How to monitor a BusinessWorks Appnode memory and threads usage using JMX and JvisualVM

During performance or volume tests, or while working in the analysis of a complex issue, it is sometimes useful to view what is going on within an Appnode JVM to be able to identify bottlenecks and improve the Appnode or the BusinessWorks applications runtime configuration.

This is also useful to compare the behavior of different Garbage Collectors or to evaluate different Garbage Collector configurations.

This article is to explain how to monitor a BusinessWorks Appnode using JMX and the open source solution JVisualVM.

Configure the appnode to enable JMX

This can be done with the following:

. Go to the target appnode ‘bin’ directory, this is in the following form:

<TIBCO_HOME>/bw/6.X/domain/<DOMAIN_NAME>/appnodes/<APPSPACE_NAME>/<APPNODE_NAME>/bin

. Edit the .tra file of the appnode

. At the end of the file add the following lines

java.property.com.sun.management.jmxremote=true

java.property.com.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9614

java.property.com.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false

java.property.com.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false

java.property.com.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false

Example of JMX properties added in an Appnode tra file

. Restart the appnode

Note : if you need to monitor multiple appnodes you have to use a unique port number of each appnode

Install JVIsualVM

JVisualVM is an open source solution, it can be downloaded at the following URL:

https://visualvm.github.io/download.html

To install it you just have to unzip the downloaded package in the directory of your choice.

JVisualVM needs a Java JDK 8 at minimum to run, if you don’t have a Java JDK 8 available in your environment you have install one (you can use OpenJDK 8 for example).

If your JDK installation is included in your environment path you can use JVisualVM directly otherwise you have to update the default JVisualVM configuration:
. Go in the JVisualVM configuration directory <JVISUALVM_HOME>/etc
. Edit the file jvisualvm.conf
. Uncomment the following line and add the path to your JDK
change
#visualvm_jdkhome=”/path/to/jdk”
to
visualvm_jdkhome=c:\tools\OJDK8

Example of an updated jvisualvm.conf file

Monitor the appnode with JVisualVM

Once JVisualVM is launched use the “File -> Open JMX connection” menu option, the following dialog open:

File -> Open JMX connection Dialog

Enter your target appnode hostname and JMX port and click OK:

Configuration to connect to a local Appnode using port 9614

The target appnode now appears in the application tab:

Example of available JVMs to monitor

Right click on it and select ‘Connect’, then right click again and select ‘Open’, the Overview tab is showing up:

Overview tab example

You can select the Monitor tab to monitor the CPU usage, Heap size and usage, and Classes and threads related statistics:

Monitor tab example

You can select the Threads tab to view Threads that are used by the Appnode:

Threads tab example

Finally you can use the ‘Heap Dump’ button to generate a ‘Heap Dump’ for further analysis:

Heap Dump button

Additional elements for a memory leak analysis

In the context of a memory leak analysis you can the use Eclipse Memory Analyser to check a Thread Dump generated by JVisualVM.

This tool, from the Eclipse Fundation, can be downloaded at the following URL:

https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/tools.mat/downloads

Additional elements for BusinessWorks 5.X

The same approach can be used with a BusinessWorks 5.X engine.

You just have to update the .tra file of the target application to add the properties mentioned above.

The .tra file of an application is located in the following directory:
<DOMAIN_HOME>/application/<APPLICATION_NAME>