Java Monitoring and Performance Tools – Part 1

For everyone who is new to the world of BASIS, monitoring a java system is a complex task. Reading and understanding logs, checking different locations are much difficult than in case of ABAP. However, SAP has made things easy for administrators to monitor java stack with wide range of tools from basic to advance level.

Here is a list of some tools that are intrinsic of monitoring a java based system.

1. The home page – index.html – system information

    Goto http://hostaname:port/index.html and click on system information tab.

    This page give you a quick at system info and processes which are running.

2. NWA links – quick links and check for Resource Monitoring related links

     Goto http://hostname:port/nwa/quicklinks

3. Goto hthtp://hostname:5<nn>13/ – SAP MC

     This console gives lots information about your java. It also helps you perform many administrative tasks for example, stopping, restarting, rolling restarts of server nodes, triggering stack dumps and lots more.

4. JCMON – command line tool

    JCMON pf=<instanceprofile>

    This is a native monitoring program, part of the startup and control framework and does all administration task from the operating system level.

5. JSMON – a new improved command line tool

     JSMON pf=<instanceprofile>

    This program is a command line program for monitoring and management. It provides a means to inspect the state of a Java instance “directly”, that is with as few infrastructure demands as possible.

      Type jsmon help to get detailed information on possibilities with jsmon tool

6.  SMICM – ICM monitor

     If you are on a dual stack system, you can use transaction code SMICM to monitor the status of java stack

      The ICM monitor provides various functions for starting and stopping the AS Java.

7.   CCMS – Checking for alerts and thresholds from a central location

       Use RZ20 from your central system to monitor remote JAVA system.

8.   Operating system level.

      On a UNIX host, use pf -ef | grep <sidadm> to check for running processes.

9.  Log Viewer http://hostaname:port/nwa/logs

      Java log viewer is one of the best way to track problems using time stamps and its logical sequencing. It shows you each and every logs which help you to     catch exception and runtime problems from a single window.

10.  JVMMON – the SAP JVM monitoring tool

     The SAP JVM Monitoring Tool jvmmon is an SAP JVM specific tool for a wide range of monitoring tasks. It is part of the SAP JVM delivery and can be found in the same directory as the VM itself under the bin folder. This tool give lots of information about the current state of this VM and is a key tool to troubleshoot garbage collection related issues.

11.  MAT – The open source memory analyzer backed by SAP

      The Eclipse Memory Analyzer is a fast and feature-rich Java heap analyzer that helps you find memory leaks and reduce memory consumption.

Use the Memory Analyzer to analyze productive heap dumps with hundreds of millions of objects, quickly calculate the retained sizes of objects, find out who is preventing the Garbage Collector from collecting objects, run a report to automatically extract leak suspects.

12.  Wily Introscope – Performance Metrics Monitoring

       SAP and WILY have provide this tool to monitoring the performance of your productive java systems.  Users can set alerts for individual metrics or logical metric groups, view performance metrics, and customize views to represent their unique environment. With support of pre-delivered dashboards, custom dashboard and lenses. Wily provides critical that can be viewed by those who need it anytime.

13. Solution Manager – RCA

      SAP Solution Managers end-to-end root cause analysis is used to identify the component that is responsible for the error. It is used to analyze and monitor the SAP solutions in the landscape. The End-to-End Diagnostics provides a structured evaluation method that identifies the root causes of an undesired outcome and the actions adequate to prevent recurrence.

As this is my first blog, please forgive me for my mistakes and correct me for the same.

I hope to share some more tools, in details, in the next part

Thanks,

Divyanshu