You are on page 1of 22

[Monitoring IBM Maximo Products]

[May 2011]

Monitoring IBM Maximo Platform

Document version 1.1

Ben Stern, Colleen McCretton

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 20011. All rights reserved.


US Government Users Restricted Rights – Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule
Contract with IBM Corp.
CONTENTS

1 Introduction..........................................................................................................1

2 Key IBM Maximo Platform Components...............................................................1

2.1 HTTP Server ............................................................................................2

2.2 Application Server ....................................................................................3

2.3 Database Server ......................................................................................3

2.4 Directory Server .......................................................................................3

3 Monitoring the Maximo Components....................................................................3

3.1 Key Monitoring Strategies ........................................................................5

3.1.1 Thresholds ................................................................................................ 5


3.1.2 Event Management................................................................................... 5
3.1.3 Long Term Trending and Analysis............................................................ 5
3.1.4 Adaptive Monitoring/Dynamic Thresholds ................................................ 6
3.1.5 Predictive Monitoring ................................................................................ 6
3.1.6 Automated Corrective Actions .................................................................. 6
3.1.7 Workflows/Policies .................................................................................... 6

3.2 Monitoring the Key Maximo Components .................................................7

3.2.1 HTTP Server ............................................................................................. 7


3.2.2 Application Server..................................................................................... 7
3.2.3 Database Server ....................................................................................... 9
3.2.4 Directory Server ...................................................................................... 10
3.2.5 Monitoring Virtualized Environments ...................................................... 11
3.2.5.1 VMware................................................................................................... 11
3.2.5.2 Power Systems ....................................................................................... 11
3.2.5.3 z/VM........................................................................................................ 11

ii
3.2.5.4 Solaris Zones .......................................................................................... 11
3.2.5.5 Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Server ..................................................... 11
3.2.6 Custom Monitoring Solutions.................................................................. 12

4 Preparing for Deployment ..................................................................................12

5 Transaction Tracking .........................................................................................13

5.1 Response Time Monitoring.....................................................................14

5.2 Transaction Tracking..............................................................................15

6 Service Oriented Architectures ..........................................................................16

7 Reporting ...........................................................................................................17

iii
1 Introduction
IT organizations are becoming more and more service oriented. As a result, when your
users complain that it takes a long time to login, execute a search, save a record, or run a
report in any of the IBM Maximo products, you are expected to quickly diagnose and
remedy the situation. Because the environment in which applications exist is becoming
more and more complex, performance problems are becoming more and more
complicated to solve. The issue could be with the application, the user’s workstation, the
network, one of many servers in the Maximo environment, the database, or any one of a
number of other products or systems unique to your environment. The problem may even
be with a vendor’s system – such as an ISP – whose technology is totally outside of your
system. In many cases, organizations lack the tools to properly diagnose and tune
problems so they just ‘throw hardware’ at the situation hoping that the problem goes away.
What is really needed is a set of tools to help accurately depict the environment in which
the application is running, show potential trouble spots, and even suggest remedies. This
tool needs to be easy to install and use and must have the ability to send the acquired data
to other interested parties for further analysis – such as technical support, other
departments, and even outside vendors. Ideally, the solution should be able to alert you
before the problem becomes apparent to your users so their lost productivity can be
avoided. Finally, the tool should be able to provide a set of availability and performance
reports to help you analyze your environment as well as have documented proof that you
have met your service level agreements (SLAs).

This paper documents how to use the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo to effectively
monitor your Maximo environment. In most cases, the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for
Maximo provides enough visibility into the performance and availability of your IBM
Maximo product environment. In some cases, you might want even more visibility into the
components of Maximo. Therefore, the paper discusses how to leverage IBM Tivoli
Monitoring (ITM) and some of the ITM and IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager
(ITCAM) Agents to gain more visibility into Maximo. The paper documents how each of
the key components that make up your Maximo platform can be monitored using the
monitoring agent for basic monitoring and using the IBM Tivoli Monitoring and IBM Tivoli
Composite Application Monitoring Agents for deeper monitoring.

The IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo can monitor the various processes inside the
Maximo platform. It provides key metrics such as user sessions, cron task and object
instance counts, memory usage, database connections, and more. It also provides
configuration information about the Maximo applications that are installed, version
information, and more, which is useful when calling for technical support. All of this
information is displayed right along with the other system metrics available through ITM.

