Monitor performance with Tivoli Performance Viewer

Tivoli Performance Viewer (TPV) enables administrators and programmers to monitor the overall health of WebSphere Application Server from within the administrative console.

In Version 4.0, Tivoli Performance Viewer was named the Resource Analyzer. In v5.0, TPV is a stand-alone Java application. In Versions 6.0.x and later, TPV is embedded in the administrative console. From TPV, we can view current activity and summary reports, or log Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) performance data. TPV provides a simple viewer for the performance data collected by the Performance Monitoring Infrastructure.

By viewing TPV data, administrators can determine which part of the application and configuration settings to change in order to improve performance. For example, we can view the servlet summary reports, enterprise beans, and EJB methods in order to determine what part of the application to focus on. Then, we can sort these tables to determine which of these resources has the highest response time. Focus on improving the configuration for those application resources taking the longest response time.

Tasks

1. Optional: Adjust the Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI) settings for the servers to monitor.

   The PMI service is enabled by default with a basic set of counters enabled.

2. Monitor current server activity.

   We can view real-time data on the current performance activity of a server using TPV in the administrative console.

   • Use the performance advisors to examine various data while the application is running.

     The performance advisor in TPV provides advice to help tune systems for optimal performance using collected PMI data.

   • Configure user and logging settings for TPV.

     These settings may affect the performance of the application server.

   • View summary reports on servlets, EJB methods, connections pools and thread pools in WAS.

   • View performance modules that provide graphs and of various performance data on system resources such as CPU utilization, on WebSphere pools and queues such as database connection pools, and on customer application data such as servlet response time.

     In addition to providing a viewer for performance data, TPV enables us to view data for other products or customer applications that have implemented custom PMI.

   (iSeries)

   • WAS v8 for IBM i requires Portable Application Solutions Environment (PASE), 5761SS1 (IBM i 6.1) or 5770SS1 (IBM i 7.1) option 33, for graphics

3. View server performance logs.

   We can record and view data that has been logged by TPV in the administrative console. Be sure to configure user and logging settings for TPV.

4. Log performance data. We can record real-time data for later retrieval and analysis.

Subtopics

• Why use TPV?
  
• TPV topologies and performance impacts
  
• View current performance activity
  
• Logging performance data with TPV
  

Related:

Why use TPV?

Enable PMI data collection

Obtain advice from the advisors