Wily Introscope Quick Questions and Answers

Written by Administrator Wednesday, 12 January 2011 16:55 - Last Updated Thursday, 02 June 2011 19:32

CA Wily Introscope Quick questions and answers

1. How to use Wily Introscope to identify Memory Leak (and hence frequent crashes) of a Java Application? - Instrument the Application with Wily Introscope Agent. - Using Wily Workstation, monitor the Heap Usage of the Application. A healthy Java Application should have Saw Tooth pattern for its Heap Usage. If the Heap usage gradually grows over period of time and eventually hits Maximum Heap, the Application has Memory leak.

2. How to help the Application Developers in locating the class/method causing the Memory Leak? - Review Verbose GC log and Wily Introscope to determine the presence of Memory Leak - Take Heap Dumps of the Application when the Memory usage is about to hit the Max. - Use IBM Support Assistant to analyze the Heap Dump; Use the Plugin Memory Dump Diagnostic for Java. The Plugin reveals the most number of Objects in the Heap, and other important parameters leading to the problematic code area.

3. How to use Wily Introscope to find out whats causing an Applications poor response Time? - Instrument the Application with Wily Introscope Agent - Use Wily Transaction Tracer, a tool within Wily Introscope; Run the tool against the Application in question. The tool reveals the transactions and its response times categorized by subsystems (such as JDBC, JSP, and WebService etc). Drill down to find even finer details leading to the Application method consuming lot of time.

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Wily Introscope Quick Questions and Answers

Written by Administrator Wednesday, 12 January 2011 16:55 - Last Updated Thursday, 02 June 2011 19:32

4. How can you notify someone (Alert) when a WebSphere Application is about to run out of Backend Database Connections which will result in Poor Response Time and Timeouts? - Enable WebSphere PMI (Performance Monitoring infrastructure) and enable JDBC Connection Pool monitoring. Instrument the Application with Wily Introscope with PMI enabled. - Monitor the JDBC Connection Pool PoolSize and PrecentMaxed. These values will reveal the number of connections currently open to the Database. - Configure a Wily Alert to send email/page when the value crosses a certain threshold.

5. An Application that is supposed to receive Claims from Mainframe via MQ stopped receiving Claims. What are the steps to determine the problem? - Find the MQ Queue Depth on the MQ Queue from which the Application is supposed to pick up the messages. (Use Wily to monitor the Queue depth and send an Alert automatically). - If the Queue is building up, verify that the Application is running; Review the SystemOut.log and SystemErr.log to make sure there are no MQ related errors (such as Cannot open Queue. Review MQ Queue Manager logs. You may have to restart Application or MQ depends on the findings. - If Application and MQ are fine, most probably the message itself is mis-formatted. Use MQ Explorer or Hermes tool to look at the contents of the message. Involve Application Developers to confirm that the messages are not corrupted.

6. How to instrument particular Application Classes/Methods using Wily Custom Tracers? - Interview the Application developer to identify the classes and methods that are critical and to be monitored. - Create a Custom PBD (Probe Builder Directive) file that lists these classes and methods with appropriate Tracers (such as TraceOneMethodOfClass, TraceAllMethodsOfClass, etc). Configure IntroscopeAgentProfile with the Custom PBD. Restart the Application. Wily Workstation should now show the Metrics for the Classes/Methods listed in the Custom PBD.

7. How can you monitor (and Alert on) Application errors occurring at the

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Wily Introscope Quick Questions and Answers

Written by Administrator Wednesday, 12 January 2011 16:55 - Last Updated Thursday, 02 June 2011 19:32

Mainframe? - Mainframe Application Errors are generally logged by the Developers in SYSTEM_ERROR_LOG Table in the DB2 Database in Mainframe (can be viewed through SY04 screen). Each Error logged has Transaction Code and Abend Code in the error record. - Develop a Wily Introscope EPAgent script that connects to DB2 at regular intervals and queries for number of Transaction Code or Abend Code of interest. You can use JDBC API and DB2jcc jar files to establish the connection.

8. What are some of the best practices to be followed when configuring Wily Agents? - Do not enable LeakHunter. Use it only on ad-hoc basis. It exerts load on the Application. - Do not enable Socket level metrics, JMX and SQLAgent unless required. These settings will create thousands of Metrics. - Name the Process and Agent appropriately. - Do not enable verbose logging of the Agent, unless required for troubleshooting.

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