For additional information on IBM Tivoli Monitoring, see the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/monitor/

2 Key IBM Maximo Platform Components


To effectively monitor your environment, you must be able to monitor all of the key
components of IBM Maximo platform. For most cases, monitoring the overall health and
availability of the Maximo platform is sufficient. In some cases, it is important to monitor

1
Key IBM Maximo Platform Components

the response time of Maximo. It is important that end users experience good response
time with Maximo. Typically, this can be achieved by ensuring that all of the key Maximo
components are healthy. In a multi-tiered application, it can also be beneficial to provide
end to end transaction tracking. Transaction tracking allows you to monitor a transaction
from the time it gets initiated at the HTTP server, goes through the application server, and
finishes in the backend database server. Transaction tracking provides visibility into
where the transaction is spending its time, allowing you to quickly isolate and resolve
problems in the environment.

The following diagram outlines the key components in the Maximo application
environment:

2.1 HTTP Server


Requests into Maximo are initiated through an HTTP server. The HTTP server can either
be an IIS or Apache web server.

2
Monitoring the Maximo Components

2.2 Application Server


Every Maximo environment uses an application server. The application server can either
be IBM WebSphere Application Server or a BEA WebLogic Application Server. In larger
environments, the application servers are multiple servers in load balanced configurations
in order to achieve higher scalability.

2.3 Database Server


Maximo application environments contain a database server. This database server may
be a stand-alone server that is used by the Maximo application or may be part of a large
database server that supports multiple applications. Either way, it is essential to monitor
the database server to make sure it is performing well.

2.4 Directory Server


Optionally, a site might deploy an LDAP directory server such as IBM Tivoli Directory
Server. Since this is a key component for user authentication, it is critical that the directory
server have high availability.

3 Monitoring the Maximo Components


This section outlines how you can monitor each component in the Maximo environment.
This will ensure that each component (HTTP server, application server, etc.) is healthy.
Primary monitoring will be done using the IBM Tivoli Monitoring OS Agents and the IBM
Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo. When deeper monitoring is required, other agents in
the IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) product family can be used. This product family includes
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, ITCAM (IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager), and
OMEGAMON Agents that integrate into the IBM Tivoli Monitoring version 6 server
infrastructure. IBM Tivoli Monitoring consists of the following components:

• Portal server that provides the monitoring user interface

• Hub Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server (HTEMS) and remote Tivoli Enterprise
Monitoring Servers (RTEMS) for scalability and firewall negotiation

• Monitoring agents:

o IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo

o IBM Tivoli Monitoring, IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager, and


OMEGAMON Agents

3
Monitoring the Maximo Components

Figure 1

If you decide that you need more monitoring capabilities than the IBM Tivoli Monitoring
Agent for Maximo can provide, then you need to purchase and other IBM Tivoli monitoring
products. These products include the following types of monitoring agents:

• Operating systems (UNIX, Linux, Windows)

• Applications such as SAP, Siebel, and PeopleSoft

• Virtual servers (VMware, Citrix)

• Messaging

• Web resources (Apache, SunONE, IIS)

• Internet service monitors

• Lotus Domino

• WebSphere Application Server

4
Monitoring the Maximo Components

For more information on IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Applications, see
the following website: http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/composite-application-
mgr-applications/

If you use WebLogic servers, you will need to install the IBM Tivoli Composite Application
Manager for J2EE Agent, which is not part of the IBM Tivoli Application Manager for
Applications bundle. For additional information on IBM Tivoli Composite Application
Manager for J2EE, see the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/composite-application-mgr-itcam-
j2ee/index.html

3.1 Key Monitoring Strategies


It is important that you make the best use of the IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) product. The
following sections outline key components of the monitoring solution and how to effectively
use them when monitoring your Maximo environment. These strategies apply to both the
IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo and the IBM Tivoli Monitoring, IBM Tivoli
Composite Application Manager, and OMEGAMON Agents.

