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Bringing the Power of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to Middleware Management

TABlE of ConTEnTS

ExEcutivE Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Look at thE Big PicturE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Bmc offErS a SoLution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

BMC Middleware Management Technology » 2

BMC ProactiveNet Performance Manager » 3

LEvEraging thE comBination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Middleware Administrators » 3

IT Operations » 4

BSM Implications » 5

architEcturE of thE intEgration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Exposing BMM Data to ProactiveNet » 5

Connecting ProactiveNet to the BMM Database Server » 6

configuring thE SoLutionS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Configuring BMM History Collection and Presentation » 7

Configuring the UDFs » 7

Configuring the BPM Agent Connection to the BMM Database » 8

Configuring ProactiveNet to Collect BMM Data from the BPM Agent » 8

Configuring the Consoles for Cross Launch » 8

concLuSion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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ExECuTIvE SummARyMiddleware has become an integral component of today’s IT infrastructures and is essential to service delivery Consequently,

to ensure high quality service delivery, you must manage middleware with the same rigor and discipline as the other IT

infrastructure components That requires a unified approach to IT service management that includes middleware

BMC Software’s newly announced Middleware Management portfolio offers comprehensive middleware coverage with the

breadth and depth required for enterprise management of this key infrastructure component BMC delivers this technology

through two primary solutions — BMC Middleware Management – Performance and Availability and BMC Middleware

Management – Transaction Monitoring

You can easily integrate BMC Middleware Management solutions with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Through

this integration, you can apply the power of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management’s correlation technology to analyze

BMC Middleware Management data As a result, middleware administrators can take advantage of BMC ProactiveNet

Performance Management’s advanced capabilities to facilitate middleware management Conversely, the IT operations staff

can take advantage of the BMC Middleware Management solutions to gain greater insight into middleware for improved

performance management and root cause analysis

The integration of BMC Middleware Management solutions with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management brings

middleware management into the BMC Business Service Management (BSM) environment It enables the IT staff to manage the

entire enterprise IT environment, including middleware, from the unified BSM platform

This paper discusses the business criticality of middleware and the need to manage it in the context of the overall IT

environment It examines how the integration of BMC Middleware Management and BMC ProactiveNet Performance

Management solutions addresses this need and it describes the resulting business benefits The paper also describes how to

configure the solutions to accomplish the integration

look AT THE BIg PICTuREAs IT technology has moved from centralized to distributed architecture, the number of physical devices in the data center —

servers, network devices, and storage devices — has increased dramatically The introduction of virtualization into the data

center has further driven up the number of devices because of the ease of creation of virtual devices

Each physical or virtual server may host one or more applications What’s more, composite applications are segmented into

components that interoperate to provide application services The components may run on different servers and each server

may host multiple components A component may both call other components and be called by other components Some

components may be supplied by external providers The result is a highly complex web of interacting software components

The components typically communicate through middleware of two main types The first is messaging middleware that passes

messages between components that use the same messaging protocol and data representation The two dominant messaging

middleware environments are IBM® and TIBCO middleware

The second type is Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), or broker software, that passes messages between components that use

different messaging protocols and data representations ESB software can also route messages The most common ESB/

broker middleware environments are from IBM, TIBCO, and Oracle (BEA)

Because of its pivotal role in applications, middleware is a critical part of the IT infrastructure and is involved in a large number

of IT services, including critical business services

Currently, many IT organizations manage middleware separately from other components of the IT infrastructure This

separation increases the difficulty of overall service management For example, when a performance problem occurs in a

service, it’s difficult to quickly determine the source of the problem Is it the physical or virtual device hosting the application? Is it

the application? Or is it the middleware? As a result, problems often trigger highly inefficient “all hands on deck” exercises

IT needs to take a unified approach to IT service management that encompasses all components of the IT infrastructure,

including middleware That requires viewing middleware in the context of the big picture of business processes and service

delivery For example, a business process may involve multiple services provided by multiple enterprise applications Figure 1

illustrates the big picture of an order entry business process

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Figure 1 Order entry services

A unified approach eliminates the “all hands on deck” scenario in addressing problems in services that involve middleware

Here’s an example:

A retail chain has a mainframe pricing application that communicates through middleware with retail outlets that use Windows

