1. © 2013 IBM Corporation IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Transactions Transaction Tracking Best Practice for Workspace Navigation

2. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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.

3. © 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.

4. © 2013 IBM Corporation4 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.

5. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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.

6. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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.

7. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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

8. © 2013 IBM Corporation8 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).

9. © 2013 IBM Corporation9 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.

10. © 2013 IBM Corporation10 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.

11. © 2013 IBM Corporation Workspace Navigation – Topology workspace TEP Server Summary Workspace Drill Down in context when a problem is detected Server Summary Workspace 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.

12. © 2013 IBM Corporation Application Topology Hot 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. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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

14. © 2013 IBM Corporation14 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.

15. © 2013 IBM Corporation15 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.

16. © 2013 IBM Corporation16 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.

17. © 2013 IBM Corporation17 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.

18. © 2013 IBM Corporation18 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

19. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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')

20. © 2013 IBM Corporation Display Transaction Topologies for Problem Isolation  The selected topology will be displayed,

21. © 2013 IBM Corporation Very large, unfiltered, topology displays should be avoided

22. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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

23. © 2013 IBM Corporation Workspace Navigation – Detail Workspace TEP Server Summary Workspace Drill down in context when a problem is detected Server Summary Workspace Interactions by Time'' Interactions by Rate Topology Detail Drill down in context for more information 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.

24. © 2013 IBM Corporation 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.

25. © 2013 IBM Corporation Workspace Navigation – Transaction Instances TEP Server Summary Workspace Drill down in context when a problem is detected Server Summary Workspace Interactions by Time'' Interactions by Rate Topology Drill down in context for more information Transaction Instances This workspace allows the user to view a single instance of a transaction (typically a poor performing instance). Very effective for isolation.

26. © 2013 IBM Corporation Transaction Instances - Example End-to-end view of a single transaction instance Flow of WMQ message across applications and systems.

27. © 2013 IBM Corporation Workspace Navigation – Historical Instances TEP Server Summary Workspace Drill down in context when a problem is detected Server Summary Workspace Interactions by Time'' Interactions by Rate Topology Drill down in context for more information Historical Transaction Instances This workspace allows the user to view historical instances of a transaction (typically poor performing instances that have been warehoused).

28. © 2013 IBM Corporation Historical Transaction Instances - Example End-to-end view of a single transaction instance Flow of WMQ message across applications and systems.