3.1.1 Thresholds

The most important aspect of monitoring your environment is to set appropriate thresholds.
In ITM, thresholds are defined as “situations” using the Situation Editor. The Maximo
Agent and the ITM/ITCAM Agents ship with a set of out of the box situations. Use these
predefined situations as a starting point. Note that some of the out of the box situations
are not configured to run automatically. This is done to avoid high rates of events
triggering. If you think these situations are important, you can enable them. Please note
that these thresholds are defined for general environments. If you find that these
thresholds are either too high or too low for your Maximo environment, it is easy to modify
the thresholds or create your own situations. The specific thresholds that are critical to
monitor each Maximo component are listed in section 3.2.

3.1.2 Event Management


ITM has the ability to forward some or all events to event management products like
OMNIbus and TEC. If you have an event management product, you can forward most
events to the event server. There are cases where it does not make sense to forward the
alert. For example, if you are using the ITM situation to launch automation via the “Take
Action” capability, you might not want to forward the events to the event server. But, in
most cases, you want to forward the events. ITM only has a limited capability of doing
event enrichment. If you want enhanced event enrichment, consider using IBM Tivoli
Netcool/Impact. Using event enrichment, you can add custom slots and data so that the
events contain information such as a contact name for the server/applications, pager
number for the person to contact, and business application name.

3.1.3 Long Term Trending and Analysis

While real-time monitoring is important, it is often important to be able to perform long term
trending analysis. IBM Tivoli Monitoring provides the capability of warehousing, or
collecting and storing, the metric data. This stores the historical data in a relational
database. Once warehoused, the data can be automatically summarized and pruned. In

5
Monitoring the Maximo Components

addition, Tivoli Common Reporting can be leveraged to provide formal reports using the
warehouse data. Recommendations for warehousing intervals are listed in section 3.2 for
each Maximo component.

3.1.4 Adaptive Monitoring/Dynamic Thresholds

In many cases, using a static threshold is inadequate. There are a number of reasons for
this. First, the behavior characteristics of the system vary depending on the time of day
and day of week. Second, behavior varies from server to server and it is often difficult to
choose an appropriate threshold. Third, it is nice to know when a server is behaving
abnormally even if it is below a predefined threshold such as 80% CPU utilization. Using
a capability called adaptive monitoring, you can set a threshold based on the previously
measured metrics that are stored in the warehouse. Consider using adaptive monitoring
for some of your monitoring thresholds to save time in defining meaningful thresholds and
to be notified when abnormal behavior occurs.

3.1.5 Predictive Monitoring

ITM 6.2.1 has a component called IBM Tivoli Performance Analyzer. IBM Tivoli
Performance Analyzer performs predictive analytics on the data that is stored in the
warehouse. This allows you to predict when errors will occur in the near-term future.
This is highly desirable in detecting problems like memory leaks or detecting when a server
will run out of capacity. If a server is nearing its capacity, this feature can provide you
with enough time to order hardware, offload work, or provision additional capacity.

3.1.6 Automated Corrective Actions

Once you have detected a problem, it is possible to set up automated corrective actions.
IBM Tivoli Monitoring offers a capability called “Take Action” where you can execute any
command on the monitored system. These can be shell scripts, binaries, or executables.
Leverage Take Actions to fix problems as soon as they occur.

3.1.7 Workflows/Policies
Workflows can automate the best Situation is true Situation is true
practices of an organization and execute
them in a pre-emptive, consistent, error-
Resume
free manner. Workflows tie together
individual resource monitors to take
specific actions based on user-defined
criteria. For instance, a mission critical
application may depend on an Oracle
database. If the archive log directory fills
up, the database will hang, resulting in
monetary losses. By tying together the Action succeeded Situation is false

Oracle database and the Oracle log file


situations with workflows, any further
“archive log directory full” outages can be
prevented. This moves IT from being
reactive to proactive. With IBM Tivoli
Monitoring, a consistent automated
process can be established to handle database issues across a number of database
platforms including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, IBM DB2 and others.

6
Monitoring the Maximo Components

With IBM Tivoli Monitoring, monitored processes can be extended to become automated,
pre-emptive workflow processes executing local best practices in a repetitive, error-free
manner.