The application keeps the retail stores updated on the latest promotional pricing It’s critical that the pricing information reach all

retail stores in a timely fashion to prevent mischarging customers

For some reason, the pricing information is no longer getting to the retail stores in a reasonable amount of time Is the problem

in the mainframe application, the Windows application, or the middleware? Through a big picture view of the price updating

application, the IT staff sees that the messages are leaving the mainframe, passing though the middleware in a normal

fashion, but waiting for the store-side Windows application to process them This indicates that the problem is in the Windows

application Armed with this knowledge, the middleware administrator can work directly with the owner of the Windows

application to address the problem rather than wasting time digging into the mainframe application or middleware components

BmC offERS A SoluTIonBMC provides a solution that brings middleware into the big picture The solution combines two BMC technologies: BMC

Middleware Management technology and BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management data correlation technology

BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT TECHnologyBMC Middleware Management technology includes the following solutions The first is BMC Middleware Management –

Performance and Availability This solution monitors all key properties of middleware components, and supports popular

middleware technologies

The data gathered by BMC Middleware Management – Performance and Availability can include:

Time between invocation and corresponding response of each middleware component »HTTP Servlet or EJB interface method response time »WebSphere MQ queue data, including enqueue and dequeue rates, oldest message age, and failure/dead letter queue depth »WebSphere MQ channel data, including channel status, and sender and receiver status »WebSphere Message Broker Message Flow data, including pool size and elapsed time »Message Flow Node data, including elapsed time and CPU time per node »

Business Process

Transport Layer-JMS -MQ-HTTP(S) -XMS

Mediation Layer-Message Broker-WESB

Transport Layer-JMS -MQ-HTTP(S) -XMS

Services

Web App(WAS)

POS Siebel Shipping / EDI Billing App(CICS)

OrderEntryBegin Order

ApprovalOrder

ShippingOrderBilling End

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BMC Middleware Management – Performance and Availability aggregates historical data in a BMC Middleware Management

database, which can be a DB2®, Oracle®, or Microsoft SQL Server You configure the BMC Middleware Management –

Performance and Availability solution to determine what data is to be collected and how often The solution can present the data

in user defined views, reports, and charts

The second solution is BMC Middleware Management – Transaction Monitoring, which tracks how specific transactions are

moving through the process BMC Middleware Management – Transaction Monitoring looks at the content of messages to allow

tracking of business transactions and their content and timing from hop to hop as they move through middleware environments

BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnTBMC ProactiveNet Performance Management detects performance abnormalities in IT environments, providing an early

warning of impending performance problems It also identifies probable root causes of problems

The solution provides an advanced data correlation capability Traditional correlation solutions employ two types of correlation

The first is time-based in which only those events that occurred at approximately the same time are correlated The second

type is topology-based, which takes into account the physical and logical topology of IT resources Physical topology correlation

considers events that are generated by physically interdependent IT resources (such as servers and network devices) to be

correlated Logical topology correlation considers those events generated by logically interdependent IT resources (such as

applications and databases) to be correlated

In addition to time-based and topology-based correlation, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management employs a third and

more advanced type of correlation that distinguishes between normal and abnormal behavior It also employs an automatic

learning process that analyzes workload profiles and determines the normal operating behavior of the environment It uses

this information to automatically set baselines for normal/abnormal event determination It then generates events only when it

detects abnormal conditions, greatly decreasing the number of events to which the IT staff must respond It also automatically

and continually readjusts the baselines to accommodate normal workload variations over time

What’s more, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management employs advanced techniques to correlate performance data and

forensic data to generate intelligent events that indicate probable causes of abnormal events It creates a short list of probable

causes, ranked by probability, facilitating problem triage and resolution

lEvERAgIng THE ComBInATIonIntegrating the BMC Middleware Management solutions with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management enables the IT

staff to combine the advanced correlation and diagnostic capabilities of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management with the

transaction data monitoring and middleware management capabilities of the BMC Middleware Management solutions The

combination provides two complementary views of the IT environment, each from a different perspective

First, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management provides a comprehensive IT infrastructure-oriented view This view

includes all the hardware and software assets in the infrastructure, their physical and logical topologies, the services

provided by the assets, the business priorities of the services, and the business processes supported by the services Second,

the middleware management solutions provide an application-oriented view of the IT infrastructure This view shows the

transaction flow through the components of composite applications, including such components as web services, middleware,

and backend components These two complementary views are analogous to having both a map of city streets and a view of the

traffic flow through those streets

Both middleware administrators and the IT operations staff benefit

mIddlEWARE AdmInISTRAToRSMiddleware administrators can take advantage of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management’s dynamic baselining capability

to automatically set and continually adjust baselines for BMC Middleware Management objects, such as queue depths or

message rates The administrators can configure BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to automatically generate

intelligent events when abnormal conditions are detected, that is, when conditions exceed the baselines For example, a large

daily batch application may always cause a queue to back up Setting a hard queue depth threshold may result in an alert being

generated each time the batch application is run, even though the increase in queue depth is within the normal range for the

batch application Instead of setting a hard threshold, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management the current queue depth

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for the batch application to that of other daily batch runs and generates an alert only if the depth exceeds the normal range

This predictive analysis enables middleware administrators to move proactively to head off issues before they result in service

degradation while avoiding false positive alerts

In addition, through BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management, middleware administrators can get a “big picture” view of the

IT environment to help them gain greater insight into issues For example, a queue manager outage that normally requires an

alert to the middleware administrator may be due to an outage of the Linux system on which the queue manager runs Because

BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management has awareness of the Linux server status as well as the queue manager status,

alerts can be better directed

IT oPERATIonSOperations personnel benefit in that they can view BMC Middleware Management reports and graphs to “look inside” the

middleware and gain additional insight into performance and availability issues Here are two examples:

Figure 2 BMC Middleware Management graph

The graph in Figure 2 shows application processing across two load-balanced servers The load balancing was effective for

most of the visible time period, however, from 13:00 – 13:15, all application processing was being routed to Server2 (shown

in blue) while the Server1 processing (shown in red) dropped to zero Seeing this, the IT operations staff switched to the BMC

ProactiveNet Performance Management view and saw that Server1 was operating normally This narrowed the failure to the

application instance running on Server1 rather than in Server1 itself The operations staff referred the problem to the application

developer for resolution

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Figure 3 BMC Middleware Management report

The BMC Middleware Management report in Figure 3 shows response times of a set of WebSphere Application Server EJB

methods (Each EJB declares an interface consisting of one or more EJB Methods Each EJB Method is a specific function of the

bean ) Through the chart, the operations staff can see which methods are the limiting factors in the bean code In this example,

the table is sorted by response time As can be seen, the updateWarehouseInventory method is taking too long (over 24 seconds

which is the limit of the performance of the bean) Having gained this insight, the operations staff can task the application

developer to target efforts to improve the code for that particular method

BSm ImPlICATIonSThe integration of BMC Middleware Management solutions with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management brings

middleware management into the BMC BSM environment, so that all IT groups, including middleware administrators, operate

from the same unified BSM platform

Bringing middleware into the BSM environment enables middleware administrators to work far more efficiently with other IT

groups in a wide variety of areas, including database management, application management, event management, incident and

problem management, performance management, and capacity management The result is higher service quality and lower costs

ARCHITECTuRE of THE InTEgRATIonThe integration of the BMC Middleware Management solutions with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management is

straightforward and consists of simply configuring the solution components The configuration enables BMC ProactiveNet

Performance Management to access the parameters monitored by the BMC Middleware Management solutions in the same

manner as it does data from other monitoring solutions

The configuration consists of two steps:

First, you expose the BMC Middleware Management database to BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management in the same 1

manner as you would expose this database to other management tools This enables BMC ProactiveNet Performance

Management to execute queries against the BMC Middleware Management database

Then, you configure ProactiveNet to execute queries periodically against the BMC Middleware Management database in 2

the same manner as it executes queries on other performance databases The database appears to BMC ProactiveNet

Performance Management as just another performance history database

ExPoSIng BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT dATA To BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnTYou expose the data in the BMC Middleware Management database to BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management

through user defined functions (UDFs) The BMC Middleware Management solutions provide a library of UDFs to facilitate

implementation You simply select the appropriate UDFs based on the database management system you use — DB2, Oracle, or

MS SQL Server

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ConnECTIng BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnT To THE BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT dATABASE SERvER

Figure 4 Connecting to the BMC Middleware Management database server

As Illustrated in Figure 4, the connection between BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management and the BMC Middleware

Management database server involves of the following components:

