Collecting information about an application's performance
An application might be performing slowly for a variety of reasons.
You can use several of the tools included in i5/OS®
and other licensed programs to help you get more information.
Collecting information about an application's performance is quite different from collecting information about system performance. Collecting application information can be done only with certain performance applications such as Performance Explorer, Performance Trace Data Visualizer, and iDoctor.
Alternately, you can get an overview of application performance by using the Job monitor to track individual server performance and Performance Tools to track and analyze server jobs.
Collecting an application's performance data can significantly affect the performance of your system. Before beginning the collection, make sure you have tried all other collection options.
- Performance explorer
- This tool (a function of i5/OS)
helps find the causes of performance problems that cannot be identified by using tools that do general performance monitoring. As your computer environment grows both in size and in complexity, it is reasonable for your performance analysis to gain in complexity as well. The performance explorer addresses this growth in complexity by gathering data on complex performance problems.
Performance explorer is designed for application developers who are interested in understanding or improving the performance of their programs. It is also useful for users who are knowledgeable in performance management to help identify and isolate complex performance problems.
- Performance Trace Data Visualizer for iSeries™
- This tool is a Java™ application that can be used for performance analysis of applications running on i5/OS.
Performance Trace Data Visualizer works with the performance explorer function of i5/OS to allow the analyst to view program flows and get details (such as CPU time, current system time, number of cycles, and number of instructions) summarized by trace, job,
thread, and procedures. When visualizing Java application traces, additional details such as the number and type of objects created, as well as information about Java locking behavior, can be displayed. There is also support for performance explorer events generated by the WebSphere® Application Server. Performance Trace Data Visualizer allows sorting of columns, exporting of data, and many levels of data summarization.
- iDoctor for iSeries
- The PEX Analyzer function in iDoctor includes a software tool specifically geared toward analyzing trace data to improve system and application performance. This detailed analysis gives a low-level summary of disk operations, CPU utilization, file-open operations, machine interface (MI) programs, wait states, disk space consumption, and much more. The client component is an iSeries Navigator plug-in that allows a user to condense and display trace data graphically.
- Start Performance Trace (STRPFRTRC) command
- i5/OS includes a command to collect multiprogramming and transaction data. This command collects the data that the Start Performance Monitor (STRPFRMON) command collected in previous releases. After running this command, you can export the data to a database file with the Dump Trace (DMPTRC) command.
- Dumping trace data
The Dump Trace (DMPTRC) command puts information from an internal trace table into a database file.
- Dumping memory
The Dump Main Memory Information (DMPMEMINF) command dumps information about pages of main memory to a file.
Parent topic:
Researching a performance problem
Related concepts
Performance explorer Performance Trace Data Visualizer iDoctor for iSeries