WebLogic JDBC Test

This test collects measures related to JDBC pools created on the WebLogic server.

Target of the test : A WebLogic Application Server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each connection pool used by a WebLogic application server.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.

Port

The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL.

UseWarFile

This flag indicates whether/not monitoring is to be done using a Web archive file deployed on the WebLogic server (in which case, HTTP/HTTPS is used by the server to connect to the server). If this flag is set to No, the agent directly connects to the WebLogic server using the T3 protocol (no other file needs to be deployed on the WebLogic server for this to work). Note that the T3 protocol-based support is available for WebLogic servers ver.9 and above. Also, if the UseWarFile parameter is set to No, make sure that the EncryptPass parameter is set to No as well.  

When monitoring a WebLogic server deployed on a Unix platform particularly, if the UseWarFile parameter is set to No, you have to make sure that the eG agent install user is added to the WebLogic users group.

AdminServerHost and AdminServerPort

In some highly secured environments, the eG agent may not be able to collect certain critical metrics related to JDBC from a managed WebLogic server. In such cases, to enable the eG agent to collect the required metrics, you should specify the IP address and Port of the WebLogic admin server to which the managed WebLogic server is associated with. This will enable the eG agent to connect to the WebLogic admin server and collect the required metrics pertaining to the managed WebLogic server. Specify the IP address and Port of the WebLogic admin server in the AdminServerHost and AdminServerPort text boxes. By default, these parameters are set to none.

JSPTimeOut

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the eG agent should receive the response from the eGurkha WAR file deployed on the WebLogic server in this text box. By default, this is set to is 120 seconds.

SNMPPort

The port number on which the WebLogic server is exposing its SNMP MIB (relevant to WebLogic server 5.1 only). For version 6.0 and above, enter “none” in this text box.

SNMPVersion

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

SNMPCommunity

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

UserName

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. 

Context

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

AuthPass

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPVersion selected is v3.

Confirm Password

Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.

AuthType

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

  • MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
  • SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
  • SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit
  • SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit
  • SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit
  • SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit

EncryptFlag

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. 

EncryptType

If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

  • DES - Data Encryption Standard
  • 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard
  • AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
  • AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit
  • AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit
  • AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit

EncryptPassword

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm Password

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

User

The admin user name of the WebLogic server being monitored.

Password

The password of the specified admin user.

Confirm Password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

Timeout

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

Data Over TCP

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

Engine ID

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.

EncryptPass

If the specified password needs to be encrypted, set the EncryptPass flag to Yes. Otherwise, set it to No. By default, the Yes option will be selected.

Note:

If the UseWarFile flag is set to No, then make sure that the EncryptPass flag is also set to No.

SSL

Indicate whether the SSL (Secured Socket Layer) is to be used to connect to the WebLogic server.

Server

The name of the specific server instance to be monitored for a WebLogic server (the default value is "localhome")

URL

The URL to be accessed to collect metrics pertaining to the WebLogic server. By default, this test connects to a managed WebLogic server and attempts to obtain the metrics of interest by accessing the local Mbeans of the server. This parameter can be changed to a value of http://<adminserverIP>:<adminserverPort>. In this case, the test connects to the WebLogic admin server to collect metrics pertaining to the managed server (specified by the Host and Port). The URL setting provides the administrator with the flexibility of determining the WebLogic monitoring configuration to use.

Note:

If the admin server is to be used for collecting measures for all the managed WebLogic servers, then it is mandatory that the egurkha war file is deployed to the admin server, and it is up and running. 

Version

The Version text box indicates the version of the Weblogic server to be managed. The default value is "none", in which case the test auto-discovers the weblogic version. If the value of this parameter is not "none", the test uses the value provided (e.g., 7.0) as the weblogic version (i.e., it does not auto-discover the weblogic server version). This parameter has been added to address cases when the eG agent is not able to discover the WebLogic server version.

WebLogicJARLocation

Specify the location of the WebLogic server's java archive (Jar) file. If the UseWarFile flag is set to No, then the weblogic.jar file specified here is used to connect to the corresponding WebLogic server using the T3 protocol. Note that the T3 protocol-based support is available for WebLogic servers ver.9 and above.

Use JMX

 

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Pool availability

The current state of a database connection pool – whether it is available or not

Percent

A value of 100 denotes that the pool is available; a value of 0 denotes unavailability.

Percent of connections used

Percentage of database connection allocated to a connection pool that are in use

Percent

When this value reaches 100%, connections to the database will either have to wait for access or will time out. Consider increasing the size of the connection pool in this case. A very high percentage of use can also result if one or more of the applications that use the connection pool are not releasing the connections after their use.

Max capacity

The maximum number of connections configured for a JDBC connection pool      

Number

 

Active connections current

The number of connections currently in use for a JDBC connection pool

 

Number

 

Waiting for connections

The number of requests for connections to the database that are currently pending

Number

A high value of pending connections is indicative of a bottleneck during database access. Reasons for this could either be that the connection pool capacity is insufficient, or that the database server has slowed down, causing requests to take longer to execute their queries.

Active connections max

The high water mark of active connections in a pool

Number

Note the changes in the high water mark. This can give you an idea about the times when the JDBC pool was most heavily used.

Waiting for connections max

The high water mark of number of waiters for a connection from the pool

Number

Note the changes in the high water mark. This indicates periods when the database connection pool could have been a bottleneck.

Connections added to pool

The number of JDBC connections added to the pool in the last measurement period

Number

 

Leaked connections

The number of connections tagged as a leaked connection during the last measurement period. A leaked connection is a connection that was checked out from the connection pool but was not returned to the pool by calling close().

Number

A non-zero value indicates that the application may not be releasing connections after use. This can result in inefficient management of the database connections in the pool.

Failures to reconnect

The number of cases during the last measurement period when a connection pool attempted to refresh a connection to the database and failed.

Number

Failures could happen if the database is unavailable, or, the connection was terminated.

Connection delay time

Avg. time taken to get a connection from the database (in seconds)

Secs

An increase in this metric could indicate a bottleneck in the database tier.

Max wait to get connection

The high water mark of the time a thread had to wait in order to get a connection from the pool

Secs