© 2013 IBM Corporation IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Transactions Transaction Tracking Best Practice for Workspace Navigation

© 2013 IBM Corporation

IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for TransactionsTransaction Tracking

Best Practice for Workspace Navigation


Content and Audience

This presentation is for Operations staff and provides an example workflow of how to best use ITCAM for Transactions (Transaction Tracking) to monitor and quickly isolate problems in your enterprise.

© 2013 IBM Corporation3

Monitoring Application Performance

To ensure SLA compliance, monitoring transaction performance is essential for finding and fixing problems before they impact customer satisfaction.

The Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEP) provides a consolidated view for monitoring resources and activities within your enterprise so performance issues can be detected early and resolved quickly.

The working area of the TEP window is referred to as a workspace.

In Transaction Tracking (TT), workspaces display information for tracing transaction behaviour and understanding end-user response times. Areas of declining performance are highlighted to help you isolate problems within the transactions of your enterprise.

When a problem is detected, it is possible to drill-down to diagnose the root cause of the bottleneck so a solution can be implemented.


Transaction tracking workspaces

TT workspaces are used to isolate the cause of slow performing and failed transactions. The workspaces are divided into four categories:

– Servers– Components– Applications– Transactions

Workspaces are dynamically linked to help filter the data allowing you to drill down to only see additional details or information for a particular problem you are interested in.

For example, if you are viewing an Applications workspace and notice a slow performing application, you can right-click on the link icon for that application to display a list of workspaces where you can view further details about the application and transactions for that application.


General Approach

Monitor summary workspaces (System, Component, Application or Transaction) then drill down into more detailed workspaces once a performance problem is detected.

Monitor tables in preference to topologies.

Navigate to an aggregate topology view only when a performance problem is identified in the table.

Navigate to the instance topology only when further isolation is required.

Avoid the default (show all transactions) transaction topology display.


Where to start?

Start with a Summary Workspace

– System Summary Workspace if you prefer to view your environment as a group of servers.

– Component Summary Workspace if you prefer to view your environment by middeleware type (for example, CICS, IMS, WMQ, IMS Connect, WAS, etc)

– Application Summary Workspace if you prefer to view your environment by specific middleware instances (for example, CICS001, CICS002, IMS001, CSQ1)

– Note: Application in this context refers to a middleware instance. It does not refer to a user application such as 'Online Banking' or 'Accounts Receivable'...etc.

– Transactions Summary Workspace if you prefer to view your environment as a list of transactions irrespective of the server, middleware type or middleware instance the transaction runs on.


Workspace Navigation – Workspace Map

Green workspaces are recommended path TEP

Server Summary Workspace

Drill down in context when a problem is detected

Component Summary

Workspace

Application Summary

Workspace

Transactions Summary

Workspace

Interactions by Time''

Interactions by Rate Topology

Detail

Drill down in context for more information

Interaction Detail Transaction Instances

Historical Transaction Instances


Monitoring applications in the Summary workspace

The Applications Summary workspace (for example) can be used to monitor the performance of transactions within the applications of your managed system to determine if there are any issues. (Alternatively, the System, Component or Transactions Summary workspace can be monitored).

The data measures transactions that occurred during the last aggregation period and is compared against baselines that are calculated from historical performance data for each application.

Applications are performing to SLA.

Most transactions are taking less time than the baseline (0).

Number of transactions compared to the baseline (0).


Identifying problems in the Applications summary workspace

The Applications Summary workspace (for example) will highlight which applications are starting to slow down (“hotspots”) based on thresholds that have been set up when compared to the baseline.

The level of severity is coloured coded as follows:

Applications are slowing down.

Transactions are taking a lot more time than the baseline and has reached a critical stage.


Using dynamically linked workspaces to isolate problems

From the Applications Summary workspace it is possible to get more details on the applications that are not performing well by right-clicking on Applications in the Navigator and selecting Workspace to display a menu of more detailed application workspaces where you can get a better understanding of the problem.


Workspace Navigation – Topology workspace

TEP


Drill Down in context when a problem is detected




Topology

This workspace is helpful for understanding the end-to-end flow of a transaction. This data can be used to identify which component of a composite application is experiencing response time problems.


Application TopologyHot Spot

Shows same data in table format

Root node (start of

transaction)

Open arrow head for async

interactions

Closed arrow head for sync interactions


13

Isolating problems in the Application Aggregate Topology workspace

Go to the Application Topology workspace for a visual representation of the interactions between different applications.

