A transaction usually executes many times in a given period. If you have enabled transaction instance logging or if you have enabled fault monitoring, Business Transaction Management tracks the flow of messages included in the transaction and maps these to particular transaction instances. It assembles the messages for a transaction instance in the following cases:
when an alert is generated as a result of a fault, or a condition being met
when you explicitly ask for assembly
Once a transaction instance is assembled, you can use the Instances tab to view detailed performance information for that instance. You can also use the Message Log tab to search for messages containing particular property values. To view the content of a message, you must also enable message content logging.
This section explains how you do the following:
View a summary of all transaction instances and search for a subset of these
Assemble and inspect an instance
The Instances tab in the Transactions Tabs area allows you to view captured transaction instances.
The ID column of the table displays both instances that have been assembled (these have an ID value assigned) and instances that have not been assembled (these have an Assemble button).
Information for each instance shows when it was captured, what the overall response time for the transaction instance was, and values for properties if you have created these.
The Show instances filtering control allows you to list instances that have occurred in a set time period or to show only assembled instances.
Which instances you choose to assemble depends on what interests you. For example, you might want to assemble an instance with an unusually slow response time; or you might want to assemble an instance with an unexpected property value.
If you are capturing a very large set of messages, you might want to use the Message Log tab to search for a smaller set of messages, based on property values, and then assemble one or more of these.
You can assemble an instance by clicking the Instance Inspector icon (magnifying glass) in the Instances tab:
Business Transaction Management brings up a Transaction Instance Inspector. This view consists of three parts: identifying information for the transaction instance at the top, a map view in the middle, and a grid view at the bottom showing all the operations included in the transaction instance.
The top part of the inspector shows the name of the transaction, the time the assembled instance started executing, its ID, the number of message exchanges, the total messages exchanged, and the response time between the starting and ending message. Any warnings or faults will also be displayed in this area.
In the instance map that follows, you can view the entire transaction instance, with the response time given for each request/response link. Move the cursor over the operation name to display the service type, the endpoint name, and the host name and port.
At the bottom of the inspector window, a grid view shows you detailed information for each message included in the transaction instance. The view includes columns to show property values if you have defined these.
Clicking on the magnifying glass (tear-off control) for any operation, opens a Message Content inspector window and displays the contents of the selected message if you have enabled message content logging for that operation.