Using the Profiling Monitor view

Whenever you launch or attach to a Java process, a logical representation of the Java process is created in the Profiling Monitor view. This representation, the process object, is identified both by name and an ID number (PID) that appears in the view along with the associated agents. The agents collect profiling data from your Java process, and this data can be analyzed.

Prerequisites

This view shows the following profiling resources that get created during a profiling session along with other profiling resources from additional tools:

  1. Monitors monitor icon
  2. Hosts host icon
  3. Processes process icon
  4. Agents (profiling and logging) agent terminated icon agent paused icon agent detached icon agent monitoring icon
  5. Profiling types selected  terminated agent icon paused agent icon detached agent icon

Displaying different layouts

The Profiling Monitor view provides two different layouts for viewing the profiling resources.

  1. To open the simple layout, select the drop-down menu button and select Simple layout.
    The simple layout opens, displaying the hosts, processes, agents and profiling types selected. This view is useful for viewing non-distributed applications.

    profiling monitor view showing the simple layout

  2. To open the distributed layout, select the drop-down menu button and select Distributed layout. The distributed layout opens, displaying the monitors and nodes in addition to the hosts, processes, agents and profiling types. This layout is useful for viewing distributed applications. Note that the processes do not have host information since they are grouped under a host node.

    profiling monitor view showing the distributed layout

  3. By default, the profiling projects are hidden from both layouts. To show the projects which contain the profiling resources, follow these steps:

Administering the profiling session

The set of toolbar controls and pop-up menu controls allow you to administer the profiling session.

Administering the agent collecting data

Controls are available to terminate the agent, start and pause monitoring of an agent, as well as attach or detach from an agent.
  1. To perform an action on an agent, right-click on the agent, and select one of the available actions.
  2. The toolbar controls can also be used to terminate the agent and the process it is running in pause icon, and to start start icon or pause pause icon an agent.
  3. To set a new base line for the profiling data, right-click on the agent, and select Reset data. After running this action, a new trace agent will be created under the existing process item and profiling data will be collected by this agent.

Administering the process

Controls are available to terminate the process, to collect object references or to run garbage collection on the selected process.

  1. To perform an action on a process, right-click on the process, and select one of the available actions.
  2. The toolbar controls can also be used to terminate the agent and the process it is running in pause icon, to run garbage collection garbage collection icon on the process, or to collect object references Collect object references iconon the process.

Working with profiling views

From the Profiling Monitor view, you can open up different profiling views to analyze the data collected.

  1. To open a profiling view to analyze the collected data, right-click on a process, and select Open with > (View name). The views available will depend on the profiling criteria specified.
  2. To synchronize the data collection with the opened views, click Link with Viewer link with viewer icon on the toolbar.
  3. To refresh the opened views with the data collected, click Refresh views Update profiling views icon on the toolbar.

Related concepts
Overview of the Profiling Tool

Related tasks
Profiling an application

Related references
Profiling resources