The direction of the arrows indicate the direction of the transactions. Parent nodes initiate interaction and are displayed at the start of an arrow. Child nodes receive requests and are indicated by the arrow head.

The same Applications table from the Applications Summary workspace is displayed here.

Up arrow representing a bottleneck (hotspot)

Solid arrowhead representing two way communication – CICS11 expects a reply from DB11

Green arrowhead representing the start of the transaction

Open arrowhead representing one way communication – CICS11 and WMQA do not expect a reply from MQ11

Average response time of transactions between two way communication nodes


Interpreting hot spots in a topology

While several applications are showing up with critical threshold deviations in the Applications table, only two nodes in the Application Aggregate Topology workspace are depicted as hotspots.

When the transaction topology is determined, hotspots are only shown against applications that are the most likely candidates for the cause of the problem. Any applications with threshold deviations that are not also hotspots have slowed down as a result of bottlenecks in the applications that are shown as hotspots.

Hotspots highlight possible applications that are causing the performance issues.

From this information we can infer that the CICS11 application has slowed down because of a bottleneck in the DB11 application and that the LGPolicyManagement application has slowed down as a result of a bottleneck in the appsrv1Node01Cell… application.


Hovering over nodes in a topology

Hovering your mouse over nodes will display response time information about the application.

When a performance threshold has been exceeded, a comparison is made against the baseline and the deviation is reported as a percentage.

The DB11 application is performing 44032% slower than the baseline.


Using dynamically linked workspaces to diagnose problems

Right-click on nodes and select Link To… to display a list of workspaces for that application where you can drill down further to find out more information. These links are referred to as Dynamic Workspace Links and are represented by the link icon .


Launching-in-context deep-dive diagnostic tools

Select DB2Status to launch-in-context OMEGAMON XE for DB2. This is a deep-dive diagnostic tool used to monitor, analyze and tune performance of DB2 and DB2 applications.

Dynamic Workspace Links seamlessly integrate deep-dive diagnostic tools into the TEP and are filtered to only display information on the specific application you are interested in.

We can see a warning showing the bottleneck is being caused by a thread waiting for a database lock to be released before it can precede.


Dynamically linking to deep-dive diagnostic tools

As we have seen, the appropriate deep-dive diagnostic tool is invoked based on the data source (transaction node) selected in the Transaction Aggregate Topology to help diagnose problems.

The following is a list of deep-dive diagnostic tools that can be launched-in-context from a topology workspace:

– Web Response Time– ITCAM for WAS / ITCAM for AD– ITCAM for J2EE– ITCAM for SOA– Optim Performance Manager– Tivoli OMEGAMON XE for CICS– Tivoli OMEGAMON XE for DB2– Tivoli OMEGAMON XE for IMS– Tivoli OMEGAMON XE for Messaging


What if we start with the Transaction Summary Workspace?

Monitor the transaction table for response time deviations – indicated in red or yellow

Navigate to a topology view when a performance problem is identified in the table.

Navigate to the specific topology identified in the table. (Right click on the identified (red) node and select 'topology')


Display Transaction Topologies for Problem Isolation

The selected topology will be displayed,


Very large, unfiltered, topology displays should be avoided


Workspace Navigation – Workspace Map

Green workspaces are recommended path TEP



Component Summary

Workspace

Application Summary

Workspace

Transactions Summary

Workspace



Detail


Interaction Detail Transaction Instances



Workspace Navigation – Detail Workspace

TEP








Detail


This workspace is helpful for understanding why response times have deviated. Plotting response time against transaction rate provides insight into response time patterns and trends.


Application Detail

Use this data to understand the

relationship between your response times and your transaction

rates.

No response time outside our defined

limits (all green).

Shows near term response time and

transaction rate trends. Helpful for identifying potential

problems.


Workspace Navigation – Transaction Instances

TEP









Transaction Instances

This workspace allows the user to view a single instance of a transaction (typically a poor performing instance). Very effective for isolation.


Transaction Instances - Example

End-to-end view of a single transaction

instance

Flow of WMQ message across applications and

systems.


Workspace Navigation – Historical Instances

TEP










This workspace allows the user to view historical instances of a transaction (typically poor performing instances that have been warehoused).


Historical Transaction Instances - Example

End-to-end view of a single transaction

instance

Flow of WMQ message across applications and

systems.

Documents

© 2013 IBM Corporation IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Transactions Transaction Tracking Best Practice for Workspace Navigation