3.2 Monitoring the Key Maximo Components


3.2.1 HTTP Server

Requests into Maximo are initiated through an HTTP Server. There are multiple ways to
monitor the HTTP Server. Initially, you want to monitor the general health of the HTTP
server. This can be done by using the Operating System monitors to ensure that the
HTTP server is running and is not consuming too much memory or CPU. The OS sgent
can be configured to monitor disk space utilization as well as high disk I/O and network I/O.
Use the out of the box OS agent situations to monitor the resources. Consider using
adaptive monitoring for the CPU utilization, disk I/O and network I/O to look for abnormal
behavior. Enable historical collection for CPU utilization, memory utilization, network I/O,
disk I/O, and disk space.

If additional monitoring is required, IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for


Applications can monitor specific HTTP server metrics. The IBM Tivoli Composite
Application Manager for Applications contains IIS and Apache monitoring agents that
monitor the availability of key HTTP server processes and services. This agent will also
monitor the web server connection rates, total connections, and more. Configure the
following historical collections:

• KQ7_INTERNET_INFORMATION_SERVICES_GL

• KQ7_IIS_WEB_SERVER_SITE_STATUS

• KQ7_IIS_WEB_SERVER_STATUS

• KQ7_THREAD_POOL_STATUS

• KQ7_WEB_SERVICE

• KQ7_WEB_SERVICE_CACHE

• KQ7_ACTIVE_SERVER_PAGES

Consider using adaptive thresholding for some metrics. For example, you can use
adaptive monitoring to look for denial of service attacks by looking at the “Logon Attempts
Rate”. If the rate is significantly higher than normal, there may be a problem. Consider
using predictive analytics to look at request execution time. If the execution time is getting
slower over time, it may indicate a performance bottleneck.

3.2.2 Application Server

Every Maximo environment uses an application server. The application server can either
be WebSphere Application Server or a Oracle WebLogic Application Server. In larger
environments, the application servers are configured on multiple servers in load balanced
configurations in order to achieve higher scalability. It is important that you monitor each

7
Monitoring the Maximo Components

of the application servers. The IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo provides key
monitoring capabilities for the application server:

• Memory utilization of each Maximo JVM: Ensure that each Maximo JVM has
available memory.

• JVM statistics: Ensure that the JVM is healthy and running within normal
specifications.

• Names and number of Maximo Business Objects (MBOs).

• Maximo cron tasks: Ensure that all Maximo cron jobs are scheduled and running
properly.

• Maximo product licenses: Determine which licensed products are installed.

• Connected Users: Use this metric to ensure that no more than 50 concurrent
users are connected to a JVM, the best practice for Maximo implementations.

In most cases, these metrics are sufficient to determine whether the Maximo application
servers are healthy and performing well. We recommend you enable situations to monitor
the following:

• Concurrent users > 50

• JVM free memory < 50,000,000 bytes

• Monitor all of the Maximo cron tasks

Enable the following historical collection for the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo.
By enabling this historical collection, you can create some useful historical reports and
leverage the adaptive monitoring and Predictive Analytics:

• KMI_MEMORY: To monitor the JVM memory consumption over time

• KMI_THREAD_POOL_STATUS: To monitor the thread pools over time

If the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo does not provide enough visibility into the
Application Server, use ITCAM for Applications for in-depth monitoring of the application
server. Using the ITCAM for WebSphere Application Server Agent you will be able to do
deep monitoring of the WebSphere Application Server. For WebLogic, use the ITCAM for
J2EE Agent. These Agents provide visibility into and monitoring of:

• Application health

• Request analysis

• Log analysis

• Garbage collection

• Pool analysis

• EJB’s

8
Monitoring the Maximo Components

• DB connection pools

• Thread pools

• And more…

The out of the box situations are a good place to start for monitoring your application
aerver. For metrics that vary a lot from server to server, and for thresholds that are
difficult to define, consider using adaptive monitoring. Examples are request rates and
response times. IBM Tivoli Performance Analyzer can also provide good visibility into
where the request rates and response times are trending. It is very important to monitor
garbage collection, connection pools, and cache analysis metrics to ensure the application
server is healthy.

Enable the following Historical Collections. The IBM Tivoli Performance Analyzer utilizes
summarized data. Enable daily summarization except where noted:

• Dynamic cache

• Client communications

• Container object pools

• EJB containers

• Data sources

• DB2 connection pools

• High availability manager (if you are using this feature)

• Messaging engine communications

• Request analysis

In addition to the application server specific metrics, always monitor the underlying
operating system. Using the OS agent and the default situations, monitor statistics such
as disk space, CPU utilization, memory, network I/O and more. Adaptive monitoring and
predictive analytics are well suited for monitoring metrics such as CPU utilization and
network I/O that are very dynamic and vary from server to server.

