Java Business Transactions Test

The responsiveness of a transaction is the key determinant of user experience with that transaction; if response time increases, user experience deteriorates. To make users happy, a Java business transaction should be rapidly processed by each of the JVM nodes in its path. Processing bottlenecks on a single JVM node can slowdown/stall an entire business transaction or can cause serious transaction errors. This in turn can badly scar the experience of users. To avoid this, administrators should promptly identify slow/stalled/errored transactions, isolate the JVM node on which the slowness/error occurred, and uncover what caused the aberration on that node – is it owing to SQL queries executed by the node? Or is it because of external calls – eg., async calls, SAP JCO calls, HTTP calls, etc. - made by that node? The Java Business Transactions test helps with this!

This test runs on a BTM-enabled JVM in an IT infrastructure, tracks all the transaction requests received by that JVM, and groups requests based on user-configured pattern specifications. For each transaction pattern, the test then computes and reports the average time taken by that JVM node to respond to the transaction requests of that pattern. In the process, the test identifies the slow/stalled transactions of that pattern, and reports the count of such transactions and their responsiveness. Detailed diagnostics provided by the test accurately pinpoint the exact transaction URLs that are slow/stalled, the total round-trip time of each transaction, and also indicate when such transaction requests were received by that node. The slowest transaction in the group can thus be identified.

Moreover, to enable administrators to figure out if the slowness can be attributed to a bottleneck in SQL query processing, the test also reports the average time the transactions of each pattern took to execute SQL queries. If a majority of the queries are slow, then the test will instantly capture the same and notify administrators.

Additionally, the test promptly alerts administrators to error transactions of each pattern. To know which are the error transactions, the detailed diagnosis capability of the test can be used.

This way, the test effortlessly measures the performance of each transaction to a JVM node, highlights transactions that are under-performing, and takes administrators close to the root-cause of poor transaction performance.

For this test to run and report metrics, you first need to install and configure the eG Java BTM (Business Transaction Monitor) on the target Java application / J2EE container. To know how, refer to the Java Business Transaction Monitoring document.

After BTM-enabling the target, configure this test. Instructions for configuring this test and interpreting the metrics it reports are available in the 'Java Business Transactions Test' topic in the Java Business Transaction Monitoring document.