Java Usage

4 Java Usage

The Advanced Management Console provides administrators with information about the Java applications that are run in their enterprise and the versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that are used to run them. Through the Advanced Management Console , administrators can determine such things as which version of the JRE is used to run corporate applications and how many browser-based applets are being run in the enterprise.

This topic contains the following sections:

About Tracking Java Usage

Java Usage Tracker is a feature of Oracle Java runtimes (JDK and JRE). When enabled on an instance, Java Usage Tracker (JUT) tracks the use of applications and Java runtimes on that instance. Advanced Management Console collects the information from the Usage Tracker and presents it in reports.

For the Advanced Management Console to collect information, the Java Usage Tracker must be enabled on desktops in the enterprise. When you install the Advanced Management Console Agent on a desktop, the Java Usage Tracker gets enabled. You can also manually enable the Java Usage Tracker on desktops that do not support the Advanced Management Console Agent.

See Java Usage Tracker Setup for Advanced Management Console in the Advanced Management Console Installation and Configuration Guide.

The Status tab of the Advanced Management Console shows the number of records that were processed successfully or unsuccessfully. See Java Usage Record Counters.

Java Usage Tab

The Java Usage tab of Advanced Management Console shows the applications that are running on desktops in your enterprise and the versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that are being used. Filters are available to get reports about the applications and JREs.

The information is shown in the format of a table, pie chart, or bar chart. See Views for Java Usage.

The filters determine what information is shown.

From this tab, Java Usage Tracker data can be exported to an HTML file or a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

Views for Java Usage

Information in the Java Usage tab of the Advanced Management Console is available in table format, as a pie chart, and as a bar chart, as depicted by table, pie chart, and bar chart icons respectively. The display option and filter criterion are used to choose the type of information shown.

The table view is the default view. Click the arrow that appears in the column heading to sort the data by the values in that column. Use the navigation bar below the table to view additional pages when the number of entries exceeds the page size. The Details and Properties icons are enabled when you select an application in the Display table. These two icons are grayed out if no application is selected no application is selected. The Properties icon gets enabled when you select a non-web application and the both the icons are enabled only when you select a web-based application.

The categories shown for the pie chart and the horizontal axis of the bar chart are based on the option selected for Display. For example, if Application Security is selected, then the categories are Sandbox and All permissions. The count shown in the pie chart segments and the vertical axis of the bar chart is based on the option selected for Counter. If Counter is set to Hosts, then the charts show the number of hosts in each category.

Filters for Usage Information

The display option and filter criteria in the Java Usage tab of the Advanced Management Console determine what type of information is shown.

The default display option is JRE Full Version. This option shows statistics for the applications that were run with the JRE versions that are shown. The display option sets the type of information that is shown in the first column of the table view and the categories for the pie chart and bar chart.

The filter criteria further refine the information shown. The choices available for each criterion are based on the values reported by Java Usage Tracker. For example, if the only major JRE versions used for all applications that are tracked are 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, then 1.6.0 is not shown as a choice for the JRE Major Version criteria.

You can use the display option and filter criteria together to get answers to questions similar to the ones in the following list:

Which applications are running with an insecure version of the JRE?

Set Display to Application. Add the criterion JRE Security Baseline and set it to some JREs are insecure.
How many Java Web Start applications require access to the user's system?

Set Display to Application Type. Add the criterion Application Security and set it to All Permissions. Add the criteria Application Type and set it to WebStart Application.

The next example shows how to see which applications require access.
Which Java Web Start applications require access to the user's system?

Set Display to Application. Add the criterion Application Security and set it to All Permissions. Add the criterion Application Type and set it to WebStart Application.
What operating systems are being used to run applications?

Set Display to OS Family. No additional filters are needed.
What are the applications, types of applications, and the JRE versions discovered after a specified date?

Add the criterion First Use After and set the required date and time to view all the applications or JREs that were discovered after the date and time selected.
How to list the applications that use Java Commercial features?

Set Display to Application. Add the criterion Java Commercial Feature. Select the required filter option FlightRecorder, UseAppCDS, or both to display relevant applications that use Java Commercial features.

