering PMI data.

EJBs Displays number of method calls and average response time data for all the Enterprise

Beans that are currently gathering PMI data. Data is grouped according to bean name.

EJB methods Displays number of method calls and average response time data for all the Enterprise

Beans that are currently gathering PMI data. Data is grouped according to method name.

Connection Pool

Displays pool size and percentage of pool in use for data sources that are actively collecting PMI data.

Thread Pool Displays pool size and number of active threads for the different thread pools within

WebSphere.

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

5

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

6

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Settings

User Settings

Refresh Rate: How frequently TPV collects performance data from a server.

Buffer size: Specifies the number of entries to be stored for a server. Data displayed in TPV is stored in a

short in-memory buffer. After the buffer is full, each time a new entry is retrieved the oldest entry is

discarded.

View data as: Specifies how the counter values are displayed.

o Raw: display the absolute value.

o Change in value: display change in the current value from the previous

o Rate of change: displays the ratio of the change from present value to previous value.

Log settings

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

7

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

Performance Modules 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 deselecting individual counters. 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.

Under performance modules, select the modules you like to monitor and then click on the view modules button. For

the below example, I selected JDBC connections, JVM runtime, Thread pools and Web Applications. You can

expand each performance module to get the fine-grained details about a particular JDBC connection, web application

etc...

For fine-grained details about a specific module, expand the module by clicking the ‘+’ sing and select the module

you like to monitor.

If you like to see the data in table rather than a graph, click on ‘View Table’ button. To go back to chart,

click on ‘View Chart’

8

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

If you click ‘Clear Button’, the PMI data will be removed from a table or chart

You can manually adjust the scale for each counter so that the graph displays meaningful comparisons of different counters. Find the counter whose scale you want to modify in the table beneath the chart. Change the value for Scale as needed and click update.

o When the scale is set to 1 the true value of the counter is displayed in the graph. o A value greater than 1 indicates that the value is amplified by the factor shown. o A value less than 1 indicates that the variable is decreased by the factor shown.

Reset to Zero sets a new baseline using the current counter readings at the instant the button is clicked. Future datapoints are plotted on the graph relative to their position at the time Reset to Zero is clicked.

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

9

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

Modify run-time PMI settings

Go to monitoring and tuning performance monitoring infrastructure (PMI) server_name

Click on the runtime tab

Here, you can change the currently monitored statistics set. Your options are None, Basic, Extended, All and

Custom. Click on the ‘+” button to see what details are monitored in a specific monitored statistics set.

If you select the ‘custom’ monitored statistics set, you can get the fine grained PMI data.

Select Custom and click on the custom.

10

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Now click on module you like to monitor and on the right side panel, select the counter and click enable. For

example, you like to monitor Garbage Collection times. Click on JVM runtime Garbage collection and select

‘GCtime’ and click enable.

Now go back to Monitoring and Tuning performance viewer current activity. Select the server.

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

11

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

You can see the module you selected now in the table/graph and being collected. Remember this change is

temporary and next time you restart the server, it will not be collected.

12

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Recording and Replaying logs

Monitoring and Tuning performance viewer current activity. Select the server.

Selecting the performance modules whose data you like to log.

Then click on one summery report [like servlet/ejb ]

Then select ‘start logging’. A message will be displayed saying logging has been started for serverX on

nodeX

After sometime, click on ‘stop logging’. A message will be displayed saying logging has been stopped for

serverX on nodeX

Now go to Monitoring and Tuning Performance viewer view logs

Specify the log file you want to replay. By default, the log files are stored under

/WAS_HOME/profiles/profile_name/logs/tpv

Click on ‘view log’ to replay the log.

The log will begin replaying in the panel on the right.

Note: Navigate to the different Summary Reports. Notice that performance data was also recorded for these views as well. You can also select different performance modules and then click ‘view modules’ and start logging the data.

http://facebook.com/webspherelibrary

13

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

About Author Joseph Amrith Raj is a technical consultant for multiple WebSphere products. He worked on various product

consulting and support teams including WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Message

Broker, Enterprise Service Bus and WebSphere Process Server. He has 7 years of experience in administration,

troubleshooting, consulting and he has significant experience in architecture, strategy and leadership positions. He is

IBM certified for WAS, WMQ, WPS , SOA and Cloud Computing.

14

Inte

gra

ted

Tiv

oli P

erf

orm

an

ce

Vie

we

r [T

PV

] in

We

bS

ph

ere

Ap

pp

lica

tio

n S

erv

er

|

Connect With US

Get notified on upcoming tutorials

Subscribe, to get this WebSphere blog posts directly to your inbox : here

Tell us your feedback and what you want

Please leave your comments in the comments section below the post

Send us suggestions for future topics and improvements about the content at

webspherelibrary@live.com

Be Connected!

Connect with us on Facebook

Connect with us on Twitter

More about us : profile