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WebSphere - Health Center agent configuration

· 2 min read
Sławomir Cichy
Sławomir Cichy
Backend Engineer @ Sci Software

IBM Health Center for Java is a low-overhead agent that collects Java configuration and performance data. The data that is collected includes CPU usage, native memory usage, method profiling, garbage collection, locks, threads, and more. You can read how to install IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools - Health Center in Eclipse in the article served by the Eclipse Marketplace.

On the monitored service side, you need to configure the Health Center agent. Let's assume that our agent will be a service listening on port 4444. You need to perform two configuration steps:

  1. Define the parameters appropriately in the agent configuration file itself in the Java product directory installed on the server.
  2. Add the parameter used when starting the JVM in the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console.

Defining the parameter file​

The Health Center agent parameters file is located in the java directory of the installed WebSphere product, for example: /opt/IBM/BPM/v8.5/java/jre/lib/healthcenter.properties.

Note!

If we have more versions of Java installed, in addition to the java directory (the default version of Java), there may be other versions, e.g. java_1_7_xxx. In this case, the parameters must be set for all available versions of Java.

We change the parameter settings:

com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.agent.port=4444
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.agent.bufferSize=15000000
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.agent.transport=jrmp
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.clear.jmx.initial.builder=true
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.data.collection.level=full
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.stack.trace.depth=5
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.headless.output.directory=/tmp
com.ibm.java.diagnostics.healthcenter.output.directory=/tmp

Configuring JVM in WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console​

We log in as an authorized user to the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console (address https://<host_name>:<port>/ibm/console e.g. https://localhost:9043/ibm/console/logon.jsp).

We go to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) management form of the server for which we want to define an agent.

Configuration path: Servers > All servers > <nazwa_serwera>. screen-001

For the selected server, go to the section: Server Infrastructure > Java and Process Management > Process definition. screen-002

On the 'Process definition' form we select Java Virtual Machine. screen-003

We update the value of the 'Generic JVM arguments' field by adding the parameter -Xhealthcenter:port=4444. screen-004

We save the changes and restart the server.