opnet
Panorama
Understanding Panorama's Performance Analysis Engines
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"Panorama helps us immediately identify performance slowdowns and resolve any application-related performance problems before our members are even aware of them."

CIO
AAA (Midwestern State)

"Panorama has proven successful where traditional tools and approaches have fallen short. We previously spent an average of 2000 hours yearly on application performance issues and resolved only about 65% of the cases. With Panorama, we now resolve more than 95% of the reported cases and have been able to significantly reduce the mean time spent on each case."

Web Systems Manager
National Instruments



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Supported Applications and Environments

(partial list)

Third Party Applications

Banner

Blackboard
Cognos
EMC Documentum

Hyperion

IBM Maximo

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
McKesson

Microsoft BizTalk
Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft SharePoint
Oracle E-Business Suite
PeopleSoft
PTC WindChill
SAP Netweaver Portal
Vignette Content Management
WebMethods

Servers

Apache Tomcat
IBM WebSphere
JBoss
Microsoft IIS

Sun Glassfish
Oracle BEA WebLogic

Databases

IBM DB2 UDB
Oracle
Microsoft SQL Server
Sybase

Virtualization Platforms

Microsoft Hyper-V

Sun Solaris Zones

VMware ESX Server
VMware Workstation



Application Monitoring

The performance of complex, multi-tier applications is impacted by many interconnected factors, including system resources, database and application architecture, the efficiency of application code, and network infrastructure. As a result of these interdependencies, symptoms of performance problems usually appear at one or more tiers. Typical approaches of isolating the root cause involve time-consuming, manual analysis of performance metrics reported by disparate tools often owned by different IT teams. When problems occur, remediation can be a complex, lengthy, and costly process.

Application analysis: top “offender” metrics Easily compare values for sets of related metrics. Panorama automatically generates views based on the "top offenders."

OPNET Panorama™delivers comprehensive performance management for critical Java and .NET applications throughout the application lifecycle, beginning with development and QA, and continuing through deployment and operations. Panorama continuously monitors thousands of system and application metrics within each server, across all tiers, and automatically spots performance anomalies with advanced deviation tracking. Panorama’s unique correlation technology automatically detects patterns in metrics and events, identifying cause-and-effect relationships and pinpointing symptoms that might otherwise go undetected. With deep transaction tracing from within the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) virtual machine, Panorama provides method-level visibility into application code, enabling root-cause analysis and rapid problem remediation.

Application analysis: metric deviation View metrics whose values have been the furthest outside of their 'normal' range for a particular time interval

Key Features

  • Compatible with hundreds of custom and 3rd party business applications, including SOA environments
  • 24x7 high resolution monitoring of key application components (Java, .NET, databases, Web Services)
  • Real-time dashboards visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) for your critical applications
  • Automatic configuration of limits for thousands of KPIs straight out-of-the-box
  • Dynamic thresholds automatically adjust limits based on historical performance, reducing false alarms
  • Forensic ‘snapshots’ capture and archive in-depth data on key events
  • Advanced deviation tracking automatically spots abnormal vs. normal behavior
  • Thousands of application and system measurements are automatically correlated across multiple tiers to reveal unknown sources of application performance problems; invaluable in SOA performance management
  • Cross-platform visibility into selected web server, database, and system resources enables in-depth analysis of performance bottlenecks
  • Drill-down capabilities identify specific resources, such as Java classes or database components, that scale inefficiently
  • Deep transaction tracing enables a detailed analysis of execution times at the method level, and identifies specific JDBC or ADO calls and SQL statements that are responsible for application performance problems
  • Memory analysis and real-time memory leak detection
  • 1-second visibility into physical resource consumption of VMware virtualized servers
  • Insight into physical resource consumption of guest VMs enabling proactive identification of performance issues related to insufficient VMware provisioning

Panorama's Competitive Edge: Advanced Analysis

Panorama dynamically establishes limits by learning what is normal for every metric for a particular time of day, for every day of the week. Metrics that exhibit deviations from normal are automatically identified and assigned scores based on “how abnormal” their behavior is. This enables disparate metrics from different tiers to be compared and ranked.

Panorama’s statistical correlation engine provides the unique ability to relate events and metrics across multiple application tiers, technologies and platforms. Metrics that move in tandem over time, or exhibit limit violations at the same time, are automatically tagged as related metrics, and can be brought into a single view for analysis.

With these advanced analysis, Panorama automatically sifts through thousands of KPIs to identify patterns and relationships, answering contextual questions such as

  • Did any metrics, on any tier, change dramatically relative to what’s normal for that time of day?
  • Did these changes occur at the same time my application exhibited performance problems? Do they occur every time my application is slow?
  • Whenever my reporting webpage is slow, are any database metrics correlated?
  • Is there a relationship between intermittent CPU spikes and the execution of particular ASP.NET pages, servlets or generic classes?
  • My application is slow. What are the usual suspects?

Key Use Cases

Production Monitoring

Panorama application performance dashboardVisualize key aspects of application performance in live or historical mode
Round-the-clock performance monitoring of critical applications is essential for enabling 24X7 business activity and for meeting production SLAs. In production, Panorama continuously monitors KPIs across all servers in the application environment, providing real-time dashboard views and proactive notification alerts when performance thresholds are breached. Forensic ‘snapshots’ capture in-depth data on key events, enabling troubleshooters to perform detailed analysis without having to reproduce the problem. Panorama’s advanced analysis guides users directly to problem areas, enabling application support teams to rapidly remedy performance issues and achieve service level objectives.



Pre-Deployment Testing

Analyzing the performance of applications prior to deployment, under load conditions that are similar to production, is an essential step towards assuring application quality throughout the application life cycle. In the QA test lab, Panorama monitors system and application metrics from within the different servers in the test environment, and integrates with load testing tools to analyze performance bottlenecks under transaction load conditions. Panorama’s automated baselining and advanced deviation tracking identify components that scale disproportionately under load, providing actionable feedback to development teams for performance optimization. With Panorama, QA teams can rapidly identify and resolve potential performance bottlenecks, and confidently deploy applications that meet production service level objectives. J2EE/.NET application component monitoring Monitor load, throughput, and response time for the major components in your J2EE/.NET application environment


SOA Performance Management


SOA and other composite environments present unique challenges in ensuring performance and scalability of applications during production.Panorama continuously monitors performance across all application tiers, back-end databases, and Web Services, providing the deep visibility required to pinpoint and address performance bottlenecks within the application code and correlating web performance issues to root causes that originate on the back-end, ensuring effective SOA performance management.