Starting Isis
Isis Main Window
Creating A New Application
Providing Connection Information
Deleting An Application
Connect To An Application
Disconnect From An Application
Generating A Report
The Data Inventory
Viewing Servers Or Sites
Viewing Objects Or Servers
The application can be run from the Windows Start menu or
from the desktop shortcut created.
To start Isis, click on the 'Isis' icon in the Isis program
group, or click on the 'Run Isis' desktop shortcut. A splash
screen will appear while Isis is loading:
Once Isis has initialized, the splash screen will be replaced
with the program's main window. If an application has previously
been defined, then Isis will load this application on startup
and attempt to connect to the application. If no application
exists currently, then the main window will appear with most
of the toolbar functions grayed out.
Should any errors occur during startup, a message box will
generally appear informing the user of the specific error
condition. The majority of startup errors are caused by missing
files or unregistered DLLs required by Isis. For more information
on troubleshooting specific errors, please refer to troubleshooting.
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The main window is where the majority of the interaction with
Isis takes place. Within this window all applications currently
open are displayed, and this window also provides the toolbar
offering Isis' significant functionality.
: when running Isis,
particularly for the first time, some or all of the toolbar
options may be grayed out. These options are only available
if certain conditions are met. The table below shows all of
the available functionality within the toolbar for Isis, as
well as the menu options and shortcut keys (if any) which can
be used to also access functionality.
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To create a new application, click the Create button, or select
File / New Application from the menu. The Create New Application
dialog will appear.
To cancel the process of creating a new application and return
to Isis, click Cancel.
To create a new application, supply the following information
regarding the new application:
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A unique identifier
for the application.
The application's id can contain spaces or punctuation
characters, but cannot contain a comma. If the application
id entered contains a comma, Isis will not attempt to
create a new application, instead it will show an error
message.
Note: The identifier for each application created
within Isis must be unique. If a duplicate id is entered
to create a new application, Isis will inform the user
that the identifier supplied is an existing application. |
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The type of application
being monitored.
Currently Isis supports either Tuxedo or WebLogic applications.
If any distinction is necessary between different versions
of Tuxedo or WebLogic, this will be made when configuring
connection settings for the new application. |
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The directory to create
all files related to the new monitored application.
This location does not have to be related to the location
of the actual application being monitored - it is the
directory that Isis will place all files related to monitoring
the application.
The directory entered must be a valid Windows path. It
can be an existing directory, or a new sub-directory under
an existing directory. If the directories specified do
not already exist, then Isis will create them for you. |
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A short text description
of the application being created to remind the user of
its purpose.
It is not required to enter a description for the new
application. |
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Once all necessary information has been entered, select Create
to create the new application.
If Isis detects an error with the information entered, a message
box will appear informing the user of the problem, and how
to rectify the problem. Assuming no error occurs, the Create
New Application dialog will close, and Isis will open an Application
window for the new application.
For more information on the Application window, see the Isis
application
help. For troubleshooting
information regarding the process of creating a new application,
please refer to the troubleshooting
section of Isis help.
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Depending on the application type (ie. Tuxedo / WebLogic /
RDBMS etc) to be monitored, the connection dialog will display
different options. Each connection dialog provides a Test
Connection button, which if pressed will test the connection
using the currently provided connection settings. It is strongly
recommenced that a successful connection be made using this
button before leaving the connection settings dialog screen.
BEA WebLogic
The connection information required for Isis to monitor a
WebLogic application is fundamentally the SNMP settings required
for the Isis console to connect to the WebLogic server. Please
note the information below regarding SNMP Community Names
as this parameter often causes issues with WebLogic connections.
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BEA Tuxedo
The connection information required to connect to a Tuxedo
application is consistent with most standard Tuxedo applications.
If you require more information on WSNADDR environment variables,
tpsysadm or application passwords, then please consult the
Tuxedo documentation at http://edocs.bea.com.
