DX Application Performance Management

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  • 1.  Tomcat agent monitoring

    Posted Jan 13, 2016 01:37 PM

    Hello

    I have users designing applications on WebSphere and Tomcat looking for more Tomcat metrics. In particular jdbc connection pool exhaustion, abandoned connections alike the Websphere (CloseCount, PercentUsed, FreePoolSize and so on). Furthermore, if you want to set alerts across many Tomcat jdbc pools irrespective of the maxThread value you desperately need the % used.

     

    First challenge: when I look at the current pbd, it appears that the Tomcat 7 default factory org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory is not instrumented (https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/jdbc-pool.html)

     

    Alternate challenge: I enabled JMX, but my lack of experience with JMX configuration stops me from limiting the metrics to only what is needed (for now).

    I see some (I guess could become a lot) of duplication (sort of). In our case we set the resource at the top level, so the jdbc pool metrics appear under each application context regardless if jdbc is used or not.

    e.g. only mytestapp uses jdbc

    tomcat-jmx-jdbcpool1.png

    Furthermore I am not sure about each of these JMX. Has anyone found a good source of information that explains it specifically for Tomcat?

     

    If only CA would finally address this New JMX Integration/Framework for Java Agent 

     

    Has anyone given some thought about this topic and come up with some nifty solutions (updated agent's tomcat.jar or pbd)?

     

    Thank you,

    Fred



  • 2.  Re: Tomcat agent monitoring

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jan 15, 2016 04:46 PM

    Hi Fred:

        I have asked others in my group to respond to your question. If there is no response by Monday, will follow-up.

    Thanks

    Hal German



  • 3.  Re: Tomcat agent monitoring

    Posted Jan 15, 2016 08:00 PM

    Hi Fred,

    Regarding JMX metrics you can use the filter settings in the Agent profile to limit which specific MBeans you want to query as otherwise it could cause a unnecessary overhead both on Agent as well as EM side due to unwanted metrics, however I agree manually configuring it is bit challenging.

     

    Regarding additional metrics for Tomcat 7 specific code,we don't have any out of the box however you can always create one of your own custom pbd or perhaps reach out to local CA Sales Rep to see if there are any existing fieldpacks available.

     

    Hope that helps.

    Regards,

    Kulbir.



  • 4.  Re: Tomcat agent monitoring

    Posted Jan 16, 2016 06:20 PM

    Hi,

    your last paragraph confuses me.  I believe tomcat 7 is supported by CA and so we should have out of the box all the tracers or metrics customers require, no?

    Regards,

    Fred



  • 5.  Re: Tomcat agent monitoring

    Posted Jan 19, 2016 12:46 PM

    Dear Fred,

    Tomcat 7 is supported\certified however my comment was in context of your observation that below Tomcat 7 class is not instrumented

    org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory

     

    which is indeed correct. Seems like this is a replacement for Apache Commons DBCP(monitored by Agent OOB)

    Apache Tomcat 7 (7.0.67) - The Tomcat JDBC Connection Pool

     

    but so far pbd's have not been refactored to add support for it, I would suggest creating your own custom pbd for above(refer to DBCP connection pool monitoring as example) and also log an idea\enhancement to have this support added in upcoming Agent releases.

     

    Hope this clarifies.

    Regards,

    Kulbir.



  • 6.  Re: Tomcat agent monitoring

    Posted Jan 19, 2016 01:35 PM

    Many thanks for confirming and everyone reading this please vote Add more Tomcat monitoring out of the box