Release notes for IBM Performance Optimization Toolkit for Rational Performance Tester, Version 6.1.2

1.0 Known limitations and workarounds
   1.1 Setting up keystore and truststore for SSL communication when importing profiling data from TMTP
   1.2 Problems when disconnecting, switching IP addresses
   1.3 Profiling on Solaris with Sun JDK may cause JVM to crash
   1.4 Profiling types support
   1.5 Cannot use Profile-on-Server feature on a server configured for this toolkit
   1.6 Installation and uninstallation restrictions for product/toolkit combinations
   1.7 Data collection infrastructure does not work after installing Agent Controller
   1.8 Some transactions are not followed when profiling
   1.9 Some profiling types not supported with toolkit data collection
   1.10 HP-UX: Data is not collected after attaching the first time
   1.11 Avoid using long paths or paths with spaces when installing on Windows® Server 2003
   1.12 Data collection fails on Windows Server 2003
   1.13 Test Recording and dynamic discovery fail when secure data collection used
   1.14 Return data missing
   1.15 When importing from TMTP, no data is available for a recently-run ARM-instrumented test
   1.16 Error message when uninstalling data collection infrastructure on AIX®, HP-UX or Solaris
   1.17 No error for failed authentication with ITCAM for WebSphere®
   1.18 Viewing sparse data in statistical view may show zeros in graph
   1.19 Clock synchronization when using ITCAM for WebSphere
   1.20 Statistical view resets follow-mode when link with viewer enabled
   1.21 Problems importing Tivoli® Performance Data from multiple policies and hosts in a single import
   1.22 Performance Call graphing problem
   1.23 ITCAM for WebSphere authentication error

1.0 Known limitations and work-arounds

1.1 Setting up keystore and truststore for SSL communication when importing profiling data from TMTP

In order to make use of SSL security when Importing performance data from TMTP, you need to set up the workbench to point to the appropriate keystore and truststore files.

If you have generated your own truststore and keystore for use with TMTP, then use those files in what follows. Otherwise, use the default agent.jks file that ships with the TMTP Management Agent (this is typically located in C:\Program Files\ibm\tivoli\MA\config\keyfiles on Windows).

Copy the agent.jks file from a machine with the Management Agent install. On the machine where your workbench is installed, create a security subdirectory in the toolkit install directory. Put a copy of the agent.jks file in the new security directory.

Then, edit the file rationalsdp.ini, located in toolkit install directory. Add the following two lines:

 VMArgs=-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=d:\myrpainstall\security\agent.jks 
VMArgs=-Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=d:\myrpainstall\security\agent.jks

Note: If the d:\myrpainstall path contains a space, use quotes around the path and file name; for example:

...trustStore="c:\Program Files\IBM\Rational\SDP\rpa\security\agent.jks"

Restart the workbench. You will now be able to use SSL when importing profiling data from TMTP.

1.2 Problems when disconnecting, switching IP addresses

If you try to disconnect from the network, or switch IP addresses, or switch between wireless and ethernet connections while doing any kind of profiling, or even between profiling sessions, you will experience undesireable results.

To fix the problem, you must restart the workbench and data collectors.

Some connection information is cached in the workbench for performance reasons. Either avoid switching IP addresses, or shut everything down beforehand and restart when you get the new IP.

1.3 Profiling on Solaris with Sun JDK may cause JVM to crash

When profiling on Solaris using the Sun JDK 1.4.x may cause the JVM to crash. This is due to a bug in the Sun JVM.

To work around this problem, use only one of the following profiling sets:

The problem arises if you use these in combination, or if "Show instance level" information is turned on.

1.4 Profiling types support

If your application server is configured for use with the data collection infrastructure, then only the J2EE Performance Analysis, ARM Performance Analysis, and Automatic Leak Analysis (heap dumps) types are supported. If the server is not instrumented, all types except J2EE Performance Analysis and ARM Performance Analysis are supported.