Details on each parameter are below;
RDBMS - Relational Database Systems
Isis uses ODBC to connect to a relational database that you
wish to monitor. In order to connect to the relational database
via ODBC, it is necessary to first set up the ODBC connection
in the control panel on the Isis console machine. For information
on setting up ODBC connections on a Windows server, please
see the Windows documentation. Once a ODBC connection has
been created in the Windows control panel, then it will show
up in the list of database connections under the DSN parameter.
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To delete an application, click the Delete button, or select
File / Delete Application from the menu. The list of available
applications to delete will be shown in the Select Application
dialog.
To close the Select Application dialog, click Cancel. To delete
an application, select the application from the list shown
and click OK. A prompt will appear confirming that this is
what you really wish to do.
: As deleting
an application can potentially delete all files created while
monitoring the application, read the confirmation dialog carefully.
If several applications have been defined, it is possible
to delete the wrong application by accidentally selecting
the wrong application from the list.
Click OK to proceed with deleting the application after confirming
the name of the application being deleted. A prompt will then
appear asking to confirm deletion of all files/directories
under the location of the application. Deleting the files
associated with the application is an optional part of the
process of deleting an application. To retain the files associated
with the application, click No. To delete all files belonging
to the application, click Yes.
Once a choice has been made, the application will be deleted.
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To connect to the current application, click the Connect button
or select Application / Connect from the menu. Note that these
options are only available once an application has been opened.
If the current application is connected successfully, the
Connect button and menu options will be disabled.
Isis will pause momentarily while attempting to connect to
the application, and then update the Application window for
the current application accordingly. If the Isis has connected
to the application successfully, the status will change to
'Connected'. If Isis fails to connect successfully, the status
will change to 'Error'.
For more information on how to resolve problems connecting
to an application, refer to
the Isis troubleshooting guide for problem-specific information, or
for general information regarding troubleshooting contact
information for Integral Technology Solutions Support.
To disconnect from the current application, click the Disconnect
button or select Application / Disconnect from the menu. Note
that these options are only available once an application
has been opened.
If the current application is currently disconnected, these
options will be disabled. Disconnecting from the application
is very quick. Once disconnected successfully, the status
of the current application will change to 'Disconnected'.
If Isis does not exit from the application cleanly, the status
for the application will change to 'Error'.
Isis will rarely experience an error when attempting to disconnect
from an application, if for some reason an error does occur
during disconnection, the error can probably be ignored.
To generate a report for the current application, click the
Report button or select Report / Create from the menu. Note
that these options will only be available if an application
has been loaded, and if the current application has data contained
within its data inventory.
If the current application's data inventory is empty, these
options will be disabled. For more information on the data
inventory, see the data inventory section.
Once the user has indicated they wish to generate a new report,
the Create New Report dialog will appear.
Note that the Create New Report dialog must be closed before
the user can interact with other parts of the Isis application.
To close the dialog without generating a report click the
Cancel button.
To generate a report, there are a number of pieces of information
that must be provided, each of which is examined in further
detail in the following sections. Note that different reports
will require different information in order to be generated.
For example some reports will require that the user provides
a list of the sources which they wish to report on. Other
reports will not allow you to pass a list of sources but instead
will require what Site the report should be generated for.
If the report allows for site or sources information to be
used then those options will be enabled, if the option is
not enabled then the report does not allow the user to select
that information.
Once all required information has been input, click the 'Create'
button, and the 'Processing' dialog will appear.
To cancel the generation of a report while it is being created,
click the 'Cancel' button on the Processing dialog.
The report generated will cover a period from the date and
time in the 'From' field to the date and time in the 'To'
field. A report can be generated for a time period within
a single day, or it can potentially span a period of several
weeks or months.
The dates which can be entered for the From and To date for
a report are limited by what data is available in the data
inventory. It is not possible to select a From date that is
earlier than the earliest piece of data in the data inventory,
nor a To date that is later than the latest piece of data
in the data inventory.
