Performance Monitoring

In order to start monitoring you must first create a "Monitoring Session" by clicking on the New Session button. This will prompt you for an initial list of hosts (more can be added later on by right-clicking on the session and selecting 'Add Host').

Add Host(s)

Figure 7. Add Host(s)

This window accepts a space-separated list of either host names or IP addresses. Each item in the list will be added to the monitoring session, and LivePerf will attempt to connect to each one individually. LivePerf accepts that machines can go in or out of a performance network, therefore it is not an error to be unable to connect to a host.

Session Hosts

Figure 8. Session Hosts

A host can have two possible 'online/offline' states, as follows

  • HM:'online/offline' shows whether "Host Manager" is running on this machine.
  • P:'online/offline' shows whether this machine responds to 'ping' requests.

Once at least one host is added to the monitoring session, agents can be activated by right-clicking the host and selecting 'Add Agent(s)'

Agent Activator

Select location as either 'remote' or 'local', as described in "Agents". For agents which require this, also select the particular version of monitored application.

Figure 9. Agent Activator

See LivePerf Agents for a list of agents supported by the current version of LivePerf and the list of configurable parameters for each one.

Plotting

Graphic controls in LivePerf are displayed on Boards, with each board supporting one type of control. See "Controls" for more details on available controls.

To plot, select one or more counters, right click and select Plot from the context menu.

Note that for plotting views or dashboards you have to manually enable them (which in turn will enable all required counters). Select a view or a dashboard and tick its checkbox. Click 'Apply' to instruct the agent to enable all counters on which the selected item is based. Once an item is enabled, right-click on it to obtain the 'Plot' menu. Note that this menu will not appear if the item was not enabled first.

Depending on the type of item plotted, a different graphic will be created. However in each case all resulting controls will always be placed on their appropriate board.

  • Numeric Counter: If the value of the counter being plotted is a number, it will be displayed as a time series on a new "Chart Control"
  • Text Counter: If the counter has a text value then a "Properties Control" is created.
  • View: The control created is specified by the view's definition.
  • Dashboard: A set of controls are created as specified by the dashboard definition.

Running the Monitoring Session

Clicking the 'Run Session' button will instruct all agents to start collecting information, and will start populating screen controls. Data will arrive periodically with a frequency given by the current "Sampling Interval".

Changing the session-level sampling interval will immediately be applied to all agents which don't override this value.

If logging is enabled (see "Log and Replay") then all information received from the agents is saved in the chosen log file. Logging can be enabled and disabled while a monitoring session is running.

Clicking the 'Stop Session' button will stop all data collection and logging. A session can be stopped and restarted any number of times.

A session can be saved into / loaded from a session file. The following items will be persisted:

  • the list of hosts
  • the list of agents and their configuration
  • all enabled counters, views and dashboards
  • screen elements, including controls, dashboards and data view screens.
  • session related configuration, eg. sampling interval