You cannot use more than one profiling type at a time.

1.5 Cannot use Profile-on-Server feature on a server configured for this toolkit

Application servers that have been configured for use with this toolkit's data collection infrastructure cannot use the Profile On Server feature in some Rational® Software Development Platform products.

If you want to use advanced profiling capabilities such as thread analysis, Probekit, or line-level coverage, you must first unconfigure the server. Note: Timed and manual heap dumps are supported without having to unconfigure the server.

Follow the instructions in the toolkit installation guide, in the section Unconfiguring application servers under Uninstalling the data collection infrastructure.

Note: Do not uninstall the data collection infrastructure; just unconfigure the server.

1.6 Installation and uninstallation restrictions for product/toolkit combinations

There are certain restrictions and important considerations when installing this toolkit with Rational Software Development Platform products such as Rational Performance Tester, Rational Application Developer, and Rational Software Architect. Here are some key overview points to keep in mind:

The following table provides details on steps to take to successfully install and uninstall these components. See the corresponding installation guide for the toolkit or product in question for complete instructions on installing.

In this table, the following abbreviations are used for convenience:

You have the following product/toolkit combinations installed

You want to do the following

Important notes and actions to take

RAD, RPT, IPOT

uninstall RAD

Some required IPOT plugins will be removed, so you must reinstall IPOT.

RAD, IPRT

uninstall RAD

IPRT pre-requires RAD, so you must uninstall IPRT too.

RPT, IPOT

uninstall RPT

IPOT pre-requires RPT, so you must uninstall IPOT too.

RAD, RPT, IPOT, IPRT

uninstall either toolkit

Doing this uninstalls the other toolkit, too, which must then be reinstalled.

RAD with Agent Controller, DCI

uninstall RAD

Doing this removes parts of the DCI, which must be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

RPT with Agent Controller, DCI

uninstall RPT

Doing this removes parts of the DCI, which must be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

RAD with Agent Controller

install DCI

Uninstall Agent Controller and then install DCI.

RAD with Agent Controller, DCI

uninstall DCI

Doing this removes Agent Controller, which must then be reinstalled.

RPT with Agent Controller

install DCI

Be sure you accept the default location offered by the DCI install.

RPT with Agent Controller, DCI

uninstall DCI

Doing this removes Agent Controller, which must then be reinstalled.

Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance V5.3.1

install DCI

Do not do this. Only one version of ARM engine can be installed on a machine, and DCI contains a different version of the ARM engine.

DCI

install DCI (that is, overwriting the DCI install, rather than uninstalling first and then reinstalling)

Do not do this. Uninstall the DCI, and then reinstall it.

1.7 Data collection infrastructure does not work after installing Agent Controller

If you install the Agent Controller component of Rational Application Developer, Rational Performance Tester, or Rational Software Architect after you have installed the local data collection infrastructure, it will disable data collection.

To fix this problem, uninstall Agent Controller and uninstall and reinstall the data collection infrastructure. See the installation guide for instructions.

1.8 Some transactions are not followed when profiling

When profiling a live application, some types of transactions are not followed (profiled). These include:

1.9 Some profiling types not supported with toolkit data collection

When a server has been instrumented (configured) for use with the toolkit's data collection infrastructure, only the following profiling types are supported: J2EE Performance Analysis and Memory Analysis.

If you want to use other types, you must unconfigure the server, reconfigure it as required by the base product (Rational Application Developer, Rational Performance Tester, or other, as indicated in that product's installation guide), and then do the profiling. After that, to use the supported profiling types again, you must configure the server to use this toolkit's data collection infrastructure, following the instructions in the toolkit installation guide.

1.10 HP-UX: Data is not collected after attaching the first time

On HP-UX, after launching the data collection infrastructure (using rpa_boot_unix.sh) for the first time, if data is not collected when you start monitoring, then perform the following steps:

  1. Detach from the agent.

  2. Attach to the agent.

  3. Start monitoring again.

Data should now be collected.

