Performance Monitor

Greetings all,

On a 1.5 year old producion system, we have sporadic complaints of performance "problems". When asked for details, users reply with "everything was slow for awhile". From a CNC perspective, we've poured over the tuning guides for all system components. The iSeries admins notice nothing unusual during the times reported, in fact our CPU rarely goes over 45-50%.

A tool that has caught the attention of management is Performance Monitor. They like the fact that there is no additional software to purchase, we simply need to install and configure. Short of the install docs and it being mentioned in a couple of powerpoints, I've seen very little regarding this tool. Does anyone out there have experience with it and can you recommend for or against bothering to set it up? What is the level of effort involved in the install? Is it going to be useful in pinpointing bottlenecks as the brochures indicate?

Thanks!

Doug Ployhar
CNC
CHS Inc.
8.12 Update 3 / TR - 8.98.2.2 / ES - iSeries / WAS 6.1.0.21 (WinTel)

Hi Doug, and welcome to the List!
Performance monitor is a tool designed to "translate" (actually parse) the sometimes hard_to_read the jdedebug log file.
The performance is evaluated at object (batch / interactive application, business function, business view/SQL) level.
In other words you get how many miliseconds an object needs to execute; comparing these periods on runs in different environments , custom objects vs vanilla objects helps you identifying bottlenecks.
It is really easy to install, but it requires some time to get used to it. More than a day, but less than a week.

Doug,

Performance Monitor is a Microsoft tool, and is it automatically installed as part of a default Windows installation. On that point, it is a tool to monitor the performance of the Windows server that it is installed on.

In most situations, "slow" performance can be found at the Database / Enterprise server level, which your signature indicates is on an iSeries.

Thus, my first impression would be that you will not benefit much from it, unless the issue is with the WAS.

From my experience, the first place to look at performance issues is the database server disk subsystem. I could give you all kinds of pointers for PerfMon for a SQL Server. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with how you monitor performance metrics on an AS/400.

Actually, I think they were discussing Performance Workbench (as apposed to Monitor)...

Look for Performance WorkBench in the KG - will tell you nice things like:
* When a function Starts
* How long an SQL takes
* Error codes
* When the next California Quake hits (some time during Spring Break, when I'm there with the rest of the planet)...

(db)

You know... I should have thought of that. But, I have been using PerfMon for so long now to actually diagnose performance issues that I took it at face value.

Unfortunately, I can't find the Quake Counter...

Thanks for the reply folks! I should have been more specific, with all the tools floating around for monitoring performance. I was indeed talking about "Performance Monitor", a JDE tool introduced as part of Tools 8.95. As of 8.97, it's accessed from the "Configuration" section in Server Manager. As I understand it, I'll need a separate WebSphere (or OAS) server that will collect performance data. I'm just not sure of the value, as it appears not too many people are running this.

Thanks again,

Doug

The iSeries has a decent performance tool. Type Go perform and review the menu. Take a peek at the Performance tools guide. The down side is you'll have to collect data before you can evaluate what is going on and it won't really drill into the Deployment and JAS world but it will help pinpoint w hat to look closer at.
Plus the price is right...

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/topic/books/sc415340. pdf

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On B ehalf Of DougP
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:11 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Performance Monitor

Thanks for the reply folks! I should have been more specific, with all the tools floating around for monitoring performance. I was indeed talking abou t "Performance Monitor", a JDE tool introduced as part of Tools 8.95. As of 8.97, it's accessed from the "Configuration" section in Server Manager. As I understand it, I'll need a separate WebSphere (or OAS) server that will collect performance data. I'm just not sure of the value, as it appears not too many people are running this.

Thanks again,

Doug

I looked into setting up this tool as well at 8.98. I asked a good consultant who used to work for JDE about it. He said that it was not worth setting up and recommended not doing so. I think he had worked on it with Denver and they implied as much.

We installed it but in the end we decided against it because it did not provide the detail that our management wanted. This was sometime ago so I would be interested in knowing if other people got it working successfully.

Thank you