Using UML2 Trace Interaction views

The visualization of host and process interactions in the Sequence Diagram views of the Profiling and Logging Perspective helps in workload administration of distributed applications. The representation of time in these views helps in determining bottlenecks in application performance as well as network communication.

Prerequisites:

The sequence diagram views provide a number of actions that can be performed to easily view and analyze trace interactions.

Opening a trace interactions diagram view

To open a trace interaction diagram view, follow these steps:

  1. Select the monitor that represents the application cluster in the Profiling Monitor view.
    Note: Switch to Distributed Layout to view monitors.
  2. Right click, then select Open With and select interaction diagram type that you want to view. The Sequence Diagram view opens and shows entities that correspond to the monitoring level selected. The following table lists the interaction views available for each selected monitoring level.
    Selected monitoring level Available interaction views
    Monitor Monitor, Host
    Host Process, Agent
    Process Class, Object, Thread
    Execution Time Analysis Class, Object, Thread

Opening the diagram overview

For large views where scrolling is required, the overview can be used to navigate to and from different pages within the sequence diagram.
To open the sequence diagram overview, click on the Sequence diagram overview button button at the lower right-hand corner of the view.
Note: This button is only displayed when scrolling is required.

Working with lifelines and messages

Navigating lifelines and messages

For views with multiple pages, there are several methods of navigation available.

Collapsing and expanding lifelines

Collapsing and expanding lifelines can be used to hide or expand sections of data within a view.

Note: Object or Class Interactions only

Collapsing and Expanding messages

Collapsing and expanding messages can be used to hide or show all method calls invoked from a selected method. Note: This applies to object or class interactions only

Drilling down into lifelines

Drilling down into a lifeline allows you to view all the trace interactions within a particular lifeline. This feature allows a user to trace the root cause of a problem from a host, to a process, to a thread and eventually to a class or an object. The drill down option is available on host, agent, process and thread interactions. To drill down in a lifeline, select the lifeline, right-click and select Drill down into selected lifeline. To reset drill down options, use the Reset all drill down actions toolbar option Reset all drill down actions icon and drop-down list.

Highlighting a call stack

Highlighting a call stack allows you to view all the methods invocations in a call stack. To highlight a call stack, select a method, right-click and select Highlight call stack. All method invocations in the call stack will be highlighted.

Viewing time intervals

The time compression bar along the left edge of a trace diagram indicates the time elapsed between consecutive events. The time compression scale shows where the time falls between the minimum and maximum delta times. The intensity of the color is used to indicate the length of time, namely, the deeper the intensity, the higher the delta time. The time compression bar and scale may provide accurate indication as to which part of a method consumes the most time. It may be located between two calls, at a call and method entry or exit, or it may cover a whole method.

The relative amount of time spent between two consecutive method calls or returns can be viewed in two ways:

  1. Hover the mouse over the timeline on the left-hand side of the diagram.

    Time interval.
  2. Select a message, and hover the mouse over another message to see the time elapsed between the two messages.

    Time interval between messages.

Hiding and displaying messages and lifelines

Hiding and displaying patterns in lifelines and messages allow you to examine only certain objects of interest in the view. Note: This is only available for object, class, thread and agent interactions.

Searching trace interactions

To create search criteria, follow these steps:

  1. Open the toolbar drop-down menu.
  2. Select Find... The Sequence Diagram Find dialog box opens.

    Sequence diagram find dialog

  3. In the Matching string field, specify a pattern that you want to search for in the profiling data.
  4. Select whether you want to search for the pattern in an Object or Class, a Method Entry or Exit or both options.
    Note:Ensure that at least one of the options, Object or Class or a Method Entry or Exit, are selected in the Find dialog box. If neither are selected, the Find command will appear disabled.
  5. Click Find. The current view is refreshed with messages or lifelines matching the search criteria.

Tip: The Find dialog can be started using the CTRL-F key.

Zooming in and zooming out

To return the view to the default display size (reset zoom factor), to zoom in, or to zoom out, use this set of toolbar controls. reset zoom in and zoom out.

 

Related concepts
Overview of the Log and Trace Analyzer
Log file correlation
Log interactions view
Log thread interactions view

Related tasks
Working with log files
Synchronizing time

Related reference
Sequence diagram views