Generating Reports for Java Usage

Reports are used to answer questions about how Java is used in your enterprise. These reports use the information generated by Java Usage Tracker and collected by the Advanced Management Console Agent. Report data can be exported to an external file.

To generate a report:

In the Advanced Management Console , click the Java Usage tab.
Set Display to the type of information that you want.

The values for the type of information selected are shown as the first column of the table view, the categories for the pie chart, or the horizontal axis of the bar chart.
To further filter the information, click Add Criteria and select one or more filters from the list.
For each filter selected, select or enter the value to match.

Filters that provide a list of values show only values that are present for at least one application. For filters that do not provide a list of values, such as Application, type the string to match and press Enter.

Some filters require a secondary filter. The secondary filter is automatically shown when the primary filter is selected. For example, if the filter criterion JRE Minor Version is selected, then the JRE Major Version filter is also shown.
Choose the format in which you want to view the information.

Updating the Applications

In the Java Usage tab of the Advanced Management Console , you can select an application and set a name (an alias) for it. Applications are uniquely identified by locations, which are different for various application types. They can be, for example, class names, web page URLs, JNLP URLs, or jar file names. However, location names are often long and/or less understandable. In addition, it is also possible for a single application to have multiple locations that look similar or share a common pattern. For this reason, setting an alias makes an application appear more readable and also enables the merging of multiple locations into a single application. More specifically, for every application in the Java Usage tab, you can set an alias to simplify the application name. For example, com.sun.deploy.panel.ControlPanel can be named Java Control Panel.

To update (or simplify) application names:

In the Advanced Management Console , click the Java Usage tab.
Set Display to the type of information that you want. To update application names, ensure to set the Display type to Applications.
The Update Name button is displayed only when the Display type is set to Applications.
Select an Application that you want to update in the Application table.
The Update Name button becomes enabled.
Click Update Name to display the Update Application Name dialog box.
Enter the new application name in the Application Name field.
Enter a pattern in the Location Pattern field. You can use wild cards for the pattern: an asterisk (*) substitutes zero or any characters; an underscore (_) substitutes a single character.
Note that the merging is enabled for standalone applications only.
Click Next to review the details under Review and Submit.
At this step, you can review the new name of the application, and in case of standalone applications, a list of locations that are going to be merged into a single application.
Click Submit.

The application name gets updated and message is displayed indicating that the application was successfully updated.

Deleting the Applications

You can delete the applications based on the entries selected or filter criteria that is applied.

To delete applications:

In Advanced Management Console , click the Java Usage tab.
Ensure that the Application is selected in the Display option. Select the applications you want to delete.
You can also set the filter criteria to show only the applications that you want to delete.

Click Add Criteria and set the values for each filter that you selected. The applications that matches the criteria gets listed. See Filter Criteria for Java Usage Information.
Click Delete Applications.

The Delete Applications window is shown where you can choose the target applications to be deleted. Choose either Selected Applications or All Filtered Applications.
Click Confirm.

The selected applications gets deleted.

Export Data

Data from the Java usage reports that are generated by Advanced Management Console can be exported to an external file. Filter criteria is used to choose the applications that are included in the exported data.

To export Java usage data:

In Advanced Management Console , click the Java Usage tab.
(Optional) Set the filter criteria to show only the applications that you want included in the exported data.

Click Add Criteria and set the values for each filter that you select. Only information that matches the criteria is exported. The Display option does not affect what information is exported.

If no filters are set, all applications are included in the exported data.
Click Export Data.

The Export Data window is shown.
Choose the output format.
- HTML: The generated file contains the data in a table with HTML formatting.
- CSV: The generated file contains the data in text fields that are separated by the value separator that you select.
- JSON: The generated file contains the data in machine-readable JSON format.
Click Confirm.

The browser prompts you to either save or view the data. Depending on the format selected, the default file name is amc2-java-usage_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM.csv or amc2-java-usage_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM.html, where YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM is the server-side timestamp of when the file was created.

The following data is exported for each application that meets the filter criteria. See Filter Criteria for Java Usage Information for a description of the properties:

Location
Type of application
Application security
Java version
Java architecture
Host name/IP address
Operating system name
Operating system version
Run count
Timestamp of last run

Java Usage Information

The Java Usage Information is about applications and their Java Runtime Environment (JRE) versions that are used to run them is collected from desktops that have the Advanced Management Console agent installed. This information is shown in the Java Usage tab of Advanced Management Console .

