WebSphere Application Server Monitor

The SiteScope WebSphere Application Server Monitor allows you to monitor the availability and server statistics of a IBM WebSphere Application Server 3.5.x, 4.x, and 5.x. The error and warning thresholds for the monitor can be set on as many as ten WebSphere Application Server performance statistics.

Usage Guidelines

Use the WebSphere Application Server Monitor to monitor the server performance statistics from IBM WebSphere servers using the performance monitoring interfaces provided with WebSphere. You can monitor multiple parameters or counters with a single monitor instance. This allows you to watch server loading for performance, availability, and capacity planning. Create a separate WebSphere Application Server Monitor instance for each WebSphere Application Server in your environment.

System Requirements

Before you can use the WebSphere Application Server Monitor, there are a number of configuration requirements involving the server environment. An overview follows:

For WebSphere 3.5.x and 4.x

You must first install the IBM WebSphere Administrator's Console on the SiteScope server if you are monitoring WebSphere versions 3.5.x or 4.x. If installing the Administrator's Console:
- Select Custom Installation option during installation.
- Select Administrator's Console and IBM JDK 1.2.2. in the Choose Application Server Components dialog box.
- You will need to specify the machine you want to monitor during the installation.
You must enable the WebSphere servers to be monitored. For WebSphere 3.5.x, enable EPM Counters on the WebSphere server. For WebSphere 4.x and 5.x, enable PMI Counters or enable the Performance Monitoring Service on the WebSphere server. You can enable the counters for the application you want to monitor via the WebSphere Administrator's Console.
For WebSphere 4.x, Select Resources and select the Performance option and expand the Performance Modules tree in the dialog box that opens. In order to manage different levels of performance data, select the performance modules and choose a performance level. Then click the Set button.

For WebSphere 5.x, Click on Servers > Application Servers. Select the server to be monitored from the Application Server list. From the Configuration tab, click on the Performance Monitoring Service in the Additional Properties list. Click the Start Up checkbox and select the Initial specification level as Standard or Custom. Then click the Apply button.
Alternatively, on WebSphere 3.5.x, you can set the EPM Specification to:
epm=high:epm.beanMethodData=none
by using the WebSphere Administrator's Console.
If security has been enabled on the WebSphere server, the server security ring must be copied to the admin client.

For WebSphere 5.x

To monitor WebSphere version 5.x the necessary WebSphere libraries must be available on the SiteScope server. Generally, this means that a Websphere 5.x client install must exsit on the Sitecope server.

To install the correct client software on a SiteScope server:

Install the following options from the custom options menu in the Websphere 5.x install:
Administration (or admin console)
Performance Analysis

Note: Certain trial versions of IBM Websphere do not include the Performance Analysis option required by the Sitescope WebSphere Application Server Monitor. The SiteScope monitor will only work when a complete Websphere production installation is available.
Copy all of the files from the lib folder of a Websphere 5.x Application Server installation to the lib folder on the client install from step 1.
The WebSphere 5.x server and client settings have to match. This means that the SiteScope WebSphere Application Server Monitor will not be able to monitor a WebSphere 5.1 application server if the client libraries are from a Websphere 5.0 and vice versa. Client libraries should be installed in separate folders with clearly distinct directroy names (for example, Websphere50 and Websphere51) to avoid confusion and SiteScope setup errors.
The sas.props file should be replaced with soap.props for WebSphere 5.x installations.
Note: For Websphere 5.x SiteScope uses the Websphere JMX interface so the port number used to communicate with the appplciation server is the SOAP port number. The default SOAP port number defaults to 8880.
If security has been enabled on the WebSphere server, the server security ring must be copied to the admin client.

The default run schedule for this monitor is every 10 minutes, but you can change it to run more or less often using the Update every setting.

If security has been enabled on the WebSphere server, you must copy the security keyring from the WebSphere server to SiteScope. A keyring is a certification used by the server to identify the client.

Completing the WebSphere Application Server Monitor Form

To display the WebSphere Application Server Monitor Form, either click the Edit link for an existing WebSphere Application Server Monitor in a monitor table, or click the add a Monitor link on a group's detail page and click the Add WebSphere Application Server Monitor link.

Complete the items on the WebSphere Application Server Monitor Form as follows. When the required items are complete, click the Add Monitor button.

Server

Select the server you want to monitor. Use the choose server link to view a list of servers or to enter the connection URL to the database. The Choose Server for: WebSphere Application Server Monitor screen displays the following input fields:

Server Enter the name of the server where the WebSphere Application is running. Do NOT enter backslashes (\\) that indicate a UNC path as part of the name of the server.
Port Number Enter the port number of WebSphere server. This should be the SOAP port for WebSphere 5.x+. The default port number is 8880.
User Name Enter the user name that SiteScope should use to login to WebSphere server
Password Enter the password that SiteScope should use to login to WebSphere server
Security Realm Enter the security realm for WebSphere server.
Version Enter the version of the WebSphere server
WebSphere Directory Enter the path to the WebSphere Directory. This directory should contain at least an Admin Console installation.
Client Properties File Enter the custom client properties file. For WebSphere 5.x+, you should select an appropriate soap.client.props file. By default the /properties/soap.client.props file will be used.
Classpath Enter any extra classpath elements needed for monitor program