3.2.3 Database Server

Maximo application environments contain a database server. This database server may
be a stand-alone server that is used by the Maximo application or may be part of a large
database server that supports multiple applications. Either way, it is essential to monitor
the database server to make sure it is performing well. The IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent
for Maximo contains monitor of the database server to ensure that basic database services
are available to the Maximo servers. In addition, Tivoli offers Monitoring Agents for all of
the major database vendors (Oracle, IBM, Microsoftand Sybase) to provide a deeper set of
monitoring of the Database Server. The IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo will
monitor the database connections from each Maximo server.

9
Monitoring the Maximo Components

Using the IBM Tivoli Monitoring database agents, monitor the following key attributes:
tablespaces, buffer pools, and lock conflicts. There are out of the box situations for each
of these. In addition, monitor the number of failed SQL statements. If a number of SQL
statements are failing, your DBA should be alerted so that they can investigate. Finally,
monitor the number of concurrent database connections. If the database connections are
too high, it may indicate that too many concurrent users are logged into Maximo. If the
database connections are too low, it may indicate a problem in one of the other
components in the Maximo environment.

For the DB2 agent historical collection, enable the following attribute groups. Similar
attribute groups are available for the other database vendors. These settings will allow you
to generate TCR reports and use the performance analyzer for predictive analytics. To
use performance analyzer with a DB2 warehouse database, enable daily summarization on
these metrics:

• DB2 Database00

• DB2 Database01

• DB2 Buffer Pool

• DB2 System Overview

• DB2 Locking Conflict (Do not enable Summarization and Pruning)

• DB2 Tablespace

In addition to the database server specific metrics, it is always important to monitor the
underlying operating system. Using the OS agent and the default situations, monitor
things like disk space, CPU utilization, memory, network I/O and more. Adaptive
monitoring and predictive analytics are well suited for monitoring metrics such as CPU
utilization and network I/O that are very dynamic and vary from server to server.

3.2.4 Directory Server

Optionally, some sites deploy an LDAP directory server such as IBM Tivoli Directory
Server. Since this is a key component for user authentication, it is critical that the directory
server have high availability. If you are using IBM Tivoli Directory Server as your LDAP
server, Tivoli provides a monitoring agent to monitor IBM Tivoli Directory Server. The
agent can monitor Microsoft Active Directory servers.

Monitor the LDAP server search rates for higher than desired levels. Monitor for high
LPAP write rates.

In addition to the IBM Tivoli Directory Server Agent specific metrics, it is always important
to monitor the underlying operating system. Using the OS agent and the default
situations, monitor things like disk space, CPU utilization, memory, network I/O and more.
Adaptive monitoring and predictive analytics are well suited for monitoring metrics such as
CPU utilization and network I/O that are very dynamic and vary from server to server.

10
Monitoring the Maximo Components

3.2.5 Monitoring Virtualized Environments

Monitoring virtualized environments can be challenging. Since the allocated amount of


CPU processing can change over time, using data reported by the operating system is
typically inaccurate. Tivoli provides specialized agents for monitoring many virtualized
environments. Leverage these agents to ensure that you are accurately monitoring the
environment.

3.2.5.1 VMware

To monitor VMware ESX and ESXi environments, Tivoli has an agent called VMware VI
that is part of the ITCAM for Applications product. This agent is typically configured to
gather the performance metrics directly from VMware Virtual Center, but can also gather
metrics directly from the ESX servers.

3.2.5.2 Power Systems

To monitor Power Systems running AIX, Tivoli delivers four Agents that are specialized in
monitoring these environments:

• Premium AIX agent – Monitors the AIX Logical Partition (LPAR) utilization.

• CEC agent - Monitors the CEC utilization and LPAR usage for the frame. The
CEC is the Central Electronic Complex on Power System hardware.

• VIOS agent – Monitors the Virtual I/O erver (VIOS) utilization and IO mappings.

• HMC agent – Monitors the Hardware Management Console (HMC) and provides
visibility into the systems managed by the HMC.