Note also that the 'From' date for a report must be earlier
than the 'To' date for a report. An attempt to generate a
report with a from date that is after the to date will result
in an error.
Use a longer date range to provide a higher level overview
of an application's behavior over a longer period, showing
the trends in application use over days or potentially weeks.
A longer date range will mean that the variations in application
behavior within a particular day will not be visible.
Use a shorter date range to provide a more detailed analysis
of the application's behavior throughout the cycle of a week
or a number of days, highlighting high load periods or potential
trouble areas, allowing for further investigation of specific
points in time.
The servers (for a WebLogic application) or sites (for a Tuxedo
application) to be used in generating a report must also be
selected. The available sites/servers are shown in a list
at the bottom right of the Create New Report dialog. Isis
will select the first available entry in the list by default.
Each report may support a specific number of sites, or a flexible
number of sites up to a fixed maximum. This information is
provided generally in the description for a report. Currently
all reports for Isis support only one site.
To select a site or group of sites to use for the report,
click on the entries available in the Sites/Servers list box.
If the maximum number of sites is already selected for the
report, Isis will de-select the first item selected, and add
the new site to the list.
For example: the user is generating a Server Performance Analysis
(1 SITE) report for the Cerberus application, which contains
the sites 'Uno', 'Duo' and 'Quattro'. The site 'Uno' is currently
selected, and the report only supports one site. If the user
clicks the 'Quattro' entry in the list of available sites,
the entry for 'Uno' will be de-selected.
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There are a number of different reports available for each
application type. The list of available report types for the
current application is provided at the top-left of the Create
New Report dialog. Clicking on a report type will display
a brief summary of the report below the list of available
types.
The reports currently available within Isis 1.1 are listed
below, categorized into Tuxedo and WebLogic reports. The following
reports are currently available in Isis 1.1.
| Tuxedo Health Check
Report |
Provides an overall view on the
health of your system. |
| Server Performance Analysis |
Detailed server performance analysis. |
| Queue Length Analysis |
Detailed analysis of Tuxedo queue
lengths. |
| Transaction Times Report |
Analysis of transactions times in
the system. |
| Service Grouping Report |
Provides a recommend grouping of
services in the system. |
| WebLogic Health Check
Report |
Provides a view on the overall health
of the WebLogic system. |
| WebLogic Statistics Report |
Provides statistics on the individual
functions being monitored. |
For more information on the Isis reports, please go to the
Isis Reports section of this manual.
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The Data Inventory window within Isis does not allow the user
to view the actual contents of the Data Inventory for an application,
but it is possible to view the range of dates for which data
exists for each data type inside the Data Inventory for an
application.
To open the Data Inventory window, click the 'Data' button.
A row of information will be displayed for each data type
for an application. If no information is available for a particular
data type, then the Available From and Available To entries
for that data type will be blank.
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Isis allows the user to configure what functions of the Tuxedo
or WebLogic system they would like to monitor. To do so the
user must firstly click on the Servers button to select what
servers (or sites) they wish to monitor. Note that depending
on the application that you are monitoring, the servers button
is sometimes displayed as the sites buttons. This is because
Tuxedo and WebLogic refer to machines by different names.
The window should appear and show all of the servers that
are available in the system. If a server you are expecting
to appear does not, then click the refresh button to reload
the list of servers from WebLogic or Tuxedo. Once you have
selected a server you can the go on to Viewing the Objects
Or Servers.
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Once a Site or Server has been selected, then the user can
select an Object or Server from the available list. Clicking
on the objects or servers button will bring up the following
window.
If you are monitoring a Tuxedo application then a list of
servers will be shown, otherwise a list of WebLogic objects
are shown. Object in WebLogic include the core server (shown
here by myserver) as well as any pools that you have defined
in the system (such as JDBC connection pools).
You can select all of the items of the list by clicking the
select all button or the refresh button to reload the list.
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