Performance Monitor Instrumentation

This section explains the terminology that is associated with the Performance Monitor instrumentation. Instrumentation refers to the modifications that are made to internal PeopleSoft programming code that enables the system to report performance data to a monitor. Selected areas of PeopleTools runtime source code are instrumented.

When the system runs instrumented code, it generates time-stamped performance metrics that are relevant to that section of code. Agents running on the monitored system send the performance data to the Performance Monitor.

Instrumentation generates performance measurement units (PMUs) and events.

A PMU is a unit of measure that reflects the execution of a section of code. The system starts and stops a PMU at specific code locations, and the system may update a PMU anytime between the start and stop times. PeopleTools has defined a set of PMU types, and each type of PMU corresponds to the instrumentation at a specific code location, such as a SQL Execute in PSAPPSRV or a Jolt Request in the web server.

Each PMU includes:

  • PMU Type.

  • Instance identifier (a unique identifier for a specific PMU instance).

  • Start time.

  • Stop time.

  • Status.

  • Metrics (such as number of SQL fetches or buffer size used in a Jolt response).

See PMU Definitions.

Open PMUs are those that are currently being processed. These are PMUs for which a "stop" has not yet been received. Completed PMUs are those for which a "stop" has been received.

PMUs can assume a parent-child relationship. Child-PMUs start within a parent-PMU. Child-PMUs are linked to their parent by the parent instance ID. You can view PMUs within a tree structure that reveals the hierarchy of parent-child PMUs and indicates the processing times at each level.

Events are notifications containing performance metrics that are different from PMUs in that they are not hierarchical and they do not have durations. Events relate to resource usage, such as CPU usage or memory allocation. PeopleTools has defined a set of event types, and each type of event is reported at a specific location in the instrumented code.

Each event has:

  • Type.

  • Instance identifier (a unique identifier for a specific event instance).

  • Timestamp.

  • Severity.

  • Metrics (such as CPU usage and memory allocation).

See Event Definitions.