3.2.5.3 z/VM

In mainframe environments running Linux on Z, the z/VM agent provides detailed


information about the mainframe environment and the virtualized resources. This agent is
sold separately.

3.2.5.4 Solaris Zones


The UNIX OS agent provides some zone specific monitoring data. There is no need to
install a specialized agent.

3.2.5.5 Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Server

For monitoring Microsoft virtualized environments, Tivoli offers agents for Microsoft Hyper-
V and Microsoft Virtual Server. These agents provide visibility into the virtualized
resources. These agents are part of a different product called IBM Tivoli Monitoring for
Microsoft Applications. For more information on IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Microsoft
Applications, see the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/monitoring-microsoft-applications/index.html

11
Preparing for Deployment

3.2.6 Custom Monitoring Solutions

As with most monitoring solutions, there may be gaps in the monitoring that are critical to
your specific implementation. Tivoli offers a toolkit called the Agent Builder that allows
you to build custom solutions. The Agent Builder has built in data providers (collectors) to
gather data from:

• SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol)

• Scripts

• WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) and Perfmon (Performance Monitor)


and the Windows Event Log on Windows

• JMX (Java Management Extension)

• CIM (Common Information Model)

• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) queries

• Logfiles

• Process/Service monitoring

In the case of Maximo, you might use the IBM Tivoli Monitoring gent Builder to create a
custom solution to monitor the following:

• Key logfiles on the applications server, HTTP server, and database server.

• Execute JDBC queries to gather key metrics from the Maximo database tables

• The processes and services that make up the Maximo solution

• Key MBeans within the application server.

4 Preparing for Deployment


The following Documents will help with the planning of your ITM environment. Begin by
reading the ITM Deployment Guide to learn about each of the ITM components, the sizings
of the servers, and how to deploy in firewalled environments. ITM Deployment Guide:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/topic/com.ibm.itm.doc/ITM62_Deplo
y.pdf

After reading the Deployment Guide, you can look at the ITM 6.2.1 Installation Guide and
other ITM documentation. All of the base ITM documentation can be found here.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.itm.doc_6.
2.1/welcome.htm
The ITM Quick Start Guide will help you identify the CD part numbers you will want
to install:

12
Transaction Tracking

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/topic/com.ibm.itm.doc_6.2
.1/itm621_qsg_en.htm
Each Agent has installation and usage documentation. Below is a list of documentation
for the Agents described in this document:

IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo:

Documentation for the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Agent for Maximo is included in the ZIP file
that you downloaded from the OPAL website. Here is the URL: http://www-
01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10TM7S

Database Agents:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.itmfd.doc/
welcome.htm

Virtual Servers:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/topic/com.ibm.tivoli.itmvs.doc/welco
me.htm

z/VM and Linux:


http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v15r1/topic/com.ibm.omegamon_xezvm.do
c_4.1.2/welcome.htm

ITCAM for Web Resources:


http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.itcamwas_
wr.doc_6.2/welcome.htm

5 Transaction Tracking
While monitoring of the Maximo components is important, one important aspect of any
application is response time. It is critical that end users experience good response time
with Maximo. In a multi-tiered application, it can also be beneficial to provide end to end
transaction tracking. ITCAM for Transaction Tracking allows you to monitor a transaction
from the time it gets initiated at the HTTP server, goes through the Application Server, and
finishes in the backend database server. ITCAM for Transaction Tracking provides
visibility into where the transaction is spending its time; thus allowing you to quickly isolate
and resolve problems in the environment. Tivoli provides a product called IBM Tivoli
Composite Application Manager (ITCAM) for Transactions to monitor these complex
environments. For more information on IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for
Transactions, see the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/composite-application-mgr-transactions/

The following diagram outlines the key components in the Maximo application
environment:

NOTE: Replace with better picture

13
Transaction Tracking

Figure 2

5.1 Response Time Monitoring


Requests into Maximo are initiated through an HTTP Server. The most important metric
you can use to monitor the health of your Maximo environment is the Response Time for
various transactions. ITCAM for Response Time (RT) has several ways to monitor the
overall response time of a Web based transaction. An agent called “Client Response
Time” can monitor the actual response time of transactions on a system. An agent called
“Robotic Response Time” performs synthetic transactions using Rational Performance
Tester, Rational Robot, or Load Runner scripts. Using the Robotic Response Time, you
can proactively test application response times for key transactions. In addition, by
placing the Robotic Transaction agents at different points on the network, you can isolate
whether failed or slow transactions are being caused by the network or by the server
components.