The following table describes the statistics that are shown. All of the statistics, except Path are available in the table view. Select one row (depends on the selected Display, one row can be an application, or an application type, or an OS family) in table view and click the Properties icon, the Path information for the table row is shown. The path details for the JRE are displayed immediately below the Hosts details, and appear in the same place for all display types. Latest usage is not available for the pie chart or bar chart.

Statistic	Description
# Apps	Number of applications that meet the filter criteria
# Runs	Cumulative number of times that the applications that meet the filter criteria have been run
# Hosts	Number of hosts on which the applications that meet the filter criteria are installed
# JREs	Number of JREs associated with this row for the chosen display type. For example, if the display type is Applications, then it's the number of JREs used to run the application; similarly, if the display type is OS family, then it's the number of JREs run on that OS family.
First Usage	The first time an application or a JRE version was discovered.
Latest Usage	The most recent time that an application that meets the filter criteria was run.
Path	Full path of the JRE in Java Usage reports. For example: `/Library/Application Support/Oracle/Java_AMC/versions/AMC-2.7-b04/java`.

Filter Criteria for Java Usage Information

The filter criteria available in the Java Usage tab of Advanced Management Console are used to generate reports about how Java is used. The filters and the values chosen provide administrators with specific information about the applications in use in the enterprise.

The following table describes the filters that are available, and indicates if each criterion is available as the display option or as a filter. For filters, valid values are provided in the drop-down list, except where noted in the description.

Criteria	Description	Display Option	Filter Criteria
Application Type	Type of application, such as HTML applet or Java Web Start application.	X	X
Application	Name or location of the main class, JAR file, or JNLP file, depending on the type of application. Enter the string to match.	X	X
Application Security	Type of access required by the application, such as sandbox or all-permissions	X	X
JRE Major Version	Major version of the JRE, such as 1.7.0 or 1.8.0	X	X
JRE Minor Version	Version number of the update release for a major release		X
JRE Full Version	Major and minor version of the JRE, such as 1.7.0_67 or 1.8.0_40	X
JRE Security Baseline	Security status based on the JRE security baseline. See JRE Security Baseline. Set the filter to show statistics for applications that were run with only secure JREs, only insecure JREs, or a mixture of secure and insecure JREs.		X
JRE Architecture	Architecture of the JRE, such as 32 for the 32-bit JRE	X	X
OS Family	Operating system on which the application and JRE run	X	X
OS Version	Version of the operating system		X
OS Family + Version	Family and version of the operating system	X
Java Commercial Feature	The commercial features such as FlightRecorder and UseAppsCDS that the applications use.		X

Java Usage Record Counters

The Advanced Management Console collects Java usage records and processes them to extract the information needed. The Status tab shows the number of records that are processed.

The Java Usage section of the Status tab shows the following information:

Accepted Records: Number of usage records that were processed successfully.
Rejected Records: Number of usage records that couldn’t be processed. Possible reasons for rejecting a record can either include a discrepancy between the Java Usage Tracker configuration in the Advanced Management Console and the Java Usage Tracker configuration for a desktop, or a new Java application is using an argument value that conflicts with the existing Java Usage Tracker configuration.
To display details of records:
1. Click Rejected Records to display rejected record details, such as IP address, Rejection Reason, and Truncated Java Usage Tracker Record in the JUT Record Rejection Details dialog.
2. Click the Rejected Records Table icon to display all the records in a tabular format.
3. Select a record and click the Rejected Record details icon to display the details of the selected record. The display of records in the Rejected Records Table can be further refined with filters. You can toggle the checkboxes against each of the filters to select or deselect the filters.
4. If you want to remove all filters, then click Remove All.
5. Click Download Rejected Records File to open or save the list of rejected records as a CSV file.
  
  Note:
  The maximum number of records that gets downloaded in a file is 100,000.
Clear Counters resets the record counters to zero. If records are being rejected, then clearing the counters after attempting to resolve the issue shows if records are no longer being rejected.