The GWC held a webcast in late October on Problem Determination and Performance Monitoring for WebSphere Application Server. The session was popular, drawing hundreds of attendees, as well as quite a few questions. Speakers Don Bourne, STSM - WebSphere Application Server, Serviceability, IBM Systems, Middleware, and Kevin Grigorenko, WebSphere Foundation, Software Engineer, IBM Systems, Middleware, tried to get through as many questions as possible, but weren’t able to respond to everyone’s queries before the webcast drew to a close. You can view the webcast replay and download the webcast presentation here.

Now, they are following up to take on the topics that didn’t get addressed in this Q&A. Don sat down to respond to user questions. Check out his responses below:

Don: Thanks for joining the recent webcast on Problem Determination and Performance Monitoring for WebSphere Application Server. It's great to see lots of people interested in this stuff.

Sorry we didn't get time to answer all the questions in the call. Here are answers to the questions I think we didn't get time to take. If you don't see your question in the list it may be because it asks about WAS futures (can't discuss without NDA), or because I thought we already covered it. Feel free to let me know if you think I missed yours and it wasn't for those reasons.

Question: Greetings, Folks! If time permits, can you help us, in differentiating between a "LiertyCoreBundle" and "Full Profile?" What is the basic functionality of "LibertyCoreBundle?" https://developer.ibm.com/wasdev/blog/2015/06/12/inside-wasliberty-install/

Don: The LibertyCoreBundle provides the function of the Liberty Core edition, which is primarily the JEE7 web profile plus features for monitoring. In contrast the full profile is the full JEE7 certified runtime. Remember that you can always use featureManager or installUtility to install any of the features that the edition you are running is entitled to.

Question: I used to use PTT (Performance Tuning Toolkit) from ISA 4.1, but I haven't seen it available anymore on ISA v5. Any reason for this?

Don: PTT is still available for download from developerWorks here. We actually could provide this as an AS IS downloadable tool in ISA 5 -- which could be useful as it helps with our goal of aggregating tools in one place (ISA). In the meantime, feel free to grab it from dW.

Question: Is Health Center in ISA5 recommended for Production systems?

Don: Per this blog post by Kevin: "As of Java 5 SR10 and Java 6 SR5, it is rated "for production use," which means that it can be used even under a fully loaded, production system (with an overhead of approximately just a few percent):http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/hctool/v1r0/topic/com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.doc/com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.gui/docs/platforms.html. This means WAS >= 6.1.0.27 and WAS >= 7.0.0.5 (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27005002)."

Question: What WebSphere or JVM level does the -XHealthcenter option work for?

Don: -Xhealthcenter works for all supported levels of the JVM that run under all supported versions of WAS.

Question: To get the free suite of tools... Can I open a PMR? Opening a PMR, I do not see ISA in the list of available products.

Don: Not sure if the question here is - can I open a PMR to get ISA, or can I open a PMR if I have a problem with a tool in ISA. You can get ISA from www.ibm.com/software/support/isa. If you have a problem with any of the tools listed as supported in the ISA tools catalog, you can open a PMR. Open the PMR against whichever product you are using ISA with -- for example WAS -- and we will route it to the appropriate team.

Question: Question regarding ISA 5 Team Server package with Liberty. On windows, you must manually start it from command line. Is there any move on to allow it to start as a self-running windows service, or will that only available in the .ear file version?

Don: I'm not aware of any effort on ISA team side to provide a windows service. You could always use the windows startup folder 

Question: I have problems bringing up Health Center. Is there any help I can get from IBM?

Don: Yes -- Health Center is fully supported. I would start by looking for answers to your question, or posing your question at the health center forum. You can also open a PMR if you can't get an answer there.

Question: Would we be able to analyze IBM Content Navigator memory leaks using these products?

Don: I'm not familiar with IBM Content Navigator -- but it looks like it runs on the IBM Java runtime, so yes, the products that work at the JDK level, would work. In particular Memory Analyzer, Garbage Collection and Memory Visualizer, IBM Diagnostic Dump Explorer, Health Center would work.

Question: If threads are hung and system is not allowing to login to WAS console, then how do we enable the traces and view Tivoli performance viewer without logging to WAS console?

Don: If threads are hung, I'd suggest you collect a set of javacore files from your JVM and analyze them with thread and monitor dump analyzer. If you needed the PMI counters, you could enable them (assuming the MBeans are still responsive) using the Perf MBean's appendCustomSetString method, which you can call using JConsole or from wsadmin.

Question: Is Performance Servlet part of TPV? How do you enable Performance Servlet to retrieve MI metrics in XML format? I would like to autote PMI data to be saved and to analyze the data later.

Don: No, the performance servlet is in the WAS_HOME/installableApps directory and is something you can install onto your WAS Classic server. See details here.

Question: When does the free connection count reach zero? Is there a possibility it can reach the caution level when there is no live traffic?

Don: The free connection count should only reach zero when you have traffic using your connections. I don't think I can think of a scenario where you would see that without any traffic.

Question: Is log Analytics available for Full WA servers?

Don: No, though we've heard that request from many customers so it's something we're certainly considering.

Question: Similar to ISA4, in ISA5 can we connect to dmgr soap port and monitor all jvms in the cell?

Don: Perhaps you were using Performance Tuning Toolkit for this -- see above answer on PTT. By the way, think of ISA as the platform that has a tools catalog, so it's not ISA itself that does the monitoring of WAS but a particular tool that is available from ISA.

Question: Is there a possible integration with Omnibus for the Integrated Log analytics?

Don: No. If you're looking for Omnibus integration, take a look at IBM APM at http://www.ibmserviceengage.com.

Question: How is the consumption of TPV monitoring?

Don: Normally you'll run TPV on your dmgr server, not on the servers in your cell that are running your apps. As such, it's generally not an issue. TPV holds onto a finite number of data points about each of your metrics you're graphing.

Question: can I use kibana+elasticsearch with 8.5.5?

Don: The liberty integrated analytics is in beta only at this point - so you can use it as part of the Liberty 8.5.5.x betas.

Question: Does IBM Support Assistant 5.0 provide reporting for any type of zOS JVM's?

Don: ISA 5 is just the platform -- I think what you're asking is 'Do the tools that analyze jvm data work with z/OS data?' The tools from the IBM JVM team (GCMV, Memory Analyzer, IDDE, and Health Center) work with z/OS data.

Question: Is Integrated Log Analytics also available for liberty for z/OS?

Don: The beta doesn't currently support z/OS.

Question: Bluestripe monitoring software is using WebSphere PMI, so third parties doesn't have control to change PMI levels dynamically, where ITCAM does that. Is this an IBM limitation?

Don: Anyone with access to the WAS Perf MBean can change the PMI levels dynamically.

Question: Is TMDA and PMAT tools that are supported by IBM now and in future?

Don: Both of those tools are AS IS tools. I'm not aware of any plans to change that.

Question: Where do I find Advisor on the WebSphere admin console?

Don: For the TPV advisor, look under monitoring and tuning section / performance viewer / current activity.

Happy problem solving!

Don Bourne is the WebSphere Serviceability Architect. He joined IBM in 1996 and focused on caching, performance, and problem determination for WebSphere Commerce. Joining the WebSphere Application Server team in 2003, he has focused on problem determination tools and making WebSphere products easier to diagnose. Don is now immersed in serviceability, monitoring and analytics for WAS Classic and WAS Liberty.