Use adaptive monitoring to set thresholds on end user response time and robotic response
time. Responses times that are more than two standard deviations above normal should
trigger an alert.

14
Transaction Tracking

5.2 Transaction Tracking


Client or Robotic response time is useful for determining whether an application has
performance problems within your Maximo environment. However, it is also useful to
understand which component within the Maximo application is performing slowly. By
leveraging ITCAM for Transaction Tracking, customers can gain visibility into the entire
transaction and how much time is being spent in each component. See the figure below.

When you monitor for transaction tracking, you can monitor for specific response time
thresholds. For example, if the application server portion of the transaction takes more
than 1000 milliseconds, you can raise an alert. Or, you can leverage the adaptive
monitoring capabilities to look for abnormal behavior. For example, you can set a
threshold to detect if the time spent within the application server is more than two standard
deviations above normal.

For more information on transaction monitoring, including installation instructions, see the
following web page:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcamt.doc_7.1/welco
me.htm

15
Service Oriented Architectures

6 Service Oriented Architectures


If you want to leverage web services capabilities, you can use IBM Tivoli Composite
Application Manager for Service Oriented Architectures (ITCAM for SOA). This product
provides visibility into the web services including the time spent in each web service, the
topology of the web services, and the number of times that each web service is called.
This gives visibility into SOA based applications.

For more information on SOA monitoring, see the product documentation for ITCAM for
SOA:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v24r1/topic/com.ibm.itcamsoa.doc_6.2.1/w
elcome.htm

16
Reporting

7 Reporting
IBM Tivoli Monitoring includes a reporting solution called Tivoli Common Reporting. This
allows you to run and schedule reports. Many out of the box reports exist for the agents
documented in this paper. The out of the box reports are written to work with summarized
historical data (typically hourly or daily summarization). So, enable hourly or daily
Summarization for the data that you want to report on. It is possible to use the detailed
metric data in the warehouse for reporting, but you will need to define your own reports.
The reports are posted on the OPAL website at the following links:

OS agent reports: http://www-


01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10TM67

VMware VI agent reports: http://www-


01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10TM7I

ITCAM for Applications reports: http://www-


01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10CP1N

ITCAM for WebSphere/J2EE reports: http://www-


01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10CP1G

If you need to define your own custom Tivoli Common Reporting reports, Tivoli has
provided a tool called BIRT Report Designer that can be found here: http://www-
01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10OT03

17
®
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM United States of America

Produced in the United States of America

All Rights Reserved

The e-business logo, the eServer logo, IBM, the IBM logo,
OS/390, zSeries, SecureWay, S/390, Tivoli, DB2, Lotus and
WebSphere are trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or
both.

Lotus, Lotus Discovery Server, Lotus QuickPlace, Lotus Notes,


Domino, and Sametime are trademarks of Lotus Development
Corporation and/or IBM Corporation.

Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks


of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries
or both.

Other company, product and service names may be


trademarks or service marks of others.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


PROVIDES THIS PAPER “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow
disclaimer of express or implied warranties in certain
transactions, therefore, this statement may not apply to you.

Information in this paper as to the availability of products


(including portlets) was believed accurate as of the time of
publication. IBM cannot guarantee that identified products
(including portlets) will continue to be made available by their
suppliers.

This information could include technical inaccuracies or


typographical errors. Changes may be made periodically to
the information herein; these changes may be incorporated in
subsequent versions of the paper. IBM may make
improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the
program(s) described in this paper at any time without notice.

Any references in this document to non-IBM Web sites are


provided for convenience only and do not in any manner serve
as an endorsement of those Web sites. The materials at those
Web sites are not part of the materials for this IBM product and
use of those Web sites is at your own risk.

IBM may have patents or pending patent applications covering


subject matter described in this document. The furnishing of
this document does not give you any license to these patents.
You can send license inquiries, in writing, to:

IBM Director of Licensing


IBM Corporation
Monitoring IBM Maximo Platform Error! No text of specified style in document.

4205 South Miami Boulevard


Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 U.S.A.

19

You might also like