1.11 Avoid using long paths or paths with spaces when installing on Windows Server 2003

There are known intermittent problems with installing the data collection infrastructure on Windows Server 2003 machines using either long paths or paths with spaces. Avoid such directories if possible. This applies not only to the target installation directory, but also to the directory from which you are installing.

1.12 Data collection fails on Windows Server 2003

If data collection fails on Windows 2003 Server, then try running the Agent Controller component as a console application instead of a Windows service:

  1. Open the Windows Services panel by selecting Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services.
  2. Select the IBM Rational Agent Controller service and stop it.
  3. Select Start > Settings > Control Panel > System.
  4. On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables.
  5. Click New (if the RASERVER_HOME variable already exists, click Edit). Enter RASERVER_HOME in the Variable name field and x:\dir\IBM_Agent_Controller in the Variable value field, where x:\dir\ is the toolkit installation directory. Click OK.
  6. Open a command prompt and go to the IBM_Agent_Controller\bin subdirectory of the toolkit installation directory.
  7. Run raserver.exe.
  8. Restart the data collection infrastructure by selecting Start > Programs > IBM Rational > Rational distributed performance and problem analysis tools > Stop data collection infrastructure, and then Start data collection infrastructure.

1.13 Test Recording and dynamic discovery fail when secure data collection used

The security feature of the data collection infrastructure conflicts with Rational Performance Tester recording, and with data collection's dynamic discovery, and is therefore not supported. As an alternative for security, use the Host List option in the data collection installation, and specify a specific list of hosts that can access the data collection infrastructure on the current machine.

1.14 Return data missing

In some cases, the data returned from the data collection infrastructure may be missing return messages, and you only receive calls. That is, the UML2SD Class Interactions diagram shows only solid arrows (calls), but no dotted arrows (returns).

To work around this problem, ensure that the clock on the remote machine is set to the same or later time than the workbench machine. You do not have to change the timezone settings. For example, if the remote machine local time is 7:30 and the workbench machine is 8:31 (and the times are correct for the time zones they are in, one hour apart), simply adjust the time on the remote machine to 7:32, or set the workbench machine time to 8:29.

If you cannot possibly change the machine times, send the profiling data to a file specified in the Destination sub-tab in the Launch Configuration dialog, and then import that file. For distributed profiling where there are multiple agents, each agent must be attached to beforehand and have the profiling file option set. Each agent should profile to a different file.

1.15 When importing from TMTP, no data is available for a recently-run ARM-instrumented test

The Tivoli Monitoring for Transaction Performance Management Server is set by default to roll up data only once every hour. This means that the data from your test is created, but not collected.

If you do not want to wait until that hourly roll-up happens, do the following steps:

  1. Open the following file in the TMTP installation directory: config\autorollup.properties
  2. Ensure the tms.autorollup.enable setting is true.
  3. Set the tms.autorollup.period setting to 5, meaning five minutes, which is the minimum allowed value. Values less than 5 will be treated as five minutes.
  4. For each policy you want this autorollup setting to apply to, add the following line:
    tms.autorollup.policyN=policy_name

    Where N is an integer, starting at 1 (1, 2, 3, etc.) and policy_name is the name of the policy. The resulting autorollup.properties file will look like this:

    tms.autorollup.enable=true
    tms.autorollup.period=5
    tms.autorollup.policy1=myPolicy
    tms.autorollup.policy2=yourPolicy
    tms.autorollup.policy3=anotherPolicy
  5. Stop and restart the TMTP Management Server.

Now, data will be rolled up to the Management Server every five minutes, so data from the instrumented test will be available for import into the toolkit a maximum of five minutes after you run the test.

Note: This rollup setting is applied to instance data. Aggregate data is inaccurate until the hour has passed.

