JinsightLive for IBM System z

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Update: April 3, 2008

What is JinsightLive for IBM System z?

This tool helps Java™ developers on System z® to profile complex programs. Today's Java applications often use third-party libraries, open-source libraries, and application-specific code; and it is not uncommon to see traces with tens of millions of events. The biggest challenge is to find the bottlenecks in the execution. JinsightLive for IBM® System z's combination of interactive live tracing and the Jinsight execution view enables the user to handle this type of complexity.

JinsightLive for IBM System z combines the visualization engine Jinsight (which was available at alphaWorks in the past) with new tracing technology. JinsightLive is much improved from the earlier Version 2.1. For example, the old Jinsight was not interactive and required applying the Jinsight visualization engine to prerecorded Java traces. With the new tool, a novel, live connection allows large enterprise customers to collect execution information from the Java program on System z and visualize it immediately on a PC, without having to use traces and without source code or byte code instrumentation. Users can then troubleshoot or improve performance.

New features and improvements include the following:

• A dynamic and lightweight profiler analyzes and visualizes how Java programs are executed.
• Many options have been added for tracing selectively in order to reduce the volume of trace information collected and the impact on the target application.
• Tracing is now controlled from the visualizer by a socket connection to the target application.
• Tracing criteria can be dynamically reconfigured.
• Measurements are more accurate and account for the overhead of tracing.
• Tracing overhead has been reduced.
• Tracing of data values has been added.

An enhancement to JinsightLive is now available: JinsightLive for IBM system Z Enhanced Agent (EA) adds the abililty to collect profile data when running the 64-bit JVM. Options for controlling profiling locally on the System z, without JinsightLive Visualizer, are also included. The Enhanced Agent requires that the base JinsightLive for IBM system Z already be installed on the z/OS or zLinux system.

The downloadable package includes the code for System z and relevant documentation.

How does it work?

JinsightLive consists of two parts:

• The visualizer/controller runs on a workstation, has a control panel, reads data, and presents views for analysis.
• The profiling agent runs on the System z host and generates trace data as the Java program runs.

The user first connects the JinsightLive visualizer to the profiling agent on the host running the Java program. The connection is made through socket protocols. JinsightLive for IBM System z lets the user selectively specify the tracing level and parameters. The tracing agent then collects execution data and sends it to the visualizer so that it can be displayed while the Java program continues to run.

The JinsightLive visualizer can also read trace files generated by the JinsightLive agent. See the description of the binary format (PDF).

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