The Proactive Operations Platform Server The repository for all data collected by BMC ProactiveNet Performance »Management The server analyzes data, creating profiles, for each metric, that defines normal variation in parameter value

over time It detects deviations from the profiles (abnormalities) and uses this information to create alerts and to perform

probable cause analysis

BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Agent Collects data from monitored systems and other monitoring tools »BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Proxy Component within the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management »Agent that allows the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Agent to connect to and collect data from multiple BMC

Performance Manager Agents

BMC Performance Manager Agent Software agent that resides on each monitored system »BMC Middleware Management Knowledge Module Provides the intelligence and encapsulated knowledge for the BMC »Performance Manager Agent It defines what parameters the BMC Performance Manager Agent monitors, and how to collect

and present the data

The server accesses the BMC Middleware Management database through the BMC Performance Manager Agent and the

Knowledge Module, all installed on the BMC Middleware Management database server The Agent collects data through the

Knowledge Module using a Perl script that operates through an ODBC connection The Knowledge Module executes the Perl

script according to the schedule that you specify

ProactiveNetServer

ProactiveNetAgent

ProactiveNetProxy

BPMAgent

BMM DatabaseServer

BMM KnowledgeModule Perl Script

BMMDatabase

ODBC

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ConfIguRIng THE SoluTIonSThis section describes the configuration of the BMC Middleware Management and BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management

solutions to permit BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to access the BMC Middleware Management database It is

assumed that you have already installed BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management and BMC Middleware Management –

Performance and Availability or BMC Middleware Management – Transaction Monitoring

ConfIguRIng BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT HISToRy CollECTIon And PRESEnTATIonFirst, you determine what middleware data you want to collect and how often This is done in the BMC Middleware Management

solution by setting the history rules and sampling interval

To set the history rules, select the History tab of the BMC Middleware Management – Management Console and perform the

following steps:

Select, from a list of available object types, the type of object (such as an MQ Queue or a Service Response Time) on which 1

you want to keep history

Select, from a list, which parameters of that object type (such as queue depth) that you want to collect 2

Select the data compression interval For example, you may want to keep the response time for every transaction for 1 day, 3

but after that keep only the average response times for all transactions in a given hour In this case, you would choose 1 hour

as the data compression interval

You then set the sample interval in the BMC Middleware Management Configuration Monitor

You can create reports that present the history data in the form of spreadsheets The BMC Middleware Management solutions

include templates that are prepopulated for each object You can customize the reports to meet specific requirements

You can also create charts and graphs of the data for any middleware object, enabling you to easily analyze and compare the

data aggregated by the BMC Middleware Management solution Charting is controlled by a wizard You simply step through the

wizard to create the general chart you want You can then customize the appearance and labeling of the chart Several chart

types are available, including two-dimension charts (line, scatter, area, and step), and three-dimension charts (bar, x bar and

range, Pareto, and linear regression)

ConfIguRIng THE udfSThe BMC Middleware Management solutions include a History Reporting Toolkit that contains useful functions, procedures,

and views to assist in quickly building the UDFs As a result, building UDFs doesn’t require extensive knowledge of the BMC

Middleware Management data model The toolkit includes UDFs for views, table functions, scalar functions, advanced queries

(non-aggregate), and advanced queries (aggregate)

NOTE: Instead of creating a rule many times, you can create a template once and associate objects with the template A

template applies the same history rule or set of history rules to similar objects, such as queues, throughout the enterprise

You can edit templates to customize them to your specific requirements BMC Middleware Management – Performance and

Availability and BMC Middleware Management – Transaction Monitoring include a number of pre-written templates

NOTE: For a detailed description of configuring BMC Middleware Management history collection and presentation, refer to

the BMC product documentation for BMC Middleware Management – Performance and Availability

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To configure the UDFs:

Connect to your database as a highly authorized user (such as the schema owner) 1

Execute the BMC Middleware Management provided scripts matching your database and version 2

Check the log files to ensure that the UDFs are correctly installed 3

ConfIguRIng THE BmC PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgER AgEnT ConnECTIon To THE BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT dATABASETo configure the BMC Performance Manager Agent to connect to the BMC Middleware Management database, perform the

following steps:

On the BMC Middleware Management Database Server:

Install the Perl Interpreter1

Install the BMC Performance Management Agent2

Install and preload the BMC Middleware Management Knowledge Module supplied with the BMC Middleware Management 3

solution

Install the ODBC driver supplied with the BMC Middleware Management solution4

Configure the BMC Middleware Management Knowledge Module with the BMC Middleware Management Database instance 5

name, user name, and password

ConfIguRIng BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnT To CollECT BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT dATA fRom THE BmC PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgER AgEnTYou must configure BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to connect to the BMC Performance Manager Agent

running the BMC Middleware Management Knowledge Module To do so, you configure the BMC ProactiveNet Performance

