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Chapter 16. Monitoring distributed systems 567

Each filter type has its own syntax that is appropriate for the type and allows the use of

wildcard settings in the filters if desired. For example, the EJB filter specifies a method class

or package that sets the scope of the filtering. The example URI filter value supplied for EJB

filters are:

 com.yourco.package.Class.method

 com.yourco.package.Class2.*

Destination type considerations

The final consideration when configuring the request metrics is where the metrics are

gathered. There are two types of supported destinations:

 Data can be logged with standard logs. In this configuration, the instrumented components

are logged to the SystemOut.log file.

 Data can also be collated in an Application Response Measurement (ARM) data collector.

In this case, the data is normally then moved to a monitoring system for analysis and

display (for example, using IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Transactions).

Both logging types can be activated at once. Writing to standard logs is not a best practice as

a long term monitoring strategy because the impact can be higher than is desirable.

Impact of request metrics

The impact of request metrics can vary significantly based on the components being

monitored and the complexity of the request execution within the monitored components.

There are no specific metrics on what the impact is, but it is reasonable to assume that

request metrics on every request and component might incur more impact than is desired. An

organization must consider and plan carefully the interactions that it wants to monitor, then

measure the specific impact associated with configuring request metrics for these

components.

16.3 Viewing the monitoring data

WebSphere Application Server provides an interface for viewing the monitored data. The

interface is the Tivoli Performance Viewer (TPV), which is in the administrative console.

16.3.1 Starting TPV monitoring and configuring settings

To work with the TPV from the administrative console:

1. Click Monitoring and Tuning  Performance Viewer  Current Activity.

Tip: Enabling / disabling a filter requires that you restart the server. It is important to plan

the component levels and filters that an application might require to minimize the need to

stop and restart servers.

Tip: When configuring ARM agents for use with the application server, follow the

installation instructions provided with the specific agent. For more information about

ARM agents, see the following website:

http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v8r5/topic/com.ibm.websphere.nd.do

c/ae/cprf_arm.htmls

568 WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Administration and Configuration Guide for the Full Profile

2. Select the server(s) that are to be monitored, and click Start Monitoring, as shown in

Figure 16-13.

Figure 16-13 Start Server monitoring

After monitoring is started, a message is returned in the messages section of the window,

and the Status column of the server is updated to

Monitored.

Tip: If you are only starting monitoring on a single server, monitoring can be started by

simply clicking the server link and navigating to the TPV viewer.

Chapter 16. Monitoring distributed systems 569

3. The PMI data can only be observed one server at a time when using a single user

session. Select the server name link to navigate to the Tivoli Performance Viewer window

(Figure 16-14).

Figure 16-14 Tivoli Performance Viewer

The default view for this window shows the Servlet Summary Report pane, which

indicates recent servlet activity and the TPV tree navigation pane.

4. The user settings are reached by expanding the Settings category and selecting User.

This window helps you control how much data is retained and how often data samples are

taken in the live system (Figure 16-15 on page 570).

Note: Information about the different ways that data can be viewed is provided in

16.3.2, “Exploring Tivoli Performance Viewer data views” on page 571, but before

exploring the data, let us first take a look at the settings menu to examine the User and

Logging settings.