1.16 Error message when uninstalling data collection infrastructure on AIX, HP-UX or Solaris

You may get the following message when attempting to uninstall the data collection infrastructure on AIX, HP or Solaris:

This product cannot be uninstalled as it required by other products.

To work around this error, and to uninstall the data collection infrastructure, the following parameter is required on the uninstallation command:

/IBM_Agent_Controller/_uninst/uninstall.bin -console -W prod_id_uninstall.value=dci

1.17 No error for failed authentication with ITCAM for WebSphere

When importing performance data from ITCAM for WebSphere (previously WSAM), there are two authentication layers involved. The first one is WebSphere authentication, which will reject and invalid user/password on the system and cause the toolkit to display an authentication dialog. The other is ITCAM for WebSphere authentication, which will simply return no data available to import if authentication fails.

The only case where WebSphere authentication will pass and ITCAM for WebSphere authentication will fail is when the user enters a valid username on the underlying operating system (e.g. root), but that user is not registered in ITCAM for WebSphere. In this case, users should be aware that the server will not raise an error when authentication fails, but they will instead see no traps available from which to import.

1.18 Viewing sparse data in statistical view may show zeros in graph

The statistical view, by default, tries to plot one point at each tick in the statistical graph. If there is no point for a given tick, it assumes the point was zero. If the points are too sparse, this results in a line to zero every nth point. This is an artifact created by the graph, and does not reflect what is actually happening on the system. To avoid this artifact, set the behavior to "draw nothing" or "draw previous value" in the "More..." dialog to set advanced options. This will instead draw gaps or straight continous lines where there were no points to plot.

1.19 Clock synchronization when using ITCAM for WebSphere

When importing data from an ITCAM for WebSphere trap, ensure that the clocks of the management server and the workbench are in sync. In the Tivoli Performance Data import wizard, the option to import the last n units of time uses the current time on the local machine, but queries for traps which have activity in that time period on the management server clock. So if the management server clock is ahead by 10 minutes, you will have to either wait 10 minutes before the import wizard will find this transaction available on the server, or query 10 minutes into the future.

1.20 Statistical view resets follow-mode when link with viewer enabled

When viewing resource monitoring statistical data in the "Statistical View", if you have the "Link with Viewer" toggle option enabled in the "Profiling Monitor" view, and select a different item, the view will reset itself and automatically turn on the follow-mode toggle option, where the graph follows the current time. To work around the problem, either try viewing the data on a common node (e.g. the monitor) where all the data from the agents will be displayed in the same graph, or simply turn off the follow-mode option by clicking on the ">" button to the right of the horizontal rulers.

1.21 Problems importing Tivoli Performance Data from multiple policies and hosts in a single import

When importing Tivoli Performance Data from TMTP, ITCAM for WebSphere, or ITCAM for Response Time Tracking, it is possible to select multiple transactions that originated on multiple hosts, and import them all in one import. There is a known defect that causes the data to be stored in a single agent while showing two agents, rather than distributing the appropriate data to each agent. The workaround is to import for each host separately (run through the import wizard once for each host, each time selecting only one host).

Note: This does not affect distributed transactions, only importing multiple transactions that originated on separate hosts.

1.22 Performance Call graphing problem

When monitoring multiple hosts in real-time, the Performance Call Graph does not display all the hosts on the graph. To see the top potential problems for each host, select each host and "Filter Subtree --> Focus on subtree". This will reduce the graph, with the selected host as the root node and all its descendants. See http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/rtnl0600/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.rational.pd.prof.doc.user/topics/r_prof_callgraph_commands.htm for more information.

1.23 ITCAM for WebSphere authentication error

When importing from ITCAM for WebSphere, the username/password has to be the username/password used for logging into the ITCAM for WebSphere Management Server, not the username/password for WebSphere itself. If you use WebSphere username/password, the import will fail without reporting that failed authentication was the reason. If the username/password does not match WebSphere itself or ITCAM for WebSphere, the correct authentication failure message is shown.

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