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Java Health Center Client - a low overhead monitoring tool

Question & Answer


Question

How can I monitor and diagnose my WebSphere Application Server environment without impacting performance?

Answer

      Also see: Extracting data from Java Health Center

      Java™ Health Center:


      Health Center is a very low overhead monitoring tool. It runs alongside an IBM Java application with a very small impact on the application's performance (less than 1%). Health Center monitors several application areas, using the information to provide recommendations and analysis that help you improve the performance and efficiency of your application. Health Center can save the data obtained from monitoring an application and load it again for analysis at a later date.

      Starting with IBM Java 5 SR8 or IBM Java 6 SR1, The Health Center client can be installed within the IBM Support Assistant Team Server.

      The Health Center client has several different views, each reporting data regarding a different aspect of the JVM. The views available are:
        • Classes: Information about classes being loaded
        • CPU: Processor usage for the application and the system on which it is running
        • Environment: Details of the configuration and system of the monitored application
        • Garbage Collection: Information about the Java heap and pause times
        • I/O: Information about I/O activities that take place
        • Locking: Information about contention on inflated locks
        • Method Trace: Information about method use over time
        • Native Memory: Information about the native memory usage
        • Profiling: Provides a sampling profile of Java methods including call paths
        • Threads: Information about the live threads of the monitored JVM
        • WebSphere® Real Time for Linux: Information about real-time applications


      To Install Health Center:
      Health Center Client is installed as a plug-in for IBM Support Assistant (ISA), therefore, ISA must be installed prior to obtaining the Java Health Center.

        3) Connect to WebSphere using the the Health Center Client: Connecting to an application by using the Health Center client


        BEST PRACTICE:
        Once the tool is installed, it is a best practice to update the Health Center Agent to the latest version to obtain all of the latest diagnostics. Please see the Platform Requirements chart to determine what to expect with each version of Java paired with a particular version of the Health Center Agent.

        Note: the latest agent can only be obtained from the help documentation located inside the Java Health Center Client tool itself.
          Start the Health Center client, open the help documentation, then navigate to IBM Support Assistant>Problem Determination Tools>IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools - Health Center>Monitoring a running application>Installing Health Center and install the agent from there.

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Document Information

Modified date:
23 June 2018

UID

swg21413628