WebSphere Application Server Performance Tuning Toolkit

Getting Started

WAS performance toolkit from IBM gives the ability to monitor multiple websphere application servers from an eclipse workspace. 

Advantages of this tool:

1.       No agents needed on the server.

2.       Monitors multiple application servers.

3.       Free tool

This tool can be downloaded from the following link:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/downloads/peformtuning.html

Installation

Extract PerformanceTuningToolkit2.0.zip to your local drive.

Click on PerfTuningToolkit.exe to open the tool.

Steps to use

1) Add a new host.

·          Right click on the hosts tab and enter the host details, enter the SOAP port of the cell.

2) Connect to your cell.

·          Double click the host in the navigation view (left) or use the context menu to connect to the host 

·          After connected to the cell, all the topology of the cell will be shown in the topology view 

3) Monitor the performance, include:

·          WebApplication

·          Transactions

·          Ejb

·          Database connections

·          ThreadPool

·          JVM runtime

·          HTTP Session

·          Alerts

·          Actions

4)Predefined alerts and actions.

·          If the heapsize reaches the maximum heap size, it will generate a runtime alert.

·          If the thread pool reaches the threshold, it will generate a threadpool alert.

·          If the CPU usage reaches 90%, it will generate a runtime alert.

·          If some servlet error occur, it will generate a servlet alert.

·          If some connection timeout occurs, it will generate a connection alert

·          If there are some thread waiting for connection, it will generate a connection alert

·          If there are more then 1000 prepared statement discarded, it will generate a connection alert

·          If application try to use some invalidated session, it will generate a session alert

·          If there is no room for new session, it will generate a session alert

·          If some hung thread decleared, it will generate a threadpool alert

·          If some transactions rolled back, it will generate a transaction alert

·          If some transactions timeout, it will generate a transaction alert

·          You can define your own rules. 

Other operations:

Apart from monitoring capabilities the following operations can also be performed:

1.       Generate thread dump

2.       Generate heap dump

3.       Enable trace

4.       Show connection pool contents

5.       Generate performance report

6.       Run tuning scripts within workbench.

 

Visual VM

Getting started

Visual VM is a lightweight profiling tool shipped with oracle / sun jdk distributions starting from JDK 6 update 7. Visual VM can be used to profile, take thread dumps, browse heap dumps, monitor and control java applications across network. We can also create reports with all the necessary information.

Installation

This can also be downloaded from the following link http://visualvm.java.net/.

Unzip the downloaded archive and to open run the file name visualvm.exe under the installationfolder\bin.

Configuration

1.       From file menu click on add remote host.

2.       Enter server details

3.       Go to /usr/WebSphere/AppServer70/java/jre/lib/management and add the following:

com.sun.management.jmxremote.port=3333

com.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false

com.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false

4.       Login to admin console go to Application servers > server1 > Process definition > Java Virtual Machine. Add the following in Generic JVM arguments:

-Djavax.management.builder.initial= -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=3333

5.       Go to visual vm right click on the remote host and Add JMX Connection