About Event Details

Use the Event Details page to drill down to a specific request’s profile information and identify hot paths and methods using the instrumented method tree, sampling method tree, as well as SQL and method statistics.

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WebCenter Portal Performance Pack is automatically configured to ignore non-essential information and track only key methods; therefore, when you drill down on a specific request you’re not overwhelmed with a massive amount of data to search through. The Event Details page contains the following sections to help you pinpoint possible problem areas:

  • Event Details — Shows top-level information about the event

  • Instrumented Method Tree — Shows how much time is being spent on individual key methods

  • Sampling Method Tree — Compliments the instrumented method tree by identifying cases where the configured methods may have missed other key methods

  • SQL — Shows how much time was spent making calls to the database

  • Method Statistics — Shows method timings associated with this method within the scope of this particular event (request)

You can collapse and expand each section so that you can zero in on the most critical information needed.

About Event Details

The event details provides information about the selected event, including but not limited to:

  • Timestamp — Date and time the event was processed by the server

  • Duration — Displays the total time taken to process the event.

  • Base Method — Displays the root method as package/class.method

  • Event — Displays the HTTP method (GET/POST) followed by a separator and the full URL, and any parameters

  • User Agent — Displays the account that the customer used for authentication on the application (the target application being monitored)

About the Instrumented Method Tree

Because of the complexity of our code, a single request may contain a significant number of methods. With that in mind, we use a configuration algorithm to only include key methods in the instrumented method tree so that you can immediately focus on what is important for performance analysis. The instrumented tree is represented as a hierarchical table of data. Using this hierarchical tree format, you can easily determine the most expensive methods because those methods have a pink background and their statistics are highlighted in red. It’s OK to ignore the high-level methods, which by nature are slower as they contain other methods. For example, the base method weblogic/servlet/internal/WebAppServletContext.execute appears slow because the time reflects the total timing for the whole request.

Although you want to ignore the actual high-level method, you should drill down further into this method by expanding the node and seeing if in fact it’s a hot path with low-level methods eating up the time. The following information can help you determine areas that need further investigation.

Instrumented Tree Item Description
Method Displays as package/class.method. The full method is shown in a tooltip on hover. 
Total Time Displays the total time spent on this method. Methods with a higher number are listed first.
Other Time Indicates the time taken by methods that are not included in instrumentation.
Hits Number of times this method is called during execution of the request
Min/Max/Avg If the number of hits is greater than 1 for this method, the minimum, maximum, and average times are calculated.
Watch By default, all methods in the tree are watched. Click here to remove the method from the tree.

The sampling method tree works alongside the instrumented method tree because it can catch expensive methods that are not yet instrumented. Therefore, if you see a large Other Time statistic calculated, you should examine the methods included in the sampling.

Note:

When you remove a method from instrumentation only that method is removed. Lower-level methods remain in the tree as they are selected based on the algorithm not because they are children of an instrumented method.

About the Sampling Method Tree

The sampling method tree operates in concert with the instrumented method tree. The stack traces are sampled periodically and this tree displays the methods that are slower than the sampling rate. For example, if a request takes 1 second to execute and the sampling rate is 50 milliseconds, sampling is done 20 times. The sampling method tree shows you the frequency (weight) a method was tracked during the lifecycle of the request and if it’s taking too long to process. By default, the Sampling rate is set to 50 milliseconds, but you can change the rate based on your requirements.

The tree is represented as a hierarchical table of data. Just like the instrumented tree, you can expand or collapse the methods inside the tree. Instead the table indicates the number of child processes. To see these methods, just click on the method. This opens the Method Calls Details dialog, which displays the complete call stack for this method. From this dialog you can select to watch any methods in the calling stack.

If you find any methods in the sampling tree that you think should be instrumented for further analysis you can select to watch them. You don’t have to stop and restart the tool to add a method to the configuration for instrumentation.

  1. Select the Watch option.

  2. Go to WebCenter Portal and execute the request.

  3. Go to the Event List and drill down on the new request.

    You can see the method that you chose to watch is now included in the instrumented method tree. You don’t have to stop and restart the target portal server.

Note:

The sampling tree also displays any methods in your custom code that is slowing down the system performance. You can choose to instrument these slow class.methods by simply selecting to Watch them.

About Event SQL

When processing requests, Oracle products, including WebCenter Portal, could make some calls to the database. The SQL section contains a listing of all these calls during the processing of this request. It shows how many times each call was made as well as the average time it takes to process. Hover over the SQL name to view the full SQL. You can copy the full SQL to the clipboard.

This information, along with the information gleaned from the instrumentation method tree and sampling method tree can be very useful in narrowing your performance issue.

About Method Statistics

The Method Statistics section provides aggregated statistics for all the methods executed for this request in a list. Instead of expanding and collapsing nodes to find specific methods, you can locate them more easily here. You can then see from the aggregated statistics if they are expensive and need to be optimized.