Management Proxy to connect the ProactiveNet Agent to the BMC Performance Manager Agent and to retrieve the BMC

Middleware Management parameters The procedure is a follows:

Launch the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Administration Console and select Tools -> Configure -> BMC 1

PATROL Proxy

Enter the connection details for the BMC PATROL Proxy Agent2

Add the BMC Performance Manager Agent, ensuring that all connection credentials are correct3

Once the proxy has successfully connected to the agent, a list of application classes present on the agent is displayed4

Expand QNAMI_TOPIC and select all instances of the QNAMI METRICS application class5

Click Finish6

ConfIguRIng THE ConSolES foR CRoSS lAunCHYou can configure the BMC Middleware Management and the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Consoles for cross

launch That permits BMC Middleware Management users to launch the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Console

from the BMC Middleware Management console, and it permits BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management users to launch

the BMC Middleware Management Console from the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Console In this way, users

can quickly and conveniently switch between BMC Middleware Management and BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management

NOTE: The exact details of configuring the UDFs depend on your operating system and database platform For a detailed

description of configuring UDFs for your environment (such as DB2 on AIX), refer to the BMC product documentation for

BMC Middleware Management – Performance and Availability

NOTE: For more details on the configuration procedure, see the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management

Administration Guide

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ConfIguRIng lAunCH of BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT fRom THE BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnT ConSolETo configure BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to launch the BMC Middleware Management Console, you create a

script from the ProactiveNet Administration console, using the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Diagnostic Wizard

The procedure is straightforward:

Select Tools -> Diagnostic Wizard -> Script1

Click Add2

In the Name field, enter Launch BMM Console3

Select URL and enter the URL http://<bmmservicehost>:15007/ (that launches the BMC Middleware Management – 4

Management Console)

Click Next5

Select All and click Next6

From the list of monitor types, select all occurrences of QNAMI metrics, click the > button, then click Next7

In the Access Control section, select the user groups you wish to enable to cross launch the BMC Middleware Management – 8

Management Console, then select Finish

You can now cross-launch to the BMC Middleware Management – Management Console from the BMC ProactiveNet

Performance Management User Console by navigating to an instance of a QNAMI_Metrics Monitor and selecting Tools ->

Diagnostics -> BMM Console

ConfIguRIng lAunCH of BmC PRoACTIvEnET PERfoRmAnCE mAnAgEmEnT fRom BmC mIddlEWARE mAnAgEmEnT – mAnAgEmEnT ConSolEConfigure BMC Middleware Management to launch from the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Console as follows:

From the BMC Middleware Management – Management Console, click on Edit1

Click on Button tool2

Click on the location where you want to place the button3

Right click on the button and select properties to tailor the button4

Click on the Commands and Links tab5

Click on the URL radio button and type the URL of the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management User Console into 6

the textbox

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ConCluSIonComposite applications play an essential role in the delivery of critical business services and middleware is a crucial link in

most composite applications Consequently, it’s imperative that IT keep middleware components running at the performance

and availability levels required by the business Now you can tap the power of BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management to

enhance middleware management by integrating with BMC Middleware Management solutions through simple configuration

Through this integration, you’ll increase the efficiency and effectiveness of both middleware administrators and the IT

operations staff in managing middleware Middleware administrators can take advantage of BMC ProactiveNet Performance

Management’s proactive management capabilities The operations staff can gain greater insight into middleware through the

availability of BMC Middleware Management aggregated data

In addition, you’ll integrate middleware management into the overall fabric of Business Service Management That results

in higher quality of service, lower costs, and less risk of service disruptions and noncompliance with internal polices and

external regulations

Business runs on IT. IT runs on BmC Software.Business thrives when IT runs smarter, faster, and stronger That’s why the most demanding IT organizations in the world

rely on BMC Software across both distributed and mainframe environments Recognized as the leader in Business Service

Management, BMC provides a comprehensive and unified platform that helps IT organizations cut cost, reduce risk, and drive

business profit For the four fiscal quarters ended December 31, 2009, BMC revenue was approximately $1 90 billion

Visit www.bmc.com for more information