Counters

Choose the server performance parameters or counters you want to check with this monitor. The table list to the right of this item displays those currently selected for this monitor. Use the choose counters link to bring up the counters selection screen. Check or clear the check boxes on the choose counters screen to select between one to ten counters to monitor on this server. There are a large number of server parameters or counters available for the WebSphere Application Server Monitor. Establishing a connection with the performance servlet should reveal a list of the available counters. The list of available counters will vary depending on which version of WebSphere you are running. The list of available counters may include:

MemoryFree
MemoryTotal
MemoryUse
BeanDestroys
StatelessBeanDestroys
StatefulBeanDestroys
NumGetFound
NumPutsDiscarded
ActiveThreads
TotalThreads
PercentTimeMaxed

ConnectionWaitTime
ConnectionTime
ConnectionPercentUsed
NumTransactions
ActiveTransactions
TransactionRT
RolledBack
Timeouts
TransactionSuspended
ServletErrors
SessionsInvalidated

Target

Enter the logical name of the server you want to monitor. If this box is left empty, the hostname entered above will be used.

Update every

Select how often the monitor should read the server statistics. The default interval is to run or update the monitor once every 10 minutes. Use the drop-down list to the right of the text box to specify another update interval in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. The update interval must be 15 seconds or longer.

Title

Enter a title text for this monitor. This text is displayed in the group detail page, in report titles, and other places in the SiteScope interface. If you do not enter a title text, SiteScope will create a title based on the host, server, or URL being monitored.

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section presents a number of ways to customize monitor behavior and display. Use this section to customize error and warning thresholds, disable the monitor, set monitor-to-monitor dependencies, customize display options, and enter other monitor specific settings required for special infrastructure environments. The options for this monitor type are described below. Complete the entries as needed and click the Add or Update button to save the settings.

Disable

Check this box to temporarily disable this monitor and any associated alerts. To enable the monitor again, clear the box.

WebSphere Directory

Enter the path to a WebSphere 3.5x Directory. The directory you enter here should contain at least a valid Admin Client installation.

Verify Error

Check this box if you want SiteScope to automatically run this monitor again if it detects an error. When an error is detected, the monitor will immediately be scheduled to run again once.

Note: In order to change the run frequency of this monitor when an error is detected, use the Update every (on errors) option below.

Note: The status returned by the Verify Error run of the monitor will replace the status of the originally scheduled run that detected an error. This may cause the loss of important performance data if the data from the verify run is different than the initial error status.

Warning: Use of this option across many monitor instances may result in significant monitoring delays in the case that multiple monitors are rescheduled to verify errors at the same time.

Update Every (on error)

You use this option to set a new monitoring interval for monitors that have registered an error condition. For example, you may want SiteScope to monitor this item every 10 minutes normally, but as often as every 2 minutes if an error has been detected. Note that this increased scheduling will also affect the number of alerts generated by this monitor.

Schedule

By default, SiteScope monitors are enabled every day of the week. You may, however, schedule your monitors to run only on certain days or on a fixed schedule. Click the Edit schedule link to create or edit a monitor schedule. For more information about working with monitor schedules, see the section on Schedule Preferences for Monitoring.

Monitor Description

Enter additional information about this monitor. The Monitor Description can include HTML tags such as the <BR> <HR>, and <B> tags to control display format and style. The description will appear on the Monitor Detail page.

Report Description

Enter an optional description for this monitor that will make it easier to understand what the monitor does. For example, network traffic or main server response time. This description will be displayed on with each bar chart and graph in Management Reports and appended to the tool-tip displayed when you pass the mouse cursor over the status icon for this monitor on the monitor detail page.

Depends On

To make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor or monitor group, use the drop-down list to select the monitor on which this monitor is dependent. Select None to remove any dependency.

Depends Condition

If you choose to make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor, select the status condition that the other monitor or monitor group should have in order for the current monitor to run normally. The current monitor will be run normally as long as the monitor on which it depends reports the condition selected in this option.

List Order

By default, new monitors are listed last on the Monitor Detail page. You may use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Setting Monitor Status Thresholds

SiteScope Application Monitors allow you to set multiple threshold conditions to determine the status reported by each monitor. The individual conditions are combined as logical OR relationships so that when one or more of the conditions (for example any of the conditions for Error if) are met the monitor status is set to the applicable condition. If multiple conditions are met for more than one status condition (such as conditions for both error and for warning), the status for the monitor is set to the highest valued condition. Thus a match of an error condition and a warning condition would be reported as an error status, error being the highest value, warning the next highest and good the lowest value.

Error if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more error conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change error threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. After choosing a counter or parameter, use the comparison operator drop-down list to specify an error threshold such as: >= (greater than or equal to), != (not equal to), or < (less than) and enter a comparison value in the box provided. Comparison values should be entered as whole numbers.
Warning if: Use one or more of the selection boxes in this item to define one or more warning conditions for this monitor. Use the drop-down lists in these items to change warning threshold(s) relative to the counters you have selected to check with this monitor. Set these values relative to those you set for the error threshold in the Error if item.
Good if: You can set this monitor to return a good status for certain conditions. You may define those conditions here. Complete this item as you would for the Error if and Warning if items.